Fitness

First of all, I want to congratulate you on your sobriety. Honestly, you'll probably lose a ton of weight if you just keep that up, so it's time to celebrate already! You're doing great. Everything from here on is just a bonus.

Your biggest problem is your wife and kids. Taking care of kids takes up a lot of time and can be very stressful, and you don't want to overburden your wife. This is very admirable, but it is also a problem you need to figure out. And the way to figure out is talking to your wife about it. You and your wife are partners in life, so when you have a hard goal you want to achieve, she should be the first person you go to for support. So have a good, ongoing discussion about your goal, how you plan to achieve it, what she could do to help, what she is willing to do to help, and how you can help her in return. This might mean her agreeing to watch your kids for another night so you can have more time playing hockey - but probably the biggest help she can give you is also committing to living a healthy, active lifestyle. And remember, you aren't just doing this for your health, or so you can be there for your kids when you are older. You are also modeling good behaviors for your kids so that they will be healthy, active adults without going through the struggle you are currently going through.

So, how do you motivate yourself to exercise? Well, you already figured it out. You go play hockey on Friday nights. This has all three components of creating a good exercise habit - it is fun, it is social, and it occurs on a regular schedule. Do more of that. As others have said, CrossFit (or other group fitness classes) can be a great place to start. Why? Because they are fun, social, and regularly scheduled. This is also true for things like running clubs, acrobatics classes, or making plans with friends to go on bike rides or meet at the climbing gym. Yoga studios often have classes offered before work, if that's what fits your schedule. So do boot camp style gyms.

I will note that, in my opinion, you should adopt a similar strategy for your diet. Counting calories is the "I will just hate myself hard enough to wake up at 5 am and go running" of diets. Sustainable, healthy weight loss comes from living a healthy lifestyle - not from counting every calorie you eat like a lunatic. Again, do it for your kids - what do you want them to learn a normal diet looks like? Staring at a screen and bemoaning the fact that you went over your calorie budget today? Or happily eating plenty of vegetables? Cooking and eating should be relaxing, enjoyable, social affairs. If you and your wife arent already cooking/making healthy meals for most of the food you eat, you should start. Learn to cook food from minimally processed ingredients, with lots of vegetables, that tastes good. Then eat that food with other people - your family, friends, or coworkers. Focus on the food, the place you are in, and the people you are with, rather than staring at your phone or watching tv. And then, don't snack, don't drink your calories, and do the above for a year and tell me you haven't lost weight.

Your kids, obviously, will play a factor. But again, this is a problem to figure out, not an insurmountable obstacle. If you understandably don't want to give up time with your kids for another night of the week, you should start looking for activities where they can also be present, and ideally participate, in the exercise you are doing. For example, you can bring them with you to the climbing gym (please watch them, and don't let them get crushed in the bouldering cave), take them on hikes and bike rides, sit them in the corner of your home gym while you lift, or find a martial arts dojo that offers classes for kids at the same time that they offer adult classes. Make friends with other parents with healthy, active lifestyles, and trade babysitting duties with them, or else plan group activities where everyone can come - like throwing a frisbee around in the park. Not only are you getting exercise while watchig your kids, you are, again, teaching them by example how to live a happy, healthy, active life.

One thing I want to touch on is your note about how your gym is a 30 minute drive away. This will never work. It is much, much easier to establish a good exercise habit if it integrates into your commute, rather than forcing you to commute more. If you really want to get into the habit of morning gym time, I recommend simply setting your alarm 10 minutes earlier than usual, and then going to a gym that is on the way to work. A 10 minute workout that you actually show up to is far better than an hour and a half workout that you skip. Using this method, you can force yourself in the door with a simple trick - don't shower before you leave home. That way once you've left home, you must go to the gym to shower. And once you are in the gym, it is easy enough to do a few deads. Another idea is to integrate your workout further into your commute by making your commute a workout by walking or cycling to work. You noted that it is too cold outside - nonsense! You don't have to start on the worse weather day of the year, but you can easily buy reasonable clothing for almost any weather, and your mind and body will adapt just as well to different temperatures as they will adapt to weights in the gym or miles pounding pavement.

The above strategies are how you build a wholistic, integrated approach to health and fitness that become a functioning lifestyle. If the only reason you exercise is to lose weight, then it will be a long and arduous process. But if you eat healthy and exercise to have fun, explore the world, meet new people, deepen relationships, and spend time with your kids, then you will soon find that it is harder not to exercise and eat healthy.

Finally, probably one of the best things you can do to create a lifestyle that will keep you healthy into old age is this: move. A lot of people scoff at the idea, or come up with all sorts of reasons why they can't. But they shouldn't - if your environment is opposed to your goals, you will always be fighting an uphill battle. I'm not saying you need to move tomorrow - but start thinking about it tomorrow. One of the biggest factors in weight gain is living in an auto-dependent area, because it means you never walk anywhere, and therefore never see the health benefits of walking, meanwhile seeing all the detriments of stress from constantly sitting in traffic. Move somewhere where you can walk or bike to most or all of your daily or weekly errands. Move somewhere where your kids can walk or bike to school, friends homes, and various activities they want to participate in - don't get suckered into being their chauffeur for 15 years! If your job won't let you move to such a place, start making moves to get a different job! If you don't get paid enough to afford to live in such a place, start making moves to get paid more!

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Hope you find some of this useful