Do you know that losing weight and getting healthy consistently rank as the number 1 New Year’s resolutions each year?
Do you know that new gym memberships soar in December and January?
Do you know that there are over 200,000 health clubs in the world (not including boutique studios, community recreation centers, and hotel fitness centers) with over 162 million members and that the 2018 fitness industry revenue is estimated to hit $87.5 billion?
Do you know that by February, the gyms are never crowded?
Do you know that because you have heard it, or from personal experience?
So, what are your health goals?
“So, what are your health goals?” Four different personal trainers (three of them young enough to be my children) asked me this question over the past two years.
Having spent the previous decade neglecting my health through poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle, I was unfamiliar with the gym/fitness/health club culture.
When the “tomorrow” that I had been talking about for five years finally arrived and I joined one of these fitness clubs, I discovered that most people have different goals than I do. Looking good, building muscle mass, increasing endurance … these all seemed to be the top choices. In fact, when the trainers asked me my goals, they offered those as a multiple choice selection (with “all of the above” as one of the choices).
I chose “other.”
Here were the goals I listed:
- I want to be 55-plus-year-old man healthy.
- I want to be able to take care of my wife, who has a permanent disability and gets around via wheelchair.
- I want to be around to watch my grandchildren grow up.
The part of the story I didn’t tell is that between my first day at the club and my first interview with the first trainer, I had attention-getting evidence of the consequences of my lifestyle. Over 90% blockage in the Left Anterior Descending artery (affectionately known as the “widow-maker”) resulted in the placement of two stents on November 10, 2016.
By the grace of God, that blockage was not discovered as the result of a heart attack (or in an autopsy).
Now, you can see why I answered the trainers’ question the way I did.
Previous Success and Failure
In 2001, in an attempt to lower marginally high cholesterol (and because I really didn’t like the way I looked) I lost 50 pounds. I kept it off for seven years until I moved to my current job that involves a lot more travel and meal meetings.
Unfortunately, my previous weight loss was addressed only by eating habits. Exercise has always been sporadic at best.
Between the ages of 40 (2001) and 55 (2016), I made a discovery: vanity is an inferior motivator. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I wanted people to look at me and say, “That guy looks good!”
Vanity is an inferior motivator for healthy living. Click To Tweet
Here’s what I wonder: how many of you reading this can identify with my story? The details may be different, but the struggle is the same. You’ve tried this and that. You have had yo-yo weight and have traded health for work.
As we enter a new year, I’m asking you to remember that your life matters to God. What choices do you need to make that will enable you to be your best you in 2019?
In my next post, I’m going to talk about the secret sauce that got me on a healthy trajectory.
Until then, be amazing, my friends.
