When a Lifestyle Becomes a Passion: 32 Years of Lifting.

September of 1980. I'd already lost 65 pounds by the end of my senior year in 1979 and was maintaining my weight at about 165 - 170 pounds, although my aunt Mary was convinced I was too skinny. I was living with my cousin Steve in Provo, Utah (yes, Provo) while I was going to school. He had a set of weights and a bench in the basement of his townhouse. You know the kind: cheap, cement-filled plastic discs that had to be bolted onto shoddy bars resting on a bench that could capsize without warning.

In the beginning, the only thing that I could do was to grasp 2, 5 pound weights and lay back on that shaky bench and do pec flys. In no time I graduated from that basement gym to a local community center with real barbells, dumbbells, and cables. I watched others do their workouts and got some basic ideas. I watched a guy, much smaller than me, do the bench press. After he was finished I ponied-up to the bench and loaded the bar with 2, 45 pound plates - the same amount he was using - and promptly dropped it on my chest. I squirmed for a few seconds when the guy, much smaller than me, hurried over and pulled the damn thing off of me.

There were setbacks: Illnesses; aches and pains; minor and major injuries (back surgery required), fitness-anemic schools and people. I look back over 30 years and can't remember any goals that I'd set for myself along the way but I do know I was in love, and continue to be in love with the journey. Lifting is how I learned to become my own healer, a place where I was both student and teacher, a lifestyle that turned into a lifelong passion. This line from my favorite song, that still brings tears to my eyes, sums it up: "Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own."

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