Over the last several dozen months I have tried and tried to "restart" my road to fitness. All of those restarts have crashed and burned, and man I was on the verge of giving up.
Then it happened. SEVERE, debilitating neck pain. I made an appointment with a doctor I knew was good with these type of things. During our first appointment he did some type of injections directly into the nerves in my neck and gave me a prescription for some pain killers in the some term. After a couple of days the pain started to calm a bit (like down to 7/10 instead of 10/10). During the next appointment I was able to give him a better history of the pain and where it radiated to. He told me to get an MRI. Luckily I was able to get the MRI that Saturday and was able to see my doctor within a couple of days. Well, it turns out I have a "Protruding Cervical Disc with Cervical Cord Impingement". While my doctor was careful to explain the difference between that and a "herniated disc" I still am confused between the two.
It also appears this is not a new, or acute, injury. This seems to have been something that happened a while back and went un-diagnosed.
It appears that I am 50/50 for neck surgery at this point, but I really hope to avoid that with the use of some therapy in the doctor's office and DDPYOGA at home, when he clears me for it.
So, while I am certainly very, very concerned about the my neck. I am very relieved to know that there was a reason I wasn't able to train through the pain. A lesson that everyone needs to learn. As DDP says in the video's "Pain is Pain". And another saying that my doctor is having to remind me. "No pain does not mean no problem". I will continue to go see my doctor weekly for the foreseeable future, and will only do what he clears me to do.
Friday, April 21, 2017
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Restart #1,000,001, Let's see how it goes!!!!
As the title states, this is my unknown number restart.
Let's start at the beginning of my Journey. This all started WAY BACK in the year of 2013. I was a very out of shape, very depressed 35, soon to turn 36 year old, who had a decision to make. Do I allow myself to sink deeper into my couch potato lifestyle or do I make a change? I have been overweight all of my adult life, and much of my childhood. I could go into a long debate about social exposure vs hereditary causes, but lets just say no matter which you believe, I had the bad side of both. Both of my parents are of 'large stock'. My mother regularly served insanely large portions of lasagna and spaghetti. That is not a knock on her, as far as she knew that is how a mother shows a family love. Both had been raised the finish your plate mentality and passed it onto me.
Anyway, back on track, I was very much becoming less and less active. At the time I was a stay at home dad for one kid and he was starting elementary school.
Demons were faced, decisions were made and I committing to improving my life with DDPYOGA. and man was I hooked. By day 3 I was noticing, not just small changes, but significant life style changes. Day 3 sticks out to me because that is the day I bent over and tied my shoe without much effort for the first time in a very long time. Something so simple meant so damn much. Also, in my first month I became part of a fitness challenge called "Gamer Fitness" that was adminster by the Youtube channel Drift0r. DDP's aggressive style and Drift0r's Gamer Fitness kept me engaged for the first 3 months. And man those three months were AMAZING. I dropped 50 pounds in 3 months.
This success had me on a high and wanting more. It was at this time I started to pick up a few subscribers on YouTube and followers on Twitter. Over the next 6 months I had my ups and downs, but mostly ups. I rarely was stuck at any certain weight for any length of time. Basically I was owning that shit. And people noticed that. And they praised me. This lead to me getting in more motivated and by month 9 I had lost a total of 102 pounds.
This was my peak. My lowest weight in my journey, and it's one that I am not overly concerned in seeing again. BUT since it is my lowest weight it was also were it all started to go wrong. I had gotten bored of the same old song and dance. The same thing to eat daily, the same workouts. I had moved out of my groove and into a rut. By the time my One Year date rolled around I was battling weight gain, but since I had such an amazing number at 9 months I didn't let it register in my head all the warning signs. It was this at this time I started to search for other things to keep me engaged.
I found CrossFit. I will say this, it works for some.....just not me. I tried to push through my dislikes of "metcons" for far too long. I would go home with scarred shins and eat the pain away. And the weight started to creep back. one pound here, two pounds there. This slide pushed me into hiding. I How could I admit to my millions of followers (actually 100ish) that I had lost direction and failed? I could not. So I didn't, I hid. Then I would get frustrated and decide to start fresh. I would shoot a video and state, I slipped but it's time to get back up. and that worked a couple of times but the motivation would fade in time.
