From Flabulous to Fabulous

In February 2007, I was a flabby fatty. I was living the life of a typical college kid. I was sucking down Miller Lites’ night after night, and I was fueled by Ramen. In high school I played Football for a year until I was in a major car accident. After the car accident, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. Scoliosis is a curvature growth in your spine. Instead of having scoliosis in just the top or bottom of my spine, I had it in both places. That day, I knew my sports career was over. I was always more of a scholar and not playing sports didn’t drive me to insanity like it would do to most people in my position.

The most important thing to me was staying active. After high school and college, was when I resorted to the crap diet. The crap diet consists of high intake of fast food, heavy alcohol intake, and lots of ramen noodles.

In October of 2006, I moved into my first apartment. Me and my roommate got our first real jobs. After 2 weeks we were fired over something really stupid and petty. We couldn’t find jobs for months. I went into a deep battle with depression. And this is where the poor eating habits came in. Not to mention I was broke, so .99 cent fast food and ramen was just about all I could afford.

From November 2006 - November 2007 I went through hell. I couldn’t find a good enough job to pay the bills, so I always seemed to just barely make it. This further progressed my depression. This is starting to sound really depressing

In December 2007 I was diagnosed with Graves disease. It’s a condition that affects your thyroid gland. In my case, just like with scoliosis, I had the worst case of Graves disease possible. My condition spiraled out of control so bad, that I lost 85 pounds, my eyes began to protrude from their sockets, and I was deathly ill. I could barely stand up straight most of the time. It was absolutely awful.

In January 2008 I was treated with radioactive iodine and began to get my body back in check. I was 155 pounds of solid skinny.

Here’s the good and positive part…FINALLY! In January 2008, I got a great job in the field of internet marketing. It’s a work from home job, and I make awesome money. It seemed that things were beginning to turn around for me. My spirits were lifted after nearly two years of hell.

It’s now May 2008. In 5 months I’ve gained 41 pounds of relatively lean muscle mass and I attribute it to good positive thoughts, (mental clarity) good eating habits, and a hardcore workout routine.

I hope I didn’t bore you too much, but I just wanted to share my story and hope it inspires someone. Below are pictures I’ve taken of my journey so far. I’m going from Flab to Fab, and this journey will continue until the end of my time. I want to be the best I can be, and get as naturally big, lean, and cut as possible. So this won’t be the last time you hear about my progression. I will be posting updates every 90 days.

Good luck on your journey of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

January 2007: 225 lbs.

February 2008: 155 lbs.

May 2008: 196 lbs.

weight loss support

Hello everyone,

For those that read my blogs, I apologize for not writing in a while. I’ve been designing a t-shirt line, and it’s taking about 15 hours a day. I’m literally working around the clock. I love it though. I’ve always been really creative. And I’ve also always been very opinionated. (If you read my blogs, you definately know that)

I promise to get more active on my blog. I was also gone for a while, because I was waiting for the blog counter to get fixed. It seems to be fixed now, so that’s really exciting.

My blog counter isn’t working again! Is your working. This is the second time my blog counter has stopped working. I want to know if anyone is going to my blog. If your blog counter isn’t working email admin to let them know. They’re really good about fixing this stuff.

My counter’s been out for about a week now. Maybe even two weeks.

My chest and biceps are growing faster than my skin can handle. Is there any way to prevent stretch marks from getting worse? I heard vitamin e helps, but I’ve been using it and it doesn’t do anything.

I started my new weight lifting routine 7 weeks ago. I currently do 5 sets/6 reps of exercises. I’ve seen some great gains in weight and the weight keeps increasing on my exercises. I’ve also unfortunately noticed my gut getting bigger too. I’m taking protein supplements and creatine.

How do you put on lean muscle mass without getting fat? One thing I will say is this… I don’t do any cardio because I’m afraid of losing weight. I know that I need to do cardio, otherwise my gut will continue to grow. What’s a good amount of cardio to do for someone trying to bulk?

I started taking Cider Vinegar today (2 teaspoons 15 minutes before each meal) and I was wondering, does it actually help lose weight and/or cut fat? There’s several mixed opinions about this. Has anyone taken cider vinegar and seen any results?

I’m trying to bulk up and am wondering… How much protein powder is safe to take each day? How many grams in particular. I’m currently taking 30 grams twice a day, but I wanted to kick it up to 30 grams four times a day. Is this safe?

Simple question. What do you think?

I’m sure many of you who regularly read my blog are wondering where I’ve been? Or maybe not. Anyways, I usually post some pretty cool stuff everyday. (at least I think they’re cool) I’ve been slammed lately with a new website project of mine. Development is taking just about 15 hours a day. I’m pretty drained, but it’s well worth it because I enjoy doing it, and I can’t wait to see it finished.

For the past month I’ve interviewed several of the top bodyspace ladies and it was a great success. The interviews were awesome, the answers were even more awesome, and the ladies who participated were great! Look out for more interviews coming soon! I hope to get some more posted within a month. I know there’s lots of hot bodies and excellent transformations here; too many for me to actually keep up with, so if you all have any recommendations for future interviews you’d like me to conduct, let me know and I’ll try to arrange it.

Til’ next time…

Peace, Love, and Prosperity…

Ok…With this blog post, I’ve got some experiments of my own that I conducted on myself. Everyone eventually has a weight-lifting plateau. I think I have come up with a way to break the plateau syndrome within 2 weeks. Here goes…

After 3 months of recovery from Graves Disease, my doctor finally cleared me for the gym in January of 08. I’ve been working out for about 2 months now, and have had phenomenal results. I’ve been able to pack on 20 pounds of lean muscle mass and I broke through a major plateau. For the first month back in the gym, I found myself only able to bench 3 sets of 120 lbs. at 8 reps each. (Pretty lame. I know)

I started mixing it up and changed my routine on Monday to the following:

120 lbs. - 3 sets - 8 reps

Then on Friday, I changed it to the following:

135 lbs. - 3 sets - 5 reps

Within 2 weeks, My Monday workout jumped to the following:

150 lbs. - 3 sets - 8 reps

Now I’m not sure if I’m super human, if this is a coincidence but I keep stacking the weight on each Monday. As far as diet goes, I still consume the same stuff. No changes.

Hopefully this helps.