How I Began my Transformation

I was laying on the couch at my ex-girlfriend’s house with her watching Netflix. She recently purchased a new Apple watch and was showing me her resting heart rate data. She was taking blood pressure medication to help prevent chronic migraines. The medication brought her resting heart rate into the 40s. Out of curiosity I tested mine. It was in the low 90s.

Growing up I was an athlete, I played multiple sports but dedicated most of my athletics time to Ice Hockey in highschool. In college I decided to focus mostly on school work, spending time with friends, and partying.

Overall, in 2019, I was not particularly healthy. I used to cook but made fried foods. More often I would get uhealthy takeout with my ex-girlfriend on the weekends and during the week I did a very poor job of eating nutritious food, following a regular sleep schedule, and I rarely exercised at all. By the time I started my first job I was out of shape cardiovascularly and instead of the admirable V-Taper of action heroes I was skinny fat. I was not happy with how I looked nor was I happy with my overall health outlook.

The First Step

Shortly after getting my first apartment my little sister recommended I try Orangetheory, the exercise classes centered around heart rate zone training and cardiovascular health. I joined and within a month I reduced my resting heart rate to mid 60s.

I then started to take a greater interest in my diet. After working so hard in the gym I felt I really wanted to support my effort with better nutrition.

I also slept better. For the first few weeks I started to notice that even twelve hours after I had worked out I felt a sort of warm calm feeling all over my body.

Getting More Serious

After a few months of OrangeTheory I wanted to start taking four classes a week instead of three. The issue was that I did not think I could recover properly from four days of those workouts in a row and I dedicated Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to visiting my family and girlfriend at the time.

I wanted to go on Saturday mornings when my girlfriend was visiting me or while I was visiting her but I could tell that it upset her each time I did this because we were living almost three hours apart. For that reason I asked my boss to shift my work schedule an hour later and start going to the gym in the morning before work.

Switching my gym schedule to the mornings prevented late stays at work from interrupting my gym time. Having a scheduled time to go work out when nothing could prevent me from going helped me to develop a gym habit and make it part of who I am rather than just a phase. I was so dedicated that my ex-girlfriend joked that I was in a cult.

I went on to exercise at least three days per week, every week, for over a year. I have continued to improve my physique, strength, and maintained my conditioning since my first Orangetheory class in 2019.

What you can learn from me

If you want to make exercising a habit that you take with you the rest of your life start by having a scheduled time work out when nothing can get in the way of it. Make the execution as easy a possible. If you can afford it, taking exercise classes or booking a personal trainer is a great way to make exercising a habit.

Make the exercise fun, that includes making it diffucult enough that you don’t get bored but not so difficult that you dread it. If you hate running but enjoy the rowing machine then do the rowing machine. If you hate back squats but like leg press, use the leg press machine. If you think doing curls in the mirror is boring then skip curls and do chin-ups.

There are tons of free exercise templates online. If you are really out of shape I recommend doing incline walks on the treadmill in cardio zone 2 for 20–45 minutes per session as many times per week as you can fit into your schedule and doing a full body lifting at least twice per week and at least two days apart. Once you really start to enjoy exercising you will want to do more and at that point you can.

Remember that this is your life and your body, you have the opportunity right now to build and aesthetic physique and develop good conditioning.