Well here it is. I turn 40 this year. This is the year I was suppose to run a full marathon, or finish a GORUCK Heavy, or a Spartan Beast. Let's just say the likelihood of finishing one of those this year is very slim. But it is time for a restart, reboot, whatever we decide to call it this time. BUT this time I am doing for the proper reasons. For my family and for me. I may not publicly announce all of mile stones, or big event plans, as I think the public exposure messed with my head too much last time. But know that I am never going to give up and i will be pushing forward to a great 2017 and a great 40th year on the planet!!!
Let's start at the beginning of my Journey. This all started WAY BACK in the year of 2013. I was a very out of shape, very depressed 35, soon to turn 36 year old, who had a decision to make. Do I allow myself to sink deeper into my couch potato lifestyle or do I make a change? I have been overweight all of my adult life, and much of my childhood. I could go into a long debate about social exposure vs hereditary causes, but lets just say no matter which you believe, I had the bad side of both. Both of my parents are of 'large stock'. My mother regularly served insanely large portions of lasagna and spaghetti. That is not a knock on her, as far as she knew that is how a mother shows a family love. Both had been raised the finish your plate mentality and passed it onto me.
Anyway, back on track, I was very much becoming less and less active. At the time I was a stay at home dad for one kid and he was starting elementary school.
Demons were faced, decisions were made and I committing to improving my life with DDPYOGA. and man was I hooked. By day 3 I was noticing, not just small changes, but significant life style changes. Day 3 sticks out to me because that is the day I bent over and tied my shoe without much effort for the first time in a very long time. Something so simple meant so damn much. Also, in my first month I became part of a fitness challenge called "Gamer Fitness" that was adminster by the Youtube channel Drift0r. DDP's aggressive style and Drift0r's Gamer Fitness kept me engaged for the first 3 months. And man those three months were AMAZING. I dropped 50 pounds in 3 months.
This success had me on a high and wanting more. It was at this time I started to pick up a few subscribers on YouTube and followers on Twitter. Over the next 6 months I had my ups and downs, but mostly ups. I rarely was stuck at any certain weight for any length of time. Basically I was owning that shit. And people noticed that. And they praised me. This lead to me getting in more motivated and by month 9 I had lost a total of 102 pounds.
This was my peak. My lowest weight in my journey, and it's one that I am not overly concerned in seeing again. BUT since it is my lowest weight it was also were it all started to go wrong. I had gotten bored of the same old song and dance. The same thing to eat daily, the same workouts. I had moved out of my groove and into a rut. By the time my One Year date rolled around I was battling weight gain, but since I had such an amazing number at 9 months I didn't let it register in my head all the warning signs. It was this at this time I started to search for other things to keep me engaged.
I found CrossFit. I will say this, it works for some.....just not me. I tried to push through my dislikes of "metcons" for far too long. I would go home with scarred shins and eat the pain away. And the weight started to creep back. one pound here, two pounds there. This slide pushed me into hiding. I How could I admit to my millions of followers (actually 100ish) that I had lost direction and failed? I could not. So I didn't, I hid. Then I would get frustrated and decide to start fresh. I would shoot a video and state, I slipped but it's time to get back up. and that worked a couple of times but the motivation would fade in time.
Well here it is. I turn 40 this year. This is the year I was suppose to run a full marathon, or finish a GORUCK Heavy, or a Spartan Beast. Let's just say the likelihood of finishing one of those this year is very slim. But it is time for a restart, reboot, whatever we decide to call it this time. BUT this time I am doing for the proper reasons. For my family and for me. I may not publicly announce all of mile stones, or big event plans, as I think the public exposure messed with my head too much last time. But know that I am never going to give up and i will be pushing forward to a great 2017 and a great 40th year on the planet!!!
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