Talk about a nasty, negative headline, am I right? Unfortunately, it perfectly defines how I feel lately. I only recently turned 40 and for the last ten years or so, I promised myself that I would focus on my health and fitness when I turned 40. You see, I used up my 30s focusing on my career and paying off debt. It was a long, tiresome (and depressing) decade for me.
Why did I choose to wait until I was 40 to start caring about my health? Pure laziness, if I’m being completely honest. In 2005, when my wife and I wed, I was at my peak fitness level. Then again, we were both deployed to Iraq at the time and I had nothing better to do during my downtime than to workout.
Prior to our deployment, and a little while after it, I was a cable guy, getting plenty of exercise. I was also a runner. Boy did I love to run. I still would if I wasn’t so fat. I’m digressing, though. Back to my point – soon after I returned from Iraq, I tired from working outdoors in the cold New England winters.
I worked hard and managed to land a job working inside the cable company’s technical operations center. That’s when I started gaining weight. When I started there, I weighed 165 pounds and was quite fit. Six years later I weighed 200 pounds and never felt so lazy in all my life.
Then in 2013, I was fired from the cable company. Except it was the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I went from working in a position that didn’t exist outside of the company I worked for with minimal transferable job skills to being a Director of IT for a national company in a short 7 years. I’ll save that journey for another post in the future.
Anyways, back to my point. Things got good – real good – financially for my wife and me. However, I found myself working further away from home, eating unhealthy fast food, and mentally drained to the point that my depression and anxiety skyrocketed.
I also ballooned up to 240 pounds (present-day). I used to love hiking, running, and being outdoors in general. Now I haven’t been on a hike since 2018 and sit my butt down in the same spot on this beautiful leather couch that my then eccentric lifestyle could afford. Watching movies and spending time trying to get an online business off the ground.
To make matters worse, my role as Director of IT sucked the life out of me and I don’t want to work in IT or in management ever again. Hell, I don’t even want to be an employee ever again, either.
And guess what…my current job as a consultant to the company that bought the company I worked for as a director is ending soon. On June 7th, to be exact. I’ve spent the last two years trying to think of a way to make money online or via my own business, unsuccessfully.
Luckily, I could pay off all of my debt (except my mortgage) in those two years and save up a ton of money. That simply means I can afford not to work for about a year while I try to figure out this entrepreneur thing. It also means that I’m going to focus on my health, too.
If you chose to read this post as a source of motivation, I’m sorry. It’s not that at all. Consider it my ‘rock bottom’ (although I’ve had lower rock bottoms in the past). This is my rock bottom as far as this blog is concerned since I’m using it as a journal of sorts. A journal you get to read and hopefully interact with me via comments.
I’m 40, fat, and finally fed up, but I’m not a quitter and am doing something about it.
What about you?