Evan Slaughter’s One Foot In Front of the Other Approach to Health   

‍There are a million reasons to prioritize your health. From the numerous studies that show exercise increases life expectancy, to the outpouring of research that indicates movement can have a positive impact on mental health, there’s an abundance of scientifically backed reasons to get moving. 

But getting in shape and keeping your body healthy isn’t always six packs and weight loss transformations. Instead, sometimes fitness has a dark side and becomes a slippery slope that strips away our self-love and erodes our mental health. Evan Slaughter knows this side of fitness all too well. 

The veteran-turned-influencer has been candid when it comes to his journey with health and wellness, and recently acknowledged that being in shape doesn’t always fix everything. 

“For a big part of my life, I was interested in exercise,” Slaughter says. “I worked as a personal trainer, and in the military, I was in the Army and the Infantry and went through Special Forces selection – so I always enjoyed exercise.

“When I got out of the military, just getting older and whatever, I got away from it. I got really out of shape and was eating too much, not putting healthy things into my body, and it just gets away from you fast,” Slaughter says. 

A feeling that’s familiar to many, Slaughter acknowledges that getting out of shape “just kind of snuck up on me. It was one of those moments where I was like, ‘man, I gotta do something about this,’ because I started to feel like I wasn’t feeling great.” 

Slaughter says that although he “wasn’t feeling great” at this point in his life physically, “the difference is that whenever I was at the time in my life where I was in really good shape, I think I was actually in worse mental health shape. It wasn’t until I got out of shape that I felt like I started to work on my mental health – you wouldn’t think that would happen like that.

“I’m not saying that my mental health improved when I got out of shape, but I was able to learn some things about myself,” Slaughter continues. 

“As I got out of shape, I started to learn how to love myself, no matter what I looked like physically – which was big for me. As I started working on my mental health when I was out of shape, I learned to love myself no matter what circumstances I was in, or what I looked like, or what my physical health was. That, in turn, gave me the desire to get back in shape because I now enjoy life again. It was like, now I want to be in better physical health because I want a better quality of life. I want to be able to do things. I want to be able to go places. I want to be comfortable when I do those things and to be able to try new things and be in shape. 

“I got out of shape, worked on my mental health, and then from that transition, it was like, now that I love myself for who I am, let’s get back in shape,” he says. 

Wanting to get healthy is one thing, but whether you’ve gotten out of shape, or this is your first go-round with making your health a priority, it can be daunting to think about the mountainous task in front of you. 

As Slaughter began his journey back toward building a positive relationship with his mental and physical health, he says that “a big part of it for me was I had to get sober from opiates. I had struggled with opiate addiction for a little while when I was injured in Afghanistan and used that as an excuse for a long time to be dependent on opioids. That just led me down a road where my life was dependent on it – my happiness, my appetite, everything was dependent on this medication.” 

Slaughter says that the first step was to “learn that I didn’t need [the opiates] for the pain and that I can actually use other things for that, and so that was a journey in and of itself. But that allowed me to have a clear mind where it wasn’t clouded, it wasn’t foggy. It was just my natural state of existence so I could see things through a proper lens.” 

“I got out of shape, worked on my mental health, and then from that transition, it was like, now that I love myself for who I am, let’s get back in shape,” he says. 

Struggling with an addiction may or may not be something that resonates, but regardless, Slaughter says that after getting clean he was able to take on the “process of just learning how to live on a daily basis. One day at a time, that’s where my focus has to be. I would get so consumed with the future and down the road – even worrying about the past. And it was like I had to learn to be present.

“Once I started to kind of learn to be present, that allowed me to shift my mind to where I was looking at things on a more moment-by-moment basis. So as something came up, I could handle it in the moment, and then move forward from that,” he says. 

Whether your goal is to lose five pounds or completely overhaul your physique, Slaughter’s one foot in front of the other approach to fitness is something that can be practiced every day – and is something he still “practices all the time. It’s not like once I learned how to do that, it was over and everything was good now. It was more like, alright, once I learned how to do that, I might forget one day and I have to come back to that because it still happens every day,” Slaughter says of getting caught in future thinking. 

“It’s a journey,” he continues, emphasizing that both fitness and mental health are not “one and done” tasks, but take consistent, continual work.

“Sometimes I hate using the term ‘journey’ because it feels like a destination that I’m never going to get to,” Slaughter says. “You hear people talk about weight loss journeys, and it’s like, 

‘Man, that sounds like a lot of work,’ so I’ve got to bring it back to ‘what am I going to do today that’s going to help me improve physically and mentally. And if I can just stay in that 24 hours, and then wake up and worry about that 24 hours when it comes, then through that, I’m making those little steps toward change.” 

