I first noticed I was overweight in 6th grade. I came into elementary school around the same weight I was in the 10th grade; 153 lbs and standing 5′4″. I remember this because it is on a Pop Warner football card. You wouldn’t consider me “fat” but you definitely would not consider me healthy. I had a definite gut and looked like I could fill out a bra better than most girls in my grade. To say the least it was embarrassing. I disregarded any jokes thrown my way; I typically hung out with the athletes which saved me from their ridicule they gave the rest of the school. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, because it prevented me from getting a burning desire to change my lifestyle and change my weight.
High School- The slow beginning
Arriving in the 9th grade I had the most body fat that I have had in my entire life. I grew slightly, from 5′4″ to 5′7″ but continued to gain weight as a result of poor nutrition and lack of exercise. I always blamed my weight on my metabolism; I mean come on, I played hockey and football, how much more exercise do I need? That year I tried out for the Varsity hockey team, and lets say I did not come to tryouts in good shape. I got placed on the Jr. Varsity B team. It was an embarrassment and disappointment, and not until a gym class later that week did I have any desire to change.
During gym, following the second day of tryouts, the boys were required to get a scoliosis check. I didn’t find this to be a big deal, except we had to get checked in the gym where a majority of the class could see us changing without a shirt. When my name was called I approached the nurse unwillingly and took of my “green” shirt. While I was getting changed one of the girls said “Wow I never realized how much he looks like an oompaloompa when he wears that green shirt”. I was destroyed. Luckily, the girl said this to one of my friends and got a serious verbal “ass kicking” to say the least. Regardless I became incredibly motivated to change, and summer going into my sophomore year I did just that.
That summer I began to watch my caloric intake. CalorieCounter.com was the first tool I used to lose weight. Luckily I stumbled upon the correct assumption that diet accounted for 90% of your body’s composition and only 10% due to exercise (well at first anyways). That summer, through plyometrics and calorie counting I dropped close to 25 lbs and grew 3 inches. I was in pretty decent shape and came back to school with more confidence. That year I made the varsity hockey team and everything seemed to be going right. This was until my first hockey game. I was third line and moved to second and first throughout the season. My job as a third line player was to be a banger. My first shift of varsity hockey I must have fallen 3 times because I got bumped off the puck. I was not strong AT ALL. In the locker room a Senior informed me his “biceps were the size of my legs”. Once again my reality was shattered but I still had a burning desire to change, and change I did.
Junior year I started hitting the weights hard. I broke up my muscle groups into the 5 basic; legs, back, arms, chest, and shoulders. Monday through Friday I would hit each muscle group, yet knowing very little on what I was doing and picking up various exercises while watching older students. That junior year I was 3rd strongest on the varsity hockey team. I was first and second line and was very strong. I liked this feeling. I started to like my body and how I presented myself. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing in the gym, but I was there. Senior year was more of the same. My friend would make me flex my triceps in the schools gym during hockey workouts and said it looked disgusting. I was recognized. I hung out with other other athletes and made a name for myself. Unfortunately, other areas of mylife were not as squared away. I got into drinking pretty constantly during the week and the weekends which I credit to my lack of points my senior year of high school hockey. The lifestyle I represented was hypocritical; I was concerned with everything I ate and how I preformed in sports and at the gym, yet had no regard for what I was doing to my body while drinking.
College and the internet changed everything. My first year of college was when I first really researching body building. At the end of my freshman year I tried every bodybuilding.com workout and supplemented through creatine and protein consistently. I had 17″ biceps and could press 315 on the bench and recorded a personal best for sumo dead lifts: 405 for 12. That was all great but I always was tired, never stretched and was always tight, and personally I thought I looked stupid. My best friend Mike put it the best ” You look like an idiot”. And you know what I did. I was not proportional and conditioning wise, my heart was none the healthier than it was in high school.
Finally, starting Junior year until this present moment, I dedicated myself to fitness as a lifestyle. I wanted to escape my bodybuilding persona and reinvent myself as someone physically inept. I wanted freedom. I wanted the ability to change my body as lifestyle as I saw fit and thus attaining freedom from fitness.
I am in the best shape of my life today and am truly proud of all my personal achievements. I am well learned in sports and fitness. I have gone through several of the best fitness programs:
- Vince Delemonte’s 6 Pack Ab Quest
- PX90 program
- A series of Greg Avedon’s best training guides such as Core Performance
- Mixed Martial Arts training
- 6 months of Gym Jones training (the inventors of the 300 workout)
- BobyBuilding.com Workouts Designed by the Pro’s
- Met-Rx Pre-Competition Routines
I have also studied nutrition in depth and have read programs such as
- The Abs Diet,
- John Beradi’s Precision Nutrition
- Mens Health Nutrition Guide
- ABC of Nutrition 4th Edition
- Fitness Made Simple- Nutrition and Fitness.
I have also structured a good portion of my life around personal development and am continually reading anything that can make me grow as a person such as:
- Dale Carnegies How to Win Friends and Influence People
- The Magic of Thinking Big by Daid Scwartz
- The New Pyscho Cybernetix by Maxwell Maltz
- A number of articles written by Eben Pagan and Tony Robbins
Through all these programs I have gained a wealth of knowledge which has helped me achieve the body and lifestyle I have always wanted.
I hope I can give you all a burning desire to change your lifestyle and take a step towards personal development through fitness. With the proper motivation and through the resources I will present, the skys the limit!
Hope to here all of your success stories,
Christopher Stella
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