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Like you my life has been full of adversities, obstacles and endless challenges!
I believe you're already a superstar! Now it's your time to shine and show the world!
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On this page I’m going to share many things that are very personal, most of which I’ve held deep inside and never shared with anyone. This story is actually the second chapter of my soon to be published book “Weight Loss Secrets of Superstars.” The chapter is entitled “Are my Boobs Showing?”
I’m well aware that I’m giving the store away in posting this chapter on the internet, but it’s the easiest way for me to tell my story in depth. At this point, with the current state of our population, it is more important to me that others realize adversity is just a stepping stone that enables us to become more resilient. It makes us infinitely stronger, worldly wiser, and in the process, it helps us to cultivate unbreakable self certainty.
In my life I’ve overcome obesity, growing up in a working poor family, lack of self esteem, being surrounded by negative influences, near business bankruptcy, and I’ve also taken on single parenthood. Yet, in spite of all these obstacles I’ve been fortunate enough to travel around the country, attain financial independence and do many things most people never have the opportunity to experience in life.
Through all the challenges I’ve faced I’ve had many extraordinary realizations. One of the most important was the realization that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from or where you start; only where you want to go and that you hold onto that vision until it becomes your reality.
Are my Boobs Showing?
The first time I realized I was overweight was when I was 11 years old. I clearly remember the specific incident because it was also my first experience of public humiliation. It was a warm and sunny spring day after school, and I was playing football in the street with my friends. When I went to catch a pass, an older neighbor who had been watching us shouted that I had “boobs” that shook when I ran. Although I had been teased at school, I never cared that much because I wasn’t aware of my body. People called me “fat boy” or “fatso”, but when my neighbor publicly announced to all the other kids that I had “boobs,” my confidence instantly took a dive.
After that incident I quickly became the butt-end of a lot of jokes. At first I tried to act like it didn’t bother me in the hopes that they would stop. But as the teasing became a daily occurrence over the summer, my resilience started to wear thin, and without realizing it, I had started to believe what I was being told. It made me feel small and unimportant, like everyone in the world was against me. I developed an internal sense of worthlessness and I became self-conscious of my body, checking frequently to see if my boobs were showing through my shirt. Over time, these boob inspections became an obsession that consumed me, and from that point forward, I avoided wearing any shirts that made me feel insecure. I wouldn’t wear polo shirts; I wouldn’t wear plain white t-shirts and I wouldn’t wear tank tops. Instead, I always wore long dark colored shirts that were made of thick material, or shirts with designs on the front to avoid showing my boobs.
Once school started again, I was relieved because I could get away from the older kids. Without them around, I no longer had to endure the daily teasing because most of the kids my age didn’t really tease me as much. Not saying that my friends didn’t tease me—they did, and I figured they only did it to look cool in front of the older kids. I didn’t understand how they could torture me one minute and then want to play with me the next, but since I didn’t have a lot of “good” friends to play with, I hung out with them anyway.
As luck would have it, a few months into the school year a kid named Joe moved into an empty house down the street with his family. After a few days of getting to know him, we became the best of friends and would hang out every day. We played video games, watched movies or just sat and ate pizza and laughed. I suppose the reason we became such good friends so quickly was because we had a lot in common, and we were both very overweight.
Just before the summer, Joe’s family purchased a catering truck business so they could cook and sell authentic Mexican food around the city. Everyday they would run their truck from six in the morning until nine o’clock at night. When they would come home after a long day’s work, Joe and I would take over the cooking for all the neighbors who came by for an evening snack. After we were done cooking, which was usually around ten o’clock, it was our turn to eat. First, we would eat an extra large burrito with a large soda. Next we would have a taco or two. Then, we would top it off with a king-sized candy bar or an ice cream for dessert. We ate and ate mindlessly, sometimes until we were almost sick and couldn’t eat anymore.
The Weigh In
After more than a year of constant feasting, our routine became a daily habit. I would split a large pizza and a two liter of soda with Joe during the day, and at night, I would have my usual meal when the catering truck arrived. Although I noticed I was gaining weight, it never occurred to me just how much until my oldest sister made both of us get on the scale. The year before Joe arrived, when I had started the fifth grade, I weighed just over 120 pounds. Now, I was shocked to discover that I weighed a whopping 193 pounds. Sure, I had grown a few inches taller and stood at about five feet. But even so, I couldn’t justify gaining seventy pounds. Even worse was the fact that me and Joe were both the same height, yet he tipped the scales at 242 pounds. A whole 49 pounds more than me, and didn’t seem to mind. I was only 12, but I realized that I had to make some changes or my weight would continue to get out of hand.
