I was never really a gym guy. I played a few sports growing up and was an active kid, but I barely touched a weight most of my life. As I got older, life just filled up. Career, marriage, kids, the house, the yard, the garage... I became the dad who could handle just about anything. I could fix something instead of hiring someone, solve problems at work, provide for my family and build the kind of life I didn’t have growing up. I was proud of that. But somewhere in the middle of taking care of everything and everybody else, I stopped taking care of myself. Everything looked pretty damn good from the outside, but I was physically drained, mentally exhausted and getting more comfortable with a version of myself I didn’t really want to be.

It wasn’t like I never tried to change. Over probably 15 years I bought gym memberships, tried P90X, keto, carnivore and different meal plans I found online. I’d go hard for a while, life would happen, and I’d quit. Keto actually helped me lose about 15 pounds once... and I gained it all back within a couple months. The moment that finally hit me differently happened about two years ago. I came home from work and my kids were outside playing football. They asked me to come play and I told them I’d had a long day and was tired, so I went inside and watched TV. Later they came in laughing and said, “Dad, you need to come out with us more. It’s so much fun.” They weren’t trying to make me feel bad, but man... I felt like shit. They had everything they needed out there. The football, the driveway, each other. What they wanted was me, and I was too tired to give them that.

So this time I stopped trying to completely overhaul my life. I slowed everything down and changed one small thing at a time. I simplified my food. I bought some shitty dumbbells off Facebook and started working out in my garage for about 20 minutes, five days a week. That was it. I wasn’t chasing some giant transformation or trying to become the most disciplined guy alive. I was just stacking small wins. Two pounds came off. Then another two. The workouts got a little better. My food got a little better. Little by little, a little became a lot. I locked in for six months and lost 65 pounds. But the part I didn’t expect was what happened around me. My wife started working out and eating better. My kids wanted to exercise and run with me. We started doing some of it together. I became more present, more confident and more intentional with my time. Funny enough, focusing more on myself ended up making me better for everyone else.

I’ve spent the last 20 years leading, training and coaching people professionally, and eventually I realized the same things that helped me succeed there were what changed my life here too... accountability, simple standards, small wins and actually leading by example. I started helping other dads and saw them lose weight, build better habits and even start seeing their own families buy in. That’s when this became bigger than fitness for me. My mission is to help do-it-all dads who have gotten really good at taking care of everyone else start showing up for themselves again... get fit, build habits that actually stick, and become the kind of husband, dad and man their family wants to follow.