Keep Trying, It’s Not Too Late

Keep trying sounds simple until you have had to do it for decades.

It is easy to say when you are on your first attempt, when the plan is new, the notebook is clean, the music is loud and the future version of yourself still feels close enough to touch. It is easy to say when nobody has seen you fail yet. It is easy to say when you still believe the next effort will be the one that finally clicks and carries you all the way through.

It is much harder when you have started again so many times that even you are tired of hearing yourself say it.

But that is still what keep trying means to me. Do not give up. It is not too late. Believe you can do it. Not in some glossy, empty, motivational way that belongs on a mug beside a herbal tea and a suspiciously relaxed houseplant. I mean believe it in the stubborn, bruised, slightly unreasonable way you have to believe it when the evidence is mixed and the history is not exactly on your side.

The cruel thing is that most of us already know what to do. We know what better looks like. We know the walks, the weights, the food, the sleep, the standards, the habits, the things we should stop doing and the things we should start doing. The knowledge is not usually the missing piece. The missing piece is continuing when you feel ridiculous for needing another beginning.

And I do feel ridiculous for starting again. Every time.

There is no point pretending otherwise. Each restart carries the little sting of all the other restarts. You remember the plans that faded, the promises that did not survive the week, the moments when you thought something had finally changed and then realised it had not changed enough. Starting again can feel embarrassing because it forces you to stand in front of your own history and say, “Right, we are doing this again.”

But I would feel far more ridiculous if I gave up completely. I would feel far more ashamed if I finally let go of the belief that I can still do it. Starting again may feel humiliating for a moment, but quitting would be worse because quitting would make the failure permanent. Another attempt is not proof that you are a joke. Another attempt is proof that something in you still refuses to die quietly.

And honestly, people who make fun of someone for repeatedly trying to improve their health, their body, their mind or their life are pieces of shit.

There is no elegant way to say that, and I do not particularly want one. If someone sees you trying, struggling, falling short and still getting back up, and their instinct is to laugh, then their opinion is worthless. You do not need them. You do not need to carry their judgement around like it has authority. Easy for me to say, obviously, because I give plenty of thought to the idea of people judging me. I am not pretending it is easy to ignore. It is hard to think people would laugh at you for trying to improve your life.

But they are some of the worst people.

Worse even than people who talk in the theatre.

For any man in his forties, fifties or sixties who thinks the damage is already done, I understand the feeling. There is a point where the years behind you can start to look like evidence. You look at your body, your habits, your health, your missed chances, your old attempts and the uncomfortable maths of age, and it becomes tempting to believe the story is already written. You tell yourself you have left it too late because that explanation hurts less than trying again and risking another failure.

But I think it is what you believe it is. If you truly believe it is too late, then maybe it is, not because your body has no capacity to improve, but because you have finally surrendered. The door closes when you decide it is closed. The danger is that most people are not truly there. They may feel 99.9% there. They may feel as though the last tiny piece of belief is barely alive. But that 0.1% matters.

That 0.1% is enough to get up.

Then maybe it becomes 0.2%. Maybe you go for a walk and it becomes 0.3%. Maybe you eat some broccoli and, against all odds and several better-tasting options, it becomes 0.4%. Life is not built in giant strides, however much we might wish it were. It is built in steps. Sometimes figuratively. Sometimes literally. Sometimes slowly enough that you feel foolish for calling it progress at all.

But it is still progress.

I do not know the man reading this at 11pm, tired, overweight, frustrated, embarrassed and half convinced he has left it too late. I do not know his exact mountain. I do not know the years, the shame, the habits, the medical results, the quiet fear or the number of times he has promised himself that Monday would be different. But I believe he can change. I believe that because I have to believe it for myself as well. I believe it is in us, even if the key is different for each person and some of us have spent years swearing at the lock.

Hope is harder to explain.

I would love to give a clean answer about what gives me hope, because clean answers make good content and terrible truth. The honest answer is that I do not really know. It is probably a massive combination of things, and it changes from day to day. My wife. My dogs. My cats. Maybe my friends, except the fat ones, obviously. Possibly God. Some mornings it is seeing sunshine. Sometimes it is hearing Kelly Clarkson on the radio and feeling, for reasons I could not defend in court, that maybe the day has something in it.

