I've been a pro poker player (living off poker) for awhile. Recently I had to switch to playing live, it has started to wear on me. The constant travelling, the late hours, the stress. It has come to my attention that I have become very unhealthy. This bothers me a lot as I used to be obsessed with health. I used to keep a diet log, work out every day and I worked as a personal trainer. You can imagine the extreme ying and yang type effect it has had on me since those days. I now eat whatever I feel like eating (usually because its convinent) If i have a big losing day I use comfort food, I have a hard time consistently keeping up with working out and cardio (cardio being my priority now that i'm so sedentary). My teeth have suffered from eating horrible foods and sugar, and recently I dislocated my shoulder (not relevent to poker, but it still sucks). I started thinking to myself that life is not a game, if you mess up your health, you die.
It's so easy to get caught up in the life of poker, money, fashion, stuff that has no relevence to your health, and in fact hinders it. What good is money if you don't live long enough to even enjoy it? I feel like I've had great opportunities in my life with poker, and have over looked most of them, not really thinking much of it at the time. If I had the money I had at certain points in my poker career I would have done a lot of things differentlly. Obviously hindsight is 20/20 and spending 4k at a stripclub in one night is easy to look back on and say I was stupid, but if I had taken myself more seriously with less partying, spending money, and focusing more on my health, I would be much happier today than I am now.
I need to start focusing on my life again. I've been so burried in poker, that I've let a lot of things in my life deteriate. Socially, mentally, and physically poker has beat me up. All this being said it's going to be hard to change everything at once, so as a start I feel like watching what I eat is probably the thing I have the most control over, and will address it. Then figuring out a way to consistently work out. And then my dating life could definitely use some work. So for those who are still reading, I hope that poker doesn't take over too much of your life like it has mine, and if it is starting to or already has, that you have the smarts to change it before it's too late.