At one point I was 275 pounds, type 2 diabetic, and it was hard just walking upstairs. I was perfectly content to let my diverticulitis slowly kill me and let my ex-wife reap the benefits. That’s how miserable I was. That was about twelve years ago.

When she decided that she would rather start fucking other people, it was my time to gather some self-esteem and slowly work my way out of my problems. I bought a trailer with a piece of land using a secret 401(k) account that I’d had, and that began the long journey to where I am now at 63.

I quit smoking a pack to two packs of cigarettes a day and started dieting and exercising. It was excruciatingly hard. There were stretches where I quit and gained back some of the weight. What I started with was walking. There’s a greenway where I live, and the first time I walked it I thought I was going to die. It’s mostly flat, but it was July, and there I was. It’s four miles from one end to the other and then back to my truck. I didn’t make it all four miles the first time. I turned around almost near the end and walked back very slowly. It turned out to be about seven miles round trip.

Through that health plan I started using my gym membership, using the exercise bike a few days a week, and continuing to walk. Then I started adding in hikes. There was a point where I got down to 196 pounds. I’d really like to be 180, but time will tell.

It has been a long, long, long struggle because I was a schoolteacher and a bus monitor. I would get up at 4:00 a.m., and during wrestling season I would get home at 7:00 or 8:00 at night, go straight to bed, and do it all again every day during the school year. The weight would come back slowly because I wasn’t exercising as much. Then I’d have the summer off, bust my ass losing weight, and continue the cycle.

Here I am now, 63 years old, and stuck around 203 pounds, taking 1 mg of Ozempic a week on top of Metformin. I still have type 2 diabetes, but I’ve learned to control my diet much better. I cut out all sodas, which was a big one, and other processed sugars and foods. Will I occasionally go to Village Inn and have a buffet? Yes, sure, once every three or four months. Will I occasionally stop at Bojangles and get a biscuit and Bo’Rounds before I go hike? Yes, I will. The thing is, you need to be consistent and push yourself when you want to quit.

Now that same greenway I can run from one end to the other and back. I’m not running fast, but I can. I’m now doing 5Ks and an occasional 10K, and fall is my favorite time to do those. To add into my hiking, I’ve taken up fly fishing, which I’m almost as bad at as golf. But the bottom line is that I’m getting out and doing something every day.

Today I’m going over to Lenoir to run the mountain bike trail, which is preparing me for the Dirty Santa five-mile run in December. Granted, I’m retired and have way more time on my hands than I’m used to, but that’s what I did and still do. It may not work for some people, but it’s working for me. I also have an exercise bike, a mountain bike, and a gravel bike. Sadly, the running is taking a little bit of a toll on my joints, so I’m slowly transitioning to bike riding.

My suggestion to you is be consistent, and when you feel like you want to stop, push yourself a little harder. I always pushed my wrestlers to be in the best physical shape they could be in, with the most endurance they could possibly muster, because to win matches you have to be stronger and faster than your opponent. I didn’t take my own advice very well until about ten years ago when I realized that I was going to die if I didn’t get my shit in one sock. That, and I couldn’t bear to think of the soldiers who had worked under me when I was a military officer seeing me as a weak, body-fat tub of lard.

Now get out there and get to it. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re doing something.