A SUCCESS STORY WITH MISTAKES

THE FIRST DAY

It was September 2014, it was a crowded evening at a gym called Re-create. Amidst the crowd in the cardio room, a 16-year-old boy was walking on the treadmill for the first time with 4xl size clothes on feared to fall he held his hands on the sidebars and walked slowly. Right beside him was his trainer encouraging him to walk confidently. After a few minutes of walking, he started to jog slowly and after a few minutes, he came off.

That was his first day at gym.

That 16-year-old boy was me. I weighed 220 lbs at the time, being bullied at school and then at Diploma College, I started working out.

Now it’s May 2017 and I am at 165 lbs, little bit shredded with 14-inch bicep, a 42-inch chest and 32 inch waist.

So here’s my story.

At first, I didn’t realize that I was way too oversized, but gradually as I joined a gym, I realized that I was wrong! I joined the gym just as a pass-time at first, but then seeing my body respond, it became a passion after a couple of years.

But then something went wrong here!

THE SITUATION AND CONSEQUENCES

When I joined, I was totally ignorant about nutrition or training. I was having the general concept of ‘run and run’, ‘eat nothing’ and ‘dumbbells are for bodybuilders’, and also followed it for almost a year, as it worked for me at that time. But then I realized that something was wrong! My eye-opener was that my body stopped responding and what I was left with was a misshaped smaller version of the previous me.

That was the point when I fired up my laptop and started browsing the internet about weight loss. Soon enough, I realized my mistakes by reading various articles, blogs and watching various YouTube videos, etc. I was furious with me at the time, for being that ignorant for over a year and literally punishing my body.

What happened to me here was that, with the intense cardio and crash dieting, along with the fat, I also burnt my natural muscles, which were at that time too weak for even daily activities!

So what was the next step? I asked the demotivated self.

I took a break from the gym. Gradually improving my diet, I returned to the gym after a month, all motivated again and now with a proper diet and a good amount of knowledge, I started weight training. I followed various workouts on the internet, having me do Cardio and weight training on the same days, sometimes on alternate days and sometimes even no cardio (which was a bit wrong). This helped me a lot sculpting my body.

In late 2016, I had the perfect body I had imagined of me having! With a much lower Body Fat percentage and a much higher muscle mass amount.

THE MISTAKES!

Now, let’s talk about the mistakes.

Mistake #1: Too much cardio and NO strength/resistance/weight training.

As I said, for over a year, I ignorantly ran, ran, and ran. I didn’t even touch a dumbbell or a barbell or a strength machine. That resulted in me burning my muscles along with fat. Due to this, I was having the misshaped version of me.

Mistake #2: Improper Diet and Crash Dieting.

As the general rule goes, I had cut out all junk food, crisps, sodas, etc. I just ate salads and beans. This was way less than my body requirements. I had literally starved my body and punished it for being what it was. My diet lacked essential nutrients like protein, carbs, fat, and vitamins. With the lack of these, my body functions were disturbed and I understood how grave it can be!

Mistake #3: Hitting a Plateau.

For a year, I just ran (like literally). My body was accustomed to the monotony of my workout and became used to it. It was the same before six months, just the duration had increased a little bit. Technically speaking, I had hit a ‘plateau’, this is the state where your body stops responding.

Mistake #4: Ignorance.

I jumped directly into working out without proper knowledge and without knowing the consequences of it.

OVERCOMING THE MISTAKES

Now let’s talk about how I overcame my mistakes.

First of all, I gathered as much information as my sweet mind could. I learned about nutrition, supplements, workouts, body composition, etc.

Overcoming mistake #1.

I included both Strength training as well as Cardio in my workouts. Strength training helped me in preserving/building my muscle mass, which was affected by the intense cardio I did before. No doubt it took time to negate the effects, but eventually I succeeded. With cardio along, I could burn the unwanted fat too.

Overcoming mistake #2.

Instead of crash dieting, I started to eat a well-balanced diet with a proper proportion of protein, carbohydrates, and fat (Total calories= 40% protein + 40% carbs + 20% Fat). This helped me with the proper fuelling of my body for workouts as well as daily activities.

Your diet is the main ingredient of any regime. You can do a workout for at most 2 hours, but what you eat in the other 22 hours is what actually matters. During a workout if you burn 300 calories, go home and eat 700 calorie meal, it’s not worth it!

Overcoming mistake #3

Don’t continue the same workout for more than 10 weeks, always add something or change it up a little bit at least. Just don’t let your body get used to it, always have something new for it.

Overcoming mistake #4

Don’t just jump into a gym and start running. Gather enough information about nutrition and training. You might think that there’s much information out there sometimes conflicting with each other and sometimes supporting. For that I have started this blog ‘nutritionandtrainingsimplified.blogspot.in’, you can find various articles on health and fitness there. The blog aims to provide people with the correct information.

P.S.

At last, I would like to add that without your determination, all of this is Bogus. You have to strive for what you want, there’s no shortcut, you have to go for the long drive. Sometimes you will hit some obstacles (as life comes in), face some challenges, won’t get results soon. But believe me, it’s all worth IN THE END!

Here’s my transformation photo: