Gunning for One-Sixty.

This was me, before I graduated High School. Cool shades huh? Yeah, I lost those... and in the next like... five years, I'd lose five other pairs of sunglasses.

In High School, I spent a lot of time looking around me and being disappointed. Not in the world around me , or the people per-say. I was disappointed in me, how I looked to the world around me. My self-esteem was not high, although I did seem like it. My confidence in myself was so buried in the ground that I thought I would never find it. At this time in my life though, I was wanting... wanting so much out of myself but not being able to provide it. I was wanting so much, but giving so much to others around me but wondering why I still felt so bad.

Everyday, looking in the mirror, it was hard to accept who I was.

I had a hard time doing just about anything, from walking long distances to even running. The fastest mile I had done in High School was only a success because I blacked out and didn't really have any control of what my body was doing. I didn't necessarily feel like a failure, but I didn't feel healthy and I felt limited. Although I seemed happy, back then, and seemed like I had things going for me... I really wasn't. I was disappointed in myself... not because I was overweight, but because I was so held back by my body and my health.

I fluctuated in weight between 270 to 250 for the next two or three years coming out of High School. I was painfully aware of my limitations, painfully aware of how I was viewed by others, and painfully aware of how I viewed myself. I wanted to change, and did some things, but never dedicated myself truly to the cause.

I was not confident, I was not motivated, and I had no self-esteem to speak of. 

This was me, New Years Day... 2011. I weighed 270 Pounds.

In the start of 2011, I made a resolution that I wanted to lose eighty pounds. At this time, I was still pretty miserable, and with a girl who got the brunt of that misery for almost four years. With that in mind, she left me, and honestly it was probably for the best for both of us. As much as I had loved her, and thought I did truly. I didn't realize how much I wasn't capable of loving someone to the fullest without being able to love myself in some way. Incidentally, I didn't love myself at all... in fact, I hated myself the most out everyone on the planet. I don't really hate people, but I was my worst enemy, and at the top of the list of people I wanted to not have apart of my life. It's very hard to not have yourself in your life apparently.


I was miserable in January 2011. My heart was broken, and at the time I thought I felt resolve, but in reality... I was so detached that I didn't really understand how pathetic I looked and felt. Until I started walking, walking a lot. I left my dorm and walked, to clear my head. Routinely, I started doing that, realizing that even walking... I felt winded going less than a mile. Not only was my heart broken, but my lungs burned and I was not happy knowing that I wasn't even capable of doing something so simple.

So, I started walking more. After a week or so, I would start seeding jogs into my walks and it hurt. It hurt so bad, that I wasn't sure if I could keep going. I wanted to stop, and I didn't want it to hurt. But I didn't stop, and I kept hurting all the way into February. Not only did I feel enlightened, that I would be okay, but I knew I had something to accomplish. I changed my diet to involve more protein, and instead of doing walks every other day, I jogged everyday a mile. I felt more motivated than ever to change...

One morning, I woke up, and I just started jogging. I didn't stop jogging, until my legs had almost gave out from underneath me. My lungs didn't burn like mad, and my heart pumped like it was just as ready to change as I was in my head. That day, I had gone ten miles... non-stop.

This was me several weeks into moving from walking distances to running. I weighed maybe 255 pounds. At this point, I was able to jog distances instead of just walk. I was also bicycle riding up to ten miles whenever possible. This was March, 2011

The days following that, I started jogging upwards of two to four miles every day except weekends. I was also bicycle riding everywhere I could, whenever I could. I didn't feel the constraints of asthma like I had weeks before. It was now into March, and I was already someone completely different. In the span of about four weeks, I had lost about twenty pounds just by changing my diet and getting up and going outside. I also started drinking a lot of water, I needed it.

At this time, I started running, bicycle riding, and even doing other workouts. I told myself that I wanted to do triathlons in New Zealand. I still want to, that has yet to change.

This was me like a week later from the above picture. I started doing a circuit workout called "Spartacus" it was harsh, and at this point, I no longer had asthma and started running longer distances. This was also in March 2011

In the middle of March, I started doing what was called "Spartacus Workout", in light of seeing this really awesome show on Starz with Andy Whitfield. It's kind of silly to say, but he was my hero and I wanted to look pretty freakin' manly like him. It propelled me further doing this workout, and I had never sweat so much in my entire life. I could run longer distances, I could bicycle ride, and I did it all without stopping. I was changing fast, and was feeling stronger than I had ever before.

I was stronger, I was faster than ever before, and more over... I was actually really happy with myself. For the first time.

Me in April of 2011 with my younger sister who obviously got the better genes.

In the months following, I continued to run and bicycle ride. At that point, I was doing workouts two or three times a day. Between running, bicycle riding, and doing the Spartacus Workout. Granted, it was all rather un-organized but I tried my hardest to do everything I could to tire myself out during the day. I changed how I viewed what I did in the day and everything seemed to work around me getting exercise.

I also had a totally intense diet of eating something in the morning like a granola bar, yogurt, and a banana to fuel myself to do a six-mile run. For lunch, I'd eat a sandwich that had a lean meat, cheddar cheese, and leafy greens. For dinner, I'd have grilled chicken on rice with steamed vegetables and a salad. When I went home on weekends, I'd eat Oatmeal for breakfast whenever I could. As much as I wanted to do the same at the dorms, it... had it's own limitations but I worked around it. Everyday, I'd drink a gallon of water and balance it out with electrolytes, usually from Gatorade (yeah I know... sports drinks are crap but I took what I could).

