An interesting question was posed to me recently by my aunt. She had not seen me in a while and I happened to be wearing a form fitting t-shirt at the time. The question was “Why do you want to be so big?” and it was asked in a demeaning manner. The question was in reference to my muscular development. The weird thing is that I’m not that “buff”, I just look like an average guy that works out. This question was particularly silly to me, as it was posed by a morbidly obese person who, in her late 50s, recently had a knee replacement. My response was a simple smile and I went on with my day. But it got me to thinking about why someone, anyone, would see a good level of fitness as a problem.
Throughout my life I have struggled with my weight and general health. There was a great improvement in my weight and wellbeing in my early 20’s when I lost significant weight and educated myself on healthy eating and fitness. Unfortunately, my bad habits returned in my late 20‘s and early 30’s with the addition of kids and career stresses. I fell back on my love of eating and made excuse after excuse about why I could not workout and why I enjoyed fast food so much. So there I was 34 years old, 5 foot 11 inches (although my wife says I’m 5’10”), weighing in at 260 pounds. Something needed to be done. Having been through this before to a smaller degree, I knew what I needed to do. Making it happen is always the hard part.
Excited to begin this process of ‘reshaping’ myself, I began building a significant home gym. A large amount of money was sunk into an 800 sq ft gym, situated in a portion of my basement. The workouts ensued and some results were seen. I also incorporated running into my program. All of which was time consuming, but I stuck with it until things went south. My joints decided they did not like me. It started with my wrists and fingers and ended up extending to my ankles and knees. After several visits to my doctor I was referred to a rheumatologist who ended up diagnosing me with rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a form of inflammatory arthritis and is an autoimmune disease. With RA, for reasons no one fully understands, the immune system – which is designed to protect our health by attacking foreign cells such as viruses and bacteria – instead attacks the body’s own tissues, specifically the synovium, a thin membrane that lines the joints. As a result of these attacks, fluid builds up in the joints, causing pain in the joints and systemic inflammation. That means it can occur throughout the entire body.
My new challenge limited my ability to work out as vigorously and was only compounded by still being overweight. Continued knee and ankle issues stopped me from running and wrist issues kept me from lifting weights as heavily. My desire to workout waned as bodyweight increased. All the while I watched my wonderful wife live her outdoor life running, being fit, and looking great. The fact I needed to face was this challenge would be with me for life, no matter how aggressively medicated. Dealing with increased bodyweight would only make matters worse not to mention increasing my risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other weight-related medical issues. In early 2012 I decided something had to change.
Once I made the decision to take my health seriously, I signed up for Weight Watchers Online. This program appealed to me because it did not have a huge cost, no special meals, and no meetings. A person just uses their calculator for points and tracks them each day. They provide an excellent set of programs for iPhone and Android smartphones to help along the way. And along my way I went! Progress was seen pretty quickly and it wasn’t long before I was feeling better and more able to workout while dealing with the joint pain. But without running or even walking pain-free what kind of exercises could I do? I ended up ordering a stationary bike that worked out wonderfully. That alone with the Weight Watchers was the key to 30 pounds of weight loss in about eight months time. After losing 30 pounds, my energy level was creeping back up and my lower body joint pain was manageable.
Unfortunately, not long after this time things began to stall.. Thankfully my wife heard from a friend about a ‘silly’ video that was available on YouTube. It was a short, intense workout video by Jillian Michaels of “The Biggest Looser” fame. I had heard of Jillian Michaels but am a rather skeptical reality TV viewer and never watched any of the shows. I was nevertheless willing to give it a try. After the first week or two I was hooked. The moves were easy enough to understand, the workout was a short 20 minutes, and I could modify things to work around my upper body joint issues. After a little research we discovered that Michaels has a large number of videos available at retail stores and online for very reasonable prices. We quickly bought several of the videos and added them into out workout routine. Despite my wife already having an aggressive working routine, she enjoyed adding the videos into her workouts for additional training and an increase in variety.
The biggest thing I learned from these videos was that I could enjoy working my core. I found that with proper core work, I became significantly more powerful in all of my workouts and less prone to back and neck injuries. The amazing thing was I could do intense workouts without thousands of dollars of gym equipment. My massive gym collected dust as I became fit with just some simple and light dumbbells. As time went on, I was able to increase the weight of the dumbbells but even now I am only using 12-pound dumbbells for these workouts and nothing more than my body weight for a lot of the moves.
It was a welcome surprise then that after a few months of this routine, in addition to weight loss, I noticed a significant improvement in my sports endurance and performance. At last, here comes the tie-in to shooting. As a competitive shooter, you have to consider yourself an athlete or you will not be successful. I had been competing in USPSA, IDPA, Multi-Gun, and field-based long-range team matches prior to my new fitness drive. And let me tell you, if you cannot sprint across a shooting stage or hike a mile long field course without wanting to lose your lunch, you surly will not be able to shoot worth a damn.
With my newfound fitness level I was able to traverse a USPSA stage at high speed, making turns, and running my gun with ease instead of wanting to puke. I was startled to notice that I was able to think at high speed during these events when before I would have a hard time remembering my plan and performing to the best of my ability because it was such an effort just to move my body. It was amazing how much better your shooting can be when your body does not get in the way.
Dropping to prone and getting back out of position was easy now. Kneeling and squatting, simple! Where my 40” waist once housed my gut and spare tire, I now have smooth flat abs and 33” waist which now does not get in the way or interfere with my gear setup. My shooting life has improved and, more to the point, my life has improved. I feel better about myself and have the drive to be a better person, a better husband, and a better father. There is energy to do more with my life and that allows me to workout more frequently and more strenuously. There came a point in the last year and a half since I started this new fitness focus, with proper treatment for my RA and weight loss, that my RA stopped becoming my limiting factor. I have learned to work around my joint limitations and continue to progress in my fitness.
When my aunt asked why I wanted to be so muscular I wanted to laugh in her face. But I held my tongue and really thought about it later. I have always been a big guy and at one in my 20s point did actually pursue the body builder physic. Now my drive is different. I want to be healthy and free to live the life I want to live unencumbered by my obesity or medical issues. My focus is having the ability to sling on a 20-pound pack with 16-pound long range rifle, hike a mile uphill, and very successfully engage a 12” steel target at 1000 yards during a match.
Being fit allows you to live your best life. You only get one life to live and you make the choice about how you want to live it. We all have barriers of some kind that effect our health and fitness. It’s up to us to work around them and adapt to make the best of what we have. If you you’re a shooter or an outdoors person who is overweight or out of shape, just think about how much easier the things you love to do would be if you were fit and healthy. Now is the time to make the choice that will improve your life.. It’s hard work, but everything else in your life will benefit. You may even be able to encourage others around you to improve their life with your success.
My biggest encouragement has been my wife’s cousin Lynn. She was once more than 125 pounds overweight and successfully reached her goal weight years after starting her adventure in fitness. As an elementary school teacher she is a role model for her students and was certainly one for me. I knew that I could be successful after watching what Lynn accomplished. Search out the encouragement you need to be successful so you can live your best life. . Then when someone asks ‘why you want to be so muscular’, you can just smile and walk away confident that you have reached your fitness and health goals.
