Hi, I've been a long time lurker on these forums and today I decided that i should finally join the community. I read this site everyday, sometimes 3 times a day. I figure that simply introducing myself wont really explain the title so I'll give some background.
I was always a small guy, not in height, but in robusticity basically. My parents never really stressed sports so much as that let me do what I wanted, me being a natural introvert. When i was 6 I had incredible stomach pains and the doctor diagnosed me with residual peritoneal bands, which is basically tight bands that hold your digestive organs in place and should dissolve after birth. The operation left a big 6inch scar running from my navel down, right in the middle.
for the next 10 or so years my growth seemed to be stunted, I was always about 120lbs maybe 5"5 until about 16 when I gained some inches and maybe got to a chubby 145 (almost skinny fat). I was still skinny, graduated highschool and moved away to university, I wanted to be an artist.
My residence placement put me with some bad kids but I didn’t realize it at the time. I started drinking heavily, smoking pot every single day, trying drugs, basically experimenting.
2005 October I tried extacy for the first time, at this point I was 5"9, 120lbs. People said i looked gaunt, rough, always tired. i was getting depressed, usually the weed would help but i was starting to develop psychosis from it too.
A few months later i took a bad E, a really bad E… my seratonin was ripped and drained for over a week. I wanted to kill myself that week…
But i knew that that would have been the pussy way out… im sure tons of people have had far worse things happen to them in life, at that point my mentality changed from helplessness to channeled anger. Why the fuck had i let myself go this far, i wasn’t abused, i wasn’t poor, i had no excuse.
How was i going to get my seratonin back, taking a logical approach i knew this was how i can control depressing, a healthy body = a healthy mind… i had a fuck long way to go.
i started doing pushups, pullups simple stuff in my room when my drugged out roommates weren't around, i bought a 20lb dumbbell in secret... i didn't want people to know, at the time i was ashamed. my weight popped up 10 lbs instantly, i was still eating like crap but i felt so much better. i got addicted to the "runners high" of working my body.
when i came home that year i was still a mess, but getting better, i tihnk my parents knew what had happened in a way but they didn’t say anything, they trusted me that much.
It took a year for me to gain the courage to enter a gym for the first time, to pick up a barbell, and it’s been a year since.
I’ve gone from a 120lb flabby, weak, toxin infested, depressed, shell of a human being, to 165lbs of inner strength. I would estimate about 50 - 60 of LBM gained.
I will never go back to the way i lived, i cant imagine a week without iron, calluses, sweat, Instead of puking from hard liqour, drugs, and bad mushrooms, its from 20 reps of 185lb squats.
I would like to thank you all for inadvertantly becoming my family, this place has helped me become powerful in mind, body and spirit. i feel bursting with energy every day, i feel like a tornado, eager for hard work, i feel like a man now.
If anyone has even had the patience to read this far, i guess you want to know my current lifts, im still a newbie but here goes
height: 5"10
Weight:160- 165lbs
Age : 21
BF : ? (maybe around 10)
Bench: 190 - 200lbs
Squat: 250lbs (i need to work on form, keep falling forward)
Deadlift: 330lbs
Clean: 185lbs
long term goals:
245bench
315squat
405dead
I know that im gaining slower than alot of people, but im a student and i can only afford so much food, i eat around 2800 - 3000 calories per day of clean food.
My goals are not hypertrophy, i want to be the strongest son of a bitch under 180lbs, much stronger than i look.
once again… thank you all… so much