n 2016 I was a raging alcoholic and I weighed 320 pounds. I drank myself into a hospital bed, and lying in it I worked out that this was the end of one of two roads — and I got to choose which.
I got sober. That was step one, and for about three months it was the only step. Being sober doesn’t fill the hole; it just stops you pouring things into it. What I’d learned as a first responder was that the job follows you home, and that most of us handle it badly. Alcohol was never the answer to that. For me, fitness turned out to be.
About three months into sobriety I found the gym. Unlike every other thing I’d tried, that one held. I’ve lost nearly a hundred pounds since and kept it off — not in a twelve-week block, but across years of ordinary weeks, most of them busy and some of them terrible.
My wife made the same climb alongside me, including the post-baby chapter that nobody prepares you for. We still train together. That matters to how I coach: I’ve seen this from both sides — the person who has to start from nothing, and the person supporting someone doing it.
Everything I coach came out of those years. Not from a certification slide deck. What works when you’re exhausted. What works around a shift pattern. What works when you’ve already failed at this three times and half-expect to fail again.
That’s why I don’t sell a twelve-week challenge any more. Challenges end, and most people end with them. I’d rather build something you’re still doing in three years.
