Things Change
I haven’t posted since late February. In March, I took part in a transformational training called the Atlas Program in Las Vegas. That program shook me to my core in the best way. For most of my life, I carried traumas that shaped how I saw myself and how I showed up in the world. Atlas cracked that open.
While I have been on my Atlas journey, I paused writing posts because I felt things shifting in me. I needed the space to process before I could share.
The training has three parts: Explore, Breakthrough, and Redesign. I’ve completed Explore and Breakthrough and I’m now in Redesign. Explore forced me to look inward at things I had buried for years. Breakthrough was about facing them head on. Redesign is about building an elevated life rooted in who I want to be, not who I thought I had to be. The beauty of the program is that no two people walk away with the same experience—it meets you where you are.
Going into 2025, my number one goal was to get off my CPAP machine. I even wrote about it on this blog as part of my larger 50 by 50 journey. In April, my sleep doctor gave me a target: drop my weight, lower my body fat, and raise my overnight oxygen. I took it on like a mission. For months I trained, tracked, and pushed forward. By September, I had hit the numbers we had set. I walked into my retest confident and hopeful.
Instead, my oxygen had dropped. That crushed me. I had done everything right, but the outcome slipped further away. My doctor had warned me that even if I hit the markers, it didn’t guarantee success. That lesson hurt, but it also woke me up. Some goals are not fully in your control. And if you hinge your entire year on one outcome, it can break you when it doesn’t land.
That moment forced me to step back and re-evaluate. I realized that while I was chasing CPAP freedom, I had also been chasing other goals that didn’t truly light me up—like photography. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t have the passion to keep going when it got hard. The truth is, if you don’t love the journey, you won’t last long enough to reach the destination. That’s why I decided to cut those goals.
And in their place, I chose something that has lived in me for decades: bodybuilding. When I first saw Pumping Iron, I was mesmerized by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mike Katz, and Lou Ferrigno. For years I thought it wasn’t possible for me. I struggled with weight and self-confidence. At my heaviest I was 288 pounds. Today I’m 230, down 30 pounds since August 2024. For the first time, I see the possibility of stepping on stage.
So I’ve declared it: I will compete in a bodybuilding competition in June 2026. I don’t know exactly how I’ll get there, but I will. If you want to follow along with my progress, the best place is right here on Reset and Roam where I’ll share updates, setbacks, and lessons learned along the way.
To support that vision, I’ve added new fitness and physique goals to my 50 by 50 list:
- Bench press 315 pounds
- Deadlift 405 pounds
- Squat 365 pounds
- Reach 12 percent body fat
- Add 10 pounds of lean muscle
- Build 17-inch arms
- Compete in a bodybuilding competition – June 2026
- Take a bodybuilding posing class
- Track and log all workouts for a year
- Dial in bodybuilding nutrition for 90 days straight
- Document and publish my transformation story
That keeps my list at 50. The journey continues. Things change, and sometimes change is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
If you’ve ever had to let go of one dream to make space for another, I’d love to hear about it. Share your story in the comments or connect with me on Instagram—I believe transformation is better when we walk it together.
