Dicovering your inner strength

1. Discovering new challenges

If you think you are weak and considering giving up on yourself, I must tell you that would be a mistake on your part. Trust me, I have gone through my pains, my struggles, my defeats, my misery, and my pain, and will continue to go through that every day as I go through my weight loss journey. I let my excuses and weaknesses get in the way of my goal. But one day, I looked in the mirror and told myself, “No more excuses.” It was time to really work. Put in work, do the work, and stop complaining about the work. And damn it was when I rediscovered my inner strength underneath my weak spirit. My spirit grew stronger. Now, I am not finished with my journey by a long shot. I will always be working progress just like every person on this earth. But, finding my inner strength has been the best thing for me, and I can’t tell you how much better I feel about myself. The steps I take.

1. Accepting new challenges.

2. Physically challenging myself

3. Mentally challenging myself

4. Never accepting defeat

5. Removing toxic energy.

There will be a thousand more steps you can take for your journey of inner strength, but for me, those are some of the few steps I take, and there will be more to come. You will grow, and you will learn, and you will endure to build a new you. During the height of the pandemic, I grew scared of the world. I was letting my anxiety defeat me every day. Missing out on great moments and feeling sorry for myself and just eating fast food every day. I’m sitting on my butt watching youtube clips and playing Madden all day. I was wasting away, and here was the real sad part. I had a gym membership and was doing nothing with it. One day, I talked to one of my best friends, who was helping his mom while battling throat cancer. But she kept fighting, not letting her cancer be an excuse, and we had a heart to heart talk, and she told me, “I am very concerned about your health, Devin.” She was talking to me like a concerned mom. And of course I gave her the old classic “I’ll work on it”. She looked me dead in the eyes, held my hand, and said, “No, you won’t.” It broke me because deep down, I knew she was right.

Something in my said to me, “This is your last chance,” and I kept listening to her in my mind with those words, “No, you won’t.” And kept hearing it over and over, and honestly, I got sick of it. I think she knew those words would drive me to do something, and thank goddness, she said those words. The first thing was to help with my mental health, so I seeked therapy. It was a major help. Then, I decided to use my gym membership and push myself to limit that I never thought I could reach. I wanted more; I wanted to keep pushing challenges, pushing for more, and more. I was done with fast food. I began hating my couch, lol. I just wanted to see what limits can go past.

1. 3:30 am 1 hr yoga session

2. 2 hour work out session at gym

3. Finding new challenges

4. Meditation

5. Work on new projects

6. Strict diet plan

7. Do it all over again.

8. Never give up on the goals

9. Endure punsishment and defeats

10. Learn from that punishment and defeats

A little sweat never hurt nobody, and a deafeat doesn’t mean you have to stay defeated. The struggles and losses were massive, but I wanted that, not for the excuses to give, but I wanted to learn. I didn’t mind embarrassing myself at the gym. I wanted to come back to prove myself, “I can f***ing do this.” Everyday, I told myself that and still do. I guess the reason why I am sharing this is because there are people out there going through the same struggles that I am going through, and I want to tell you and all of you. YOU CAN F***ING DO IT!!! All you have to is just get up and try.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and if you have experience, please share your story, give helping tips, or just give a motivation speech. Anything for positive energy helps. But in the meantime, thank you and have a good day. Peace.

The battle with covid weight

If you are struggling to beat the covid weight you put on, I have a news flash for you, if you are putting in the work you are winning already. The reason why I say that is if you are putting in the time, the work, and the effort with a clear focused mind you will be this weight. Before covid hit I was 240 lbs, lean with decent health only issues was my asthma. Then covid hit but that didn’t stop me from training. I just used a mask and fought through it. Then my gym closed for a couple of months. I used covid as an excuse not to work out. After that I blew up to my highest weight of my life. A womping 335 lbs. Sitting on the couch, playing madden eating Mcdonalds almost everyday along with Popeyes and etc.

I was destroying myself everday and night just sitting, being lazy, not working on my writing, letting my mind and brain rot away, wasting away time and effort that I could be doing something useful for my body. But I let covid get the best of me. I used that excuse every day just to avoid jogging outside. I became a complete embarrasment, I was very hard on myself but I continued to be weak. I would look at myself in the mirror and not even reconize myself. I couldnt believe after all the hard work I put in to get in decent shape I destroyed it all.