Since me and Joe were eating partners, I decided to convince him that we both needed to lose weight. He enthusiastically agreed when I first presented the idea, but when it was time to follow through on the daily jogging plan we had decided on, I realized he was never going to go through with it. I walked to his house everyday to try and convince him to run laps with me, but he always came up with an excuse. He would say he had to take care of his brother; he had to vacuum the house for his mom; he had to wash the car for his dad, or he had to go to the store. There was always some excuse to cover up the truth. He was lazy. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, hanging out with him was making me lazy too.
When it came time to go back to school I knew it was an opportunity to make some big changes. Not only was I going to start middle school, but I was also going to have a PE class that was going to force me to run and exercise. The first few months of my seventh grade year I lost about 10 pounds from all the running I had done in my P.E. class. But by the time the summer rolled around again I had gained it all back. Feeling like a failure, I gave up and stopped caring about my weight. I was eating whatever I wanted. I wasn’t running anymore, and I was spending a lot of time in front of the TV.
Since I was out of school for summer break, everyday I would repeat the same routine—eat, sleep, and watch movies. Then one day, while at my friend Eddie’s house, I saw a well-muscled guy on TV. He was probably in his late twenties with a cool haircut and one of the most awesome six packs I had ever seen. I thought to myself, “That’s what I want to look like with my shirt off!” And at that moment, at the age of thirteen, my inner fire had once again been re-ignited.
After seeing that guy on TV, it didn’t take long before I had pumped myself up and made the decision that I wasn’t going to hang out with Joe anymore. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy, but if I was ever going to stop eating so much and lose weight, I knew I had to do it. When Joe came knocking on my door the next day I didn’t come out, and for the next week, I found other reasons not to hang out with him. Avoiding Joe was one of the toughest things I’d ever done because we were best friends—like brothers. His family had become a second family to me, but if I was going to reduce my weight I knew I had to tough it out.
One day about a month before school was about to start, I unexpectedly ran into Joe at a mutual friend’s house. He told me his family was moving to Modesto, which was about a hundred miles away, and that he wouldn’t be able to come back to visit. At first I was upset because I had been avoiding him for the past few weeks, but I later realized that it was really a blessing in disguise.
The Definite Decision
By the time the school year started I had dropped down to 185 pounds. I was happy about my results, but now that Joe was gone I had a new dilemma. I had been so consumed by my weight over the previous year that I hadn’t noticed all my other friends from the neighborhood had disappeared as well. Some had moved away to other parts of California, and others had joined gangs or gone their own way for the worst. Initially it was difficult for me to accept this grim reality, but I soon realized that joining gangs, doing drugs and drinking were very typical for teenagers living on the East Side of San Jose. I felt alone, as if my whole world had been swept away overnight by some invisible force and there wasn’t any way for me to stop it.
On my birthday that year, at the age of fourteen, I decided to do the only thing that would make me feel better. I was going to lose weight and get in shape no matter how long it took—even if it killed me. Prior to that moment, I had made plans to do it and thought about it, but now that the decision had been made there was no turning back. Every day after school I read fitness magazines, newspaper articles, books on the human mind, and I watched TV shows on weight loss to get more information. Since I was just getting my feet wet, I didn’t know anything about exercise, nutrition or how to lose weight. But from all the reading I had done I figured out that fat had to be burned off.
Desperate for results, I tried everything I’d read about and even some crazy things I’d thought of on my own. I starved myself by eating a small meal once or twice a day. I created steam baths in the shower to try and melt fat off. I ate foods with extra fiber to fill myself up. I tried a few hare brained exercise programs I’d made up on my own. And I even bought a set of 20-pound ankle weights and wore them all day and all night—even to bed because I figured I could burn extra calories when I turned in my sleep. Needless to say, I was madly obsessed!
After about two weeks of continuous reading and trying crazy ideas, I finally had my master plan and I was gearing up for battle. Although winter had just started and it was less than forty degrees outside, I moved from planning to immediate execution. I ate six small meals daily, played basketball after school, and then I lifted weights at night. Day after day and week after week I faithfully worked out and diligently stuck to my eating program. And by the end of April, all of my efforts had paid off because my weight had dropped all the way down to 145 pounds. I still didn’t look like the guy on TV, but I felt great and was proud of my accomplishment because it was the first time I had ever been successful at anything.
