On the specific moment you stopped being able to lie to yourself — and why that’s actually the beginning of everything.

I want to tell you about a pair of Abercrombie shorts.

My girlfriend bought them for me. She was being thoughtful — we had a Hawaii trip coming up, she picked up some things, laid them on the bed. I looked at the tag. Size 40.

I was immediately offended. Like she’d called me something.

“You think I’m a 40?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Go try ’em on.”

So I did.

They fit.

She said they looked good. Already thinking about what else we needed to pack. Completely unbothered. Because to her, it was just a size. She’d been looking at me every day. She already knew.

The next day I bought a scale. 242 pounds.

I’d gained 72 pounds. No decisions made. No moment where I chose this. Just defaults running on autopilot — restaurant leftovers every night, no more sport, oversized clothes that hid everything. Life just slowly filled in around me and I let it.

Here’s what I want you to understand about that moment.

It wasn’t just about weight. The thing that actually hit me was this: fei chai was back. That was the Cantonese nickname they gave me as a kid. Fat boy. The thing I thought I’d left behind in high school when I grew six inches in one summer and the weight just stretched away.

I’d been walking around for two years thinking I was still that guy — the athlete, the baller — because the clothes were baggy and nobody said anything and I just never really looked. The shorts forced me to look.

What went through my head sounded like this:

“You’re a fat piece of shit. You used to be a big-time athlete. Now you just eat fast food and drink because there are no more sports and life sucks.”

That’s the real version. Not cleaned up. Not reframed as a growth opportunity. Just the raw thing the mirror says when you finally can’t unsee what you’ve been avoiding.

But then — quieter, and clearer — came the second thought:

That second thought — the mirror turning — is the whole thing. That’s what turns a bad moment into a starting line.

The same night I stepped off the scale, I signed up for a gym. Month-to-month — cheapest option. I showed up the next day at 9pm. Not because that was the optimal time to train. Because that’s when the street parking became free.

I was too broke to pay the five dollars for the lot.

The basketball court was packed. There was a line to play. I ended up waiting two hours and never got on the court at all. So I watched the people lifting. Then I started copying them. Then I bought a Muscle and Fitness from the grocery aisle when they happened to have a workout plan inside.

Was it the right program? No. Absolutely not. I’d figure that out much later.

But it was pointed in the right direction. And that was more important than anything else at that point.

Something is infinitely better than nothing. Forward is infinitely better than standing still.

Don’t wait for perfect conditions.

I didn’t sign up for the gym to “get fit.” I signed up because it had a basketball court. I went at 9pm because the parking was free. I used a magazine workout because I didn’t know better. None of it was optimal. None of it was planned. It was just what I could do with what I actually had. The urgency from the scale was still running — so I used it before it had a chance to cool off into “maybe next week.” That’s Run. You go. You show up. You stay. The feeling that made you open this email — that’s the urgency. Use it right now.

What’s the thing that used to manage you — a sport, a season of life, a job, a relationship — that’s just gone now? And what’s one action you could take today — not perfectly, just actually?

Every issue I’ll bring you one idea from the climb — from my story, from the framework, from what I’ve watched work for the people I’ve coached over the past two decades. No meal plans, no macro calculators, no programs designed by someone who’s never met you.

Just the real version. The one that works when conditions aren’t optimal.

Which is most of the time.

See you next week.

— The guy who showed up at 9pm for the free parking

Know someone who could use a real reason to start? Forward this to them.