This was me back in June of 2017…if I am being honest it was the worst version of me that I can remember.  I wasn’t honest, wasn’t empathetic and was on the verge of crashing my entire life.  I looked back at this picture after taking a picture recently and the noticeable difference is the weight but thinking back on who I was for me is the biggest difference.  I don’t want to be that person ever again.  He wasn’t a good person and hadn’t been for a while.  Parts of him good yes, but the important parts were lacking.  Everyone’s rock bottom looks different I suppose and the details of it don’t really matter, its just about deciding to get back up and climb through the shit you created to get back to the version of you that you really want to be.  For me it is going to be a long climb and probably will suck for a while.  The alternate choice though is much worse.

Like I said I started this blog a while back and I lost site of why I started it.  I wanted to share about my life and hopefully learn more about myself in doing so.  Well I didn’t do that and instead used this as a platform for other reasons.  I recently had a great conversation with a very important person for me and realized that I just needed to refocus this little blog and use it for what I wanted to in the first place.  Its about me and sharing my life so that I can learn from failures, smile at successes and maybe occasionally say something funny.  I mean I think I am funny sometimes!  I haven’t even started to jump into the #dadjokes.  That being said I thought the first share for the new blog should be about this picture and the recent one.  So here is the recent picture I took at work after completing the Whole 30 diet.

The Whole 30 diet is a diet that last 30 days.  The concept is to eliminate dairy, grains, legumes and sugar to reset your body.  It is so you can identify things that might have had a negative impact on your body and to reset your system.  We had discussed it during training at my new job and the competitive side of me said “lets do it.”  I wanted to make a change and thought maybe this is the change I needed to make.  So it was agreed upon and we picked our start date…one person was about to leave for vacation for a week so we waiting until they returned to start.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this picture.  I knew that I had lost some weight and my perception of food had changed but was that me?  I know it is ironic that I am holding a cookie cake in a picture where I have lost a bunch of weight but we were celebrating the end of the crazy diet, and a really good work week as a team.

I looked back at the picture from right around a year ago and I was shocked.  The even bigger thing for me…I can’t remember the last time I followed all the way through with something I said I would do for me.  The diet was hard because I have always eaten really badly.  People tried to tell me but I had never really listened.  I have always been a “I know the right way” kind of guy and it has cost me in the past.  This time I just followed the guidelines the diet said to and didn’t try to pretend like I knew a better way to do this.  It was really eye opening and still a week later all I want to do is keep pushing to be the healthiest I can be.  Let me say this, I am not a pro at it now either but my views of what I eat have completely changed.  I haven’t felt this good physically in a long time and that cookie cake in the picture did not taste anything like I remembered.

Its a small victory but it was needed.  I am excited about eating right now and its pretty funny because if you knew me in the past you might be surprised by some of the things I consider to taste good these days.  Hit me up about some Steve’s Dried Mango hahaha….

Hope everyone is doing well in life and finding the happiness you deserve!!  Until next time.