High off of my achievement, I hit the weights everyday for the next month. Then one day, just before school let out for the summer, my uncle Eddie offered to take me to his gym. The moment I set foot in the gym I was hooked. I couldn’t seem to get enough of it, and when my summer vacation started, I immediately convinced my parents to get me a membership. I was so eager to work out and build muscle that I walked to the gym twice a day. I went once in the morning and once in the evening. I was unstoppable, and I was excited about adding more muscle because I was just about to start the ninth grade at a new school.
High School
Entering high school was much different than I thought it would be, especially since I had added more muscle to my frame. I felt a lot better about myself because I was taller, stronger, and more confident than I had been in middle school. And with a thinner body, I started dressing differently. I took on more of a GQ kind of look. Every day I wore a button up shirt, neatly pressed pants and shiny black dress shoes. But even with this new look I had to hide my flabby midsection as well as my smaller “boobs.” Now that I was in high school, I didn’t know if anyone would notice, but all the years of teasing were etched deep in my mind, and I did everything I could to hide them.
Throughout my freshman and sophomore years, my weight pretty much stayed the same. And by the end of my sophomore year, I was finally ready to wear tank tops again—something I hadn’t done since I was told I had “boobs.” That summer I hit the gym twice daily, only this time I decided I was really going to pump up for my junior year by boosting my food intake to build more muscle and gain more strength. Within two months I had bulked up and gained about ten pounds. My chest, arms, and legs were bigger, and my strength had gone through the roof. Only now I had a new problem—I couldn’t seem to lose my gut and small boobs because of all the food I had to consume to increase the size of my muscles. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to cut my food intake to lose some weight, and within two months I had dropped seven pounds.
Although I was happy with my waistline, I was dissatisfied with the fact that I had lost some of my strength. So what did I do? I ate more food to build my strength back up. After a few months I was lifting more weight, but just as I had dreaded my gut was also back as well. Once again I was faced with the same dilemma. I wanted to keep my waist small, but I also wanted to keep my strength up, and so began my ride on the weight loss roller coaster that would last through my senior year and into adulthood.
Entering Adulthood
After graduating from high school and getting a driver’s license I lost interest in working out completely. Instead of going to the gym, I used my free time to visit friends in other cities, go to the movies or drive to the beach and hang out. For the first few weeks of the summer I was still in good shape, but by the middle of August I noticed that my pants were getting tighter and my shirts were starting to fit me differently. Although I knew I should have gotten back in the gym to workout, I decided I had better things to do, and by Thanksgiving I was back at square one—overweight and upset.
Over the winter and spring months I hid my body under sweaters and jackets. But once it was warm again, I wasn’t comfortable wearing summer clothes. I hated feeling that way, and I was starting to feel that old sensation inside. The feeling that it was time to do something. Although getting back into the gym and changing my eating habits wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, I had to make a decision. I was either going to eat right and start exercising again, or I was going be overweight for the rest of my life. Since I couldn’t stand the thought of living that way again I decided to workout.
My first day back at the gym that summer felt like my first day of kindergarten. I felt like everyone was staring at me, and I had to convince myself to stay. I asked myself, “Do you really want to be overweight?” “Is this what you want?” “You don’t have to be here, you can leave right now, but you’re the one who’s going to have to live with being overweight.” Ultimately I stayed, and although my enthusiasm and strength were no where near where they had been before, I knew I was on my way to better times.
Over the next six months I worked out two to three times a week, and by the time my daughter was born in early December, just before my 20th birthday, I had dropped twenty-five pounds. I wasn’t thrilled with my body, but I decided to stop working out at the end of the month because I was going to have a full plate. The difference this time was that I was smart enough to monitor my eating so I could continue to lose weight. Keeping track of my eating allowed me to lose another eighteen pounds by summer, which brought my weight down to an all-time low of 140. I was at the same weight as when I was in the eight grade, only now I was taller and I looked too skinny.
Every morning I would look in the mirror at my flat body and remember what it was like to have muscles. I would think about how strong I felt, how confident I was, and how working out had made me feel. I wanted to get back in the gym, but I never went because I always told myself that I was too busy with my job and my daughter. Working ten hour days wasn’t easy, and it didn’t leave me with much time or energy for working out. Still I longed for that powerful feeling again.
