From Fat To Fit To Fat Again, My Journey To Reclaim My Success

I turned 30 this year and my life isn't exactly as I thought it would be. You can think that you're going to get it all figured out and by and large, it seemed like I was on track with so many starts and early wins. But, today, I'm 30, in bankruptcy, weighing 385 lbs, and looking back wondering what happened. Sorry, this is going to be one of those posts. But don't worry, No Negativity Is Allowed In My Mind, so it won't stay sad for long.

At 23 I was flying, I had published fifteen guides on Amazon that were making me 1,000 a month collectively. I was running a hypnosis practice from a woman's company and making another 3 to 5k a month working ten to twelve hours a week, and my father had just beaten Prostate Cancer a year and a half ago, and I was losing weight from 347 to 265 and dropping. Then it happened. First my father got diagnosed with lung cancer. Then an algorithm change in Amazon dropped my profits to 400, and I was a victim of my own success. The people who did hypnosis with me, no longer wanted counseling from the office I was working at, so I became bad for business and she stopped sending me her clients. Turns out a cigarette isn't just a cigarette and when you solve the reason behind why people are smoking, you often solve the reason behind why they need to go to therapy or counseling in the first place.

It didn't stop there, I took all the money I had saved, and launched a series of online products, most of which failed miserably, and the one that succeeded didn't succeed that well. I doubled down on my exercise, wanting something to control, and lost a lot of weight--a positive in this whole thing.

Then, I met my future wife. The love of my life, the stars that guide my ship through even the darkest of times. She loved me in a way that no one has ever loved me and accepted me for everything that I am and I'm not. As my father's condition worsen, my body seemed to as well. Flaring tendinitis, injuries from mountain climbing, and other games. And, as I adjusted my calories and attempted to do bodybuilding workouts, I adjusted wrong (forgetting that my metabolism was compromised from being very obese to begin with) and I saw my weight go from 189 to 218 from 24 1/2 to 27 3/4, in the month my father died I went from 220 to 240. A lot of it was muscle. I could still do 30 to 40 pull ups and could still do 10 one armed pull-ups. Then, in one month, my father died, I suffered tension fractures in both of my feet, and I had a flare of tendinitis so bad, I couldn't open the door of a car without flinching in pain.

From 28 to 29 I saw my weight go from 240 to 370. And there I've stayed. Four businesses failed. All the insurance money that was left to me used up. And after I married the love of my life (the only great thing to come out of this messy crazy time), I've been with left with no option but bankruptcy.

But as Les Brown Says, a Set Back is Nothing But A Set Up For A Comeback. And that's what I'm doing. My life can't be ruled by a negative mind and won't be. I will not dwell on what happened in the past or what mistakes have brought me to lose everything that I gained.

A life is lived moving forward not moving backwards and I'm the author of my own success.

I am keeping a blog, I'm going to do 3 videos a week on youtube and shared to facebook and I'm going to make this transformation, not only permanent but public. I'm going to succeed and I'm going to let everyone else know, who has ever faced difficulties, whether finance or personal loss that no matter where you're at at the moment, no matter what difficulties await your future. Your life is still yours to live.

I don't believe in destiny, I don't believe in fate. I believe though that it's up to every person to make meaning out of the chaos that befalls their life and the world. Whether that meaning is transformative or destructive is up to you. I choose transformative.

Clarence