When I read about the potential loss of his family I almost cried, not so much because of what happened to him, but because I thought of all the crap I have put my own family through with my supplements and hours at the gym, and the thought of losing my two little girls and my wife was almost too much to bear.
Anyways, for what it is worth from someone you have never met, talked to or emailed, am glad things worked out for the better.
A little bit about me I guess...
I was always extremely athletic but overweight as a kid(not really fat, but just chunky). When I got to high school, it became apparent to me that I was more athletic than most of my peers, but in a body that noone thought I was. As such, I used to be picked last for a lot of sports when they chose up teams, but after a few games, they realized they never should have made that mistake. Used to really piss me off and I used to be determined to shove it in people's faces and make them pay for that.
In college, I got tired of being overweight and hearing snide comments from people, so I decided to do something about it. I turned into an exercise freak starting my 2nd semester of my freshman year. My weight went from about 195 lbs to about 175 lbs by the end of the semester. I didn't know a whole lot about training and what to do, but I knew that doing aerobic exercise and weight lifting would work, as well as changing my eating habits. In retrospect, I did to much cardio and at the wrong time(before lifting). This limited my size gains, although I still got bigger, but I started getting in really good shape. I continued to work out even more during the summer at home(good 'ol Nordic Track in my parents house for 75 minutes at 6:30AM) and lifted with a cheap weight set that had up to 225 lbs of weight. Also took some product from GNC that had 4 phases and was in a blue and white box, can't remember what it was, but it helped somewhat. When I came back to school next year, I was 160 lbs with 5% bodyfat and was in pretty good shape. Lots of definition, but not too much size, although I was fairly big compared to most of the other people there.
Then the injuries started taking their toll...shoulder impingement got to the point I had to shut it down for a good month and a half, followed a few months later by a partial tear of my achilles tendon and subsequent tendonitis that made it so painful to walk/bend that I stopped working out for a long time. I graduated from school at about 170 lbs but was never in as good shape again as when I started my sophomore year.
After school, I kept working out, but slowly started going less and less til one day I just stopped. I can't remember exactly when that was, but it was probably around age 26(I am 36 now). Over the next 9 years my weight ballooned up to 240 lbs and almost 30% bodyfat. One day I had to go visit a customer at their house for work and had to stop once I got up a single flight of stairs before knocking on their door because I was completely out of breath. I was embarrassed, ashamed, but more so angry at myself for letting my body get in this condition. My energy levels were so bad that I would get off work and literally fall asleep in front of the computer screen at night around 9 or 10pm once I got home. I knew I had to do something or I was heading down a path I didn't want to be heading down...one with lots of doctors, drugs, and potential surgeries in the not so distant future.
This was at the end of August in 2010, I started working out again, doing circuits on my bowflex. The pounds started dropping off and the muscle started coming back. Around December, I had decided that I had gone as far as I could with the bowflex and joined a local gym. In the last 7+ months I have dropped from 240 lbs to about 212 lbs, and have dropped 12 percent bodyfat. I have seen my strength go up dramatically, but I have not seen the muscular gains and/or definition I was hoping for. Don't get me wrong, my body is much more muscular than it was and I have started seeing muscles I have never seen before(large teardrop above my kneecap in particular). I have been following another protocol and while my strength is going up quite a bit, my musculature has not been following suit. I feel somewhat stagnant and am ready for a new challenge. I have read numerous posts from others on this program and decided to take the plunge.
I will be starting my week off this Sunday and will probably have some questions to ask in the upcoming days. Hopefully some of the veterans won't mind sharing some knowledge with a newbie!
