CoachFit
Can you be a coach and be fit, really fit? Yes, of course, you can, but it is hard work and you must prioritize yourself. The gym owner is fit. He does not carry body fat. He looks the part. I did. Circa 2017. That was before, I became a coach! Here is what happened to me. I stretched myself too thin. I added Coaching to a busy life. I took nothing away. I replaced my training sessions with coaching people. My workouts became rushed affairs. There was a day I spent 12 hours in the gym and did not even work out. Maybe I could have managed 10 minutes of something, but I remember being freezing, and hungry, and it didn’t happen. It is not like I have not been working out all this time. I did not stop working out, daily. But, there is working out and there is training with a purpose. I’ve been exercising not in the way I’ve wanted. In addition, running from one job to the next, has resulted in a scattered nutrition pattern. It is no longer acceptable to me. Also, over the last 5 years I slowly lost my right arm to OA, my range is to shoulder height. I cannot get a bar overhead or my arm around my back. I wear the most oversized shirts and coats I can find because I can easily get them on. It’s impacted my love of training. It’s made me self conscious as a surgeon told me “your really rounded". I have to fight feeling like the hunchback of Notre Dame. I can do just one strict chin-up now, down from 10, but 1 is still better than none. It took me 3 years to get a pull-up, so I am fighting to keep that. Pull-ups will get easier if I drop the 10 lbs gained from this experience. A lot of things will be easier if I am lighter. Lastly, at the same time as I was putting my training on the back burner, menopause hit. I could get away unscathed somehow, a clear case of denial. I’m seeing an orthopedic surgeon next week for a second opinion. I can’t imagine he’ll have much to say other than to keep as much range as you can for as long as you can and learn to live with it. The saving grace is I am not in pain. Tomorrow is a long day in the gym, but I am bound and determined to eat well and work out in the mix.