My fitness journey

Before+I+started+my+fitness+journey%2C+around+January+2016%2C+I+was+scrawny+and+did+not+have+as+much+muscle+mass+as+I+wanted.+After+seven+months+of+hardwork+and+dedication%2C+I+gained+more+muscle+mass+and+I%E2%80%99m+more+satisfied+with+my+body+now+than+back+then.++

Before I started my fitness journey, around January 2016, I was scrawny and did not have as much muscle mass as I wanted. After seven months of hardwork and dedication, I gained more muscle mass and I’m more satisfied with my body now than back then.

What do most people think of when they hear about fitness? I believe the average person usually thinks about someone that is toned or super buff, but that isn’t always true – just because you are skinny or huge does not mean that you are healthy. For instance, with me I have not always been the healthiest kid.

Throughout most of my teen years I was really skinny. Entering sophomore year,  I was 5’5  and I weighed about 116-118 lb.. Sometime around December I got really unhealthy; I started throwing up and getting anxiety. The doctor had also told me that my heart was not that strong, so I decided to start doing some cardio, but if I did cardio that meant a lot of losing weight and that affected my confidence. So I got into a different type of fitness, where people start lifting weights and gaining a ton of mass. I used to search these exact keywords in the Youtube search bar “skinny to buff.” Shortly after that, I saw a three-year transformation video by Jon Skywalker. that has changed my life.

When I first saw Jon Skywalker’s transformation on Youtube, it really had a big impact on me. I saw an ordinary guy just construct his body without relying on genetics, but by hard work. He weighed around the 130 at 18 years old to weighing 200 pounds at age 21, with a great physique. He talked about everything I was feeling, as if he had already lived that lifestyle and overcame it. I felt as if he was giving inspiration out to people like me, to tell us that it is possible to change our bodies if we truly tried. He talked about how he was tired of being skinny and wanted to make a difference and he did. I was prepared to do the same as he did to get that body, to dedicate 5-6 days of the week to hit the weights and to eat more than I ever have. I was more sure about this than anything I have ever done.

So my fitness journey started on December 18, 2015. Winter break had just started and everyone was either going to Mexico, sleeping in everyday, or going out with friends. Meanwhile, I would get out of bed at 5 am to run, eat after the run, and then do a 300 pushups and 300 crunches during the course of the day.

After doing this for three weeks, my mom saw that I was determined to workout and she got me a gym membership at In-Shape. That meant that I didn’t have to resort to body weight workouts only but I could finally hit heavy weights.

I joined with one of my friends and before we knew it we both fell in love with the gym. We went every single day and the whole staff knew our names by the end of the month. By the second month, my best friend joined the gym which made me happy since I saw that he also wanted to make a change in his body. Soon after that, other friends joined and that was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship that I never had like before. We all hung out at school, went to the gym after school and even ate together. Our excuse for always eating out is “gains” which I find pretty funny. My friendship with them was strong because of the gym.  

A few months after being at the gym, the staff started telling me first that I looked really different from the first day that I had came in. My parents’ friends told me I look like I had more meat than ever. Everyone at school had also noticed my big transformation and that made me feel really great about myself, and it just gave me more reason to go harder at the gym. I went from being 118 lb to 142 lb. All my friends have also made a huge difference in their bodies which made me happy also to see what fitness has done to us.

At one point, I got sick again and got a stomach infection which affected my bulking and I dropped from 142 lb to 131 lb, which made me lose a lot of muscle. I had to cut off the gym for a while, and the doctor had told me I needed to run more since my heart was weak. So when it was time for me to come back to the gym, I started doing more cardio which slows down my process of bulking up, but it’s fine as long as I’ll be healthy. Even though I lost some mass, I’m not all that sad about it because I found out what I am capable of. My goal is to weigh about 150 with about 12-14% body fat by the time April 2017 comes.  

It’s crazy for me to think that all of this happened because I watched that one video on Youtube that day. Who would have thought that a video would have such a big impact on someone’s life. I am grateful to him for showing his story and I hope that I will be able to do the same when I am further in my transformation this is barely the beginning of my journey.

I’m sure everyone has an ideal image of the body that they want for themselves, whether it’s losing weight, gaining muscle mass, or just getting toned. There are a vast amount of workouts that can help you with what you want. The key is to set your goals and start your journey.