From Obese to Sponsored Athlete: How I Lost 100 pounds Mentally and Physically

“One last one!”

That was the remark I still remember the counselors (I use that loosely) using at the after-school weight program my grandmother signed me up for in sixth grade.

Being overweight, she would take me to what was essentially an after-school fat camp multiple times a week, where the only incentive to workout was earning points for rewards to cash out on prizes like a — get this — yoga ball.

Yup, you too could run and keep track of it in order to swap for prizes, like a fat camp version of Chuck E. Cheese.

My?weight, as you can tell from that, has always been a challenge and a sensitive topic for me. I managed to get control on it heading into college, thanks in large part due to a love of basketball.

Basketball has always been my favorite sport to play, mainly due to an inability to be above-average at any other sport. I was an OK high school wrestler, elite pickup footballer, but basketball was something I could surprise people at.

A short, overweight white guy who surprisingly was built tough, like a Ford. At that point I was playing it at least once a week, routinely staying at the gym until 10 p.m., running up and down the court.

March 2016 was no different: I had played more than two hours of basketball at the Strom Thurmond gym at the University of South Carolina, and just like my body, my mind didn’t know yet when to stop.

I managed to convince the group of friends I was with that we could squeeze in one last pickup game before packing up for our final spring break trip. I was on a hot streak, young, and completely ignoring the foot pain I’d been experiencing over the last day (adrenaline is amazing).

That last game changed my life.

“My board!”

I jumped, using as much force as a 235-pound overweight college student could muster, and unfortunately never came down the same. Someone had gotten under me, and my foot landed on theirs, twisted and gave off one of the loudest and most disturbing sounds anyone who has ever experienced an injury knows.

Snap!

I laid there on the ground for a few minutes until finally managing the strength to try to “walk it off,” begging God in my head for it to just be a severe ankle sprain. My friends ended up carrying me down the winding stairs of the gymnasium back to my car where I immediately drove home crying, knowing what I was about to experience.

I pulled up to my house and my grandmother (a former nurse) helped me take off my shoe and sock to reveal a dangling half-foot so grotesque I threw up immediately. The result of that fall had been a Jones fracture.

Jones fractures for any non-orthopedists are tricky breaks to heal.

Due to limited blood flow in the area, most Jones fractures require surgery and, more likely than not, will not heal without it. After weighing options, I decided against it and was officially immobile for the next two months, confined to a push scooter while finishing my last semester on South Carolina’s campus.

That was the biggest amount of depression I’d experienced up to that point of my life. I gained more than 40 pounds due to a lack of mobility and had to watch as my friends continued to live their lives.

While they were throwing a football on the beach, I was trying to get my scooter tires out of the sand.

While they were being active and going to the bar, I was hopping around my car on one leg, falling on the sidewalk trying to get my scooter out of my backseat.

I fought through rehab for the next two months while struggling to take reporting classes on one leg (try setting up a camera shot on crutches). When graduation came, I begged my doctor to allow me a boot to walk across the stage and thankfully he did — though the pain I felt suggested he shouldn’t have.

I was immediately hired after college by a local TV station. I was ready to get past it all; I couldn’t stand the sight of what I had become. I was unrecognizable to me.

Despite it all, I kept up the rehab and picked up weightlifting in 2017. It had been the only way for me to participate in a sport without being able to move that much. Despite limited mobility, I could still get under a bench or curl a bar and feel like Rocky pushing through a workout montage.

Eight months later, I was down to 225 pounds and was completely cleared to participate in sports again. Healthier than ever before, I literally had overcome the worst moment in my life and came out stronger for it.

Day one of being cleared, I went back to the court, warming up for the men’s league game I had that evening. I was playing light two-on-two, fully trusting my foot.

“My board!”

Snap!

I knew quicker than Ken Jennings on Jeopardy.

The same situation had happened. Someone had gotten under me and my foot had twisted to its side, resulting in the same break in the exact same spot eight months earlier. I called my orthopedist and told him I was on the way.

This time around, a screw was surgically put in for support. And back on the scooter I went.

For the next two months, I hopped up to the second floor of the building I worked in every day to get to my editing bay (the elevator was out of service), carrying my scooter up with me for support. Slowly but surely all the weight came back, all the darkness with it, and no escape outlet. Meanwhile, work was starting to drown me like a riptide.

Television news will eat you up if you aren’t mentally prepared.

I tell my students today, “Don’t pursue it if you truly can’t live without it.” It’s a life of sacrificing family, weekends, finances, and more to continuously witness and then edit some of the worst moments individuals can encounter.

