🌱 How I Started Fitness

Weekly Newsletter (#12) 6/28/21

I had my 2nd dose of the Moderna Vaccine this weekend and it hit me like an 18-wheeler. 🚛 I had fevers, headaches, and I was freezing the entire time. But made me extremely grateful that we even have access to a Covid vaccine. I couldn’t imagine how bad actual Covid could have been. 🙏🏾

📚 My Fitness Journey

My fitness journey started in the 8th grade.
I’ve done some sports growing up, but it was something my parents made me do to broaden my horizons. I was always the worst on the team, and I hated going to practice.

All I knew was I wanted to do what all dudes around my age seemed to want; to get a six pack.

Here’s what I did:
Every night before bed, I would watch Comedy Central.
(Chappele’s Show! And anyone remember Mind of Mencia? 😂)
I started doing some pushups and situps every time I watched.
Over a couple of weeks I improved and started doing more reps.

But it was never anything special.
I never relied on motivation because that 10pm Comedy Central was a trigger. I built upon my previous habit of watching tv and added the fitness habit on top of it.

A couple of months later, we had a fitness test at school, which included a minute of pushups & situps. I did way better than previous attempts and was the first time I saw hard work pay off with fitness. I was able to get my six-pack and it drastically changed the way I viewed myself.
I still sucked at basketball 😅 but I was breezing through the athletic drills.

To be honest, I only connected these thoughts years later. In the moment, I was just watching TV, filling in the commercials with exercises.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

1. You can beat motivation by building on a previous habit. 10pm TV happened every weekday, so some form of pushups and situps happened every weekday.
2. What I did didn’t matter. Pushups & situps weren’t the greatest or fastest way to get a 6 pack, but it was progress.
3. Consistency beats everything. If I stopped on month 2, I wouldn’t have made the same progress.

Hope you enjoyed hearing my story of how I started fitness!
Curious, how did your journey start?