So here's me in 2011, after my first serious relationship ended. The relationship was about three years long, and was abusive for about two and a half. I ended up eating my feelings and rarely wanted to leave the house. I suffer from depression and an adjustment disorder with anxiety, due in no small part to tons of horrific failed relationships, and I was really in the depths of those things for months after the relationship ended. I was 5'10" and a hair over 225lbs.



The day that picture was taken, I bought a pair of running shoes and started running.

As time went on, I realized that running just gave me time to be alone with my thoughts, which is NOT what you need when you're newly-single and have serious issues with your self-worth. I kept at it and adjusted my diet, getting down to about 145lbs by early 2013. The photo I took at this time is on my Twitter account, which has been temporarily deactivated so I can't get to it.

I then made the switch to lifting. I wasn't fat anymore, but I still didn't really look the way I wanted, and it still damaged my self-esteem to be the "scrawny guy." I ended up loving it immediately - and most importantly, it didn't leave me alone with my thoughts. I had goals. I had to focus. I had to pay attention to what I was doing, I went into that gym on a mission and I wouldn't leave until it was accomplished. It was me, the iron, and the endorphins.

In late 2013, I realized that despite my diet and training being perfectly in order, I wasn't making progress at all in the gym - I eventually found out that my endocrine system had been shut down for the better part of a decade. I had the testosterone levels of an eighty-five year old cancer patient (217ng/dL). Heck, I was mostly mad because I could have saved a fortune on condoms if I'd known I'd been sterile the whole time, but I digress. I found a good doctor who got me all sorted out and WOW. I couldn't believe that this was what other men felt like ALL THE TIME.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I stepped back into the gym, and, barring a back injury in January of 2014 that put squats and deads on hold for five months, haven't missed a day since.



Still 5'10", now 176lbs and slimming down for the summer. Friends joke about me being the buff guy in the group, I've made a lot of good friends through various fitness communities online and off, and most importantly, even though I still struggle with my self-image, I now know that the issue isn't so much that I'm NOT kickass, it's just that I have trouble internalizing it. But I get better every day. We all do.

Lifting changed my life. We're all gonna make it.