I’ve finished my half cup of coffee for the day and I can’t say that I am happy about it. And while my thoughts trickle down to other things much like the constant drip of the decanter, I am reminded that 6 ounces of coffee a day is much better than the 100 or so I was drinking daily a month ago. Nevertheless, the aroma of a fresh pot of coffee is all that lingers now, and that, I find, is just simply hard to swallow.
In my youth, I was bulletproof. I imagine all of us felt a certain sense of immortality in our endeavors during our younger years. It wasn’t until college and shortly thereafter, that I began to understand that my body was not impenetrable and certain activities could lead to pain lasting a couple days to a week. At first, I shied away from the activities I felt I had outgrown; no more tackle football in the park without pads, no more bottle rocket wars, no more jumping off roofs, playing bloody knuckles, skateboarding, etc. I gravitated toward more respectable pursuits, less physical exertion allowing my childhood to vanish like the last beam of daylight before darkness. And when at last the sun rose, I was 30-something staring at the wasteland of my youth and the skyline of my future with a couple extra pounds and some very bad habits.
I think all of us face a reckoning at some point in our lives, be it physical, as was mine, or mental, in the case of the individual going back to school in their 30’s or 40’s. It is a point in time where we see ourselves for who we are and finally decide to make a dramatic change.
When I looked in the mirror on October 4, 2007, I knew I had to change. My inspiration for change was my 3 month old daughter and my bad habits included heavy tobacco use, physical inactivity, poor food choices, and massive coffee consumption. You know, all the things that make life’s journey a little more rewarding, a little more fun…that is…until they kill you. Looking back, it was a moment devoid of consciousness, yet I knew what had to be done…I had to become a kid again and it had to start immediately.
Step 1: Quit using Tobacco
I smoked my last cigarette sometime after 5pm on Thursday, October 4, 2007. It is a date I will never forget and one that is still important for me to remember. For those of you who have never been addicted to tobacco in any form, let me explain the difficulties in quitting. Nicotine rules your entire life. She speaks to you first thing in the morning and last thing at night. She reminds you of your relationship after meals, in tense painful moments, and in occasions of sheer joy. She becomes a welcome confidant, following you everywhere you go, constantly reminding you to pack her a bag, as you huff and puff your way to addiction and disease.
And then you quit. You quit because you decide continuing your relationship with nicotine is no longer good for you, because you know the effects of nicotine on your body, and you no longer wish her to control your mind and spirit. But nicotine has other plans. Much like a thwarted love interest, nicotine does not just go gently into that good night. Nope, she didn’t for me. Nicotine boiled my bunny in a fit of rage. She called hourly for the first month, daily for the first year, and occasionally rings me up to this day just to remind me of what I am missing.
But regardless of the spell she had on me, I quit, and in doing so, began the process of regaining my childhood that began on that early October day in 2007.
Step 2: Get up off the Couch
I gave myself six months after nicotine cessation to get fat, and I did. I gained 20 pounds pretty quick. My metabolism, without nicotine, slowed to a crawl and I ate like a starved baboon in a field of blind antelope. In a way, I ate to replace the loss of smoking and to calm my inner anxieties, but mostly because I was unbelievably hungry. I allowed over eating and physical inactivity a pass because I wasn’t smoking. Yet while justifications are wonderfully employed at strategic moments in our lives to deflect from our obvious flaws, I knew that getting fat wasn’t the answer, and I had to get up off the couch and push myself away from the table.
My first workout was an utter embarrassment to my over eager sense of pride. I did 20 sit-ups and wanted to throw up. I did 20 push ups and got a head ache. My body, whom I had allowed to live like a frat kid on an all night bender, was tapping out after 40 reps. Wuss. Needless to say, I was going to have to work at this if I was going to get into some sort of shape. So I did. I built the home gym 3000 behind the garage, was given a weight bench and weights for inside the garage, and began to prioritize working out into my daily agenda. And little by little, I began to recognize myself in the mirror. Little by little, my body began to change, and that was an awesome feeling.
Now that I was exercising again, I was back in the game, working out in my garage like I did when I was a kid, singing songs at the top of my lungs and feeling a kinship with Rocky Balboa when the weather turned cold. I was closer to my goal of rekindling my childhood but still not all the way there.
Step 3: Start Eating Whole Foods
In our society, it is easy to grow accustom to processed foods because they are prepared quickly and taste great. I know I had. I hated the idea of whole grains and fruit because white bread tasted better and fruit was expensive. My wife, who comes from a whole foods perspective kept implying the notion that if I ate better, I would feel better. And wouldn’t you know it, she was right.
