From cycling around the world
Here is my before and after picture after riding my bicycle around the world. I like to think that the change on the inside is even more dramatic. Hopefully, I demonstrated the inner changes in my book Falling Uphill, which in retrospect, was a coming-of-age journey. Which I think is summarized in one of my favorite quotes: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust.
As for the physical changes, those are easy to see.
Before and after closeup
It didn’t help that I was getting soft sitting in front of a computer all day. Then, two years before my departure, I was knocked off my bicycle by a reckless motorist who ran a stop sign. As you can see, the cartilage was torn and frayed, and I had to have the loose pieces removed. It almost ended my dreams of riding my bicycle around the world.
Unfortunately, that recovery was very hard. Fortunately, once back on the bike, I lost 65 pounds of fat and gained about 15 pounds of muscle. Those pounds really melted off after eating a salmonella sandwich in Guayaquil, Ecuador and then cycling over the Andes Mountains on nothing but bananas and Coca-Cola.
It was actually difficult to keep the weight on, especially muscle. However, my health greatly improved when I learned to listen to what my body wanted. Much harder is learning to listen to what your spirit wants. Thankfully — even if I wasn’t thankful at the time — the benefit of those long hours on the bicycle is that you have nowhere to hide from yourself.
