Decades Failing to Become a Bodybuilder

From as long as I can remember I have always wanted a strong and attractive body. I remember I started to do sit-ups before I was 10 years old because I wanted to have a six-pack. Despite nearly two years of fairly consistent efforts, I was never been able to reach my goal, now I can finally see things are starting to change.

Growing up I tried almost everything. I played sports through middle school high school and collage. I began to lift weights with a personal trainer when I Was 12. I continued to lift fairly consistently for a decade but my body kept breaking down and my abs continued to hide under thick layers of fat. I tried different supplements from the GNC store but those did nothing good for me at all. I was exercising daily, sometimes up to four or five hours in a day. I was lifting weights, I was running, I even prayed to God for a good looking physique. The answer was none.

When I graduated from college my ability and desire to exercise began to diminish. At that time I had a girlfriend who loved me for who I was, I did not need a six-pack or big muscles so I was simply getting by. Deep inside of me I still wanted that impressive physique, but the motivation was gone, and instead, I was focusing on working on my start-up businesses, playing video games, smoking weed and going out drinking on the weekends. Months went by and I began to realize that my life was going nowhere. I wasn’t satisfied with my work, I did not feel good in my body, I was fairly depressed and my relationship was breaking apart. Sooner rather than later I found myself unemployed, penniless, single, heart-broken, highly depressed and constantly anxious. My life was going down the drain and fast.

Luckily, my spirit was determined. Determined to understand, to grow and to improve. Deep inside I knew there was a way out, there had to be one. I was looking for meaning everywhere and even though my hopes where small, they still existed. My parents and some great friends served as huge support. Therapists and teachers also helped me get back on my feet. I moved back to my parents’ house and began to read books for self development. I threw my self into the infinite ocean of spirituality and eastern wisdom. I spent countless of hours listening to talks on YouTube by personalities like Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle. I spent time reading and re-reading books like “The Four Agreements”, “The Power of Now” and “Way of The Superior Warrior”. After a month of doing this some ideas began to click in and I began to see the path that I needed to walk on. I was still going through the dark nights of my soul, but I had regained some inspiration and my commitment was set on Love, Truth and Beauty.

Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Rebirth

Once I began to feel better I decided to leave my parents house and get a job at a foster care home for children. I was hired as a data analyst for a wellness program at a facility called “New Alternatives”. This foster care agency had recently received a very special grant from the government to explore new approaches to improve the children’s physical and psychological well-being. This new approaches included a change to the children’s diet plan as well as the type of activities they were involved in on a daily basis. These new activities included yoga, tai chi, drum circles, meditation and theater, among others. The changes in the children’s diet and meal plans included adding a salad bar and reducing the amount of friend and greasy meals. The improvement on the children’s physical and psychological results where impressive and they continued to improve as time went on.

Seeing the results these changes where having in the children inspired me to give these a try myself. This is how I finally got into yoga and meditation (after refusing to do it for more than two years). Meditation was a huge challenge for me, my body was in such a bad shape that I could not sit on the floor, my hips where extremely tight and my spine was in such bad shape that as soon as I set I would feel pain all the way up my spine, it was quite unbearable. Needless to say, my mind would race at a billion miles per hour and I could not focus on a single thought for the life of me. Yoga was easier to approach, but just as challenging. I was in such a bad shape that the only classes that seemed to fit me at the beginning where restorative classes and classes for pregnant women. I will admit that even beginner classes felt like too much but after a few months I started to get the hang of it and began to fall in love with the practice.

My passion for yoga grew to so big that I decided to do a yoga teacher training, and then another one, and then one more. I was in love with all aspects of the tradition, but my body was still a long way from being healthy. My postures were far from being picture perfect and my condition was somewhat lame to say the least. To be honest, I was quite ashamed of the shape I was in and it was quite impossible for me to feel comfortable teaching a practice which I was not sure if I even understood.

Around that time I also took on a different practice. A western deviation of yoga called Foundation Training. Foundation Training was developed by a chiropractor named Dr. Eric Goodman who had suffered major disc degeneration in his spine while he was in chiropractic school and had decided to skip surgery and find a way to heal his body naturally. The result of his research was Foundation Training, a program of exercises that teaches the body how to support it self with good posture and proper movement patterns. The whole program is based on spinal stabilization and it did wonders to my back pain (and my father’s 30 year long herniated disks). The results Foundation Training had on me, and the friendship that I quickly built with Dr. Eric Goodman lead me to study Foundation Training for the following years and expand my understanding of human anatomy and movement.

With yoga and Foundation Training my body began to heal. This healing and the education I received from all these teachers is what inspired me to become a healer and teacher myself. In addition to my yoga teacher training courses and my Foundation Training certifications I also signed up to receive a Reiki attunement, which months later lead me to enroll in school to become a massage therapist, which in term lead me to graduate from the Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute with a 1,000 hour degree in Holistic Health Practice and Medical Qi-Gong. In massage school I learned more than 15 different styles of massage, including swedish, deep tissue, thai, tuina, polarity therapy, accupressure, trigger point therapy, lomi lomi and many more. I also learned about emotional release techniques, compassionate communication and the wonderful world of subtle energetic bodies. Through my education I also learned Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine and I explored the most common diets practiced in the United States. All of this education and exploration got me well out of the whole I had fallen in, yet, I knew there was more to know, more to understand and more to be. I still wanted to become a bodybuilder and even though I was feeling much better I was still not where I wanted to be.

Moving on to a New Life

After graduating from massage school I worked as a massage therapist and holistic health practitioner for a year in the city of Santa Barbara, California. I worked on my practice, built a website and made some good money helping clients feel better. I began to teach yoga and Foundation Training classes and had some good results and nice feedback from the students who attended my classes. Things seemed to be moving forward but I still did not feel like I was where I wanted to be. I spent the last six months in Santa Barbara working to create an eco-village. I was beginning to understand that the only way to achieve ultimate health was by living in a supportive environment that would take care of everyone’s physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, environmental and financial needs. I was able to get the ball rolling and gather a few individuals who wanted to help with the project, but the support was not enough and after six months of pushing hard I burnt out and decided to drop the project and move to Boulder, Colorado.

Why Boulder? I had been hearing wonderful things about Boulder for many years and I knew it was time to try it out. My sister had been living in Denver for the past ten years and my parents had recently decided to retire and move near her. It seemed to be an easy choice for me. Things where going well in Santa Barbara but I was hungry for more and Boulder seemed to have everything I was looking for, a young population, lots of high-tech companies, startups, wealthy people, tons of outdoor activities, sunny weather year long and a feeling of being home. Within a month of making the decision I packed my bags and left Santa Barbara for good. I moved to Boulder and began my hike to fame, but the terrain seemed to be harder than what I expected, competition for yoga teacher jobs was tough and you could not throw a rock without hitting a massage therapist or bodyworker. The market was (as some had warned me) pretty saturated. Despite the odds being against me I worked hard and found myself a good gig working at CheetahFit Personal Training and Massage Center. My practice began to grow again and my finances stabilized. Things where moving smoothly and then, truth came and shook my world by surprise, a new lifestyle was inspiring my being, a new goal was overtaking all other needs, a new realization was had taken hold of my mind, I had become a Fruitarian Bodybuilder.

To be continued…