Welcome to My Fitness Journey

This whole thing started when I called in sick for a flu test, only to discover I was obese. Determined to change, I committed to a 100-day fitness transformation, documenting it with daily blog posts and TikTok videos. You can subscribe to my body transformation on my website at www.iamnotanathlete.com.

I have always found fitness intimidating. For me, the starting-to-end journey of joining a gym has looked like this:

• Walk into a gym with a free three-day pass.
• Give a sales rep a copy of your license.
• Get pounced on as you have now become a warm lead for a personal trainer.
• Get upsold training packages by a personal trainer who was a D1 athlete.
• If you don’t sign up for training, you tend to walk around the facility caring what everyone thinks about you with no path to success.
• Stop attending the gym altogether and cancel your membership.

This may not be true for you, but it was true for me. I don’t resonate with professional athletes, Instagram fitness pages or even making my lifestyle defined by fitness. I’m a regular dude, that works a typical job, that wants to use fitness as something to improve my life. I want fitness to fit into my life, on my terms, on my schedule, dammit!

Working out is complicated if you don’t know where you’re going. If you're aimless, you’ll end up wandering without achieving anything. The initial motivation dissipates. The cool thing about the internet is having access to endless information. The uncool thing is that the information becomes overwhelming. I hate to admit it, but I have sat on so many fitness programs without taking any action. I can only imagine the shape I would be in today if I had stuck with one of those programs. I would always look to adopt a different workout program. Whether it was out of boredom or choosing a program that promised I could get into shape if I swiped up. I wanted the hack that led to a quick solution. I sucked with giving one program all that I got and seeking to finish what I had started.

Why did I start this blog? One day, I woke up feeling sick. After calling out. I went to a doctor to get tested so I knew it was safe for me to get back into the office. Good news, I wasn't sick. Bad news, I discovered in the paperwork that I was obese! Obese! Reality sucks but you can't run from it.

When I got home that day, I went online and looked for a fitness mentor I could learn from, but more importantly relate to. I work two jobs. I go to school. I have hobbies. I have an apartment fitness center and I don't have a gym membership. It's hard to incorporate fitness into my life. The more I searched for a guru, the more dejected I became as no one was able to relate to my situation. That's when I realized the person I was looking for was me. I have to make it happen.

I'm dedicating the next 100 days of my life to getting in shape with nothing more than sheer will and an apartment fitness center. Every day I’m going to write about my journey and share it with you. I'll also take a video each morning and post it to TIkTok to show my results.

And, if this resonates with enough you, maybe we can come together and uplift each other.

My name is Josh, and I am not an athlete.

What tips do you have for me as I start this?