About me
Me in 2005
My name is Gary and I’ve become pretty dedicated to fitness over the last couple of years. This is my first attempt at having a blog about my progress and stats. I’ve always enjoyed writing and I really enjoy fitness and working out so it seems like the perfect combination.
I wasn’t always dedicated to fitness. While I was growing up I was always teased and made fun of for being “the fat kid”. It didn’t help that I ate more then I can even begin to fathom today. On any given saturday while I was in jr. high school I would go through 4-5 sausage egg and cheese meals from McDonalds, then maybe a bag (45 count) of pizza rolls for lunch, followed by a pound of pasta for dinner. So while genetics may have started me out being overweight I certainly did myself no favors.
The only thing that saved me from hitting higher weight then I did in high school was wrestling. So I was able to keep myself in the 180-200 range. This held over until I started going to college where I stayed pretty much in that same gap.
Then I left for Airforce Basic Training and during that I dropped to 160lbs. This wasn’t really a healthy weight for me it was just from not ever eating and being out in the Texas heat alot. After basic I started going to college again and got into the habit that most college students do of eating and drinking too much, sitting around alot, and gaining more weight then I had on me then when I lived with my parents.
Before I knew it I was 240-250lbs, and being only 5′6″ tall it really made me feel like I was out of control of my weight and I felt horrible. So here I was being the fat kid again. Then one day I stumbled across johnstonefitness.com and it really helped get me started on my weight loss goals. After 6 months of following the advice that is given freely on their forums I was down to 189 and feeling like a new man.
Fast forward to a couple months ago. I had an emergency apendectomy in December of 2008 so I was off my workouts and running for 2 weeks. Then right when I was getting ready to start again I was in a car wreck and totalled my car. So 2008 ended on a crappy note and I started to get out of shape again. So I started this blog and am dedicated to not letting it happen again
So now I’m currently working on getting my ACE certification to be a personal trainer. (Update * 1 July 2009 PASSED MY TEST! Now I am certified!) I decided this while I was deployed overseas. I helped a couple people get some plans together to get fit and it seemed like something I would like to do on a full time basis. I graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelors degree in Psychology. It was a great 4 years of my life but it doesn’t really do a lot for me professionally thats why I’m getting into the fitness industry.
Oh yeah the name of the blog. I know its sounds a bit pretentious. But I couldn’t come up with a name for it, then I thought. “Hey it takes a strong will to commit to fitness. And I’ll be lifting the iron while I do it.” So in my mind that made perfect sense to add the two together 
This page is a work in progress as I think of more stuff to add to it it’ll get added.
