About three years ago, I had a terrible pain in my lower back radiating deep within my right gluteal muscle that traveled all through my leg clear down to my ankle. It was so bad I couldn’t sit, stand, or even find any comfortable position to lay in. I couldn’t escape the maddening pain from an inflamed sciatic nerve, the result of bulging L4-L5 discs.
I spent two weeks in bed numbed on pain pills, missed 3 months of work, and the pain lingered for years affecting everything from work to the very person I was. I wasn’t choosing to cope in a manner that would spring forward the best version of myself.
I didn’t enter the 6-week Challenge and now I’m here to testify how you too can get your life back by following suit. In actuality, I entered the Challenge with some momentum on my side.
In the process of getting here, I’ve improved in the manner I face the hurdles I’ve had to deal with from time to time. Though we may tend to shy away from the hard stuff, I believe, we’ll always reveal the better version of ourselves when we finally chose to face it, (whatever it may be), head on.
Everyone has their own unique journey. For me, I had to find the right doctor, begin to sincerely clean up my diet, and I started to follow through once I found ways to see myself in a clearer, more positive light. Which meant changing my attitude, my worldly point of view towards anything…everything.
In February of this year, I weighed in at 281lbs. I had already participated in a few Muay Thai classes, was going to the gym to lift weights, I attended the occasional Hot Yoga class (which is better than any pain pill for back pain), and made some corrections on my diet, (mostly focusing on nutrient intake rather than consuming food based on what tasted “good”).
I entered the 6-Week Challenge after Dave came up to me and congratulated me on my progress (at this point I had lost approximately 45lbs over a period of five months). I was proud of my accomplishment up to that point, proud that I had begun to dig myself out of the pit I had gotten myself into.
Dave approached me at the point I started to get bored with the gym. It was a synchronous event when the Challenge came around. I was motivated, but I was still gripped with hesitancy. I had lingering injuries. The most pressing issue, at the start of the contest, was the large meniscus tear in my left knee. After talking it over with Dave, he assured me we could take on the challenge with work-arounds and modifications to the program whenever necessary.
The greatest resistance would come from me, (as it always seems to be), to check my ego at the door and speak up whenever any movement became painful or felt anything out of the ordinary. In essence, I would be learning to listen more closely to what my body was telling me, and speak up about it, checking the “Bro Mentality” at the door.
There is a way to push past your limits and still be safe so that you live to “Crush It!” another way.
At that I did. 30lbs lost in 6 weeks!
It wasn’t easy. Nothing worth accomplishing is. Yeah, that old cliché. But living in the moment, experiencing what it means to grit your teeth, push, grind, embrace the lactate acid coursing through your muscles when all you want to do is stop to breath easy, but you don’t ‘cuz you hear Hamid say, “Let’s go Champ!” or you hear Dave, “Now is when it counts!”
So you don’t quit, and neither do your fellow “Crushers” grunting and pushing through themselves and you soldier on together ‘till the buzzer rings. You get through to the end (more often than not on your back), in a puddle of your own sweat…that’s some powerful shit.
A beautiful Nirvana.