Growing up, I went to the gym the same way people go to jury duty. I showed up, half-dressed in motivation and fully convinced that just being there should earn me some kind of reward. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
I wasn’t lazy, I was just efficiently uninterested. I didn’t even start playing football until my senior year. So while my classmates were running drills and bench pressing puberty itself, I was in the school gym, casually doing curls and wondering how long I could rest between sets before it became a nap.
Fast-forward: I leave my job. Suddenly, I’ve got time. Time to stare at the ceiling. Time to overthink. Time to eat. Or… time to change.
So I made a decision: less junk, more chicken. Less fast food, more apples and rice. I even started eating oatmeal like an actual adult, with honey, because I’m not completely dead inside.
And look, I’m not going to pretend I’m perfect. When it comes to ice cream, I’ve never met a pint I didn’t get emotionally attached to. Like morally compromised in the presence of gelato. There, I said it.
Guilty pleasure? Try soul bonding. If you told me I had to give up ice cream forever or never hit 10% body fat, guess who’s walking around with a soft serve swirl and zero regrets?
Here’s what changed:
- I cut out eating out.
- I cut out excuses.
- I started taking creatine again, because we’re chasing gains, not ghosts.
- And I started working out with my Amico Stretto (Italian for “close friend,” but way more dramatic), who also wanted to make a comeback.
Shocking Discovery #1: Working out with a partner is like having a spotter for your soul. You can’t half-ass it when someone’s watching. (Unless they’re also half-assing. In which case, congrats, you’ve found your gym soulmate.)
Shocking Discovery #2: I benched 225lbs. That’s two plates. That’s top 1% in the U.S. And no, I won’t be checking your sources (including on my form) because I don’t want to be humbled right now.
Meanwhile, my Amico Stretto is out here eating gas station snacks and still somehow gaining clean muscle. I’m over here measuring oatmeal like a surgeon prepping for heart surgery, and this man’s having cosmic brownies for dinner. Genetics are wild.
But I’m not bitter, I chose the hard road. I like the hard road. The hard road builds character. The hard road reminds me that I don’t want to be average. The hard road tells me that 23 pounds down is a win, but not the final form.
I started at 189lbs.
Today? 166.8.
Still technically "high fat percentage” according to the fitness calculator I didn’t ask to be bullied by, but I’m down 23 pounds and up a hell of a lot of discipline.
This isn’t just about weight. It’s about transformation. It’s about choosing something hard and doing it anyway. It’s about saying, “I’m not where I want to be, but I’m sure as hell not where I started.”
So here you go, some photos. Not for validation, but because the work deserves to be seen.
