The fight against The Dad Bod
I’m going to be chronicling the most recent No Dad Bod Campaign for the next month and I’m inviting you along for three reasons:
1. I think it will be entertaining, especially for people who have bodies and use coping mechanisms.
2. I believe it will be helpful for all those trying hard to do more of what they love, just like me.
3. It helps me process when I share where I’m at + stay motivated when I have a community of people along for the ride.
For those you unfamiliar with the Dad Bod, a quick definition of my enemy:
Dad Bod | Noun (informal)
- a male physique shaped by nearly equal parts exercise and beer, resulting in a confusing combination of toned biceps, a beer gut, and the quickly fading glory from years of high school and college athletics.
For a deeper dive, check out this Washington Post article for a sweet flow chart to help you find out if you have a dad bod:
This confusing combination of a body, created from the fitness infrastructure of the past + partying a little too hard in the present is enthralling to some women, could actually be healthier than the obsessive focus on physique that many athletes struggle with, but for me in this stage of life, it is not okay.
The dad bod in my case is related almost solely to my relationship with alcohol. That relationship has been pretty healthy overall and has been a truly helpful coping mechanism at times, but in this season it has matured into a deeply ingrained, unhealthy rhythm of life that needs to be reordered for me to live more fully into the things that I love.
I am learning that when you carry coping mechanisms which may have helped you survive past seasons of life into a new season, where they are not required, they often become inhibitors to continued growth.
If you keep pounding away in your old coping mechanisms, then you often have to layer new coping mechanisms on top of your existing patterns because of the side effects of the original.
Coping mechanisms remind me of prescription drugs in this regard. One may help you with depression, but then you end up with erectile dysfunction as a side effect. Then you may need to take something for the ED, which solves that problem, but ultimately causes you to break out in hives or something lovely like that.
It’s not a perfect metaphor and I am not against meds or even most unprescribed methods of self-care, but more often than not we need holistic lifestyle changes to thrive. Drugs, or in my case alcohol, can begin a dangerous cycle of looking for quick fixes, treating side effects instead of the root issues, and not believing that you have agency in your own growth.
The primary love that has taken a hit because of my relationship with alcohol has been running. Running tends to be a profoundly accurate litmus test for how well I’m doing in life as a whole.
Our loves and how we relate to them often operate like a window, giving us a view into how we are doing in the whole spirit-soul-body experience of being human.
I plan to write more about my pursuit of being a professional lover (making a living in music and using running as a grounding, creative anchor) and how coping mechanisms/trauma have effected that journey throughout the upcoming month.
To offer some context before I delve deeper into those more internal concepts, let me give you some external measurements driving this No Dad Bod Campaign.
I used to be pretty disciplined about maintaining a 4:1 ratio of miles run to beers consumed. Then I went through a dark season, both emotionally and because we lived in the dark grey of Seattle, where I drank probably 6–8 beers per mile I ran in the week. Over the last few months after quitting a stressful job, moving back to the region I love, and choosing to pursue music full time, I have made it back to roughly a 2:1 ratio of miles to beers. Momentum is going the right way but I have plateaued, and my love for running is coming back to life causing me to want more.
Coming from a religious background which is often prone to unsustainable fear-based motivation for life change, I’m really excited that my love for running is waking up again and driving the desire to have more discipline in my alcohol use. Love is the only sustainable motivator for real life change. Fear may get you off the couch, but can’t get you healthy in any sort of a holistic sense.
I started the #nodadbod campaign before our little girl Eden was born a touch over two years ago. Since that point I went from 140lbs up to 160lbs with the weight primarily concentrated in the classic beer belly. When I am at peak fitness for racing my body usually hovers around 135lbs.
I have lost multiple battles in the war with the Dad Bod so far, but now staring down the barrel at baby two’s due date of September 26th, and having learned a ton from my setbacks, I feel freshly inspired.
After a decent amount of contemplation about the stage of life I’m in and who I want to be in the future, I am committing to not drinking for the month of August and to upping my mileage in an effort to reset and gain some momentum in my fitness before our second child hits the scene.
Because in many ways this will be like a breakup in my relationship with alcohol, I plan to journal through my cycles of grief and talk through the journey with you.