I started implementing fresh berries and yogurt into my diet and it quickly replaced ice cream. Next, I gave up enriched flour for the most part for whole grain wheat bread and that heavy feeling after eating went away. For awhile I avoided sugar and junk food but kids got to have a little junk food now and again so I indulge at times. The moral of the story is simple for me…eat like you ate when you were a kid and had a mother who saw to it that you maintained a balanced diet full of whole foods.
Step 4: Give up the Coffee
Step four has been the hardest thing for me to quit since I gave up nicotine. It doesn’t help that I had allowed myself to drink coffee all day every day regardless of the season. Coffee for most people is a morning drink and one that is acceptable in most settings. For me, coffee was nicotine replacement therapy and because of that, I was consuming gallons of it each week. And then the light in my bald head came on; kids don’t drink coffee, so why do I?
Well it wasn’t as easy as that but the theory is sound. Coffee is an adult’s drink just like cigarettes are an adult’s habit and food options are at the discretion of an adult. It seems, as parents, we protect our children from everything unhealthy, yet we carry on the bad habits we’d hope them to avoid. Some of us (ME) worse than others.
The reckoning I experienced on that fall day, in light of my little girl, was in part, Divine. Regardless of the habits I had developed, I wasn’t living with a child’s enthusiasm for anything and hadn’t for a long time. My routine had caste a rut a mile long and a fathom deep of which I was unable to traverse attached to the couch in front of the TV. So I changed and in my change, I experienced life again from a child’s perspective. I jumped on a trampoline, played basketball, rolled down a hill, rode a scooter, lifted weights, sang out loud, hunted for Easter eggs, laughed uncontrollably, made up songs, played with my dog, and loosened up. I explored the landscape like I had when I was 12, my brother at my side, and an empty field unrolled at our feet. It was my time to grow down in order to continue to grow up…and so I did. And so it goes even today.
I may never do another back flip, bike stunt, or roof jump, but I will not yield when it comes to chasing the passions of my youth. I may have replaced the habits of adulthood with the pursuits of childhood, but I am healthier for it. I surmise we all could learn from our childhood if we just stopped for a moment and listened to our inner child beating against our grown-up exteriors in a futile attempt to come out and play. I let mine out, care to join me? Just a thought!
In my youth, I was bulletproof. I imagine all of us felt a certain sense of immortality in our endeavors during our younger years. It wasn’t until college and shortly thereafter, that I began to understand that my body was not impenetrable and certain activities could lead to pain lasting a couple days to a week. At first, I shied away from the activities I felt I had outgrown; no more tackle football in the park without pads, no more bottle rocket wars, no more jumping off roofs, playing bloody knuckles, skateboarding, etc. I gravitated toward more respectable pursuits, less physical exertion allowing my childhood to vanish like the last beam of daylight before darkness. And when at last the sun rose, I was 30-something staring at the wasteland of my youth and the skyline of my future with a couple extra pounds and some very bad habits.
I think all of us face a reckoning at some point in our lives, be it physical, as was mine, or mental, in the case of the individual going back to school in their 30’s or 40’s. It is a point in time where we see ourselves for who we are and finally decide to make a dramatic change.
When I looked in the mirror on October 4, 2007, I knew I had to change. My inspiration for change was my 3 month old daughter and my bad habits included heavy tobacco use, physical inactivity, poor food choices, and massive coffee consumption. You know, all the things that make life’s journey a little more rewarding, a little more fun…that is…until they kill you. Looking back, it was a moment devoid of consciousness, yet I knew what had to be done…I had to become a kid again and it had to start immediately.
Step 1: Quit using Tobacco
I smoked my last cigarette sometime after 5pm on Thursday, October 4, 2007. It is a date I will never forget and one that is still important for me to remember. For those of you who have never been addicted to tobacco in any form, let me explain the difficulties in quitting. Nicotine rules your entire life. She speaks to you first thing in the morning and last thing at night. She reminds you of your relationship after meals, in tense painful moments, and in occasions of sheer joy. She becomes a welcome confidant, following you everywhere you go, constantly reminding you to pack her a bag, as you huff and puff your way to addiction and disease.
