18 months, finally adding pics, lots

Troublemonster · July 2013

I started my journey at the end of February 2012. I am a police officer and as such I am also a use of force and firearms instructor. I had almost everything I wanted out of my career except SWAT. I decided I was standing in my own way and to stop doing so.

An officer in a neighboring town was shot on December 19 2011, that day I was home with my daughter and was glued to the news feeds all day long. I remember sitting and watching my friends and coworkers hunkered down behind the armored vehicle in an 8 hour SWAT operation and thinking to myself that I should be there. I felt I owed it to them, to myself, and to my community to be there with them and decided to get moving.

I started running and attempting various basic fitness movements to prepare for the PT test which was the first mountain to climb but my nutrition was the missing link. I thought I was doing okay but I didn't know because I wasn't tracking anything.

Then I got turned onto MFP and things really took off. I started at 254 pounds and currently am around 205 after being as low as 199. I have since qualified for SWAT and in the last year since then have further improved my PFT scores until I was the fastest cop on our 1.5 mile run with a 10:40, 2nd overall behind one of our medics who runs marathons. I went from assisted pull-ups to sets of 9 or 10, and discovered heavy lifting in the process. I am in love with fitness and could not be more excited about the new life style I have adopted. My wife has also bit the hook and is down below her pre-pregnancy weight @ 104 and is stronger than me by percentage of bodyweight on some of our lifts (Can't believe I admitted that but I am damn proud of her).

Prior to starting MFP:

8/3/12 @213 pounds:

7/1/13 @204 pounds:

This is my wife and I at that Officer's funeral as we got out of my squad at the cemetery I took a moment to hug her as we had both been crying in the car during the procession. It was on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune website, and the paper I think:

Another favorite picture from the funeral procession, just a random local kid holding a flag on a hill top, saluting the procession as we left the church: