I always loved sports. So much so that my family thought something was wrong with me. On Sunday’s I was studying and analyzing the pros. Monday thru Saturday, I was trying to implement what I had learned. Imagine an 8 year old, whose entire family had no interest in sports at all, engaging in this. Bizarre I know.
This continued up into high school. I began lifting weights to get ‘bigger faster stronger’ for football. My mom, who was a vegetarian, always tried to feed me good: home grown vegetables, fruits, and even introduced flax seed oil to me at an early age. I resisted. I went off to college and finally I was free from my mom’s natural food. College diet 101! Ramen noodles, Totinos pizza, a constant supply of cookie dough, wonderbread, lunch meat, and gogurts. If it tasted good, it was going down the hatch. At this point I was still lifting weights and had aspirations to play junior college football. By the end of my first year, I had ballooned up to 229 lbs (I graduated high school at around 180). Sure I had gained some muscle and strength, but I had lost my athleticism, I had lost my vitality and energy, I had gotten very very fat and was on my way to diabetes and a host of other disease. The problem was I had developed an addiction. An addiction to sugar and junk. I had developed TERRIBLE habits. I ate for taste, not health. I knew something had to change, however, I didn’t really know what to do (eating vegetables was still utterly outside my reality for some reason).
For the next 5 years I experimented with different diets and philosophies of eating. However, I could never get over the underlying problem that sent me on a path towards self destruction: addiction. I was addicted to instant gratification. I was addicted to sugar. I was addicted to food being the solution to emotional problems. I would ‘eat right’ (what I thought was eating right) for a few days, then binge. Then the cycle would repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. For 5 YEARS. Over this time frame I continued to work out. I wasn’t an athlete, I was a pudgy guy who could lift weights. I didn’t have vitality and energy, I slept roughly 12 hours a night and had continuous ‘brain fog’ throughout the day.
Finally, I came to a point where I said “I’VE HAD IT…NO MORE, IT’S TIME TO TAKE CONTROL OF MY BODY FOR REAL.” There were 2 major issues I had to figure out: 1. Knowing what to do (strategy) and 2. Doing what I knew (application of strategy). I thought I knew what to do when it came to nutrition from years of glorious bodybuilding ‘wisdom’ being pumped into my brain. I thought I knew what to do when it came to training from being a certified personal trainer and avid weight lifter. However, the classic quote on insanity came into my awareness: “the definition of insanity is doing what you’ve always done and expecting different results.” I knew at this point it was time to start over. Time to go back to school with a blank slate perspective and truly figure this stuff out.
I read book after book, article after article. I was completely determined to find answers. Answers that WORKED. I didn’t want to hear advise from some bodybuilder who was injecting a host of hormones in his shoulder every day. I wanted to FEEL good and LOOK good at the same time. I wanted energy. I wanted vitality. I wanted to fix my digestion problems that had started from the ‘college diet’ and had continued to persist up to this point. I wanted to go through a day without feeling like I needed a nap. I wanted to go through the day having clear thinking by my side without having the inevitable brain fog that showed up from 2-6 pm. I wanted to shed the body fat and have a natural lean look.
Most of all I wanted to completely APPLY it. I was sick of doing things half hearted. I was tired of not following through 100 percent. I could no longer stand the mediocrity. I hated it so bad. If this is resonating with you, be glad, because you’re probably at the point I was at and I can tell you that you’ve come to the right place.
To sum it up (got a little carried away there…..lost in the moment of writing), what led me to this lifestyle was frustration and pain. The systems that I developed were a result of arduous research and study, and then personal application. The whole process started from pain.
Alright… this is awesome. Of all your posts I’ve read, this one spoke the most to me. I’m definitely right at the point of mediocrity & frustration. Knowing what to do, but only doing it halfway. It’s funny, because this is my passion, but I’ve put myself in an “insanity rut” and am just not in the right position to share that passion out there yet. (Knowing & sharing is one thing … Knowing, doing, looking the part, & sharing is a whole different thing…) Thanks for putting up this site … it’s the kick I was looking for to change my fence sitting ways.