Naturally Onward and Upward

It is amazing how the the ideas, images and thoughts from your early years stay with you.  If you are not careful they become your demons.  I was always big.  I was known for my "balast".  After college the weight became a disease.  Not just on the beltline but in the head.  I learned to tell myself that because I looked…well not that bad, but bad enough, I could not enjoy my place in society…whatever that may be.  I knew what I was good at, and with the help of others, I found I was pretty good at bodybuilding too.  Fast forward to 2004.  Mike Davis, a national level competitor, and a hell of a great American, got me in the gym working toward a "physique".  He got me into competing.  My first experience was at an NPC event in Spokane, WA.  Short story, tied for 9th.  But I WAS NATURAL…and that meant more to me than anything else.  That day was one of the best in my life.  Fast forward again, 2nd at the IDAHO STATE NATURALS (2008).  I felt my hard work come through on stage, but 2nd left me with the feeling that I wasn’t doing "SOMETHING".  It has been a year, but I am finally (slowly and painfully) leaving that old demon that has always whispered in my ear "you’re fat, and always will be" behind.  I am learning to "eat to grow again", but for mass not comfort.  I still have my issues.  I have a hard time in social (groups/personal) situations.  I still think I need to crouch in the shadows because everyone is looking at the fat guy stealing everyone’s O2.  Truth is they’re probably looking at the shadow on the horseshoe on the back of my arm.  I still have a hard time believing it though.  I guess that is the true purpose of this blog.  I would like testimonials from others who still have yet to retake their place in the human race after a transformation.  I want to hear about people controlling their demons and rising to new levels.  I want to hear of the needed balance between ACHIEVEMENT AND TRUE HUMILITY.  Competing is what I truly look forward to.  But I have the desire, the need to be better each time.  Currently, it is food.  THE ULTIMATE lifetime demon is now the thing I need most.  Each time I have a day where my caloric intake is where it should be for gains (for me it’s around 4000 cals.  I weight 230/13-15%bf), I go to bed literally "feeling" my luvhandles jiggling about.  What is that toggle in the brain that lets a person know they are doing the right thing, instead of self-destructing?  "Masticae ergo sum"?  "I eat, therefore I am?  Who else is listening?

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