Growing up I always played sports. I was involved in gymnastics, hockey, baseball, softball, golf, rugby and track & field competitively, but played pretty much any other sport for fun as well. I come from a very athletic family (both my parents and my brother) and we all played a lot of sports and lived a pretty active and healthy lifestyle. I never worried about carbs, fats, calories or any of that stuff before. But at the same time, when you’re that active and that young, you can pretty much eat whatever you want, whenever you want to and get away with it.
When I graduated high school, I was weighing in at about 155 lbs of lean muscle. When I moved away to college I moved away from mom’s home cooked meals, my regular exercise, my organized sports and my routine that I had grown accustomed to over the previous 18 years. I tried to stay active playing some hockey and rollerblading a bit, but my active lifestyle came pretty much to a halt and started to take a turn for the worst at this point.
After college I moved to Ottawa and I stopped playing sports all together and I got a nice cushy desk job where bad eating habits were created and long hours at work started. Drinking beer became a pastime and over the next two years, 100 lbs snuck up on me out of nowhere.
It’s funny to say that I didn’t notice that I put on that much weight, especially looking at the pictures of how I looked, but I didn’t. It honestly took me 3 years to realize I was overweight and the main reason I figured it out was because of the tormenting my family and friends were giving me when I moved back to the Maritimes.
After hearing about my weight gain for about 2 years, I finally decided enough was enough and needed to get back in shape. It was a simple start; Change my diet.
The first thing I needed to do was cut out eating an entire pizza to myself every Friday night and start cooking for myself; the rest was a piece of cake… Mmmm, cake! I started to learn about fats (good and bad), carbs, protein, calories and a lot more about eating a healthy diet and applying them to what I was eating.
The next step was to get back into sports and to get active. I started playing hockey again and decided I was going to pick up volleyball. Also, I got my first ever gym membership and got some personal trainer sessions because I really didn’t know what I was doing in the gym. I learned that I needed to do cardio and some light weight training if I wanted to drop some pounds. The personal trainer walked me through some good starter exercises, enough to not scare me off, but at the same time, enough to let me see some results, fast! I lost my first 30-40 lbs in 2 1/2 months. Now, not everyone will see these kinds of results this fast, but fortunately for me, I did and it kept me motivated.
After losing those initial pounds I was feeling pretty damn good about myself and I met a great girl. I got into a relationship and got comfortable which meant I stopped going to the gym and only kind of paid attention to what I was eating. I stayed active playing sports so I didn’t put on THAT much “relationship weight” but going to the gym stopped being important to me. Eventually we broke up and around that time I started a new job where I met some guys that were all about working out and getting in shape and they took my sorry ass to the gym with them.
Over the next little while I read a lot and learned as much as I could from other people about how to eat right, how to train at the gym and what I should be doing next with my diet and in the weight room. I also started running. When it came to me getting in shape, I was a sponge and wanted to learn everything I could. I didn’t let it become an obsession though. I find a lot of people have a hard time not letting that happen and letting it consume their lives, so it was something I was sure to be aware of not falling in to.
After a year or so of mediocre training and eating “OK”, I got from 225 lbs down to 185 lbs, losing some fat but building quite a bit of muscle a the same time because that’s all the guys I was working out with cared about… MUSCLE, I want MORE MUSCLE! At this point I still looked “fluffy” as I call it and I decided to take my training to the next level and started kicking my OWN butt! I started running every morning at 6:30 AM. I cooked all my own meals and was weight training about 5 times a week with light weight. I dropped down to 160lbs, losing all my body fat. At this point I went from being the “fluffy” guy to the “skinny” guy which I didn’t like either. So, once again, I changed my workout routine to heavy weight training and continued to run and upped my protein and calorie intake where I then put on about 25 lbs of muscle mass which brought me to a nice weight of 185 lbs (which you see in the before/after picture).
Unfortunately, since the date of that “after” picture in July of 2008, I was in a motorcycle accident which has hindered my progress a bit. After the accident I put on about 20 lbs and lost a lot of the muscle I had gained. I couldn’t train anymore, due to the amount of pain I was in, and I couldn’t play sports either. It was extremely frustrating and so I decided to eat like crap again, hence the 20 lbs. Some may call it being depressed, I say I was in a “funk” for a bit…
It took a bit of time, but once I got out of my “funk”, I got back to a healthy diet and dropped 10 lbs in about a month and a half (Diet does matter, not just hitting the gym!). I then started to weight train again and slowly tried to play some sports here and there. The sports didn’t and still don’t go as I wish they would, as I’m still in pain, but the weight training is going well. I’m back down to a healthy 175 lbs as of today (May 4th, 2010) and feeling pretty good! I’m still not 100% where I want to be and so I’m trying to still learn as much as I can and get myself to where I want. It’s a struggle every day as I still LOVE pizza and beer, but to feel and look better than I have in a long time, so it’s worth it.
My plan from this point on is to start spreading the word about how to eat, live and think in a healthy lifestyle. I want to share what I’ve learned, get help from friends and experts and get their input and advice and pass it along.
So this is me in a nutshell. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them. Or if you don’t want to leave it publically, feel free to contact me directly scott@yourinnerskinny.ca
Posted in About, Blog, Success Stories 