If I knew exactly what hope was, I would wrap it around my heart and keep it there permanently. But I do not think it works like that. Hope is more like a galaxy of tiny pieces. It rotates. Different pieces come into view at different times. Some days one thing pulls you forward, some days another. It is not always noble or profound. Sometimes hope is family. Sometimes it is music. Sometimes it is anger. Sometimes it is a dog looking at you like you are the centre of the universe despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Whatever it is, you grab it when it appears.

Because quitting is not peaceful to me. Quitting is not maturity. Quitting is not accepting reality. Quitting is dying.

That sounds extreme, but I mean it. If I quit, I die. Maybe not that day. Maybe not dramatically. But if I fully give up, nothing changes. The weight keeps climbing or stays too high. The health problems keep tightening their grip. My heart eventually gives up on me and I die a fat, middle-aged idiot who knew better and still let it happen. That is not the ending I want. I would rather try a thousand times and fail a thousand times than quit.

This is where people might expect something about dignity. The dignity of continuing. The dignity of noble failure. The dignity of getting back up after life knocks you down.

Honestly, fuck dignity.

What does dignity get me? A sense of noble failure? A polished little emotional story where I lose gracefully and everyone agrees I had a good go? I do not want dignity if dignity is just fear of other people’s opinions dressed up as character. What dignity would there be in dropping dead at 55 at 300 pounds? What dignity is there in needing four people to carry my body out of my house? If the choice is between looking dignified while I decline or looking ridiculous while I fight, then I will take ridiculous.

Undignified and healthy, alive and happy. I can live with that.

That might be the sentence people remember from Lactic Fire. Fuck dignity.

Not because dignity never matters in any situation, or because I think people should live without self-respect. I mean fuck the version of dignity that keeps you trapped. Fuck the fear of looking foolish. Fuck the embarrassment of starting again. Fuck the quiet voice that says people might laugh. Fuck the idea that you should avoid trying unless you can do it gracefully. Live with passion. Try and try again. If people think you are fooling yourself, delusional or just damn crazy, remind them that you have an arse and they can kiss it.

There are days when that message needs to be gentle, and there are days when it needs to arrive with a chair through a window.

For me, music often does that. Certain songs can change my mood almost instantly. The right song at the right time, when everything feels too much, can create a kind of motivation in me that is hard to describe. It may only be fleeting, but sometimes fleeting is enough. Sometimes you do not need a complete transformation in that moment. You need enough force to get off the floor.

It is not always healthy motivation. I know that. Sometimes it is angry motivation. But anger can be powerful. Discipline and standards are what make true change, not emotional lightning bolts, but sometimes the lightning bolt is needed to jump-start the engine. Or, given the state of things, like a defibrillator on a dodgy ticker. Either way, it works far better for me than positive reinforcement or some rancid platitude about believing in my dreams.

There is a rawness in that which matters to me. These articles are probably the most honest I have ever been. I do not want Lactic Fire to feel fake, clean or carefully sanitised until all the life has been scrubbed out of it. Humour matters because humour is part of who I am. The honesty matters because without it, the whole thing becomes just another fitness-flavoured performance. The point is not to sound perfect. The point is to sound real enough that someone else feels less alone.

That is what I want most.

When someone lands on Lactic Fire late at night, tired, overweight, frustrated, embarrassed and half convinced they have left it too late, I do not want them to feel shouted at. I do not want them to feel sold to. I do not want them to feel as though they have stumbled into some fake “ra-ra” corner of the internet where every struggle gets flattened into a slogan and every answer has a discount code attached. I want them to feel engaged. Interested. Maybe motivated. Maybe inspired, but not in a plastic way.

More than anything, I want them to feel that they are not alone.

I want them to feel that their mountain is real, but not impossible. I want them to understand that nobody else gets to decide when it is too late. I want them to know that starting again is not the embarrassing part. The embarrassing part would be surrendering while there is still even 0.1% of belief left.

Keep trying is not a cute phrase. It is a refusal. It is the decision to get up again even when you feel like a fool. It is choosing another attempt over final surrender. It is letting hope come from wherever it comes from that day, even if it is your wife, your dogs, your cats, God, sunshine, Kelly Clarkson, anger or the sudden desire to prove every smug bastard wrong.

It is not too late while you are still willing to move.

And if the movement is small, good.

Small steps still count.

Sometimes they are the only ones that do.

Disclaimer: This article reflects personal perspectives and experiences relating to fitness, mindset and wellbeing. It is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.