I Was Overweight and Out Of Breath

I sat down on a rock and everything changed

Never forget how far you have come. Instead plant clues so that your forgetful future self will always remember.

This letter is such a clue.

I wrote it for myself to read over the next 5, 10 or 25 years.

Dear Geoff - 12/15/2024

Your body is temple. You cannot live without it.

Treasure it. Nurture it. Keep it healthy.

If you don’t take care of your own body then you have no right to take care of others.

Everything begins here, with you and the life you’ve been given.

At the start of the year you took your son Gabriel fishing. You were very overweight, focused too much on work, you were finding solace and comfort in unhealthy food.

It was a short walk, 200 yards or less, across some gray rocks to the waters edge. You were carrying a small fishing rod and a small back pack.

As your 12-year-old son skipped over the rocks, you labored, stumbled and slipped your way towards the deep blue sea.

It should have been a beautiful moment; an adventure between a father and a son -it was not.

It was agony.

By the time you reached the ocean you could not even stand-up. Your back was pulsing with pain. Your face was beet with exhaustion.

You had to sit down on a rock while your son fished. You dreaded the very notion of the short walk back.

That was the moment, sitting there on that hard rock.

That painful “fuck no” moment when you looked at your life and said, “I cannot live this way. I will not choose to live an increasingly sedentary life, where my choices are wholly defined by my age and my health.”

The next day, you got in your car and you drove to the closest gym to your house. You sat down with the first personal trainer you saw.

You didn’t over complicate the process.

You did not waste time all twisted up in the “what’s the best option here”, decision making process. You simply asked for help and chose to change.

It was a rough journey. You had some setbacks, but you stuck with it.

For the first time in a long time, you put yourself first and stopped giving yourself shitty seconds.

Other things began to change also.

As your body started to change, you began to seek other forms of healing also.

You hired a therapist and began to work through complex relationship issues that had kept you suppressed for decades. You could feel the old you coming alive again AND you could sense a new version of yourself being simultaneously birthed.

Today in this photo, you are standing on the threshold of massive growth and change.

In less than 9 months you’ve lost 25 pounds, put on a shitload of muscle and are nearly the strongest you’ve ever been in your life.

You don’t have any trouble walking across slippery rocks anymore.

Being with your children is a joy now and never a physical chore.

You feel young again. The other day someone thought you were 31, they did not have a guide dog and a white cane either 😂.

As you read this letter, Future Geoff, remember this journey and never let your life be defined by a number.

• Always invest in your health.

• Never stop growing.

• Always seek healing.

Take care of your body it is a temple, a well spring, the place of beginning for all things.

You matter

Geoff x