I get notifications regarding plugin updates for this blog. I usually install them and move on, if for any other reason than to try to keep the site somewhat secure from being hacked. Not that this would ever be a prime target. I just don’t want the hassle of losing everything. After all, I have training logs and thoughts dating back to 2017 here, which makes it worth keeping.
When I logged in this week, I saw the last post dated February 2022. When I was regularly blogging, I believe it started as an attempt to have a home for the random thoughts in my head but turned into updating it for the sake of updating it. As if there are millions of people around the world who wake up in the morning, doing their best to contain their excitement, in hopes of me writing a new post. I lost the desire to track my thoughts. At one point, while training BJJ, I kept a written journal. Well, I tried to. I actually took the time to print out photos and write on a somewhat regular basis about training and how it went.
I had started training and learning BJJ at a local Gracie academy and found it to be such a rewarding experience. The instructors there were phenomenal and some of the most professional I have been around. I worked my way up to a 4-stripe white belt with my eyes set at some point on testing to obtain my Combatives belt. I had such a long way to go, however. I was taking 2-3 classes per week and for those who have never signed up and taken any BJJ classes, they aren’t cheap. Once my oldest daughter started driving and we needed to get a third car, that meant cutting costs, so sadly, BJJ was put on a back burner.
Training BJJ unlocked some part of my brain that nothing else has done before. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with my mind racing, wondering why I didn’t transition to a different position. I was constantly thinking about the movements to where it was difficult to go back to sleep. The cardio portion was unreal. At the time, I was lifting, walking, taking two CycleBar classes a week and filling in the gaps with the Peloton. I was not a cardio machine, but I was not a slug either. However, one minute of rolling was so vastly different than anything else I had experienced. It crushed me and I loved it all the same.
One day, I plan to pick up where I left off.
I have continued lifting through everything. That has always remained the constant. After losing weight, I found that I couldn’t lift the weights that I once could lift and I was never really able to wrap my head around that. I wanted to be thinner but lift what I did 50lbs heavier. I could never find a way to truly marry those two up. As I started to lift weights, I shifted eating so that I would gain a little more weight in hopes of being closer to the weights that I lifted years ago.
Food has, and probably always will be, a challenge for me. I once thought that all I had to do was lose weight and once I got to my goal, I would just live there happily ever after. It was only after I got there that I realized maintaining took an entirely different mindset than getting there. I didn’t handle it well and once again found my weight fluctuating. Story of my life. I initially told myself I was going to put on another 5-10 lbs so that I could better sustain the heavy lifting I wanted to do. Never really having any true control over the food, that went out the window faster than I realized at the time.
Back in August 2023, I attempted to create a weekly vlog about my experience following a Couch to 10K running program. I made it through 10 vlogs before I finally tapped out. It was a fun experiment while it lasted, but ultimately, the time it took to continue a weekly vlog was too much for me. I did learn a great deal, not just about running, but about how to plan out and edit something like that. It also showed me that running could be fun again. There is a part of me that did not want to believe that. Running has always been a challenge for me and I have never been good at it. At the end of the program, I finished the 10K using a run/walk interval method and came close to beating my all-time 10K running PR. That was highly encouraging.
After the 10K, life had other plans for me, most of which I don’t plan on writing about here any time soon. Let’s just say that things got heavy, so much so that I had to back off of a lot of what I was doing just to focus on what was truly important. To make things even more interesting, I injured my right hip. I wish I knew how I did it so that I could make it a point to never do that again. I was at the point where I had to hold on to the wall just to put shorts on. I stopped all running, cycling, and really any hinging patterns until I was able to move a little better. As the healing progressed, the cardio stopped, the weight gain continued and I found myself right back to square one. It is a familiar place for me it seems. I followed a training cycle to help getting better and then bridged that into a powerbuilder 10-week program where I was able to finally squat and deadlift again. I stopped using the trap bar and moved back to conventional deadlifts and was just happy to be doing that on a regular basis again, even at lighter weights. After the end of the program, I tested my lifts again and was surprised at the strength I was able to retain.
I wasn’t too far away from where I was back in 2021, which I was truly not expecting. Before I got excited enough to throw a party, I realized that my body weight was much greater than it was back in 2021. I found myself heavier and lifting less. I should have been happy to focus on lifting with the knowledge that I might not ever be able to climb back up to where I was before. Bodyweight once again crept in and messed with my head something fierce. I looked back on 2021 and the numbers I hit but looked at the photos and saw the lifting belt I was using. I can’t even put that one on and tighten it. I had to revert to my old brown leather lifting belt, which felt too close to defeat.
So now what?
Over the last year, I have focused on getting healthy, mentally. Just this month I finally feel like I am at a point where I can start to think about fitness goals and tackling them. I did not have this capacity several months ago. I was just too overwhelmed. Last week was one of the best weeks in terms of exercise and mental health that I have had in recent memory. I met my exercise goal and did volumes better with nutrition, focusing on just making smarter decisions with each meal. I also started to look into running plans to prepare for a half-marathon.
With just about every single event I have trained for and participated in, I put some type of goal or pressure on myself to perform to a specific level. If I was lifting, I had to hit a certain number. If I was cycling, I had to be on top of the leaderboard. If I was running, I had to improve my pace or finish time. I could never sign up for an event and do it just to have fun. So that right there is worth working on and I want to tackle that this coming year. I started a half-marathon training plan with a custom base builder that I tacked on so that I could get back into the swing of running. If training goes well, I have my eyes on a half-marathon in March. The goal is to get back to the run/walk intervals that felt good for the 10K and then to use those to complete the half. I don’t care about pace. I don’t want to get locked into comparing my time with what I was capable of 10 years ago. I just want to exercise and be healthy. I would love to look back on 2025 and have a handful of medals from races and think about how each one was fun to participate in.
There have been countless times when I question why I would blog about any of this. Then I stumble across an old post and I am glad that I once took the time to record it. I don’t know how regularly I plan to blog but when something hits me worth making note of, I guess I might as well drop it here.