Just before the fourth of July I discovered that one of the guys from my work had joined a local gym. He would workout during lunchtime, eat on his way back to work, and still have enough time to clock in. Realizing that this was my golden opportunity, I decided would do it too. Within three months my strength was up, I had gained almost ten pounds of solid muscle, and I was excited about working out again. In addition to that, the car stereo installation business I had started a few months earlier was beginning to flourish.
Over the next year, my workouts were hard, heavy and intense. Things got even better when a new business opportunity came up: cross country moving. I was excited because I’d never been out of the state, but after my first two long distance moving jobs I knew it wasn’t for me. Not only had I been bouncing around in a truck for a week, but I was also away from my daughter. Although it was great seeing so many places, I went back to my car stereo installation business and decided to do some local moves on the side instead. It didn’t take long for me to see that moving was a very lucrative business, and by the end of the year, I was thinking about starting a trucking business of my own.
Beginning a New Millennium
Going into a New Year was very different this time around because it was also the start of a new millennium. Even though many people had been thinking the world was about to end, I was 22 now and things were going great for me. My car stereo installation business was doing well, I was planning on starting a trucking company, and I had added another fifteen pounds of muscle. Even with all that, I was still longing for one thing: a six pack of abdominal muscles. I had always been good at building up my muscles, but I could never do it without putting on a few pounds of fat at the same time. After a few weeks of research I discovered what I had to do: cardiovascular exercise.
As much as I hated the thought of pedaling and not going anywhere, the next morning at the gym it was just me and the exercise bike. Normally I would eat before working out, but I had read a study that found that doing cardiovascular exercise on an empty stomach caused the body to burn fat up to 300% faster. I had never heard of this concept and was somewhat skeptical, but decided I would give it a shot anyways. After I was done with the thirty-minute session I felt good, and since it hadn’t kill me I decided to repeat the workout a few times a week for the rest of the month. By the end of the month I didn’t have abs yet, but I was definitely getting leaner.
Business wise, I had just bought my first truck and landed a few accounts so things were good. So good in fact, that by the time the summer came around I was too busy to eat properly and work out consistently. Prior to starting my business I scheduled time in the morning to go to the gym, but now that I had a trucking company, I was on call from six in the morning until nine o’clock at night. On top of that, I had some relationship problems over the previous year that were starting to take a toll on me. I had never been much of a planner, but I knew I was going to have to start if I wanted a six-pack of abs. As busy as I was, I had to sit down and make a decision—I was either going to squeeze my workouts in whenever I could and prepare my meals the night before, or I was going to put it on the back burner and do it some other time. Suddenly, my relationship with my daughter’s mother abruptly ended, and the six-pack of abs was going to have to wait.
For most of 2001 I was down and out. I kept my business going, but my life was in total chaos, and once again working out was a last priority. Because I was so busy, I had to use any free moment during the day to run to the gym. Although this routine wasn’t ideal, it was better than not working out at all, and it continued for the next two years until 2003 when life threw me another surprise—single parenthood. I was happy with the change because I could spend more time with my daughter, only now I had to figure out how to juggle all the pieces of my life. Suddenly, there was a lot for me to think about that I hadn’t considered before. My daughter needed to get to school because she was now 5 years old and in kindergarten. There were morning and nightly meals to be made. There were baths to be given at night, and I even had to move because I’d been sharing an apartment with a friend and needed a room for her to sleep in.
Although it had been tough for both of us, after our first year together we finally managed to get a reasonable schedule going. By this time I had gained a few extra pounds and I also had a new challenge—my biggest customer, a prominent Silicon Valley Internet company, had made an overnight decision to move their operation to Atlanta and was not going to need my company’s services anymore. Because the cut in revenue happened so abruptly, I had to get rid of my warehouse, sell everything I didn’t need and let people go. Two months later I was surviving off of my credit line, in fear of bankruptcy and further in debt than I had ever been before.
As the months went on, I sank into a silent depression without telling anyone about my problems. I just put on a happy face and pretended like everything was okay when I was around my family and friends. Christmas that year was tough because I had never been without money. Fortunately, I had a large credit line and was able to draw from that to buy my daughter presents and a Christmas tree. Otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done because I was too proud to ever ask for help.
A Fresh Start
With all the unfortunate events that had occurred in 2004, I had one positive thing to look forward to in 2005. I had paid for a package of business and personal development seminars and was now going to do some traveling to attend the trainings. Although the plane tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms, were going to push me deeper into debt, I knew it was my only path to freedom because I was in a mental slump. Having already attended dozens of seminars over the years, I knew that I needed to be around people that were successful. Besides, what was my alternative? Sure, I could waste more time trying to figure it all out, but now that I was sinking deeper into debt, I didn’t have that kind of luxury and was in fear of being stuck forever.
