Five Januaries ago, I summoned the motivation to embark on a fitness journey. I wasn’t morbidly obese like my neighbor Fupa Jeff, but I could have afforded to swap out a few dozen pounds of fat for a few dozen pounds of muscle. Like many Americans, I contacted my local Hearst dealer to sign up for Men’s Health magazine, which dispenses invaluable fitness and lifestyle advice, cooking and diet suggestions, and guidance on how to fuck your bitch like a champ, provided you don’t bust in the first 22 seconds.

On the first day of the year, I giddily ran to the mailbox to unwrap my first issue. I ripped out the recipe pages and threw them at my wife. Hopefully she can muster up the courage and time to learn a few new recipes between microwaving Stouffer’s lasagna and ordering Uber Eats. Fucking bitch. I also tore out the sex tips for when I get lean and shredded and finally leave her for my secretary. But the main content I was after was the workout plans.

The first issue had a full-body workout routine. Thank god for the pictures and descriptions because I didn’t know what any of these fucking exercises were. After a quick warm-up, there is a dumbbell pushup to renegade row combo movement supersetted with body weight alternating split squat jumps. Do 12 repetitions on each side for three rounds, and rest for 30 seconds between rounds (3). The second superset was standing dumbbell military press and glute bridge. Do 15 repetitions for each exercise for three rounds, and rest 30 seconds between rounds (3). The last superset was Supermans with V-ups. Do 15 repetitions for each exercise and rest 20 seconds between rounds (3). Do this full-body workout four days per week, and jog 30 minutes on off days.

Simple enough. It took a few weeks to get into the routine, but I was seeing and enjoying the benefits. I lost a few pounds in the gut and was generally feeling healthier, energized, and focused. The jogs helped my mind clear and my muscles recover. It became easier to run around and play ball with my kids. My wife even tried making the healthy food. With the support of my wife and children, my fitness journey was off to a fantastic start.

February provided its share of challenges, because with a new issue came a new workout. This was an upper body dumbbell circuit, promising to take no more than 15 minutes. I’ve been trying to get Stacy from work to notice my new and improved arms to no avail, so this upper body circuit was going to give her no choice. Another quick warm-up, then right into the lifting. First was standing military press (again? WTF Men’s Health?), then bent-over rows, lateral raises, pushups, biceps curls, and finally triceps kickbacks. Do each exercise for 12-15 repetitions, resting 10 seconds between each exercise and 30 seconds between each round. Do 3 rounds. Do this circuit four days per week, and jog 30 minutes on off days.

At least there were new recipes. I was getting a bit tired of “healthy” beef and broccoli with zucchini noodles carbonara every night. I even tried out some of the sex tips on my wife. My slipped disc and carpet burn aside, it really helped us spice things up. But there were a few trade-offs. I was now getting my upper body jacked in addition to keeping up with the full-body workout, but I was also spending twice as much time in the garage. The full-body days were Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, with jogging on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. I tried to schedule the upper body day to overlap the least, so I did that workout Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday with jogging on the remaining days. So that meant every day had one workout and one 30-minute jog except for Saturday, which had two workouts. The way I looked at it, double the work, double the results.

After a quick adjustment period, the new routine was going extremely well. Stacy commented that I was outgrowing my shirts. I did start wearing women’s XS polos to accentuate my arms, but she doesn’t need to know that. By the time March rolled around, I was ready for a new challenge. This was a lower body circuit, which would be perfect to balance out the upper body circuit I’ve been doing. And this one was time-based, so I didn’t need to count reps anymore. Counting is for schoolchildren, and I’m a big, strong man. Men’s Health really knows what they’re doing. Another warm-up followed by dumbbell goblet squats, RDLs, body-weight prisoner squats, lunges, lateral squats, and squat jumps. Do each exercise for 30 seconds. Rest 10 seconds between exercises and 1 minute between rounds. Do 3 rounds. Do this circuit four days per week, and jog 30 minutes on off days. I’ll be damned if this didn’t scorch my quads, but it provided another scheduling challenge.

But Old Danny here made it work. To avoid cross-contamination with the leg exercises on the full-body days, I aligned these workouts with the upper body days. The only tricky day was now Saturday, which now has three workouts. But at least my wife has new recipes. And she needs them, because I’ve built up quite the appetite with all this working out and jogging. After three months, I was in the best shape of my life, keeping up with the kids, and making ferocious love to my wife.