The months following, I would slowly change.

Me in July 2011, yes, I was wearing armor, and I was LARPing in Santa Cruz. I'm a huge nerd.

July of 2011 came along and I was a down to about... 220lbs? I was active, yeah, and I had reached a few plateaus and a few moments where I stopped jogging sometimes. But I never truly stopped doing what I needed to do. After the first weekend of July, I literally dropped ten pounds in a week or so bringing me down to the lowest weight I'd ever been from whenever I could remember. I had never felt so good to be who I was, and had never felt so accomplished.

Not only was I a lot more confident in myself, but I had a self-esteem. I was happy with myself, and happy with how things were going. At this point, I was shaky in what I was doing, and wasn't as dedicated despite having come so far. Somewhere in the few months following, I would let myself go a bit. I didn't gain weight, but I didn't continue working as hard.

But around September I was working harder on gaining muscle and toning rather than just cutting fat and weight. I was happy that I was losing weight, not happy that I still had this crazy loose skin thing going on. But it was something I had to accept... after all, I did pull a crazy move by dropping so much weight so fast.

Me with my mentor(right) and friend(left) after Insanity. October of 2011.

This is my mentor, who helped me to work harder and supported me a long ways. This was like... one in the morning after Insanity. This was the last day of October in 2011 after I graduated. I had gained muscle and weighed 210 still.

In September, I decided I wouldn't cut my hair or shave till I had reached my goal weight...

In October of 2011, I had graduated College with a Bachelor's Degree in Games and Simulation Programming. I was now 210, but had more muscle than ever before and a lot less fat. At this point, I was jogging six-miles and eight-miles on Fridays. I was also working out about three times a day on a more consistent level. Which included, the run in the morning, doing core exercises in the mid-day, and then doing a circuit exercise at night. In October it was doing Insanity, when it wasn't Insanity it was doing Spartacus. If it wasn't Spartacus, it was lifting weights. I wanted to gain muscle and become stronger, not just faster and enduring like I was.

I owed a lot of success to many of my friends, who I started gaining enough confidence enough in myself to workout with them. Which included my Mentor, shown above, and a few of my other friends who helped me struggle forward.

Me at the start of the year. January 2012, yeah... not a very good display of how much I had changed . At least my humor never did. I weighed about 200 pounds at this point.

It was the turn of the year and I was now 200 pounds. The lowest ever, and I was looking for work. I let myself go a bit. At this point I was unemployed, had a ton of free time, really long hair (I was wearing a ponytail in the picture above), but I had actually shaved by now. But I was still doing what I could whenever I felt like I could. Granted, it wasn't as intensive, it was winter and the weather was often crap. If it wasn't crap, I was doing things. I made excuses a lot, and at this point my weight started to fluctuate, mainly because I was at home and my diet suffered.

Me in March of 2012 with my older sister Adriana. She too had gone through a lot of changes. We both did, and that is what made it possible for us to be in a picture together. To-hohoho! I had started doing more toning at this point, and weighed about 195.

Despite it, I tried to keep up with myself, realizing sometimes that I had a goal to reach. I didn't lose eighty-pounds in a year but I still had lost a ton of weight in that time. In March of 2012, I weighed 195lb and had gone past the 200lb mark. I was happy, I was confident, and I looked in the mirror in the morning and smiled instead of cringing or... crying manly bitch tears to myself.

I was still working to tone, and change. But I was at a plateau and not sure how to get further than I was. I wasn't working hard enough, and I knew this, but I wanted to keep going. But I'd go back and forth here, between doing exercise sometimes, and not doing it. Eating okay, and not.

It's now June of 2012, and I weigh 185lbs. No, I don't have a six-pack, and I'm still working on my mid-section. I'm confident enough to take my shirt off at the river which I had done the other day. I'm happy with myself and how I look but I mean... I still want to change. I can run long distances, I can bicycle ride even longer distances, and I can swim against river currents (although I don't recommend it, it's very hard, okay... yeah I do). I'm currently working with a lot of people to reach success on a professional level, and things are the best they've ever been in my life.

I met this pretty lady, who has... kind of affected me and how I eat and look at food. I've always approached food in a very particular way but now I'm not really held back by some sort of picky behavior. "I eat things" I tell her, because I'm not picky about what I'm willing to eat. Eating vegetables, being able to cook for myself that is balanced, colorful, and very delicious.

I'm still working towards going down to 160lbs, and I'm working more towards toning at this point than anything but trying to keep my endurance. I've still got a bit of work ahead of me, but the reason I'm posting this now... is to show how far I've come in such a time frame. In a year, I had lost about seventy-pounds, in a year and a half I had lost eighty-pounds.

I made this blog so that I could show people first hand what is capable of being accomplished. Defeating asthma, a bad diet, and becoming more healthy are all things that are within reach but no one every gets up to do it. Motivation is a huge factor, setting small goals to reach bigger ones. Getting yourself to know that when you accomplish many small things, you get to a point where you know you can accomplish anything you set yourself to.

   The only thing that ever stopped me, was myself. I waged war on myself, and have the scars to prove it.

I dropped off the map for awhile there, but it wasn't that I stopped wanting to post or I stopped on my quest. I just got so into it, I forgot to record it. Well, I'm doing it all now! It's not over though, so stay tuned I guess.

I want to thank everyone that was there with me through the whole way so far. Who supported me, and believed in me. I would have stopped long ago if it weren't for you being there for me. I love you all!