How I’ve Worked Out and Studied My Way Through to the Better Me.
Have you ever said to yourself — I can’t do two projects in one day, It’s so hard to re-focus after you finish working on one?

I know I did. This was my excuse to cut the work day short and move on with gaming or TV watching. Classic procrastinator at its best. For years I did this and i thought it was OK. Deep down I still felt unease when I fired up Battlefield 3 to get them sweet-sweet frags. But I pushed that feeling down and away.
As you can imagine I spent crap-loads of time sitting and not moving. I wasn’t working out, wasn’t really the outgoing type. So, I gained weight, a whole 46 kilos of it. OMG, I know! It happened so fast, I don’t even remember when I was 70 or 80 kilos. It’s like one day you are 50-ish kilos, the next morning you wake up and BAM, you’re ninety friggin’ six kilos. Obviously this didn’t help with my freelance work and lifestyle. I felt even less motivated to work, let alone try to work on more then one thing at a time. And to top it all off, I was smoking. Now I wasn’t crazy with it, like my father is for example. He smokes 4 pack a day. Four damn pack! I, on the other hand, smoked one and a half pack every 2–3 days. Not a lot but it went on for about 9 years. So, even the notion of working out was nowhere near my mind.
As I said, this went on quite some time. But one day, or I should say night, I heard this brawl outside my apartment when I was trying to get some sleep. I was having intense headaches at the time; a good night sleep was something I could only dream of. I’m laying in my bad and listening to this guys kicking each others teeth and it just hit me, figuratively speaking. You know, like some sort of a flashing thought followed by intense emotions of misery and anger, not towards those lovely, sober and most friendly guys, who were expressing their love for each other through warm and welcoming face punches, but towards myself. I could almost feel how my brain started rewiring itself. Suddenly this anger I felt turned into determination to change, stop being such a physical wreck, so that in case I’m in a similar situation where I have to be as loving and nice as those wonderful guys outside the bar, where they have been drinking so responsibly, I could actually throw some punches of my own and not die of exhaustion. The other thought I had immediately was of my girlfriend, who was right there laying next to me— what if she was in trouble? This just sealed it. The emotions I felt before just got magnified by 100.
I laid in my bad awake for hours after the fight was over, with those overwhelming emotions going through me; I finally fell asleep. Next morning I woke up and the first thing I felt was — I want to quit smoking! And I mean, I really wanted to quit. I’ve tried quitting before, but this is what I was missing — an emotionally powerful reason, a drive to actually go through with it. This time it was different, I was so determined. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe.
The Commitment
I had one pack left in the drawer of my PC table. I opened it and looked with a smile; I made a promise to myself, that this is going to be my last pack ever. I didn’t want to quit cold-turkey, because it was so hard last time when I tried quitting.
One thing that helped me go through with it was my realization that this is a bad habit, to get reed of it, it would be much easier to replace it with something healthy. So I did. Green tea! Every time I’d want to light one, I would go and make a cup of nice, hot tea. It was winter and a cold one that is; hot tea was just perfect. I also stopped drinking coffee, not to tempt myself with “Coffee and Cigarettes” (interesting movie by the way, by Jim Jarmusch).
The second thing, or I should say person, that was just the best through all of this process was my girlfriend. The issue with quitting after smoking for so long, is the withdrawal; it was horrible. I was horrible. She was so supporting and overall amazing. I’m eternally grateful!
After few months went by and the withdrawal craziness settled down, I started to work out. Just running across the hall in the apartment, I couldn’t force myself to go out and run outside. I was shy and self conscious about my physique and performance. So I kept running back and forth for a month inside the small apartment we were renting downtown.
It worked great for a while, I started to feel so much better, all the headaches where gone, I was feeling positive. Work became a play. I loved it. I even lost few kilos. But I wanted more, so I started googling — how can I get in a better shape and do it at home? Remember, this is a guy that’s just not going to go out and run outside in the concrete wilderness of a city and most certainly is not going to go to a gym. It didn’t take me to long to find the perfect thing.
Freeletics

It was a perfect app for me. All you need is your body and the gravity. No need for any equipment or special clothing, you can even work out in your underwear. Doing it at home after all, so why the hell not, right? Oh and to top it all of, it is free! Now, this is not an ad for freeletics; I just love it. From the first day I started doing it, I loved it. Sometimes you might hate how hard it can be, but you get up and do it anyway. That’s when you realize, that you are becoming a free athlete. You love it for the results you can see in the mirror each week.
I’ve beed training since, on and off, but the results are that I’ve lost about 25 kilos. I sill have a long road ahead of me, but I’m slowly getting there. The key is to remember, all you need to do is:
Get a bit better every day.
If you only concentrate on this one thing, and do what you need to do today, you’ll get the results you are aiming for eventually. It’s not going to be overnight, there is no overnight success. You work for it. Period. Stay determined and it will simply be a matter of time.
Becoming a Better Version of Yourself.
Training, alongside with changing my mindset using various self help sources, which working out helps you to achieve more easily, have turned me into a better person. Healthy, outgoing, friendly, positive and more sociable. I no longer have any issues working on many projects at the same time. It appears that working out is not just shaping your body, but it also shapes your mind. Here’s a blog post on Freeletics Blog, one of the many sources I’ve discovered for quality training advice. I’m more focused, calmer and centered. Now, I can’t say that it’s just training, that helps you become better version of yourself. A big role in my transformation had this awesome person, a life coach — Coach Corey Wayne. If you haven’t heard of him, well now you have, go check out his website and YouTube videos if you are trying to become better, his content might be exactly what you were missing.
Armed with this new mindset, healthier body and mind I’ve began to love and enjoy my work. Now I work on multiple client projects, plus a personal project of mine, I wrote couple of stories about previously.
The Takeaway
I was reading an article on the Freeletics blog (I’ve liked above) about the effects workout has on the human mind, and just wanted to share my story.
I guess the takeaway would be to never think that you have some sort of limit, like the false belief I had about my ability of not being able to work better and be in a much better physical and mental shape. If you want to become better, have more in life and be happier, it’s out there, it is possible, you just need to put your head down and work on yourself. Remember, it takes time, just do what you have to do today, and become a bit better each and every day.
Thank You
With all the love from the bottom of my heart, I wish you an awesome day and thank you for reading. If you need help with anything, hit me up I’d be happy to help you out in any way I can!
Cheers!
