Russel T.

“The year was 2015. I stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, with a bodyweight of a 295 pounds, crippling depression, and a life-threatening disease. As I walked up the steps of my house to get to the kitchen, I thought of what had happened to me. This wasn’t the first time I had bordered type 2 diabetes, as when I was a child, I always had problems with weight issues. Ever since my first days of entering the third grade, I was the heaviest kid in the room.

Other kids would have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, I would have penne vodka with garlic bread, and a full fat chocolate milk to wash it down. But being so young I never really saw the issues with my weight, as I just thought I was having fun. It wasn’t so fun being that heavy when we would have to wear our winter uniform for school, as often I would sweat through the school uniform sweater from how much warmth I already had from my ridiculous bmi.

That being said, it wasn’t like I didn’t try to lose weight. I was embarrassed as a child to be constantly referred to as the fat kid. I was tired of my own family looking down at me for my eating habits, so finally in the summer of my fourth grade I lost 60 pounds, and I felt great. But going back to school, I did not know how to keep that weight off. I believed that losing weight once was all one had to do, and as a result I slipped from the good eating habits I had learned. A brownie here, a slice of pizza there, etc.

At the end of my fifth grade I had gained back 20 pounds, and at the same time was when my parents got divorced. With the immense pressure, and anxiety from my parent’s divorce I returned to what I knew best, eating, and eating a lot. I was no longer a small child so I was able to put some considerable food down, and by the end of that summer I had gained 50 pounds, tipping the scales at 200. From the sixth grade on I continued on my eating binge to deal with the nasty divorce my parents were engaged in.

At first the weight helped me with football, as being a lineman came natural to my rotund frame, but as the years went on, there was a point of diminishing returns. By the seventh grade I was having difficulty getting through a game without dying for air, and by the Eighth grade, I couldn’t even do the team warmups without passing out. This was also during the time that I started talking to girls, and upon several rejections I realized, being fat isn’t helping me, on any fronts. Most of the kids I knew laughed about how heavy I had gotten except for one, Gavin Adin.

Gavin realized what was behind my weight gain, and he knew that I had the passion to get better but I just didn’t know how. While the beginning was rough for me, Gavin was there the whole way, motivating me for each set, and each sprint. By the end of that summer, going into high school, I had lost 80 pounds, and for the first time in my life I was skinny. Me and Gavin continue to stay in touch as we went to separate high schools, and I managed to keep the weight off my whole freshmen year.

But right as I thought I was out of the pan, I was thrown into the fire. In the summer of 2013, I was diagnosed with Juvenile Dermatomyositis. At the time I didn’t even know what the disease was, and I thought it would go away like a common cold. I was dead wrong. Juvenile dermatomyositis is an auto immune disease that not only attacks ones skin, but decays the muscle to the bone. Within a month of my diagnosis, I had already lost 60 percent of my flesh, and I had to walk with a cane to remain upright. To fight the disease I was put on extensive chemotherapy, and steroid treatments, but nothing seemed to work. By the end of August I was resorted to a wheel chair, I was no longer able to eat solid foods as my throat was working at 50 percent, and even writing with a pencil was no longer an option for me. Every night I had to come to terms with the fact that I might not wake up to see the next sunrise.

During this time, the steroids had also reverted any weight loss I had in the previous year. Within two months, being that my only enjoyment came from food, I was tipping the scales at 240. But luckily the medication started to work, and by October I was able to walk again, and I was home, but I wasn’t the same. Throughout the rest of my sophomore year I continually tried to get back to school, but my disease kept coming back, and with that more steroids. And as I walked up those steps at 295 pounds, no longer recognizable in the mirror, to get cookies, I broke down on the steps as I had enough. I had lost my entire social life, my dignity, my sanity, and my will for anything.  This was not what I expected for my life.

I thought going to high school would have opened new horizons, but as I cried on those steps I could only think of an open coffin. It was a dark thought, but I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Except for a few, I felt alone in my battle to stay alive, as it was a difficult thing for many of my other friends to be confronted with a friend who was dying. To me I felt like I was dead.

Finally, I picked myself off those steps, and told myself “no one is gonna solve a problem that is within you.” After that day I met a nutritionist at the cancer center, and started my weight loss journey once again. Throughout the remainder of high school, I lost 115 pounds by my high school graduation, and lost 20 more going into my first year of college.

But even still going to college, I found myself having difficulties socially, and quite frankly I had a very weird appearance after that weight loss. I always joke that I looked like a melted stick of butter, as being that my muscle was destroyed by my disease, the fat loss revealed my ravished body. And if I am being even more frank, I found that my physique was not helping with women. The only option I could think of from that point was to start working out so I could have more success.

In that first year of lifting I tried my best with a multitude of different diets, and workouts and I had made some success, but I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. Often many other kids who worked out, or who thought they worked out would critique me, and it left me feeling like shit quite frankly. I also realized my motivation of girls for working out was quite a shallow one, as I started to get depressed again, and I was beginning to lose hope.

Finally, I realized that in order for me to reach my goals, I needed the right motivation.  I realized that physique has nothing to do with romantic interests, and it actually has no correlation from success. To me the biggest motivation I had was to prove everyone wrong. Many people had written me off, or just continued to see me as a recovering sick kid. I was never taken seriously, but just slight sympathy and disregarded. I wanted to prove not only to those who doubted me, but even myself, that if I put my mind to something, I can get anything done.

The next day I called the man who started everything off, Gavin. In that first one hour conversation Gavin gave me the motivation, and direction I had needed the whole time. Gavin quickly fixed up my diet, and put me on an intense training program. And no matter the workout, I pushed myself to the limit as I couldn’t let myself down again. And within one year of working with Gavin my life changed completely. Obviously my physique changed, but more than that my mentality changed. The gym in a way grew me up, as each day I went in there I had to confront my past. Each day as I walked into that gym, I thought of the days when I couldn’t even walk. Four months in to training, I had gotten my bench press up from 145 pounds to 215, my squat was 295, and my deadlift was 385, but more than any of those numbers my mentality was stronger than ever. Throughout this year I have realized that there is nothing I can’t overcome, and more than that I am finally able to be proud of myself. When I look in the mirror now, I no longer think of what others think of that person, but what I think of myself, as the only one who can control your life if yourself. And through Gavin Adin, I can walk up those steps not crying, but with my shoulders back, and my head up high.”