Getting back into shape is never easy but it is worth it

I promised my sister no more shirtless pictures on the internet, so here is one recent photo from the other night

It’s been too long and I apologize for that.

This is a before photo from late-November 2024. I'm ashamed of how I got this way at all. Well, trauma, obviously, played a major part of it, but I didn't handle it well.

Dear readers, I have missed writing about that with you. And after three years, I can finally, once more blog about fitness and put progress photos up when I hit certain milestones that I am proud of.

I have had a lot on my plate the last few years, both literally and figuratively.

I moved in 2023, again in 2024 and finally a third and final time, to a condo I am now in the process of purchasing in Pointe Claire. My personal and family life was thrown into upheaval and I was living on my own, and the solitude was killing me, slowly but surely. To add to it, I was dealing with some latent trauma, which gave me night terrors, and was affecting my sleeping. The medication I took to help me sleep caused me to wake up in the middle of the night, famished, and I would eat everything I could get my hands on.

I was devastated to put on close to 80 pounds in 14 months. From a nutritional standpoint, my nighttime eating was so very dangerous to my well-being that my blood pressure spiked, my self-loathing got worse and it was the worst year imaginable. I’m ashamed to say I spent Christmas with nowhere to go that year. It was lonely, it was miserable and I was not dealing with it well. My self-esteem took a dip, my mental health was in the toilet, and I had some dark moments. Later, I was diagnosed with ADHD and started medication for that.

I got out of a lot of good habits as I processed my trauma, or traumas, rather. There were multiple. It was a whole deal.

Over time, I settled some of my eating down. I changed my night-time meds to curb the nocturnal binges, and I started being conscious of what I was eating again. There were other positive changes in my life – I discovered that building a whole new life could be possible, thanks to a supportive partner who inspires me to be the best version of myself. I started reading and doing writing projects again, which had been on the shelf for a long time. My weight, though, was still a concern.

Fast-forward to April of this year.

 I went into the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery, and there I weighed 319 pounds – and when I came out, I started eating a low-fat diet and found it agreed with me. So, as I went through the months of April and May, I continued eating light and working out daily in the gym in my condo building.

With the support of my loved ones and partner, I healed up nicely, with barely a scar to show for it. I recovered, then I went about changing my body. On purpose.

I started losing some weight and saw more visible progress. Clothes were fitting a bit better. That was encouraging.

In June, I changed jobs and in the downtime between ending one and starting another, I set a goal of 20,000 steps walking every day, improving my workouts to challenge myself again and started taking great care of what I was eating. I started getting up extra early to walk my dogs for an hour and change before work, took walks in the heat of the midday sun and did literally everything I possibly could to hit those 20,000, even if it meant doing laps around the Valois neighbourhood to hit my numbers between 10 p.m. and midnight.

My daily weight workouts were progressing as well. To give you an idea, I was doing three front planks in a workout for 90 seconds each. Now I do the same at two and a half minutes, and I’ve added a minute of side plank right after to accentuate it. My rep range has climbed to 20 and 25 from 15, and my weights have increased to where I was at my strongest in 2019.

There was a lot of stress, too, about the job transition, as well as looking at potential real-estate purchases and possibly moving again. The stresses were mounting and I did the one thing I knew I could do about it: move. I walked 20k steps daily (sometimes I took it easy on Sunday) all summer long. Football season arrived, and that compressed my schedule even more with practices two or three nights a week and games on the weekends. My son is no longer playing with Lakeshore (I’m proud to say he’s playing at Vanier College now) and so the utter joy I used to feel being able to share that with him has disappeared and football has started to feel like a job. I love coaching and I love watching the kids develop, but I fear this may be my last season for a while.

I get to see my son’s games as often as possible but I’m realizing now that a lot of the joy I got from coaching was from the time with my son. The drives, the laughs, the getting ready for games – always together. That’s a thing of the past, and I’m struggling to get used to it.

Things are changing – as life often does – and I’m better equipped to handle them now. The new company I work for feels like a breath of fresh air and my life is getting better in every way, every day.

It’s incredible, and I’ve been inspired to rebuild my life by someone who has been through more in her life and over the last few years than I could ever imagine surviving.

The other day, I did the biggest workout I can remember ever doing in one shot – Twenty working sets, all done three times, in the course of an hour. My muscles are starting to show again, and this morning I weighed in at 246.2 pounds. My goal weight is 235, and I’m just a few weeks away from that at this pace, which is noice, as one would say.

And no, I didn’t use a GLP-1 OR Ozempic or any of that stuff. I went about the boring way. Steps and careful nutrition.

Everything has gotten easier to do. Life has become easier to manage and I don’t wake up with self-loathing every single morning.

Though I have to say, some days my knees really feel the 20,000 steps every day. Not going to lie about that.

At 72.8 pounds down, I will not be stopping. I will hit 235 one of these days, and I’d be thrilled to come on here and share that day with you, dear readers. After that, who knows? Maybe it’s time to do that first-timer’s bodybuilding show I thought about doing seven years ago before the pandemic hit. Maybe I'll go down to 215 and be shredded. Who knows? I do know, however, that I will keep working toward my goals assiduously and consistently.

Follow along, dear readers. I’ll give you my workouts and I’d be thrilled to answer any questions you may have about how to start getting into great shape in your late 40s (yeah, I’m still 49. For now.). Send queries to marclalondepro@gmail.com, or message me at 514-742-5465. I’m still taking clients on a very limited basis -- evenings and weekends -- so if you want to train with me, drop me a line there and we can discuss packages.