Hi!

My name is Erick, and I started this blog to chronicle my journey to fitness and invite others to join me. I came to a point where I needed a “second chance” at establishing lifestyle habits that were effective in fostering good health as well as being sustainable. I was most pleased to find a program that enabled me to hit the reset button and get on track for true fitness. What follows below is a mini-bio that will give you a glimpse of where I have come from, and where I am now going. Thanks for visiting, and God bless 🙂

I am husband to an awesome woman (16 years!) and father of two amazing children (2 and 4). I am a Christian, which simply means I seek to honor God in every aspect of my life as I follow my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. One aspect of life I had really dropped the ball on was my health. I was “kind of” fit at one time, but after marriage my health took a major hit. I had comfortably stayed between 190-200 while single and working out with buddies 6 days a week. Post marriage, I went to 210 and figured I’d get around to losing it eventually. The problem is that life seemed to get more and more busy. I am a math teacher at a Christian school, and I also serve as Pastor of Discipleship in my church. When I got to 230, I resorted to a fad diet to get back under 200. Unfortunately, it was just that: a fad. I yo-yo’d back and forth a bit, eventually landing at 276. Yikes!

I knew something needed to change at a fundamental level, but didn’t know exactly what that would be. When we had our kids my wife and I had talked about wanting to take better care of ourselves  and knew the importance of modeling proper health & fitness habits for our children. I had known for a LONG time that I had failed to be a good steward of my body, and started to look at what I could do to affect a change. I had a measure of success in losing weight by tracking my food habits, but wasn’t really eating all that healthy and didn’t have any exercise going on at all. I hit a road block of sorts. My consistency started to waiver, and I couldn’t seem to get under 235. Then I reconnected with an old college buddy, and was excited to do a challenge group. I chose the Les Mills Combat Challenge Pack, and was hooked quick on the workouts as well as Shakeology. I couldn’t believe the way my hunger cravings virtually disappeared through the morning when I started using it for breakfast! On top of that, I found a favorite recipe and it was icing on the cake (maybe not the best analogy anymore)that this was indeed my healthiest meal of the day! I am now into my second challenge at the time of this writing, and have already dropped 21 lbs and 6 inches from my waist! I love the group accountability and support, and am completely psyched to see what the results of my second challenge will be! I am actually looking ahead to ramp up the intensity and immediately do another challenge when this is done!

I have always had a leaning towards teaching, and being pastor of discipleship at my church simply means that I teach others what I have learned (a disciple is a “follower”). This translated very easily to the care of my physical body, but a more apt term for teaching others how to be successful with a fitness lifestyle (weight-loss, clean eating, exercise) would be coach.

Before

After

Bottom line is that while in the past I was committed (kind of) to losing weight, my achilles heel was that I had made no commitment to my overall health! I finally got to the place where I was tired of yo-yo diets, and most importantly wanted desperately to model proper eating habits and fitness habits for my children. Can you relate? If you are looking to lose weight, get fit, or increase your overall level of health, I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you and see what results you can achieve! I welcome your comments below, or you can shoot me an
email 🙂