first time poster

[xoek]

long time lurker. been following NF since i heard Steve on the the fat burning man podcast.  been into fitness for a while now. have had my ups and downs in my own battle of the bulge and a lot of false starts and minor victories under my belt.

 

i really started packing on the pounds after i moved to hawaii from rural west texas during high school.  the whole increasingly sedentary lifestyle, living literally right next door, because on oahu everything is right next door to you, to some really good, cheap chinese , korean, and local barbecue places.  at the same time i was attending college, focusing on my goals, and taking care of myself took a backseat, i was going to school on a scholarship, trying to keep my grades up, working full time, and trying to attract the interest of the woman that would become my wife.

 

a while after that i was married, kids, life was relatively happy, except i was 300lbs and had a hard time putting on socks and tying my shoes for work.  i was looking for something to do when i kind of fell into the opportunity to take up kickboxing with a group of like minded people after hours at a tae kwon do dojo. i really enjoyed it, my wife got into it, and we did that for about a year. when i started i could barely raise my leg off the ground.

 

around that time the show, the ultimate fighter first came on the air,we would watch, and i kept thinking to myself, i can do that! i had always been a fan of MMA but something about them showcasing what goes into the intense training clicked with me, and i was curious about the grappling aspect of martial arts. after talking about it with my wife, then the guys i trained with, i found myself a few weeks later at a professional MMA training camp. to say that i was unprepared for the experience is and understatement, it was like jumping head first into the deep end.  imagine you had a year worth of playing football mostly recreationally with a bunch of your friends, then stepped up to spring training with the pros. i was training with professional MMA fighters, and it was a very old school gym, sink or swim kind of training. the kind of gyms where you show up, get your ass handed to you everyday, but as long as you keep showing up they'll keep training you.  but the guys there took me under their wing, and i learned much while i was there and made some awesome friendships there.  i spend almost 2 years there, and managed to lose 100 lbs. the problem i had back then was that i still wasn't really taking care of myself, i was ignorant about diet and not being able to our run my fork. so even though i was training intensely, i was still eating like crap. so i was still carrying around a lot of fat that i just couldn't get rid of. 

 

after that i graduated with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. i got a job right away working in the law enforcement field for uncle sam. it was the kind of job where sometimes my survival was dependent on my fitness level either having to out fight or out run someone. i really leaned out during the academy days, but soon after starting real world work my irregular schedule made it impossible for me to make regular appearances at the gym. for about a year i just wallowed burying myself in my work, and enjoying y family. because i had never really made a change to my diet or lifestyle outside of the gym i soon started packing on the pounds again. fearing that history would soon repeat itself, i started researching what i options i had. i wanted something that wasn't difficult, i could do from the comfort of my own home, anytime i wanted, and didn't have to spend hours doing.

 

what i found was kettlebells, and i haven't looked back. they were like a gift from god. i got hooked big time, i started researching the different organizations teaching kettlebells, looking for experts in the field, reading their work, learning as much as i could. i took classes, and started buying my own. it was like opening up pandora's box but without all the death and pestilence. that is when i started learning the nuances about nutrition, and how what you do in the kitchen is much more important than what you do in the gym. 

 

after working for uncle sam for years putting my life on the line, i made a decision, although my job was rewarding it just didn't pay enough, and advancements weren't coming soon enough.  it gets tiring being put in situations where you seriously have top ask yourself, am i going to make it home to my kids today? knowing that if something were to happen to you, your family would not be ok financially. at first i was an adrenaline junkie in my 20s chasing the high, the more high risk the job the better, the last job i went out for came with a $1000 dollar price on my head that came with the position and would have put us right into the middle of the doo-doo storm happening in northern mexico.  my wife was happy and relieved when the decision regarding my placement into that position was pushed back following a vehicle accident that forced me to slow down, take some time off and do some light physical therapy. i was forced to take a step back and a hard look at life. i had some hard decisions to make. was i really ready to put my family in that type of risk? was it worth it? The answer was, that i could not in good conscience put my wife and kids into that situation.  

 

when you're young you live life fast, take big risk and either win big or lose big, but wither way you always pick yourself back up dust yourself off, and are ready for the next big assignment.  but as we get older, we start slowing down, look at life differently. my wife had been contemplating going back to school for years, she wanted to be a nurse, and my attitude was go do it, we're not getting any younger, but you know in a sweeter sentiment. after i decided that i needed to change my life, i told her that if she went back to school ,i would go with her, and be there with her every step of the way.  She took me up on my offer, and i shook her world, when i resigned outright from my job to focus on school full time. was it the right decision, leaving a good stable job with benefits to pursue a dream? who knows, but here i am, and i'm loving every minute of it.  I've been excelling in math ,and loving it, so i've been giving some serious thoughts to going after an engineering degree.

[xoek]

good lord, that's long! sorry, tried to get so much in there, next time a hey, how you doing will suffice

[Angie j]

I'm doing fine! How 'you' doin?....oh wait! No! Not again!!! LOL.

You are one 'been there done that kinda guy.

You brought back a long buried memory for me. Eating fresh Pineapple in Hawaii! To this day I can't eat them here in Canada...not anywhere near the same animal.

[Gilgamelissa]

lol your intro may have been long, but I enjoyed reading it Welcome to the boards, hope to hear more from you soon!

 

p.s. this is the second post i've read today talking about how great kettlebells are.. I need to look into that.

[xoek]

1. a lifetime ago we used to work overnight up in the mountains of oahu, like deep in untamed jungle territory doing security for the type of gov't installations that "don't exist". well in one of the valleys up there they used to cultivate pineapple during the height of the pineapple growing in hawaii, the fields have long since been abandoned but the pineapple grows wild in there now. every once in a while during the natural harvest season, we would take a long and treacherous drive down into the valley and harvest tons of pineapples. we would do stuff like that to kill time because the job could get seriously boring and monotonous. but up there everything grew so we learned to harvest a lot of the fruit. banana, lilikoi, guava, strawberry guava, avocado. one time my supervisor oversaw me half rappel half climb down a steep ravine to harvest bananas, when i cut the tree down, it fell deep into the ravine, and damned if i'm gonna put that type of effort into it for nothing, so we drove to the bottom and hiked to the bananas to drag them out. most work i've ever put into my food, except for maybe when my wife and i would take our family to volunteer at an organic farm that we used to support via a CSA membership. i used to bring home so much produce, my kids at first would love it, then by weeks end would be so tired of whatever fruit was in season.

 

2 the thing about kettlebells is that they're super efficient, but you have to learn how to use them properly.  do your research, learn as much as you can about them from people certified to teach, there are many different schools of thought regarding them (hard style, soft style, russian swing, american swing, girevoy sport, there are a lot of terms you are going to hear) but as they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat. keep an open mind, and be willing to learn. my opinion is that they're all equally relevant, and that each thing has an appropriate time and place, it just depends on your goals.  

 

when you watch people using kettlebells, think about it this way, they are doing strength training, cardio, and endurance work all at the same time. they are working multiple major muscle groups at the same time during each exercise. but on top of all of that playing with kettlebells is hella fun, it's dynamic ,and i just can't put into words the fun they pack into a workout. take your time to learn the basics, learn to do them right, and the payoff is immense. if you're interested in all that, then i also suggest you look into clubbells, i just got into it, have had mine for a couple of years now. the same type of fun just more of it, but a completely different animal, and they're really good for flexibility and mobility in the shoulder girdle.

[Silverwitch]

Okay, probably I really do need one of those things at home. Kettlebells.

 

Welcome, and good luck with your goals (not only the fitness ones)!

[xoek]

thanks