Staying Dad Fit
One of the strangest things happened when I started to mention to my friends and family that my wife and I were expecting our first child – I received a lot of, “Wait until you get that dad bod now” or my personal favorite, “you’re about to get fat, Jake.”
I was taken aback a bit by these comments, as I had not thought about this next stage in my life. Is this really the expectation? Because I have kids I can no longer prioritize working out? Maybe the thought was that every possible moment not used for childcare should be filled with naps or catching up on episodes of Nailed It on Netflix.
After enough of these comments, I was determined to silence the haters. I was going to be the fit dad, the dad with the ability to run marathons on weekends and still make it home to cook dinner at night. Plus, I was fixated on the idea that eventually my son is going to play Little League sports, and I know the coach will be looking at the athletic caliber of the dads when determining playing time. When the coach is filling out the roster card and determining which kid to start and which kid to sit on the bench, I want him to scan the crowd of dads and meet my intense gaze where I’m fresh off a bench pressing session looking swole, sweaty and intense as Jocko Willink. That way, he has to pencil my son in as cleanup hitter and not the fill-in right fielder that bats ninth.
Now that my son is over the age of two, I’ve had some time to work towards being the fit dad, and let me tell you - I’ve never been thicker in my entire life. Yup, the haters have won the war so far (it’s not over yet though).
Although I’ve done everything nutritionists recommend, including switching from regular Coke to Diet Coke and removing the middle bun from every Big Mac I eat to cut down on carbs, here’s how I’ve fallen out of shape since the birth of my children.
It started off well for me in my journey to be the fit dad. I went out and bought one of those fancy-ass Peloton bikes and immediately started riding that thing until my nose would bleed. For the first few weeks, I was addicted to the feeling of rising up the leaderboard of burned calories, and I enjoyed the challenge of different class types. But after a few weeks in, I came to a sudden realization: I’m spending hours of my life pedaling on a bike that goes nowhere while I just stare at the blank wall the bike is facing. Now I can’t get over that mental block, and my Peloton has been repurposed as a place to store my facemasks for whenever I need to go out to the grocery store. Not bad for a piece of equipment that cost me nearly $4,000.
The next phase of trying to stay fit was to begin a little weightlifting around the house. Since there was no way I was going to a gym while living in a Covid hotspot, I figured it was a great idea for me to spend some quality time with my son out in the backyard where he watches me do Power Cleans. Since I’m in the privacy of my backyard, I’ve started to get a little more emotional during my lifts. I started throwing in a, “That’s pure torque, baby!!!” and even started making some of those grunting noises those annoying guys at the gym make sometimes (not proud of this). All the while, my son looks up at me like I’m a superhero – he can’t believe I’m throwing around that heavy bar he can’t even move an inch.
I got a quick reminder that my son will randomly try and mimic my erratic behavior while we were cleaning our house one day. My son stumbled across a few of these 2-pound barbells that wife uses during some BeachBody workouts and proceeded to pick one up with both hands and look at my wife and I and scream, “Torque baby!!!!” – which is hilarious coming from a little two-year-old. My son then aggressively dropped that tiny weight directly on his foot. My wife, who is absolutely mortified at this point, goes to console my son and looks directly at me – “Well, who the hell taught him that?!” she asked. Not me, Honey…not me.
Although the weightlifting in the backyard has gone well, the real path to my new-found thickness is the result of letting my diet hit absolute rock bottom. When you’re operating on lack of sleep and a jam-packed schedule of cleaning bottles and feeding kids, it’s easy to let the diet slip a bit. And boy have I let it slip. I can barely muster the self-discipline to not pull an immediate u-turn in traffic when I see a Taco Bell sign that reads: “Grilled Cheese Burrito Box – Only $5.” When I’m not rolling into another fast food Drive-Thru, I’m usually at home quickly shoveling any semblance of a meal into my mouth as I stand over the kitchen sink. Only five minutes until the kids need to be in bed? I better consume these three cold hot dogs in five seconds so that I don’t need to go find a suitable glass Tupperware and lid combination.
The bad diet has brought me to my current state – my clothes are starting to not fit very well. This has been a huge wake up call for ya boi. I threw on a pair of cargo shorts the other day, and I now I completely understand where the term “Muffin Top” comes from…it’s a perfect description for how my thickness spills over the sides of my clothes. And forget a belt, I’m just hoping my button keeps it together while I’m out in public.
Now that I’m officially in the dad bod category of obesity, I’m hoping to find the motivation to turn things around in 2021. Otherwise, my son is looking at a childhood of warming the bench on his Little League teams and bringing water to the kids with fit dads.