Those little steps toward change will vary from person to person, but Slaughter says that his change began when he returned from deployment. However, he notes that even for those who haven’t been in the military or ever deployed, “everybody’s got their own journey, and everybody’s got their own things that they have to work through – that looks different for every single person on this earth, no matter what their experience is.

“For me, the reason I mention deployment is because that’s where I think you can hear a lot of people talk about anger and emotions and all this stuff, and that can kind of put a stigma on it. For me, for example, when I came back from deployment, I ignored a lot of things that I shouldn’t have ignored. My temper was very short. I had a hard time driving. Whenever I got back, I didn’t want to be in crowded places. You’re kind of taught, at least I was, to kind of just ‘man up,’ so to speak, and just kind of ignore it,” Slaughter says of the situations that initially made him realize something needed to change. 

“It wasn’t until I got out and realized that I carried those problems into my everyday civilian life that I noticed that I’m not making excuses for anything, but those are things that maybe shouldn’t be ignored. Talk about it with somebody, because talking about those things for me at least allowed me to see the truth behind it instead of just thinking about it in my mind and not ever doing anything about it. It allowed me to come to a place where I could at least share those experiences with somebody. My biggest thing, military or not, is to talk about it with somebody you can trust,” he says. 

Whether it’s mental health, physical health, or a struggle in another area of life, Slaughter’s words ring true that the first step is finding that support. From leaning on a friend to help get started in the gym to seeking out a mental health provider to start addressing issues like depression, anxiety, or PTSD, this small step can be a big act of self-love.

After finding the right support, Slaughter says that he was then able to start addressing other issues, like his confidence. “I learned how to stop caring what other people thought about me, and I don’t know if that came with age or it came from me being out of shape and just going ‘you know what, I could care less what you think.’ I’m not in the best shape of my life, but I’m not going to let what you think about me stop me from enjoying life.”

Slaughter says that he “doesn’t know where that shift happened, but I do know this: getting back to working out to get back in shape has been a struggle, and I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to, or I’m getting to experience being out of shape and trying to get back in shape. It makes me appreciate what people are going through when they’re out of shape, and it’s a struggle. It's tough.” 

From CrossFit to weightlifting, Slaughter has “tried a lot of different things,” but says that the biggest key has been to “start doing something that I could kind of look forward to doing. For me, that was getting a bicycle. I felt like a kid again.

“I found a bike that I could ride comfortably and I found a place that I could ride it where I’m private and alone. I take it out to the state park and ride it down the roads or whatever – put my headphones in – it doesn’t have to be too challenging at first. But it was getting me going, getting me active, and I enjoyed riding it. Then when I was done, I’d be saying I went further than I thought I would today, or I rode longer than I expected because I wasn't even thinking about it as exercise,” he says. 

Slaughter is also a fan of America’s new favorite sport, pickleball. “I did a lot of stuff with pickleball,” he says, advocating for those on a health journey to “find some friends and try something like an activity that doesn’t feel like exercise just to get moving.” 

Embarking on a journey to better health can be a rewarding and life-changing experience, but Slaughter stresses that while your focus should be on getting healthy, it’s important to not “beat yourself up. Just try to do better than you did today.” 

While he’s worked to get to this point with his mental and physical health, he emphasizes that it’s important to go at your own pace and be proud of your progress along the way – no matter how big or small. 

“If I sat on the couch all day and watched TV and ate bad food, let’s say I’ve been doing that for a long time. Say one day I get up and I walk a lap around my house one time, but I haven’t been doing that – that’s progress. If all it takes to start is I’m just going to get out and walk to my mailbox and back, let that be the start, and don’t beat yourself up for it being such a small reward, because I had a problem with looking way off into the future. 

“That again comes back to the ‘journey’ word for me. If I think about this like, ‘damn, I’ve got 75 pounds to lose; I’m never going to get there, that’s a lot of weight.’ But if I can just go, ‘Hey, what can I do today to lose a pound, or whatever I weigh at the end of the week,’ and maybe I lost three pounds. Let me look at it in those terms so it’s like, stop looking at the end result. Focus on today, find something fun to do that you enjoy that you don’t really think is exercise, and let that be what sparks the change for you.” 

Want more from Evan Slaughter? Follow him here. 

‍