By the time December rolled around I was finishing up my last seminar and outlining a plan of action for the next year. Once I started making my strategy, I discovered I had a lot of habits that were getting in my way. I had been eating food directly out of packages and gaining weight. I made plans to start a new workout program and didn’t follow through. I used my time to do less important things and saved working out for “later.” I dragged my feet and lacked enthusiasm in the gym, and then I would justify it all by saying, “I don’t have time,” or “I’m only human.” Looking back, I could see that I had wasted too much time making excuses, and I realized that I needed to make some definite decisions if I was ever going to have a six-pack of abs.
Over the next two years I revived my trucking company and spent a lot of time in chaos. The days were long and tiring, I was back to getting five hours of sleep a night, and I had resumed the schedule of getting to the gym whenever I could. My first “real” break wasn’t until December of 2007. I had been working so many hours that I hadn’t even thought about having abs, but now that I had some time to myself, it was all I could think about. The day before I went back to work I came to a definite decision; it was finally my time, and I was going to do whatever it took to get a six-pack.
Since business was historically slower in January, I decided to use the extra time to kick my workout intensity into high gear. I immediately began heavier weightlifting sessions to build more muscle, and I also increased my cardiovascular exercise to three times a week to burn off extra fat. After only three weeks I could see my body was responding favorably, and by March I was leaner than I had been in the past two years. The only challenge now was that business was about to pick up, which meant that I would be going back into chaos soon, and I would have to be creative to get my workouts in.
Two weeks later it was time to go into battle and I was ready. Although business was much busier than I had expected, due to a few more accounts coming online, I was still getting to the gym like a road warrior. Some days I went in the morning after dropping my daughter off at daycare. Other days I went at night before the kids center closed, and if I had to, I even went at lunch any day I could find the time.
As business continued to climb for the next few months I had finally reached a point that I could hire a part-time driver to help me out. Two months and five drivers later, I had found the right one for the job. Within a few weeks, business was bursting at the seams and I had to hire another driver to help out. Once they were both trained and on the road, it was my time to get serious about the gym. Instead of picking up where I had left off, I ramped up my efforts to get to the six-pack faster. I had been doing three cardiovascular sessions a week with good results, but now that I had more time, I increased it to five.
Two weeks into my new program, which was now August of 2008, I started to notice my midsection becoming leaner. Thinking I could get results even faster, I increased my weekly cardiovascular workouts from five times a week to seven. On the third week I noticed a slight drop in strength, but because my results had been so good the first two weeks, I continued my routine. By the fourth week my body was dead tired because I was training like an Olympic athlete, but eating the same as I had been when I was only doing three cardiovascular sessions a week. As a result, I was burning too many calories and was now on the verge of putting my body into survival mode. Since I didn’t want to shut my body down or suffer the consequences of an uncontrollable eating binge, I knew there was only one thing to do. I had to take a few days off for recovery to break the cycle. It was the last thing I wanted to do because I had been so close to having abs, but avoiding it would have set me back further.
After four days of resting I was ready to workout again, and I had come to the decision that I needed to do my cardiovascular exercise separate from my weight lifting. That meant I would be lifting weights four days a week for 45 minutes, and performing cardiovascular exercise for 20-30 minutes twice a week so I had a day to rest. After just two weeks on my new program I could see my body taking shape. My waist was shrinking smaller, my strength was remaining constant, and my energy was stable. More importantly, I was working out less than half as much as I had been and I was still getting excellent results.
Although burning fat and getting lean wasn’t easy, because it took a lot more time than I had hoped, it was simple. The problem was that my bad habits, personal choices, and lifestyle were always getting in the way. I would get impatient and push myself too hard; I would be inconsistent with my eating and exercising; I would overeat and offset my exercising efforts and I would allow myself to lose focus or get distracted. I was always very short-sighted and never thought about the long-term. I made the mistake of seeing the outcome I wanted as an achievement when in fact it was really a lifestyle. I was always thinking, “After I get my six-pack I can go back to eating normal and stop all this cardiovascular exercise.” What I didn’t realize was that I was sabotaging my efforts with this mindset. But once I accepted that I had to live the result as a lifestyle, getting lean became much easier because I didn’t feel like I was eating a certain way or exercising to create a short-term result.