For this open blog post, I think I will talk about my
personal progress in terms of fitness. Growing up, I was always a skinny kid,
and never struggled with any kind of weight issues. Fast forward to high
school, I ended up joining the football team. I was still growing, and at 5
feet 7 inches, I weighed a meager 140 pounds. I had shoulder length hair, and a
scrawny physique, but boy I thought I was a beast. Over the course of the 4
years I spent in high school I put on a lot of weight, and by my senior season
of football I was 5 feet 10 inches, weighing about 200 pounds. After football
ended, I had a difficult time adjusting to the weight, and was lethargic up to
my college career.
I
began to exercise and lift weights in a different way. During high school
football, all the weight lifting was carefully tailored to maintain mass and
power. I began to lift weights the way a power builder would, and really only
cared about how much weight I was lifting up. I continued to be bulky, but got
my weight down to 190 pounds and was stronger than ever. A few injuries quickly
saw to it that I would not maintain my progress. Once I recovered, I changed up
my approach to weight lifting, and began training with a guy I met at my local
gym. We lifted like bodybuilders, focusing on isolation movements more than
compound movements. My strength diminished, but aesthetically, I was getting
much better. However, I was still eating like complete garbage, and my weight
was stagnating. I didn’t realize how bad I actually looked until a friend told
me that I was looking way too bulky.
Once
I transferred to USC I continued on my weight training regiment and I noticed
slowly but surely that my progress was improving. It wasn’t until recently
(spring semester) that I began to realize that my diet was completely
destroying all my gains. I began to eat cleaner, and lifted for volume, instead
of weight. I began to do cardio, and noticed an increase in my stamina. I began
the 2014 spring semester weighing 189, and now, roughly 3-4 months later
weighed in at my lowest at 167. It’s not much of a change, considering the fact
that some people lose 30, even 45 pounds in the same time. However, for a pre
med student, this is pretty significant. My diet isn’t as strict as it should
be; I slip up sometimes and cheat. My cardio consistency isn’t as strict as
well; sometimes I just don’t have it in my to get in 30 minutes of cardio.
But for the work that I have done, the
progress is solid. I have a long way to go before I can comfortably take off my
shirt in public and feel good about myself, and not have to hide the little
rolls of fat on my belly when I sit down. I am not there yet, but I am closer
than I have ever been before. When I weighed 167 in high school, I can
guarantee you that I did not look as aesthetic as I do now. So, things have
changed, and my body and mindset have changed along with it all. I treat my
aesthetic progress the way I treat my progression towards medical school. I’m
not there yet, not even close. But you bet your ass I will be.
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