You Can’t Eat Love

Stars aren’t just for kindergarteners

Or how to trick yourself into building new habits

Have you ever set a goal for yourself? A goal of something you want to accomplish 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦? It 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 is not going to change your life, but 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 change your life. One of those kinds of goals?

Well, back in July 2020, when it became really obvious this whole, ‘we will be back to normal in just a couple of weeks’ thing was not going to happen, 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘢𝘭𝘴.

𝙊𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝟭𝟳𝟱𝙡𝙗𝙨.

Now, I can hear you asking “why in the heck would you pick 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 as a goal”? Well, I really don’t have a good answer. The best answer I can give is I wanted to challenge myself to see if I really could lift that much weight. If you were to put goals into buckets of ‘life advancing’ and ‘vanity’ I guess you could say it would fall into the ‘vanity’ bucket. (You have any of those kinds of goals?)

I told Jackie (the most amazing trainer in the whole wide world) this was what I wanted to do, so we got to work. The heaviest I had lifted (and with a lot of struggle) before this crazy decision was 130. I could struggle 150, but it was just that, a 𝗛𝗨𝗚𝗘 struggle and 𝘯𝘰𝘵 very pretty at all.

I wanted to get to 175 by my birthday. Well, I blew past that and 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 185 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺. I still remember how excited I was! Jackie was pretty excited too. We jumped around, shouting and high-fiving. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻, after savoring the moment, for a moment, I said, I want to aim for 210lbs.

Me deadlifting 185lbs

Why 210? Like so many answers to so many random questions in my life

— “𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵?”

I must confess, I shared that goal with my youngest son and he challenged me to aim for 225lbs. I thought about it for a moment, and said “Why not?”

Well, for the past several months, I have been stuck at 210. 𝒥𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝓈𝓉𝓊𝒸𝓀.

I changed up some of my workouts on the other days, focused on being able to move heavier weights and…