Becoming A Better Writer In Just A Few Months (Pt 2 Health and Fitness)

In part I thought I would start with a bit of my background history as it built me up into the person I am today. There are some moments in my life that aren’t so glamorous but I don’t want you to see them as to dark either as I was able to learn from them though I won’t go to deep. I just wanted to share different moments of my life that got me through adversity and led me to the path of success.

As a child I didn’t have it the best and it was far from being the worst, I just had one bad human involved. A step father from the ages of 5 to 14 who was an alcoholic full of negativity who’s only talent was he could fill 240 litre Otto bin with ‘Black Douglas Whiskey’ bottles within a week. He was a cruel and abusive human who was failing in the game of life. I knew from a young age that when I grew up I had to become the total opposite of who this man was, I wanted to be compassionate, caring, trustworthy and successful. By the time I was 14 after a few years of going down to the local boxing gym after school each day I was finally able to help get him out of the house.

By the time I was 18 we had moved away from my hometown to a new place about 30 minutes away. My mother was with a new partner who was a good man but I was 6 foot tall and he would call me the ‘Stick Man’ as a joke because I was only weighing around 55kg at the time. I kept saying to myself “I can’t pt on size I’m an ectomorph so I’ll always be lean.” The problem at the time was I had just finished school and was going to uni but I wanted to become a fireman and I knew that I had to put on size by the time I turned 19 or I’d have no chance at passing the physical requirements. I had nearly 12 months to get in the shape I needed to be in, so I started researching what I needed to do to get from 55kg to at least 80–85kg as two of the physical tests was to carry a 75kg dummy down a ladder and staircase.

Being that I had just moved from my hometown and I was in a new area where I didn’t know anyone, I knew I had to find someone to start training with. So I signed up to a small gym because I knew I’d feel less intimidated to introduce myself to someone there who I could train with. A month or two went by and I was still without a gym buddy, I knew I had to do something, so I said to myself “today your going to go in and shake everyone’s hand in fact you’re going to do that everyday.” So that day I went to the gym nervous as hell even though the weather was cold I was sweating. I walked in with my head up and shoulders back and went around and shook everyone’s hand one by one to introduce myself. The looks everyone gave me said ‘what the… whos this guy?’. When I got home I thought “goddamn those people probably thought I’m weird.” The next day I went back and I went around and shook everyone’s hand once again and got all the same looks. I still felt nervous but I put on the confident act. Each day I kept going back and doing the same thing and each day it got easier even when there were new people.

By the third week I was used to it and so was everyone else, when I walked in people knew I would come up to shake their hand and they’d have a smile on their face instead of looking at me weird. In the third week of saying hello to everyone something else started happening as well, people who were training by themselves would call out “Hey Adam can you give me a spot?” By the fourth week I think it was a Monday as I was training chest and a guy came up and said “Hey Adam are you training chest today? Did you want to train together?” and the same thing kept happening anyone who wasn’t training with anyone would ask if I would like to train with them.

Four months in I’ve made friends with everyone in the gym so I can always train with someone. I’ve also put on around 10kg of weight but I still have a long way to go yet. I knew that for my body to adapt to putting on weight I would have to go from eating 5 meals a day to 8 meals until my body started using the extra carbs. Because I was always on the go with two jobs and uni I wanted to know what other guys ate, sure I had looked on the net, read books and watched videos but I’ve always like hearing it ‘straight from the horses mouth’ as well so I decided I’d go around to a few different big named gyms in Melbourne where the beasts trained.

Once again I was sweating on a cold day walking into a gym I’ve never beeen to with a notebook ready to ask the most intimidating guy there what he eats on the average day, especially when they’re on the go. The difference this time though was I didn’t have months to get to know them, I had to be candid from the start and tell them what I was trying to achieve and why I was asking what they ate in the average day. I was nervous and I kept reminding myself the worst thing they could tell me was ‘no’. After visiting several different gyms and a few of guys telling me to ‘F’ off or giving me the cold shoulder, I had a bunch of different meals plans (around 20–25) from many different beasts and the only thing it cost was a bit of time and some rejection. The difference here between Googling it, was I got to get very specific with my meal questions as I was face to face with all these guys who had already travelled much further than I even needed to go.

On New Years Eve that year a friend from my home town was having a huge party to celebrate. It was the first time I saw a lot of people again since I had finished school the year before and I think I had surprised a lot of them. When I got to the party no one could believe it, a lot were even asking me if I had been taking steroids and were even in disbelief when I would say ‘no’. Here I was nearly 12 months on after I had seen a lot of these people last and I had gone from being a 55kg stick to just above 90kg. To be honest I was in disbelief myself in just how much I had improved as I was no longer the stick man and people wanted to know how I had done it.

I had become so determined to gain enough muscle to pass the physical (which I did) and so persistent that I made sure no matter what I was at the gym at least 5–6 days a week. The next year unfortunately even though I passed the tests and the physical with flying colours I didn’t make into the top 10 so again I had to reapply for the following year.

But this story was a great inspiration to myself as it got me thinking “If I can do this I can do anything!” from then on the imprint in my head was just that. What can I achieve next? The options were endless. I was already in great shape for next years test all I had to do was maintain it so I knew I had to focus on a new goal something new to achieve. I believed that through persistence and consistency I could start accomplishing any goal I put in front of myself. Then I thought to myself “I’ve always been interested in the stock market and investing and I don’t mind taking risks” So I had a new path to venture down which I which I will continue in my next part.

To be continued…