Eh. I've kinda been off and on the wagon for the past 7 years. The routine is the same - lose the weight. Feel great about myself. Then I either decide to c

Eh. I've kinda been off and on the wagon for the past 7 years. The routine is the same - lose the weight. Feel great about myself. Then I either decide to chase performance goals - or to pack on muscle. I do that for 6-12 months and then something in life happens that derails me (having a kid being the biggest one). This last time I got started, over a year ago, I was 240lbs. In 10 months I dropped to 180. At 36 and the fact I wasn't as strict with my diet as usual in the hopes it would help for a more long term lifestyle change rather than just a "diet". I tell people I just do it because it's maintenance, because who like "that guy" that goes to the gym all the time. People like their friends and family and co-workers doing something positive and constructive and are great at encouraging it. But eventually that person sticks with it, talks about it a lot - it becomes this constant reminder to others of their inadequacies. It doesn't matter if you taught yourself a new thing, lost weight, got shredded, read Infinte Jest, picked up a hobby of some for or another. It's always the same. They get annoyed at you, they talk smack about you. Hell, sometimes they try to sabotage you. So i just tell people, it's maintenance. That I don't really enjoy it. That I just don't want to be fat or feeble when I'm too old to do anything about it. Even with my own wife - I'm a little reserved to talk about my failures or successes. Less so than with others, but with her too. But the truth of it is - i love running. On a treadmill even. And I really love lifting. I love having short and long term goals and meeting them in concrete ways - or learning from my failure to. I find it stimulating and challenging. Not to mention stress relieving. Going to the gym, pumping some aggressive music is a nice break from the types of passive-aggressive hipster STEM bros I work with day in and day out. It's a nice break from being Dad. It's a space where the only person I have to compete with is myself and I really enjoy that.