Months went by, workouts and jogs were added. By October, I was waking up at 5am to do three workouts and jog for 90 minutes before work. When I got home, I had a quick bite with the wife and kids before another 1-2 workouts and 30-60 minutes of jogging. Finally at 9pm I could fuck my kids and tuck my wife in. Wait. Tuck my kids in and fuck my wife. She begged me to cool it on the working out because it was cutting into quality family time. Quality time? I’m extending my life span here by 30 years. God, women are dumb.

A few years later, 28 months to be exact, I was up to sixteen various workouts and twelve 30-minute jogs per day. Averaging 15 minutes per workout, my daily fitness routine was about ten hours filled with supersets, circuits, combo movements, ab work, kettlebell work, plyometrics, and everything else under the sun. I was waking up at 3am for my first eight workouts and six runs. I would alternate the workouts and runs to not fatigue my muscles or lungs too much. I would leave work to be home by 5pm, have a quick bite with the wife and kids, then hit the garage again for alternating circuits and jogs until 11pm. My wife started sleeping in the guest room so that I wouldn’t wake her up. Real supportive, honey. I think she was just jealous and insecure because she was still fat and ugly. My kids were doing something around this time. Maybe sports or school stuff, I don’t know. How am I supposed to keep up with their stupid kid shit when I’m busting my ass in the office to raise a family and busting my ass in the garage trying to get fit? And for the thousandth time I’m not going to see a doctor just because I’m passionate about health and fitness, god forbid a psychiatrist.

Speaking of the office, my coworkers can go fuck themselves. They keep telling me I’m looking thinner every day and are asking me if I’m getting enough sleep or food. Hey Stacy, you had your chance with me you disgusting cow. But you couldn’t stay away from Debbie’s snack drawer, could you? They were all jealous and insecure like my wife. They don’t respect my fitness journey or my privacy. My wife made me change the Men’s Health delivery address to my office, and now I hear all my coworkers gossiping about how I stand and tweak by the mailbox at the end of every month like a junkie waiting for his fix. Joke’s on them; I know I’m a junkie. A health junkie.

Now I sit, 61 months later, swallowing my pride and begging for help. I am writing this one sentence at a time between circuit rounds or between circuits and jogs. I needed to quit my job a few years back. My motto has always been “You can always get a new job, but you only have one body.” Between the full-body circuits, the dumbbell circuits, the upper body workouts, lower body workouts, core-blasting workouts, shoulder circuits, arm circuits, glute circuits, and god knows what else, not to mention jogging, I no longer have time for employment. My daily regimen is approaching 22 hours a day. I am able to sleep briefly on my garage floor each night on my sweaty yoga mat. I eat as much as I can from my fridge in the remaining time. Some days I only have time to score a few bites of leftovers, but no one said getting healthy was easy. Besides, calories are for fatties.

I am lean as ever, down to 78 pounds, which puts me in a perfectly normal weight range as long as I identify as a girl in the sixth grade. My strength has decreased somewhat, which is confusing because I’m doing a minimum of 6 upper body workouts per day. And my 30-minute jogs are less productive. I can make it about 100 yards to the end of the street and back. A far cry from the few miles I started with, but as they say, every journey has its ups and downs. Maybe I’m just in one of those valleys and will soon be at a new, higher peak. I have my doubts though.

I have not seen or heard from my family in months, maybe years. At this point I couldn’t tell you. I would like to think my wife and kids are happy and still in the house, but I’m only in the house for a few minutes each day and am too focused to check for them. I would hate it if she took the kids and left, but I’m slowly coming to the realization that there might potentially be a chance of that being a possibility. When I get a minute, I’ll go inside and call for them; I just have to remember their names first.

By this summer, I will breach the 24 hour mark, meaning all my daily workouts and jogs will surpass a full day’s time. I’m not sure what I will do. I’m not sure what I can do. All I know is that I cannot give up on my fitness journey. Maybe this is just a test to see what I can handle. I can be creative, such as doing a second workout during the rest periods of the first. Yeah, that might work. But I know where this is headed. I have created an inescapable hell for myself. If you’re out there, please help. Contact Hearst and Men’s Health, and urge them to stop the monthly workouts. Or at least revise their previous ones to relax the number of sets, reps, and days. Show them what they are doing to me and my family. I can’t take this much longer. I would write to them myself, but I have to go do a full-body circuit now.