There Is No Ice Cream

Prior to making art my full time job, I had a successful career as a personal trainer. For ten years I got up before dawn and through hard work, dedication and discipline, made it my mission to help others be the best version of themselves they could possibly be.

While a handful of my clients were athletes, the majority of them were not. In fact, most of them were obese and in dire need of losing weight to avoid health complications and to improve overall quality of life.

I loved my job. It gave me an enormous sense of pride aiding others in pursuit of a better life. It was especially satisfying because I had gone through the process myself before ever thinking of becoming a fitness professional.

I was once a depressed, overweight smoker headed down the wrong path before I had a health scare at 29 years old that catapulted me into getting my act together. It wasn’t easy, but I quit smoking and found out that by moving more and eating healthier I could look and feel better than I ever thought possible. I was hooked. Fitness became my life. Having made such profound changes myself, I was called to help others do the same.

What I learned in transforming my own body, and later in training others, was that the number one factor determining whether one would be successful or not was discipline. That’s it. You have to show up. Motivation is fleeting for most people. Hell, most days I have very little motivation at all to train hard. But I show up and do it anyway. And when you stack day upon day of just showing up, progress is certain. The same goes for nutrition. One must be disciplined. If you eat healthy most of the time, you can eat junk food every once in a while and it’s effects will be minimal. But discipline is required to stay on that path.

For those who struggled with junk food I would always share the advice that if you don’t have it, you can’t eat it. In other words, there is no ice cream. It doesn’t exist. Have a bowl of grapes, because there is no ice cream.

I wanted to create a piece that embodied that idea. I wanted to show the difficulty, the emotion, the pain, the embarrassment, and ultimately the joy of remaining disciplined in the face of a world that is constantly throwing bad food in our faces.

There is no ice cream, my friends. And you’ll be all the better for it.