My Decision

So a few days after my 30th birthday I started seeing pictures of me from my party on Facebook. I DIDN'T LIKE WHAT I SAW. I thought I looked like crap. I was huge, and I looked soft and weak. Despite my size I've always been athletic and I'm super confident almost to the point of cockiness. What I saw on the screen really shook my ego. I needed to make a change before it was too late, I was weighing in at a scary 468 pounds!

I knew I needed an actual professional trainer to help put me in a program, mostly I needed someone to hold me accountable. I knew an old high school friend that was one year ahead of me was a personal trainer, and I figured who better to get me started than a guy that knew me during my fittest years and who was a great athlete himself. His name is Paul Hedrick of Hedrick Fitness, I called Paul and told him I needed to start a routine ASAP. We went over some things that night and we agreed to meet the next day to see where I was mobility-wise.

11/2/2011
The first day was really an assessment of what I could and couldn't do. He knew I had a couple of knee surgeries from my days of playing H.S. football, so he decided we would start slow as far as lower body stuff was concerned.

A side note about Paul:

The guy is a total badass! He stresses that he teaches you how to train and not to just workout. The guy is on top of his craft, from nutrition to methods. The one thing I like the most is if you have a question you will get a solid, straight-forward answer. The guy just flat out knows his profession.

Hedrick Training Website
Hedrick Training Facebook Page 

After the workout I was glad to hear from Paul that I was a whole lot more mobile than he thought I was gonna be. This was not just from my weight, but from not really being as active as I thought I had been. We agreed on me training with him 3 times a week would be the most effective at the beginning. The one thing that impressed me the most was when I told him my goal was to lose 200 pounds, he didn't blink, he just said ok.