From Athlete to Fat-lete
Why I gained 68 pounds after my athletic career ended
I stepped on the scale last week and saw a number that I have never seen before.
266.8 pounds.
This is the first time in my life that I have weighed over 265 pounds.
Seeing that number was a slap in the face, I felt guilty and ashamed of my body. I looked in the mirror after stepping on the scale, I looked heavy too. My face was chubby and I had a belly that protruded over the edge of my pants.
In college, I was a Division I wrestler at the 197-pound weight class. Since then I had gained a whopping 68 pounds and felt lethargic and lazy.
Stepping off of the scale I couldn’t help but wonder, what happened.
How did I get here?
How I got here
Growing up I was an active kid. I was involved in as many sports as I could sign up for.
My brother and I played outside from dawn until dusk in the summer when we weren't at soccer practice or baseball practice.
In high school I was a three-sport athlete, playing baseball, football, and wrestling.
This meant that year-round I was busy, fall was football season, winter was wrestling, and spring was baseball. In the summer I would lift every day for football and attend summer conditioning camps as well as wrestling camp.
Athletics were my favorite thing to do and my main advantage in all of my sports was not my skill or talent, but the fact that I was in better shape than my opponent.
In essence, I just worked harder than anyone else.
After high school, I continued my wrestling career at the University of Northern Colorado, where I was a 4-year varsity letter winner.
So, how does an athlete like me get fat?
Two things happen:
1. No more exercise
You see, after a lifetime of exercising, like many athletes, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. Spending my waking hours staying in shape was just not fun.
In my mind, there are two types of athletes. One type loves being active, they love exercising and moving their body. The second type love to compete, exercising is a means to an end.
Most athletes are a combination of the two, however, I definitely fall into the second type, I love to compete and I am willing to exercise so that I can compete at a higher level.
As soon as my competitive career was over, so was my desire to exercise. I just saw no point in running or lifting if there was not a competition driving it.
So, I stopped exercising.
What I didn’t realize at the time was my daily exercising in college, which consisted of a morning lift and 2-hour practice in the afternoon, was burning thousands of calories every day. By cutting this out I was essentially adding 600–800 calories a day. Nothing to sneeze at!
2. No change in diet
On top of not exercising I also kept eating and drinking the same amount of calories as I always had.
As an athlete in high school and college, I could basically eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. I would eat chips, cakes, and calorie-laden meals, washing all of this down with 3–6 beers a day.
This was ok (not healthy, but didn’t cause me to gain weight) back when I was working out 2 times a day. But now that I was working as a teacher, not burning hundreds of calories a day, I began to put on weight.
By the time I made some changes in how I ate, the damage was done. I already was pushing 250 pounds.
Even though I found a healthier diet, I still struggled with portion control and such, basically yo-yo dieting from 250 to where I am today, 266.8.
How can I fix my weight problem?
A better question might be “how can I begin to live a healthy lifestyle?”
There are a few things that I am going to try to get my weight under control and begin to unleash the athlete within.
1. Make exercise a journey, not a destination
I have found that if I can make exercise not seem like exercise I really don’t mind it. For example, I love rock climbing, rock climbing burns a ton of calories and builds strength. When I am rock climbing I rarely think, Oh man, I am getting such a great workout in. Instead, I am focused on having a good time getting up a wall and a by-product is that it is great exercise.
I feel the same way about cycling. I love riding my bike around, it never feels like exercise because I am always going somewhere. Usually, I plan trips to breweries or I pack a lunch and bike to a faraway park to eat it.
In both rock climbing and cycling, the exercise is the journey rather than the destination.
2. Enter into competitions
I know that I will not exercise on my own, apart from climbing and cycling. So one way that I know I can motivate myself is to enter into competitions.
As I detailed earlier, I loved sports because I love competing. I did not play sports simply to have fun and stay in shape.
I am hoping to enter into 1 competitive activity each month.
For this next month, my wife and I have entered into a distance challenge with a team where the goal is to log enough miles to cross the state of Colorado, collectively. It will amount to 3 miles a day of walking, running, biking, or swimming, not much, but enough to get started.
For ex-athletes, keeping the spirit of competition alive is a key to staying motivated and in shape.
3. Use a calorie counter
The only way to really monitor your daily caloric intake is by keeping track of what you are eating.
I have actually gone a bit above and beyond here and have subscribed to Noom. There is something about me paying money for something that makes me more likely to use it. I also like that it explains the psychology of eating and weight gain to me. However, a basic counter like My Fitness Pal does a lot of the same stuff and it is free.
Hell, you could just write it down on paper too if you prefer. But setting a daily goal for calorie intake has made me quit binge eating chips and stay more aware of my eating habits.
Looking forward
I wrote this article for me, an ex-athlete who has gained an unhealthy amount of weight, as a means of motivation. I am planning on providing monthly updates here for my own accountability.
I am hopeful that this approach will work for me and if I am able to help other ex-athletes to tap into their inner athlete, then all the better!