The Journey, Part 1: The Weight Room and High School
- rongunz
- Dec 26, 2015
- 3 min read
Gunz Crew,
I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas, Kwaanza, Chanukah, Saturnalia, Snowflake, Winter or Cronus Day holidays and that everyone ate abundantly and traveled safely. I know, quite a mouthful but I have to try to be inclusive here as my audience is, well, everyone. Mine was pretty peaceful as Christmas Eve consisted of being Santa at work and concluding with lots of peace and tranquility at home -- while caring for Lorimer as she has a bit of a cold.
As promised, this blog is all about my fitness and health journey. It's only fair to finally begin writing about it in more detail as it is extremely close to completion. The story itself matters as the sands of time not only runs against us all but also because there are some of you who are going through health issues, weight issues and I know my story can help a lot of you.
When I was early in my teens, in junior high school, I was bullied a little bit and despite being already overweight for my age and my height, I had no knowledge about using my size to my advantage or even how to bring my weight down to not be ridiculed for my weight. One day, an afterschool program for weightlifting was open at I.S. 318. I was curious and decided to go. I did it every single day that it was on throughout the school year. I slowly went from this really chunky 280 pounder to a good 230-250 pounds and not so big and flabby. This is considering that, unlike most kids today, we have gym class 5 days a week for about an hour which consisted of softball, basketball or kickball.
Due to some of the bullying I still put up with, when it came to high school, I went to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Kensington/Borough Park/Bensonhurst area instead of going to any of the grand Street Campus high schools, which were located in the once-tough Bushwick neighborhood. I mention all three neighborhoods regarding FDR as it seemed to touch bits of all three. Going in, when it came to picking gym classes, I always picked weight training. It wasn't just because of thrill of lifting iron -- it was also helping me with stress and also muscle development/growth that came with it. The best part was seeing how weightlifting actually helped me not only burn fat but also keeping my weight in a more reasonable range. Now if only my metabolism could be just as responsive at the time!
That's the killer I went through growing up -- an unstable metabolism and the weightlifting was helping me with stabilizing. Given my diet as a kid, this would be a hint of the struggle that would lie ahead beyond high school. One week I'd be 250, then 240 the next, 260 after that, 235, 245, 280, 250 -- it seemed like my body could not make up its mind regarding what weight to be! Had I known back then what I know now, you bet I would've kept track of things on a better level of consistency and probably would've kept things under control for years to come -- of which I do now.
Stay tuned for part 2!
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