Then one day it just hit me. Covid was not my enemy, I was my worst enemy and I had to re-learn everything again that helped me get back into shape. I had to ask myself everytime when I drove past popeyes or mcdonalds “Do I need this?” And before I let the excuses come in and convince me that I did need the fast food fixing, I would answer “No”. Eneough was enough and I wanted to win this war. I went back yoga, weight training, and every workout I can possibly find without a gym being open. No more excuses.

I decided not to be hard on myself anymore because beating myself was not helping me at all. I also followed the great words of Master P aka Percy Miller. He once said “I dont take losses, I take lessons” and thats the way I look at this period in my life. Now I wont be showing any before and after pics of myself since I am not much of the selfie type. But take my word for it. I am now down to 295 lbs, feeling alot better physically and mentally. Being strict with my diet. Now if you are going through the same stuggles as I did, let me tell you if I can get up and do it, you can too. It’s not easy, its not fast and it will be a challenge but you can do it. Do not beat yourself up about the gain, focus on what you can do. Visualize what you can look like after all the hard work and effort. My journey is not done and it wont be for a very long time. Now the time limit you give yourself is up to you of course. But just be sure not to kill yourself trying to beat the covid weight gain. I hope your journey is a success and hope for the best for you and if you need words of encouragement I am in your corner. Good luck on the journey and be well.

My experience after taking the Pfizer vaccine.

So last weekend the misses and I were scheduled to get our 2nd dosage and it was quick and easy but of course we had to wait 30 minutes but after that everything was all good. It was a nice sunny day, around 90 degrees and my mother was nice enough to babysit our 2 year old. We decided it would be a nice evening to enjoy some margarita’s.

Of course before all of that a couple of buddies of mine at the gym warned me that I would suffer some symptoms. But my hard headed self was like “naw im good”. But they looked at me sideways and decided to make bets on my illness. Sure enough the next morning after installing my ac units in my house and get everything finished so I can have a nice relaxing evening and enjoy some NHL playoffs in peace. To my not suprised I was feeling quite well, so well I cocky and decided to take the misses out for some brunch before picking the kiddo up.

Here comes the pain. During our brunch before we got our food, suddenly my wife started getting the chills, she was complaining about being very achy and she told me “its from the shot”. My hard head didnt want to believe her because I was feeling good still. After our breakfast we pick up our daughter and go back home and she is out of it. She had a high fever, she was cold then hot, then cold then hot all day. I had my daughter with me for a while and I let her watch her dinosaurs then all of the sudden I start to feel it. First thing I thought was “the guys at the gym are going to laugh about this”. My body was aching like crazy. I came down with a fever and couldnt eat anything and this thing lingered on me for two days straight while my wife only had it for a day. Missed the playoff games because I slept through the games. I was just happy my wife recovered. With the lack of energy I wasnt really able to help much.

Now I know some of yall arent believers in the vaccanation or covid and thats fine believe what you want i am not here to convince you. But i would warn people to be aware that your body will go though these symptons and if you dont, congratulations you are an X-men. But on the serious note please prepare yourself better than we did. If you have young kids, plan on having a sitter or somebody to watch over them while you are out of it. Treat this like you would treat the flu. Get plenty of rest, drink your fluids and prepare to bing watch one of your favorite shows or movies.

Overall i am happy to get it over with and do my part so we can get everything back to normal. Now back in the gym not having to wear a mask and go to stores without wearing a mask but of course I can feel the eyes and judgment on me now but life goes on. I hope my experience helps you in going through this process. I am not going to pass judgment on you if you dont get vaccinated thats your choice. I hope everybody stays safe and enjoys their days. Be well my friends.

Maskless Karen….

Just the other while i was standing in line i witnessed the wrath of a maskless Karen. Now i am not here to lecture people on wearing masks. “Do you” is usually my attitude towards peoples beliefs. Anyway while at the store with my 2 year old we finally got my 2 year old to wear her little dinosaur mask only because she thinks she is a dinosaur with it on. While getting groceries we noticed a woman in a heated debate with another woman about masks. The woman of the topic decided to leceture everybody about how stupid we were for not wearing a mask. She also wanted everybody to know how she suffered from anxiety and other symptons.

