To give context, I’m a 28 year old guy - 5’9” 175 lbs. I played football in middle school and soccer all through high school. Up until I turned 20, I was the scrawny kid at about 150 lbs that was very fast and athletic. Once I graduated high school, things were pretty smooth sailing until I finished community college. I put on about 20 lbs, and while I still didn’t look bad, I did realize that I had better stay on top of things to make sure I didn’t lose myself health-wise. My family has a pretty bad history of obesity and lack of discipline when it comes to physical health, and I refused to let that happen to me.
Having said that, when I moved to 4-year university to complete my bachelor’s degree, I met a couple of guys in a class that invited me to come work out with them. They obviously looked the part, pretty built and all of that, so I was like, “sure why not”. I needed friends in this new environment anyway, and I wasn’t dating at the time so I had nothing to lose. It was a slow start, but long story short, I ended up getting SUPER into lifting. My weight stayed at about 170 lbs, but my physique was as good as it had ever been. I can 100% say this was the most confident I had ever been.
Time went on, and about a year after I started working out with these guys, I had moved off campus to complete my final year of my bachelor’s. I still worked out at the time, but didn’t put in as much time as I had before. I lived pretty far off campus, and had started dating who is now my wife. Then COVID, and things obviously went awry, lol. I got up to 185 lbs of weight that wasn’t good, and I knew I needed to make a change. In the spare time I had, I’d try to make a disciples out of getting back into the gym and not eating near as heavy as I did before.
Time went on, got married in ‘22, had a kid in ‘23, and now I’m trying to balance family, work, ministry involvement at my local church, and everything else that comes along with adulthood. My current state is that at 175 lbs, the weight isn’t the problem. I just want to get back to that feeling of feeling as physically confident in myself as I was back in college. The thing is, I know the things to do, but it’s just finding the motivation to rebuild those disciplines again. I know my wife shows affection and finds me attractive still, but I just KNOW things could be better for my confidence and her attraction to me to see those disciplines again.
Anyone faced something similar? Any advice out there to get back to the grind?