My whole life I’d always been average sized, until I got to high school and everyone around me was sprouting up to be 6 feet tall, leaving me stuck as a 5’3” 110 pound freshman. I got into wrestling and after I separated my shoulder, I decided that I was going to start weight training to rehab it. I fell in love. It made me feel great after spending an hour or two in the gym and just looking bigger. From then on I figured that if I was going to be short, I damn sure wasn’t going to stay small in other areas if I could help it. After about 3 years of weight training, swimming and playing water polo, not only have I gotten my body into great shape, but I’ve also grown about 4 inches and gained about 40 pounds of pure lean muscle. I’m about to embark on a journey and dive deeper into the world of fitness as I study exercise physiology at the University of Miami. I don’t know exactly where it’ll take me, but as of right now I aspire to either be in or work for Men’s Health magazine. As I mentioned in "The Body Blog", I've recently fallen in love with CrossFit. I've seen my strength, fitness, and body go through leaps and bounds of positive physical adaptations since I began just 5 months ago. I plan to compete and some day win the CrossFit Games!
“How did he do it!?”, you may be asking yourself. More ways than one, and I’ll spill all the beans. Right here. Right now. It takes more than just simply lifting weights or eating right, it’s a combination of the two along with a few other aspects. A quick list of what I think are the 5 most important ways to getting into peak shape and living a happy, healthy life:
1) Eat: 4-6 smaller meals a day, starting with a nice hearty breakfast (the term literally means “break”ing the “fast” since your last meal, which according to #3, should’ve been about 10 hours prior) to kick-start your metabolism. Space each other meal out every 2-3 hours, keeping it healthy and trying to incorporate lean protein such as chicken, turkey and eggs etc. and avoiding processed, packaged “junk” foods.
2) Pump Some Iron!: Or any variation of exercise that’s going to get your heart rate up and burn some of those cals you put on from #1 on the list.
3) Sleep: You spend about a third of your entire life sleeping. It’s just like water. Your body is comprised of about 3/4 water, pretty important. So the third of your life that you spend sleeping is also pretty damn important. Not only should you get to sleep about 3 hours after your last meal, but you should time it so that you get 7-8 hours of z’s at the very LEAST. Not only does sleeping give you time to recover and leave you feeling rested for the next day, it also gives your body a chance to release its human growth hormone. So do what ever you’ve got to do: take some melatonin (a chemical your body naturally produces to help you sleep, which you can buy in pill form at CVS), read a book, count some sheep.. Anything that’ll help you get to sleep.
4) LYAO: Laugh your ass off. Benefit-wise, laughter is hanging on the coattails of exercise itself. Studies have shown that a couple of deep bellowing laughs a day can not only raise your body’s levels of disease fighting cells, release a surge of endorphins to your brain’s pleasure center and increase your blood circulation, but it can also relax your body for up to 45 minutes after while also decreasing your susceptibility to pain. So next time you’re flipping the channels and you come across an episode of Family Guy, relax and have a few laughs (followed by a little jog of course).
5) Pick It & Stick It: A handful of people have said to me, “I’d do anything to have your body”. Those people my friends, are liars. If that was truly the case, then they’d probably look even better than me by now. I promise you that you can look and feel any possible way that you desire. The key ingredient to this whole concoction is dedication. Set a few small goals for yourself:, “I’m going to go for a run at least 3 times this week”, “I’m going to get 8 hours of sleep tonight”, or something as simple as, “I won’t drink any soda today”. Once you achieve these simple goals (which you know you can) step it up a bit and shoot for something such as dropping 5 pounds over the next 2 weeks.
You only get one chance to live. Why not look and feel your absolute best along the way?
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