Far to many times I hear people telling me what they can't do. Most of the time it has to do with fitness. I can't lose weight because of one of millions of excuses. Let me assure you that you can. Years ago I worked for a sales company. One of the managers was a man named Ronnie. Ronnie would eat healthy and move as much as possible to stay in shape. Did I forget to mention that Ronnie was paralyzed from the waist down. Ronnie was injured as a teenager but never used that as an excuse. He learn to drive a car, got a job, traveled the world and enjoyed life all the way to his last days of life. In Jiu-Jitsu I have seen people compete in competitions that are blind or missing a leg or arm. I have seen men and women over 70 get in the ring and fight. They are not striving to be world champions, they are just pushing toward being better today than they were yesterday. What are you doing.
Look I get that Jiu-Jitsu is hard. Anything that has worth is going to be hard. School is hard. Raising children is hard. Getting up every morning and going to work is hard. Anything that has worth is hard and will cost you something. Have you ever wondered why eating healthy is so expensive and eating junk is cheap. Why is it that you can join a local health club for $25 per month but Jiu-Jitsu is so expensive. The local health club doesn't care if you get in shape. In fact their business model depends on a lot of people signing up that will never use the service. Most of us have fallen into the trap of a gym membership that we never use. In Jiu-Jitsu you will get sore and I promise you that parts of your body will hurt that you didn't even know existed. However you will find in a Jiu-Jitsu gym a team that cares about you. A team that wants to see you improve. A team that will check on you if you miss.
So is it worth it? I could share endless success stories with you. People losing 30 to 80 pounds in their first year. Let me share with you my story. I was in decent shape. I have always been involved in some sport. I was in decent shape. I am 5'11 and I weighed 230. I started training Jiu-Jitsu in 2006 and dropped 10 pounds almost immediately. I really enjoyed the sport but I noticed that I was very short for my weight class. I did something drastic. I decided to give up sugar. That's it. I didn't replace it with artificial sweeteners. I just started drinking water or unsweetened tea. I lost another 10 pounds in less than a month. So now I was walking around at 210. It was good but I needed to be at 200 to fight in the weight class that I wanted to be in. Last I gave up bread. The weight came off fast. I dropped from 210 to 196 in just a few months. Here is the crazy part. I am 42, I weigh 196 and I am constantly told how skinny I look. I'm not skinny at all. I am just in the best shape of my life. When people tell me they want to lose weight, I tell them that story. The first thing I hear is how they can't give up sweet tea or bread. I can't, I can't, I can't! Then I tell them you can, you just don't want too.
Let me encourage you to wake up with the I can attitude today. Just take one step today, then one more tomorrow. Your body wasn't designed to work 50 hours and then sit on the couch eating pizza. Get up and do something. You can do it! If you will start today I promise you will be amazed where you are two months from now.
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