And then you quit. You quit because you decide continuing your relationship with nicotine is no longer good for you, because you know the effects of nicotine on your body, and you no longer wish her to control your mind and spirit. But nicotine has other plans. Much like a thwarted love interest, nicotine does not just go gently into that good night. Nope, she didn’t for me. Nicotine boiled my bunny in a fit of rage. She called hourly for the first month, daily for the first year, and occasionally rings me up to this day just to remind me of what I am missing.
But regardless of the spell she had on me, I quit, and in doing so, began the process of regaining my childhood that began on that early October day in 2007.
Step 2: Get up off the Couch
I gave myself six months after nicotine cessation to get fat, and I did. I gained 20 pounds pretty quick. My metabolism, without nicotine, slowed to a crawl and I ate like a starved baboon in a field of blind antelope. In a way, I ate to replace the loss of smoking and to calm my inner anxieties, but mostly because I was unbelievably hungry. I allowed over eating and physical inactivity a pass because I wasn’t smoking. Yet while justifications are wonderfully employed at strategic moments in our lives to deflect from our obvious flaws, I knew that getting fat wasn’t the answer, and I had to get up off the couch and push myself away from the table.
My first workout was an utter embarrassment to my over eager sense of pride. I did 20 sit-ups and wanted to throw up. I did 20 push ups and got a head ache. My body, whom I had allowed to live like a frat kid on an all night bender, was tapping out after 40 reps. Wuss. Needless to say, I was going to have to work at this if I was going to get into some sort of shape. So I did. I built the home gym 3000 behind the garage, was given a weight bench and weights for inside the garage, and began to prioritize working out into my daily agenda. And little by little, I began to recognize myself in the mirror. Little by little, my body began to change, and that was an awesome feeling.
Now that I was exercising again, I was back in the game, working out in my garage like I did when I was a kid, singing songs at the top of my lungs and feeling a kinship with Rocky Balboa when the weather turned cold. I was closer to my goal of rekindling my childhood but still not all the way there.
Step 3: Start Eating Whole Foods
In our society, it is easy to grow accustom to processed foods because they are prepared quickly and taste great. I know I had. I hated the idea of whole grains and fruit because white bread tasted better and fruit was expensive. My wife, who comes from a whole foods perspective kept implying the notion that if I ate better, I would feel better. And wouldn’t you know it, she was right.
I started implementing fresh berries and yogurt into my diet and it quickly replaced ice cream. Next, I gave up enriched flour for the most part for whole grain wheat bread and that heavy feeling after eating went away. For awhile I avoided sugar and junk food but kids got to have a little junk food now and again so I indulge at times. The moral of the story is simple for me…eat like you ate when you were a kid and had a mother who saw to it that you maintained a balanced diet full of whole foods.
Step 4: Give up the Coffee
Step four has been the hardest thing for me to quit since I gave up nicotine. It doesn’t help that I had allowed myself to drink coffee all day every day regardless of the season. Coffee for most people is a morning drink and one that is acceptable in most settings. For me, coffee was nicotine replacement therapy and because of that, I was consuming gallons of it each week. And then the light in my bald head came on; kids don’t drink coffee, so why do I?
Well it wasn’t as easy as that but the theory is sound. Coffee is an adult’s drink just like cigarettes are an adult’s habit and food options are at the discretion of an adult. It seems, as parents, we protect our children from everything unhealthy, yet we carry on the bad habits we’d hope them to avoid. Some of us (ME) worse than others.
The reckoning I experienced on that fall day, in light of my little girl, was in part, Divine. Regardless of the habits I had developed, I wasn’t living with a child’s enthusiasm for anything and hadn’t for a long time. My routine had caste a rut a mile long and a fathom deep of which I was unable to traverse attached to the couch in front of the TV. So I changed and in my change, I experienced life again from a child’s perspective. I jumped on a trampoline, played basketball, rolled down a hill, rode a scooter, lifted weights, sang out loud, hunted for Easter eggs, laughed uncontrollably, made up songs, played with my dog, and loosened up. I explored the landscape like I had when I was 12, my brother at my side, and an empty field unrolled at our feet. It was my time to grow down in order to continue to grow up…and so I did. And so it goes even today.
I may never do another back flip, bike stunt, or roof jump, but I will not yield when it comes to chasing the passions of my youth. I may have replaced the habits of adulthood with the pursuits of childhood, but I am healthier for it. I surmise we all could learn from our childhood if we just stopped for a moment and listened to our inner child beating against our grown-up exteriors in a futile attempt to come out and play. I let mine out, care to join me? Just a thought!
