My 100+lbs Weight-Loss Journey

The transformation that started my path of self-discovery.

Growing up, I was the stereotypical ‘fat kid’.

Being Italian, a lot of my life and upbringing centered around food, and early on, it became a source of comfort and self-soothing. Couple this with genetics that didn’t put being 'lean’ or ‘thin’ in my favor and you have a recipe for quickly becoming overweight and then eventually - obese.

Despite this, though I was pretty physically capable and went on to captain all of my sports teams throughout high school. However, the crippling insecurity that came from being overweight remained even in the face of some of the physical gifts I was given by God.

In December of 2012, clocking in at 240lbs (I’m 5’11 tall) I decided to take things into my own hands and got myself a gym membership. However, things didn’t play out the way I had wanted them to.

I quickly became enamored with powerlifting and lifting seriously heavy weights. I wasn’t exactly a fan of cardio, either. My thought process was: If I could make my shoulders and chest wide enough, my belly wouldn’t look quite as bad. Well, this didn’t work out as planned.

Zoom ahead to February of 2014 when I met my then strength coach, Coach Shawn. I met Coach Shawn at church after a particularly horrific break-up and he, being the devout Christian that he is, took me under his wing free of charge. I stepped foot into his gym on February 14th, 2014. Coincidentally, 7 years to the day that I am writing this today.

He had pushed me to pursue my first few competitions as a heavy-weight powerlifter. At my first meet in April of 2014, I weighed 275 lbs. Just several months later in June, I competed at a whopping 305lbs. And sadly, I was a VERY mediocre heavy-weight competitor. And not to mention incredibly un-healthy.

I woke up in July of 2014 sick and tired of being grossly overweight and in horrific shape. I decided I would no longer be at the mercy of my ‘fat Italian’ genetics.

I remember this well. I woke up one morning, drove to London Drugs and bought myself a food scale, downloaded the My Fitness Pal app and decided to start learning how to track calories and macronutrients. Well, this went on to change my life in more ways than one.

In combination with weight-training 5 days a week, I managed to pull off a 115-lbs weight-loss transformation in just 13 months. I weighed in at 305 lbs at my heaviest in July of 2014 and clocked in at 190 lbs in August 2015, marking the end of my journey. And I celebrated with a photo shoot. This transformation was done with zero drugs and even zero supplements. Just good ol’ fashioned hard work and consistency.

I went from the ‘fat guy’ to the ‘fit guy’ in under two years and to say that this transformation changed my life would be the understatement of the century. I would not have what I have today if it weren’t for this life-changing decision that I made that during the summer of 2014.

I became the healthiest, strongest, and most capable version of myself I had ever seen. I did not recognize the man in the mirror. To this day, one of the greatest decisions I have ever made.

It taught me consistency, discipline, self-belief, and so much more. Many of these things learned through the gym and through losing that amount of weight allowed me to eventually open up my successful personal training studio which I still run to this day.

I still sometimes look at myself and am shocked how this once ‘fat kid’ who always thought he was at the mercy of his genetics could possibly pull this off. The point of this is also to illustrate that if I can, I truly believe anyone can.

In future articles, I will get into exactly HOW I did it from a more in-depth perspective and how it also went on to reveal to me some of the worst aspects of my personality at the time.

Subscribe to see the continuation of this in the very-near future. God Bless.