About this time 2 years ago, I was 8 months into my twin pregnancy and spent most of my days idle on the couch, moaning help, and thinking about all of the ways pregnancy had stolen my body and all of the ways I would reclaim it as soon as these two body snatchers were out. And when my mom cautioned me that it would take at least 18 months before my body would return to its pre-pregnancy self, I poo-poo’ed her with a, no way, not me flip-of-the-wrist and reminded her of the endless time I would have to exercise on maternity leave. Obviously, all that endless time was quickly consumed by things like, you know, keeping two newborns alive on no sleep while recovering from a C-section (aka the part where 2 docs talk about summer vacation plans while carving open your mid-section and extracting two human beings from your lower abdomen).  And it wasn’t just the absolute chaos and continual panic and physical limitations that left me treading water towards my fitness goals, but it was all the life stuff that happened too. I got some strange, excruciating hand pain that lasted months (google: mama’s thumb) and, somehow, those 2 chatty doctors failed to extract all the kit and kaboodle during my delivery and I had two additional surgeries to fully free my body of the twins (google: retained placenta).  And then there was all that raw irritability which I blamed on a new life full of minute tasks—washing 47,000 bottles a day, changing 1 million diapers and trying to wrangle little wriggling limbs in and out of a series of onesies day-in-and-day-out (google: post-partum depression).

And just as I was gearing up to return to the company where my wife and I both worked, my company was gearing-up for a down-size and laid off 11% of the workforce including my wife. I was fortunate enough to still have a job, but it wasn’t the job I had before and it certainly wasn’t going to meet the new requirements of a single-income family with a big mortgage and twin infants. So I took a position that had been posted for over a year and ignored that ominous sign for the higher salary. And it just kept on pouring. My job was impossible, the environment dreary and the politics and rolling layoffs instilled in me a perpetual state of paranoia. And then, like all mid-30-something’s, I got mono. For the next year, I contracted everything under the sun that my kids brought home from daycare. In fact, I spent the last 4th of July with hand-foot-mouth disease and followed that with a ruptured ovarian cyst (google: feels like labor but you’re not giving birth). All in all, despite having two healthy, gorgeous babes, a wife who was quickly re-employed, and the grip of mono that slowly tapered at the same cadence the twins started to sleep through the night, I still felt really blah.

And so I snacked. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and trained my body to crave junk-food en masse between the time the twins went to bed and when I fell asleep (with one hand still in the cookie jar). By the time I hit that 18-month mark when my body was supposed to be back to normal, I was 29% body fat, over 150 lbs and getting ready to remediate with my usual approach: weeks of no carbs and near starvation to get me back to skinny-fat—small enough to fit back into my clothes but without the benefit of having any physical core strength, extended mental discipline or, frankly, pride.  So I decided to try something different. I joined Lifetime 6 months ago and sampled several of the classes, started swimming laps and routinely went to yoga on the weekends. Wanting to build on that momentum and leverage my competitive spirit, I signed up for the 60-day challenge and relied on a whole host of people to reach my goals – many of whom probably have no idea the impact they’ve had on my physical and spiritual recovery.

My coaches taught me to pair strength training with my cardio and gave me a set of exercises to rebuild my abs without injury. The 60-Day challenge weekly emails taught me about easy-prep meals and the magic of protein (I began every day with a cup of Vegan protein and a KIND bar). And then there was the metro west yoga staff—a handful of people who restored my mind and body.  I learned to be grateful for my moments on the mat, to set intentions for myself and others, to challenge my perpetual state of hyper-vigilance, to surrender, to change my attitude, to accept the light and the shadows, to say hi to my belly-button, and to breathe in and with a community of heat, sweat, good people and good music.  And, over the weeks, I’ve gotten stronger.  I’ve approached this contest like a yoga class – with as much balance and core as possible. I found a way to work out at least 5 times a week, I nixed 98% of the junk-food (mostly by just sticking to a no-food-after-8PM-rule), and, ate carbs (good ones but carbs nonetheless).  And with my wife’s support, I’ve stuck with this journey and have built the foundation to maintain it. Namaste, Lifetime.