My Success Story

Success for me has finally been reached. Around this time last year, I started working out with the general idea that I would like to join the United States Airforce. At that time, I was the heaviest I had ever been, and when I bought my scale in August, I was astonished at what I was weighing in at. At my heaviest I was pushing 225-230. Last year I had moved out on my own, and only succeeded on adding on to the weight I had gained in college. I floundered about for a couple of months before I actually went in and spoke to a recruiter, where I was officially told that I was was to heavy to enlist.

Speaking with him, I got the requirements that I needed to enlist in the military. For my height, I had to weigh in at 192, and was told to be at 186. THis was in November of last year. Starting that month, I kicked into gear, starting with basic materials and no real plan. I got some ideas from the YouTube channel B.U.F.F. Bros, and started lifting weights, as well as sprinking in some cardio using the C25K app on my phone. I also changed up my diet. For a period of time there, I started the ketogenesis diet, and for a short period of time, I saw some gains in my weight loss. But eventually, the diet started to take its toll. It is a tough diet to maintain, and cuts out a lot of foods that I enjoy, and made preparing meals for me with what I had available complicated. However, I did take some things away from the diet and to this day I try to limit my carb intake as much as huumanly possible. For me personally, this was one of the best things I could have done, along with severely decreasing my soda intake, and for the most part completely elliminating it from my diet.

In february of this year, me and my fiance started taking Hydroxycut to use as a thermoigniter. Both of us were on it for the span of about 2-3 months, and in that time period we once again started to see gains. Come April, I started one of my greatest challenges: I started working at Hersheys. They had bowls of chocolate all over my floor, and often times had Reeses products, which is one of the few pieces of candy I absoultely adored. For the time I worked there, I did sabotage myself severely. However, I did discover something that helped me out the most. I discovered an app called FitStar. This app gave me the guidance that I needed in my workouts. What it did was it figured out what my fitness level was, and then it would provide me with a guided workout, providing basic cardio routines and body weight strength training that pretty much elliminated all need for the gym.

Prior to starting this program, I was weighing in at 206 at the start of April. Today, after 7-8 months of hard work, sweat, and struggling with my diet, I am officially below my goal weight. Starting out, I was unable to get lower than 15 minutes for my mile, and am now able to run it in 10. The work is difficult, and I know that the start of my fittness road has only just begun, especially with me having to go to basic when I do enlist tomorrow night. All journeys, whether the be physical, mental, or spiritual, starts with a single step.