Recovering addict

Hello guys im a recovering crack and herion addict and i am overweight. i have also been smoking sincr I was 17 i want to get back into boxing since i used to box before the drugs and was wondering will it be too late for me to start boxing and get into shape? I'm 26 now and I feel like if I didn't get in shape in my early 20s then I'm screwed. Idk I feel like I'm so close to an age where it gets harder to get into shape... Would i still be able to box and get into excellent shape? I am currently 220 pounds 5"11 I think my bmi is somewhere around 27

Hi mate first of all good on you for kicking/trying to kick the drugs, and hopefully smoking too. If you look at it in simple terms...you can't change the past, but you can certainly change the future, starting from now. Although every day we get older and may not have necessarily been kind to our bodies in the past, does it mean we should ever give up looking after our health?

In relation to your question about whether its too late to box at age 26, it depends what your goals are...do you want to be a top level amatuer/olympian or professional...then maybe its too late. If you want to box to stay healthy, active and keep you focused on leading a good clean lifestyle...there's no such thing as "too late" for that but instead more so "what are you waiting for?!".

Ease into it...don't expect yourself to just jump straight back into it and be where you were at but remind yourself that with consistent and sensible effort you can get there and even go beyond where you were before. As a reference, I did martial arts when I was in my early 20s and then had a long layoff where I got pretty fat and unfit. At around 29 I got back into thai boxing and over the course of a year of dedicating myself to it (training AND healthy eating) I lost over 10kg, became the fittest I ever was, fought 5 times (between the age of 30-32) and at the age of 35 I started amatuer boxing and about to have my first amatuer match. If you have the willpower to kick addictive drugs...you have the willpower to do anything. Good luck and stay clean man.

I got back into shape starting at age 42, I'm 3 years into my journey now at age 45 and feel like I'm in the best shape of my life.

I've seen a lot of former addicts trade their old habit for a new addiction of fitness, which I guess if you're going to be addicted to anything you could do a lot worse.

5'11" at 220 is easily recoverable from, you aren't too far gone. There is another guy on here that started at 417 and he's dropped over 150 lbs in less than a year.

So no, its not too late. I recommend you go back 1 page and start by reading the "Dont Look Past the Basics" sticky thread near the top of the forum.