We have reached yet another milestone. As we reminisce in thoughts of a year gone by, we are engulfed with feelings of loss from moments past and chances missed, of anxiety for what lies ahead, and of hope for new beginnings. We tend to view our lives as a timeline from a beginning to an end, and as the end feels a little bit closer with each passing milestone those feelings only gets stronger. The realization that we are the only definite in this infinite realm of time and space is a scary thought.

Why think of time as a depleting source of opportunities while it is very much an abundant source of possibilities. Time is not a handicap. It is an asset that we own plenty of and what we do with time should be our only concern.

So what do we do with all that time? You invest in it.

In 2013, I invested a lot of my time into health and fitness. It was the best thing a guy in his late 30's could do and it was totally unplanned. It started with a diet and a tattoo.

The Diet

The year started on lighter note for me, almost 40 pounds lighter. It was the result of my first successful diet called The Ideal Protein (IP) Diet during the final quarter of 2012 . What made the diet successful though were the personalized sessions with a caring diet coach who walked-the-talk and kept me accountable to a well-defined plan.

I have tried the Weight Watcher’s diet before and although they sell accountability as the differentiator, my WW group failed to push me beyond my limits and there really was no defined plan. A Weight Watcher is left to his/her own judgement guided only by an easy way to calculate calorie intake with their points system. The weekly weigh-in sessions only worked for the few of us who were either disciplined or thick-skinned, while the majority of us tend to shy away out of guilt and embarrassment. Weight Watchers is a hugely successful diet program and I am not undermining it in any way but it was clearly not the one for me. A diet is not about counting calories. A diet is about discipline and will power.

The IP diet on the other hand was customizable. The program didn’t care about how much I weighed on the scale, instead used the weight as a mere number I need to get to — a milestone. It didn’t care about how many pounds I lost as much as how much of the pounds lost were from fat vs. lean mass. It cared about how much coffee I drank and how I was balancing it with water intake so I could get to an acceptable hydration level. It started with a commitment to myself and my coach to aim to attain a reasonable/achievable goal.

Then it tested my will power. Could I get through a ketonic state without losing my mind? Could I eat the right amount of veggies and protein? Could I diligently keep a food journal for our weekly reviews? Could I stay off my top two addictions: bread and whiskey? More importantly, could I do all this during the worse time of the year for diet enthusiasts — Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I could and I did. A disciplined diet which lasted around 2 months made the impossible possible, the hard way. I learned an important lesson with that stunt. There are three ingredients to sustainable success — a plan, a challenge and some friends.

The Tattoo

What is it about a successful diet that makes you endure 3 hours of prickly irritating “pain” in a tattoo shop? The answer is confidence.

So I got a second tattoo. It’s the tree of life forever printed on my arm. And what goes with tattoo? CrossFit.

Historically, I have been unsuccessful at “gyming” or exercising for that matter. I was average at sports but never dedicated time to building muscles, not even in my wildest dreams. It was not the lack of inspiration either. My dad and older brother were hard-core gym-types. I guess I loved food more. But the tattoo changed all that.

I needed to make the tattoo look good on me. With my new-found success formula it was possible, or at least my diet coach thought so. So she recommended CrossFit, which is a well-defined program that creates daily cross-fitness workout challenges (WODs) powered by well-informed trained coaches, and a fun-loving friendly community.

Today I completed my last WOD (Workout Of the Day) for 2013 and yet another personal record —my first ever 1-mile run completed in 9.46 minutes followed by two reps of 135# clean+jerk to close out the 10 minute challenge. What’s so great about that? It is another milestone, but on a tough road to a healthier 2014.

That’s how a diet and a tattoo got me on a new path. Overall, 2013 was a good year for me. Many life-changing and important events took place. I even quit a 13-year long job but that’s a future blog post.

As I was saying in the introduction, time is an asset and how you use it is the only thing that matters. I choose to invest in it by making health and fitness my primary focus for a happier stress-free life, one challenge at a time. I wish you every success in all the choices you make in 2014. Make it worth your time. Happy New Year!

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