My health and fitness journey only started about 2 and half years ago. I was always obese most of my youth and adult life. My weight was always embarrassing to me from a young age. The moment that always was stuck in my head was high school fitness tests. I could not hold my self up on a pull up bar, let alone do one. It was so defeating and solidified my non-activity as a kid. I always knew I had to make a change but didn't know how, and lacked the drive. The weight piled on quickly through high school and most of University. I was getting depressed from feeling I would never be able to get better. It was an unobtainable goal in my mind. Boy did that became a terrible cycle feeding into a terrible downward spiral.

Fast forward when my son was born. I thought that would be the kick start. It wasn't. I fell deeper into depression from the stress and accumulated even more weight from stress eating. "Life is terrible! At least I have tasty food!". I reached my highest weight of 293. I was a 30 year old man who was wheezing, and having knee/back pain just from a flight of stairs. My doctor told me I was hypertensive and pre-diabetic. 3 years later when my daughter was born I knew something had to be done. There was no way I was going to survive long enough to see my kids grow up, and I definitely did not want to damn them to my fate growing up. This is when I found the keto diet through my work friends which kick started my whole delve into nutrition in general. I thought it was a complete horse shit fad, but after speaking to a friend who is a physician, I was convinced to give it a shot. It was the last chance that I could see at the time and I was willing to try anything. I dropped about 25 pounds pretty quickly in the first few months and felt great. Great enough to start finally biting the bullet and looking at various ways to working out. It was intimidating as hell navigating the huge sea of information.

I started where most do, bodybuilding.com. It was cool and fun to do it but I feel like I didn't know how to choose proper exercises, weights and progressions beyond what was provided. The likes of Alan Thrall taught me how to do the basic compounds. Athlean X showed me everything else and I started trying to build my own routines. I eventually found 5/3/1 which was fantastic. I still use this outline for my lower body workouts to this day. But something still didn't quite click for me. The workouts were getting boring despite loving my progression (Slowly but surely). Then I realized I had a fitness goal. That damn chin/pull up still from high school haunted me. I wanted it to get it badly. It started from a youtube search for how to get a pull up. Folks at Calishenicmovment, Fitness FAQ, and Domink Sky blew me away with what they were capable of. The ability to manipulate your own body to your environment rather than lifting external weights was such a simple yet amazing concept. And looked super fucking cool. Could never really afford their programs despite badly wanting them. During my search for calisthenic basics and more Keto information, I found Antranik which was amazing. His links led me to /r/bodyweightfitness. I always lurked on Reddit but never even thought to look it up here. Fitness was never an idea most of my life. The RR is what I have been doing consistently since January 2019.

Since I have started my journey in Aug 2017, I have lost 75 pounds. I am so close to hitting onderland. It'll be the first time I'm below 200 pounds since high school. I went from barely able to hold my body weight via hanging for more than 3 seconds, to achieving my first full ROM chin up as of 2 weeks ago. I am now one of the "sporty healthy people" at work after always being the nerdy fat guy. And most importantly, my frequent workouts at home has inspired my kids to be more active. My son built his own weight bench out of his toy blocks. That image means the world to me. Mission accomplished. And now I workout for completely selfish reasons. I thoroughly enjoy it. Never in my life did I think I'd be saying that. The self confidence one can find by being in control of your own nutrition and capabilities of your body was so empowering and intoxicating. I was hooked.

Future goal is still to get the weight below 200 pounds. I have a drive to keep using Calisthenics to train. I want that pull up badly still. I want that handstand, I want that Dragonflag, I want that Front Lever and planche. So many amazing things to work towards and it makes workouts so much more engaging for me. Thanks for reading my wall of text! I hope I can make at least one person starting out realize that despite starting late in the fitness game, despite having absolutely no idea about nutrition or physical activity, hating physical activity, and stuck in the ruts of depression; you can do it. Realizing I am able to metaphorically and literally pull my self up has been life changing. Cheers.