Bye Bye, Backfat - Hello Boxing Gloves!: Part Who Knows At This Point: Garbage In, Garbage Out!

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As we're only a couple days out from being one month from Father's Day I'm going to shift gears away from the fam and start focusing on that person that plays the part of dear old dad: men. (Drumroll and horns...) Behold the month of the DAD!!!

I've been quite vocal (visual, actually) for the past couple of months about my experience at LABoxing: getting back into shape after a four-year hiatus --- enduring their hour-long, 1,000 calorie cardio box beatdown. I've even expressed my newfound love of and ability to jump (skip, to use the proper terminology) rope. Currently I'm jumping rope about 5 days per week and I'm working out at the gym roughly 3 days per week. I'm getting my sweat on and I'm replenishing my fluids as much as my bladder will allow. I'm lighter on my feet, my overall stiffness is melting away. I've dissolved 12 pounds and am fitting back into my fitted clothes, slowly but surely.

I woke up this morning with a simple thought: In our energy conscious society we pay particular attention to fuel and it's optimal use. We opt for lithium rechargeable batteries for our electronic devices. We want to know that the overpriced gas we're putting in our cars is as pure as possible and not filled with pollutants for the sake of our cars' engines and our wallets. In short, we want the best for our cars, and our grown up toys, so that they perform at their peak as much as possible.

Shouldn't the same apply to us?

For whatever reason we are okay with pumping garbage into ourselves, wallowing in not even mediocre output and feeding our perpetual misery with even more garbage. When something bad happens I automatically begin to think of hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes. My wife and I have a pre-vacation challenge and upon weighing herself this past weekend, she immediately became depressed and proclaimed she wanted a cupcake.

"Don't you think that's counterproductive?" I asked.

She shot me a dirty look.

Let me paint an even clearer picture. We would never knowingly feed our dogs and cats food that would contribute to them becoming overweight or ill. We want our pets to be as healthy and happy as possible for as long as possible. Maybe this is selfishly for ourselves as pet owners, but as the owner of yourself, shouldn't you want the same? Taste buds and endorphin responses aside, garbage in will always give you garbage out, even if you are super active.

For the past few years since my daughter's birth I have been steadfast in being against her eating anything that resembles empty calories, but I've been okay with indulging myself. But today is a new day (and so was yesterday and a few weeks ago). As the owner of myself, I say no to garbage in, garbage out. To be fair, I do give myself one day a week to splurge so I don't go hog wild on unexpected binges. But overall, I want to be happy just like my long-haired dachshund and I want to have optimal performance just like my...well, I can't speak too highly for my piece of crap SUV right now, but I daydream about it having optimal performance.

Take baby steps if you must, but do your best to say no to Garbage In.