I can do a push-up: Hitting a fitness milestone

For over a year now I have been diligently exercising and I just hit a fitness milestone: I can do a push-up all the way to the ground!

This might not seem like a big deal--especially to men, with all your upper body strength and whatnot--but from the date I was diagnosed to more than a year after I finished chemotherapy, I did not exercise. That means I started exercised at a point in my life with very little muscle tone.

I weighed 155 lbs. when I started exercising in mid-July 2012, and here it is November 2013 and I still weigh 155 lbs. That means I have a have whole bunch of muscle now.

Watch me do some push-ups

I had a few false starts, and if you search the word exercise in this blog you can see how my feelings toward physical activity have gone up and down. But in late July 2012, after my 33rd birthday, I made a commitment to give a shit about my body, whether my life is short or long.

To quote myself:

If life is short, and if my tumor grows back, it is worth having made myself as strong as possible before I start treatment again. It is worth feeling good in my own skin, especially if I only have a short time in this skin.

And if I have a long time left in my body, well fuckin’ a, I will be stoked knowing I put in the effort for a reason: to feel good for the rest of my life.