Then she pointed her attention to me with my daugher and i was like “lord here we go”. She decided to tell me how i was abusing my daughter and wanted to tell me about her symptons. At first i wanted to ignore her until she wanted to come near my daughter trying to take of my mask. To me thats crossing the line and i stepped in the way. I wish had my phone on me to record this situation but i have a bad habit of not carrying my phone. So then we get into it and i tell her. “Look heres the thing about me i am over 300 lbs whos a suffers from asthma and has anxiety. I have suffered from these symptons since i was a kid but i also workout everyday, jog and weightlift with a mask on”. She looked dumbfounded and shocked and then moved on.

So this is my warning to you maskless karens who want to push their beliefs on me, the best suggestion is just plain “dont do it. Because i am not on your side when it comes to this. I train everyday and sometimes have my panic attacks but i stop, focus on my breathing and take a couple of minutes to gain my composure. And then take a hit off my inhaler and take another moment then go back to my workout because i am staying commited to losing this weight, not letting covid defeat me again and not letting these symptons defeat. So please, maskless karens do not ever preach to me about your issues because we are not teamates and leave people alone and never cross the line of ever approaching another persons child because not everybody has the patience i have.

Working myself back up.

For the past couple of weeks everything has been opening back up and trust me we are very happy about this. For the past year we have been going through just like everybody else. But now we are enjoying our time again. Just to be able go to restaruant again is simply amazing. Trust me all these little things i am not taking for granted. But also my mind is trying to catch up to the times now. I am still working on what you and cant do now. Trust me i am not an “anti-masker” but have ran into a couple of them since being back out. The world is very differnt and trying to adjust to it is a little harder then you think. I use to be able to just walk in peace and mind my business but now there is always that one person who just has to stop you and comments about you wearing a mask. Or somebody jusy losing their mind over the little things. Its crazy to me but i still take the time and tell myself “the world is not the same”. So now its up to me to adjust to this new crazy world we are living in now. And its a working process like everything else. It should be fun….

There is nothing weak about apoligizing.

I will be the first to admit i am a very stubborn person, from a scale to 1 and 10 i rate myself at a 10. I am set in my ways like a lot of people our but for me it takes me a certain ammount of time to realize that i am wrong. The one thing that i hate to admit. But when i start to think and process everything from a arument or a dissagrement and think to myslef and then realize that i was wrong. From fact checking or just to realize that maybe my argument didnt lead up to what i was hoping. Over the years as i studied, read and just listen to others i found myself admitting when i was wrong made me a stonger person. Admitting your wrongs does not make you a weak person it makes you a more understanding person. I am a working progress just like everybody else with his faults and thats okay. What is not okay for me is let my stubborness get the best of me. I continue to focus on my mental health and enjoy new studies and new methods of challenging myself in my way thinking. Finding being wrong is not always a bad thing but not taking ownership and letting your stubborness get the best is the problem. We all have our time periods of coming to the conclusion of this but at the end as long as as you see when you are in the wrong and can admit that helps you in the long run imo.

Toxic Surroundings

Sometimes being surrounded by toxic people, toxic surroundings could help you build a stronger mental health. Being battle tested, more experience on how to deal with a toxic enviorment. We all have been there and we know a lot about it. Knowing the best way to get out of it and cleanse yourself. Now its never a quick fix, it takes time. Sometimes you have that really good friend who always puts you down for wanting to try new things and eventually you learn that their toxic negativity is effecting your friendship with them, its tough trust me i am going through it and it sucks but i also progress and work through it. I have worked through a lot over the years and the work will continue. As for the toxic surroundings just remember you always have a choice. Stay around it and or steer away from it. And also remember it takes work. If you feel that your enviroment has been taken over by negativity and its effecting your mental health. Take the time and think it over and work on yourself instead of falling into the trap. There is so many ways of doing it. Find new hobbies, find new challenges for yourself. If you have new ideas, go for them. Keep yourslelf busy and then you will find yourself having less time for the toxic surroundings and toxic friends.

Checking in

A couple of words can go along way, especially for somebody that is having a hard time during this pandemic. A friendly “whats up” or “how have you been”? You never know what a person is going through. So just a reminder check in on friends and family and remind them that you are thinking of them. There is a lot of lonely people out there who needs that right now. And as for the people reading this i just want to let you know, even though i may not know you, this is me checking in on you to see, how are you doing?

Just a reminder

I wanted to make the time to remind you, there is still some postive to this world. Trust me this time has been very hard on our family but we still do our best to find the positives. A lot has happen to us during the course of the year but we do not give up and I hope you do the same. Talk to somebody, find friends, keep up with friends, talk to friends and be a friend. Don’t let this difficult time defeat your Mental health.