The Incredible Shrinking Boyfriend

I wish I could start this by telling you that I was my boyfriend's awesome healthy role model and that I played an instrumental role as the man of my dreams became the man of his dreams, but it wouldn't be true. I wish I could tell you that I was this man's nutritionist or chef or even a workout buddy, but that wouldn't be honest either. I didn't force feed him kale or go all boot camp on his ass every morning..

All I did was fall in [unconditional] love with a boy.

years later and my face is still ridiculous. 

The man I met 6+ years ago and the man I'm currently dating look a whole lot different. He is the same humble and driven person, but people who weren't witness to Joel's revolution sometimes have a hard time recognizing him. Even to me, he almost feels like two different people. Just to be clear, I have always been and will always be attracted to Joel's body and soul. I dare someone to challenge that.

When I say my boyfriend is my hero, I always think of this specific thing. He rescues me every day, but what's more impressive is the way he has saved himself. 




I'm always baffled by just how much motivation he has. He works hard for someone else 40 hours a week and then comes home and puts the same quality of work into himself. It doesn't matter if it's 8AM on a weekend or 9PM after a 10 hour work day, he always finds ways to be active. Our home is filled with all sorts of exercise odds and ends. We have a giant yoga ball, a foam roller, weight set and a Joel size bicycle that currently occupy our living room. I feel like I'm constantly nagging him about it or trying to stack it all on top of each other to take up less room. Honestly though, not a day goes by that he's not cleared a place on the floor to use it. I think I stopped noticing how many conversations we have while he's stretching his back on the yoga ball or isolating some muscle with the barbell. I think this might be odd in most homes, but for us, it is just our life. When we travel, we stay at hotels with gyms. We make plans around the gym's basketball schedule. Joel's fitness and diet play more in our relationship than people might think. 

I think if I've done anything towards Joel reaching his goals it's that I've allowed him to be this person with these priorities. It's such a small contribution, it might not even be worth mentioning, but I never tell Joel that he shouldn't work out. That might sound stupid, but there are times when I just need my guy, but he needs to go for a run. His workout regime often makes us late for things or makes us cancel plans altogether. There are times when I'm starving for dinner, but Joel wants to go shoot the basketball for two hours before we can have meal together. I swear that gym gobbles him up from time to time. It can be frustrating, but I know it's what he needs. He's often restless and anxious if he doesn't meet (what we lovingly refer to as) his "sweat quota". I try to be a motivating as humanly possible and carry a -- 'drop everything and run' attitude for him. I bite my tongue (and hold my breath) for several days when his workout clothes are piling up. I pick up broccoli and kale  (which I think are completely inedible) when at the grocery store and even though I'm embarrassed that my home looks more like a home gym, I cannot begin to explain that pride I feel in all of it. 

Even though Joel had already lost an insane amount of weight before we started dating, at the beginning of us, every time he went to the gym, less of him came back to me. I could wrap more of my arms around him and his body (and especially his face) just became chiseled. To be honest, I couldn't keep my hands off of him. I'm struggling to keep this PG. Not only was it a new, exciting relationship, but this man was surprising me all the time. We'd climb a staircase and I would see this calf muscle and I had to touch it to make it real. I was w o r s h i p i n g him. He was getting smaller, but I could swear he was also standing taller. He all of a sudden had this jaw line that melted me and his chest became an extra firm pillow. I was learning anatomy in lecture and all of a sudden there were these giant muscles and bones sticking out his skin to study at home. This cuddly bear of a man had become this Greek God.....and he was mine. 

Joel had just finished a triathlon.

If you have ever tried to compliment Joel's successes to his face, then you know he brushes off any nice thing you could say and tries to move on as quickly as possible. I respect his humbleness, but as his girlfriend, I couldn't move on without him really knowing how proud he had made me. I needed something more than words so that I knew the message really sunk in with him. So, naturally I got on Pinterest and called our moms. (this is pretty much how I start anything nowadays) Lucky for me, Joel had been purging his closet of clothes that no longer fit him for a year or more. Every trip to Lafayette was a chance to bring a garbage bag filled with all his baggy clothes to leave at his parent's house for storage or to hand down to another family member. He was very hesitant to give up all these clothes, some of which he had had since middle school. So, I had Joel's mom start separating some of the t-shirts that had real memories attached to them away from the rest of the clothing. Once she handed over quite a large stack of shirts and the curtains that were in Joel's childhood bedroom, I got to work making a quilt. The funny part is that I thought this would just be a day project........ well like $120+ of supplies, 2 broken needles, 1 broken sewing machine, a fight between Joel and I about how much time I was spending at my parent's house, and about 24 solid hours of mentally exhausting work and  some blood, sweat and tears, I handed Joel his t-shirt quilt. 

Call me crazy, but if our house ever caught fire I'd save this thing first. 

My own mother said she'd never seen me work harder. 

I'm not sure what I intended this blanket to mean. All I knew is that my partner had put in all this work and it inspired me to put in some work to recognize his achievement. And that's really it, the best part I mean, I truly have an infinite source of motivation and inspiration to siphon off of. 

He did that thing that we all say we are going to do tomorrow.  To be attached to that, to love someone who woke up one day and said I'm going to change his  life -- and then did, is my miracle. At the end of the day, this is the person I want to spend my  life with and improving his health and making it a priority in our relationship will mean that we get more time together in the long haul. We started this relationship knowing that we can do anything. There will never be an obstacle that Joel can't overcome and he won't let me believe that I can't overcome it too. So we sweat and we grind and we put in the work that we need to and I will love him forever for setting that standard in our lives.

 The man of my dreams became the man of his dreams and to me, that is everything.

my   dream is to be this guy's running partner #goals

One of Joel's favorite songs to run to.

-that one [proud] girl(friend)