Last bit of qualification for my readers here =).
I started off pretty skinny for my extreme youth, but due to the abundance of junk food at such a young age I picked up weight pretty quick about age 7 (might be genetics to as my younger brother has followed the same pattern). I played flag football for a short time at that age but it didn’t do much for my weight. I didn’t like being fat but at the same time, well shit at age 7 who cares LOL.
As I got older it began to be a problem with my self esteem/girls (on top of being extremely shy haha). 6th grade was probably my heaviest year. In 7th grade though my best friend joined a Pop Warner football team and I followed suit. I was always the slowest but lost a good deal of weight playing. I was a linemen of course. Played pee-wee football once again my last year of middle school.
After middle school I signed up for the high school freshmen football team, which is when I began lifting weights. My dad was a former competitive body builder/power lifter. He was huge, and knew his stuff when it came to working out. This gave me a bit of an edge over the other guys my age in the weight room, and it showed in my bench press and squats. At the time my diet was horrible by the way, but I thought it was awesome because it always kept that extra few pounds on me for the offensive line.
Throughout high school I always thought of myself as a little overweight, but I rationalized it by playing football (my identity centered around this linemen concept). I gradually became more and more into working out as I aged though, and my senior year is when it really took off.
My senior year I dislocated my left kneecap (my patella for you geniuses out there) for the fourth time and was no longer able to play football. My identity came to an end, and my mind looked for a new one. I decided I wanted to get more involved with working out now that I was done with football so I started hitting the gym a lot more and running as well. Now that I was no longer a lineman I also cut the habit (well for the most part) of overeating. 5 big macs a day –no exaggeration- on top of my regular meals stopped pretty quick.
My senior year of high school, from the first day to the last day, I lost 28 pounds. Went from 198 to 170. This was due to three things
-increasing how often I worked out and how I worked out
-my diet
-my natural weight
My natural body weight is probably around ~180 so when I stopped the over eating habits, alongside everything else like HARD WORK, my body dropped the excess weight. Another thing that helped to get to 170 was a steam room at a gym I joined. Cut most of my water weight right off.
Left for college and gained almost 10 pounds in 2 weeks, doing everything the same except the steam room. That’s water weight for ya….
Once in college I kept following this path of fitness and eventually got to where I am at now. One thing that really improved my fitness was jumping rope (post on that tomorrow). Other than that my diet has gradually improved since I have arrived in
At the moment I weigh about 170~, but it’s a much more solid weight, not the water one from before.
Couple things
-At my heaviest I was 198.4 pounds, benched 285.
-At my lowest weight and highest strength I weight 170 and benched 315, twice.
-I’m an avid runner and have run anywhere from a mile in
- I made the decision long ago (health and personal reasons) not to ever drink, or do any type of drug including weed and cigarettes. Not a drop, not one puff.
-I got into supplement for a while with things like whey protein and multivitamins etc… They are all essentially crap (will make a post on mis-information someday).
That’s about it, hope everyone enjoyed learning where I came from with the health and fitness aspect of my life. Of course as mentioned before I’ve really gotten into this and I’m studying to become a personal trainer. If I can do it, so can everyone else =).
-Dream
