The week before the fresh start begins

It’s a Monday and one week before my new fitness regime begins.

It’s been a long overdue for me – getting back into shape. Well over a year has passed since my last ’stint’ at the gym and at that point I had been making some great progress, but you know how it is – a series of factors some how seem to lodge themselves firmly between you and your fitness goals and you end up getting out of the habit and the next thing you know you are back into severe sedentary mode.

Who is Chris Fitness?
I think it’s really important to preface this journal with some personal history to put things into perspective. I’m 36 years old (as of September 2007) and for the past 5 or 6 years my fitness regime has been sporadic at best. Before I went to College for Fine Arts and Visual Communications (fancy terminology for Graphic Design) I had worked as a security guard as well as personal trainer and gym employee. In fact my fitness career started very early with mopping floors and cleaning toilets after hours at a fairly classy gym in Edmonton, Alberta. The gym was called Club Fit.

This was a long time ago, in fact long enough that you could say that Club Fit was one of the earliest fitness club/gym models that tried the initiation fee then sign up for recurring memberships route. This was in contradiction to the popular term memberships (3 month, 6 month, 12 month etc) offered by most other gyms. They aimed at being the fitness center and gym as opposed to a meat-head hang out and hired or trained only qualified people to work as instructors and sales. They offered personal training, expansive amounts of equipment, swimming pools, basically the whole club/spa experience.

As it turned out this lanky 6 foot 3 inch tall 155 lb teenager got his first real job there. Mind you it was a very basic janitorial job but it was the first step. It’s where it all began. After 4 months of working there and training after hours, the 6 foot 3 inch 155 lb teenager was now 176lbs and his confidence was growing exponentially.

To make a long story short, I became a fitness instructor and sales person there for some time and continued to grow. My training become intense and focused. Many aspects of my adolescence fueling me and motivating me. When I finally left Club Fit ( I had worked for another gym as well in Edmonton after that) I was 200lbs. For a kid who started out as a stick figure this was a huge accomplishment.

First Downfall
For one reason or another I got out of the fitness industry and I ended up taking a security job. I moved up the ranks quickly into management at a very early age (far too early for me now that I look back on it) and the pressures and hours of this job pretty much destroyed all the progress I made. By the time I left that security company and moved to Kelowna, BC. I was back down to 170lbs. It was a cruel blow to my self-confidence.

Kelowna…Fresh Start?
Living in Kelowna was exciting at first ( I forget the exact date I moved there, but it has to be close to 13-14 years ago), everything was new, and it truly is a beautiful place to live. I won’t kid you however, it’s been a roller coaster ride with my fitness regime and careers. Let’s just say the following years saw me working again as a security officer again but I knew after a few years of doing this that couldn’t be all of it…what my life was to be. I had this horrific vision of being some grossly overweight senior citizen sitting in a closed car dealership all night long, shaking hands with door handles, all for minimum wage.

I needed a change, and a drastic one. I decided at that time to go to college and it was worth it. Right after college I did a brief stint again at a local gym while trying to get work as a graphic designer. I trained hard, ate really well, and met some of the my most important and valued client contacts there.

I still work with them today. This was most likely my fitness high point, at around the age of 27. At this stage I saw some really pure gains with my all-time best shape of 220lbs solid at 7% body fat. I still brag about that today 9 years later, but in reality its pretty hollow and lame, because I know what I think about people who brag about their past but don’t have much to show in the present.

So if you ever meet me in person and I decide to tell you about this glorious time please feel free to kick me squarely in the nads.

Chris Fitness today
So fast forward to now. I am again leading a very unhealthy life filled with self-pity and loathing. Sitting in front of a computer either working or playing Massively Multiplayer Online games – more of the latter than the former. I can easily say I am at an all time low, physically, mentally, and perhaps emotionally.

Having recently had a melanoma (skin cancer) removed and suffering from a body covered in moles I went into a downward spiral (yes kids stay the hell away from suntan beds I am paying the price today). The melanoma was excised cleanly and there was no need for further treatment (we caught it early) but now I regularly visit a dermatologist and have had several more moles removed and so far I have been okay but this situation and danger will be with me for the rest of my life and I finally needed to face facts and get out of this rut of anxiety and worry.

I am hurting my body more by sitting here doing nothing feeling sorry for myself, eating fast food everyday and treating my body like a trash heap. If I am going to go down,I prefer to go down fighting.

It’s time to take the bull by the horns and get back at it, working out, feeling healthy and confident again. So in this journal you will be able to read everyday, my thoughts on my progress,my workouts and many other things as well.

I hope this to be a motivation for me, perhaps an inspiration for some, or just plain interesting reading for others, and I strongly urge you to comment, good or bad on these journal entries. I will thrive on your encouragement, or criticism.