I’ve been involved in the fitness world since 2005-ish, more than 20 years as of this writing. This includes as an athlete, Coach, and business owner, and I have to say it’s absolutely taught me so much that I apply in my daily life. One of the best principles of these teachings is this: Days that feel like a complete loss actually end up being some of the best to grow from.

Backstory: I went to college at the University of North Texas. I came out of high school as baseball player in 2001 and over the next 4 years got to be a little soft. I was waist deep in the party life, working full time, part of a fraternity, and simply burning the candle at both ends with relentless pursuit. It’s a time I wouldn’t trade for anything because it also taught me a lot about myself and who I was becoming. College really opened me up. I never liked the school part, but the social aspect was top tier.

One afternoon I was visiting my dad in Dallas. We did our usual bit, hung out, shared some stories, drank a few beers, and called it a day. On my way out the door he made a comment “by the way, have you put on some weight?” I’d been outed. I knew I had, but hadn’t been willing to address it. My pant sizes grew and I’d allowed it. He saw me as I’m sure everyone else me. I was up around 40 lbs heavier from my high school weight – fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, late night treats, and all the tobacco I could handle.

At my heaviest I was 220lbs. It didn’t look good on me and it didn’t feel good either. That’s a major miss for most people who are overweight and/or unhealthy in that you don’t really know what “good” feels like so it’s such a seemingly unattainable goal to get better. The aesthetic piece is part of it, but truly feeling better should be the main driver and we simply get it backwards.

Admittedly aesthetics was the driver on my end as it usually is for anyone wanting to lose weight. The feeling better part is the one of the things I have learned that I wanted to share. If you can strive to feel better and be better then the weight loss comes as a side effect.

As a result of that comment from my father that will forever be etched in my mind, thanks pop, I took a long look in the mirror that night and decided to do something about it. I called up one of my good friends at the time who was in the middle of training for the Navy to go the BUD/s. I thought why not do the same? So that next day I started a regimen of running, swimming, calisthenics, and “healthy eating”.

As a note, the healthy eating piece was simple and honestly we all know what it means. I focused on whole foods, protein, lots of vegetables, and a good dosing of carbohydrates for energy. I knew NOTHING about nutrition at that time, but knew that this kind of eating would at least get me in the right direction. The thought was eat like our grandparents before all the processed food came around. If you don’t know this, please take a minute to understand what I’m talking about.

It’s funny to reflect back on all this now as I remember it so vividly. At that time, I couldn’t do a single pull up, more than 10 pushups in one go, and the endurance piece…forget about it. I did know one thing though and that was we all have to start somewhere. It was only progress from this point assuming I was willing to go the distance. I was sore all the time, my feet hurt, and the continual amount of chafing was almost more than I could handle. But each day got better. I still drank, still partied, still worked full time, but I also made time to get in the workouts I needed to.

“Relentless forward progress” has been a motto of mine since I started on this journey, and it still carries me today. If there’s one change you can make in your life today it’s adopting something like this. Not every day will be perfect, most days will feel like you are taking one step forward and two steps back. But then there are the days that shine through, like stepping on the scale and seeing the weight you’ve lost or being able to finally get a single pull up – I worked on that for MONTHS.

Inevitably what happens when you embark down a road of health is a progression of lifestyle that starts to revolve around all things health. I like to call it a snowball effect, because one thing leads to another and another until after a period of time, your life looks completely different from what it was.

Like most things in life, you will fail. You will trip up. You will get lazy but you’ll also get motivated by the changes you begin to see. Most people don’t give it the time it needs and ultimately is why they will give up and chalk it up as “it didn’t work for me”. A huge revelation is when you understand that the failures and the backpedaling are actually your most important piece to future success. These are the things that teach us to do better the next time or make a little tweak to be that much more successful. Everything can be progress in this sense if you look at it through that lens.

To continue the story, the movie ‘300’ came out in 2006. I read an article about what they had the cast do to get in shape and the workouts that were involved. They had trained at a gym called Gym Jones and if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve seen the results they got. This is what led me to CrossFit and what would also lead the entire direction of my life for the next 17 years. I’d love to dive into that time, so I will save the full details in another post as it would cause this one to be never-ending.

This became an obsession. I did all the things CrossFit and went all in on health and fitness. By this time, I had chiseled myself down to a scrappy 165lbs. Lifting weights put muscle on my frame and I got up to a fairly solid 185-190 lbs. One of CrossFit’s biggest benefit is it will build your confidence and also teach you resilience. The workouts were tough and the better you got, the harder the workouts got because you would learn to push harder. This awakened a part of me that had never really seen any light in my existence. I had learned how to keep going when things got tough. Another pinnacle teaching moment.

Just like anything, there were really great days but the majority of them were not. It was the act of doing over time that brought on all the change. Remember, relentless forward progress, showing up daily and getting the things done even when you don’t feel like it. We are temperamental creatures. We don’t like discomfort. It’s hard to do things when you don’t feel like it, but that is the secret sauce. I wish I could tell you that it was more complex than that but it’s not.

To summarize the theme here:
– There is a lesson in everything we do if you just listen and pay attention.
– Failing every single time is not failure, it is just bringing you closer to the finish line.
– You’ve got to re-wire your brain into believing that failure is a true part of the process, if not the most important piece.
– Show up daily and you will see the progress over time as results are never immediate.
– Most days will feel like losing so pay attention to days where the wins show up.

All these things are now principles I live by thanks to the practice of just wanting to try to be better. I want to reiterate that most days are hard, and for good reason, because that’s where the lessons are learned. It will always be a work in progress, but that is what helps to make it last a lifetime. I hope this helps you find a reason.

Yours in health,

Brandon Head