Shape up for fishing season

With fishing season around the corner is your weight or fitness going to hold you back?   If you are packing on some Winter weight, be wary, as you don't want to pull your back out, or take some other type of injury jumping back into the kayak expecting to pick up right where you left off in the Fall.

Yep, this used to be me!

Prior to getting married and having kids I had turned into a bit of a different type of gym rat. There was a time 13 years or so ago where I was benching 265 lbs for reps, my shoulders were massive and weight hovered around 220 lbs.   Jogging 10 kms back then was a piece of cake!   But those days are just memories now.  

As I approach my 40th birthday this summer I have a job that confines me to a desk with no mid-day exercise for 40+ hours a week.  My diet hasn't been great and I do enjoy a beer or rum most days.   As such my weight has slowly taken off again.

I have way too much weight on here

A month or so back I checked the scales and was surprised to see it was up to 260 lbs... far above where I'd want it to be. I also had been noticing lately that I haven't had as much energy as I'd like, my breathing would get laboured much quicker than it should, and I suspect my mood may have been getting affected as well.

So hoping to turn things around I hit the gym the next day with the goal of getting back down into the 220's by by birthday.   I've also cut out nearly all alcohol and am eating far smaller portions of much healthier food, along with about 3 gallons of water a day.

It as been close to a month and I'm down just over 10 lbs, my cardio is much much better, and I feel a much happier!    I still have several inches to go before I can think about fitting into a 34 waist like I used to, but I have worked myself back to being able to run 4 miles on the treadmill now in 40 min and step off feeling like there is more left in the tank!  

Unfortunately I discovered that my achilles heel in the quest to lose weight is my achilles heel.   Perhaps pushing myself a little too hard I irritated it on the treadmill about 2 weeks ago and it still isn't back to where I can run.   This is really crippling the great progress I had been making on the scales.   Fortunately I can do cardio on the elliptical machines, rower and bike but my best workouts came from running.

Kayak fishing is a fantastic way to get out into nature, get some exercise, and enjoy the best that the sport of fishing has to offer.   But it is difficult to really enjoy the sport if you can't paddle as far as you'd like, or load/unload your heavy kayak as easily as you once could.    If you are like me, and need to really work hard to keep your weight down and strength up, know that I am rooting for you!   Put the time in at the gym, go for walks or jogs, get our on a bike, or do other things that burn down a few calories.   Your body will thank you now, and again later when you do get the kayak out once again!