{"id":1991,"date":"2015-12-28T18:15:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T16:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2016-09-17T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T07:25:08","slug":"my-fitness-journey-the-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=1991","title":{"rendered":"My Fitness Journey &#8211; The backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So here it begins, my fitness journey.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a journey that I started many times before. I would make some progress, and then inevitably all of the good work that I had managed to accomplish would slide back over time. And resigned to my fate (as it were), I would\u00a0console myself by saying that &#8220;at least I wasn&#8217;t the fattest person I knew.&#8221; What a strange way to feel good about my body, by\u00a0use other&#8217;s external validation.<\/p>\n<p>Now I should say that I haven&#8217;t done a bad job considering everything.\u00a0No one remembers back in 2000 when I was 150kg (330 lbs) and hiding it kinda well due to my tall frame. Then I decided to make some drastic changes in my life, and managed to get down to 100 kg (220 lbs). I looked and felt great! I had made changes to my life. It was really in my mind all about will power and wanting to feel good inside and outside.<\/p>\n<p>Then somewhere I lost my way. Eventually 100kg gave way to 110kg (&#8220;still look okay, so no worries&#8221; was my thinking). Then 110kg gave way to 120kg (&#8220;tall frame will hide it&#8221; was my thinking). Then 120kg gave way to 130kg (&#8220;I&#8217;m not the fattest person I know, and I am still in reasonable shape. I hiked Mount Kilimanjaro and made it the summit! How bad can I really be?&#8221; I thought). And then 130kg gave way to 135kg. And then something funny happened&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This Christmas (2015) I was sitting in my sister&#8217;s house on the sofa.\u00a0The kids (several of them) were sitting on one end of the sofa, and my aunt was sitting on the other end. And when I went to sit down next to her, I weighed so much compared to her that she shifted towards me in the center. We spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure how\u00a0we both could sit on the couch comfortably at the same time. We figured it out, but in my mind, there was a\u00a0very simple answer: lose weight.<\/p>\n<p>See, the signs had been there for a few months already. I managed to rip two pairs of jeans, and none of the other 5 pairs I have in my closet fit anymore. There was an increasing amount of shirts hanging in my wardrobe which no longer fit comfortably. Furthermore,\u00a0the &#8220;unobtainable&#8221; shelf &#8211; those outfits which I am dying to wearing again one day &#8211; is already at capacity. I looked in my wardrobe when I came back from Christmas celebrations and thought &#8220;something has to give.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So faced with all of this evidence that I could either keep expanding, or do something about it, I decided that I need to do something about it. I have to decide what &#8220;it&#8221; means really, and in future posts, you&#8217;ll get to understand that &#8220;it means to me.&#8221; I invite you to follow along my fitness journey.\u00a0It&#8217;s really for me, but if others\u00a0can take benefit from this, then I am happy to share my story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So here it begins, my fitness journey. It&#8217;s a journey that I started many times before. I would make some progress, and then inevitably all of the good work that I had managed to accomplish would slide back over time. And resigned to my fate (as it were), I would\u00a0console myself by saying that &#8220;at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=1991\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">My Fitness Journey &#8211; The backstory<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}