I still remember crying without realizing it, while editing footage of the terrorist attack in Nice, France, in 2016. I had been there years ago and stood on the same bridge that these pixel individuals were standing on on my screen. That’s where my mind was then. I would go to work scared of what I’d see, and then cry on my way home, thinking my life had no meaning other than to gain weight and edit peoples’ worst moments.

While going in for a routine checkup with my doctor, though, I was handed a pamphlet about losing weight to prevent diabetes, and that’s when I knew I needed to change. Everything.

I applied to graduate schools to change my career direction, and got in. With it, access back to the gym that had sent me spiraling just over a year ago. This time would be different.

I got engaged and set a goal to shed 40 pounds. I wasn’t going to let myself regret my happiest day ever. I needed to build myself back up from the ground again. Using powerlifting as a confidence booster, slowly but surely it worked.

It wasn’t easy.

Anxiety plagued my every step. My first day of graduate school, after sitting down for my reading assignment, I emailed my advisor and told her I needed to quit and get back whatever refund I could. Thankfully, she was amazing at her job, and told me it was OK to ask for anxiety medication, that it wouldn’t make me less of who I was.

I can’t thank her enough for — legit — saving me.

And just like that, I was back. My numbers in the gym would slowly improve and I was on the court all the better for it. I eventually reached a milestone I never dreamed possible in high school: the “1000-pound club,” a challenge where one must be able to lift a combined 1000 pounds through the movements of squatting, deadlifting and bench pressing.

I felt like a new person.

I fell in love with weightlifting, and the confidence it would give me. No one would bother me, and everyone would see just how strong I could get. I for once, could be better at something than anyone else.

After moving to the Upstate, I visited four gyms and settled on a smaller, more-local option. The family who run it have owned it for more than 20 years, starting it after the owner had been fired for wrongdoings he didn’t commit. They had the family environment I wanted, being in the Upstate and not knowing a soul.

They’ve supported me for almost three years, and watched me slowly improve, like a father coaching his son on the sidelines of a basketball game. I owe them everything for my success as well.

When the pandemic hit, I was crushed.

At this point, I had developed an unhealthy obsession with the gym and body dysmorphia, which I still battle today. Most lifters can relate, but to those unaware, it means that if I don’t go to the gym or miss a day, I see in the mirror the same overweight individual being given that diabetic pamphlet. I feel years of sadness return and wash over me.

I just knew if the gym closed, I would gain it all back. Three years of progress gone within a month, this time for no fault of my own. Pile on the fear of Covid-19 for someone as asthmatic as myself, and you have a recipe by Gordon Ramsey for anxiety.

Because of this, I fully threw myself into at-home workouts and running. I had never done running for sport before, and it showed initially. My first mile, at 225 pounds, was around 10 minutes. Slowly but surely, thanks in large part to the soundtrack from the “Rocky” and “Creed” franchises, I managed to improve it (my best today is 8 minutes) and used my fear of weight gain to lose even more. Muscles became more developed, veins started to show, and the scale got to a number I couldn’t remember being since middle school.

Currently, I have now officially lost 100 pounds of total weight, and that 1000-pound club is now the 1200-pound club.

I’ve competed in, and won, amateur powerlifting competitions and run a 5K, all of which are incredible things to be proud of. However, the physical weight weighs nothing in comparison to the mental health load I’ve lost.

While I’m still plagued by that need to be in the gym, the confidence I’ve gained tops it all. I’m no longer the bullied-and-intimidated child, but rather the “gym douche” that posts the pictures on social media I use to gawk at. I can now walk into meetings and feel powerful and confident.

I should also mention that, just like the title suggests, I’ve officially reached a point in my fitness life that I’ve been able to endorse companies. I’ve been very picky in this. I’ve had options with commission-based sponsorships in the past and chosen not to proceed with them.

I have, though, chosen to officially work with a local brand here in the Upstate because of the honesty and knowledge they seek to provide to the fitness industry.

It’s not commission-based, which is why I’m excited. I don’t have to sit here and lie about a company in order to make money. Instead, I get to talk about a company that’s supported me the entire time and now want to sponsor me in actually motivating others to go through a similar journey.

So today, I officially can say I’m a sponsored athlete — something that was a dream to a bullied overweight little boy whose grandmother took him to fat camp. Instead of the incentives to workout being yoga balls, I get to now help other people avoid the mistakes I did.

Fitness and health can literally change your life; I’m living proof that you can accomplish things you never thought possible or dreams you never deemed realistic. I think it’s important to note, too, that no one thing works for everyone and I don’t want this be some cheesy motivational piece.

Mine was powerlifting. Yours might be yoga. (If you need a ball, I got you.)

Above all else, get yourself right mentally. That’s the hardest weight you’ll ever have to lose.