2017 a year of Redemption and Reconstruction

Tampa Bay on New Years day sunrise 2017

Have you ever felt defeated? Have you ever felt like you're life has stalled out? Have you ever felt like giving up? I have.

The last ten years of  the taxi business have just about done me in. It has been miserable with a bad economy that was near a depression and it took everything I could do to just survive. I made no money. In short, I suffered badly. (I will not mention Tampa taxi politics. The companies did what they had to do to survive. Their actions were not often in my best interest.)

My only hope was that the economy would get better. It began to. And as it did, Uber came along. That was the death kneel. Talk about timing.

For ten years my life has been in purgatory and I almost died. The stress and the bad food left me with chronic heart failure. My weight had climbed to 295lbs (I am 5'8"). My blood pressure was 210/150. By rights, I should not be alive. The doctor sent me to the emergency room. He later told me he did not think I would make it. I decided desperate measures were in order and I took to the area of fitness.

I had decided to use extreme exercise to turn my life and health around. I was skeptical because I felt I was too far gone. What did I have to lose? The game was over, right?

I began the Redemption campaign I found in MEN'S FINTESS magazine written by Mike Simone. I combined it with HIIT Cardio training finishers and my health began to turn around.

Since I knew I was dying, my strategy was to push each workout to the point of near death. Why not? I would take death on and go where it would not. I was kicking its ass and it felt wonderful. My effort was extreme, like a MMA fighter. It needed to be. I was fighting for my life.

I really had nothing else to live for.

My life was in shambles. I had pissed away any money I had ever made. I had pushed away anyone that ever gave a shit about me. In short, I was on my own.

It was going to be me who would do the work. It would be me that would make the effort to change my life. It was me that would also benefit from it.

I never shared this with anyone but my doctor. I had to because the blood work was transformed to the level of what he said was "miraculous."

I waited until people began to remark that they thought I was losing weight. People in convienince stores would ask me, "How much can you bench?" That was the watershed moment when I knew it was working.

With every lift of weight. With every wind sprint. With every battle rope session. I knew I was getting closer to health. I felt like Rocky Balboa. I felt like a champ.

The carry over has been a taking charge of my own life as I will climb my way out of hell. I know I will get there and it will be better than I could have realized.

The Reconstruction will lead to redemption.