First of all, I can’t believe I’ve had 50,000 things to say to you people. Second of all, I’m thankful for the relationships I’ve made here both online and off. My life has changed dramatically since I joined both due to me setting life goals and the people I’ve met on the board.

Id like to thank all of you who have put up with me over the years, a few of us haven’t gotten along and probably will continue to have our differences, but the vast majority of you are what make this place great (which is a sentiment that I think we all share). Id also like to thank the generous people on the board for their support be it financial or otherwise. I still get choked up thinking about folks who decided to donate money to my recent plastic surgery (more on that in a bit).

Beyond those on my FO id like to single out a few folks. Johnnycomelately, Rise Against, Superkid, Slim, Jdub, BreadedHamster, and Dillinger. Thank you for your support and inspiration to me. Thank you for making me laugh and for saying and doing inspirational things. There are others of course but you guys stand out.

When I first joined the board I was a 400-pound Sophomore going to BYU. I was feeling somewhat isolated as most of my friends were off serving missions, I was told I wasnt healthy enough to go. I was passionate about BYU sports and the school I was attending. I honestly can’t remember how I found Cougarboard. It might have been the Michelle Peralta thing.

As time went on I got over the weirdness of talking at hundreds to thousands of randos. I had fun engaging with folks and exploring different ideas. It was a fun distraction. Then I started collecting an FO of my own and started joining FOs and started doing what my parents always told me not to do which was talking to strangers (online). Through doing that I made friends in the real world who helped push me and celebrate things with me.

I graduated in 2014 still a fat kid (412 pounds) and was ultimately unsatisfied with where my life was and where it was going. Going on pity dates for all of college isnt fun. (And those were few and far between). Not going on a mission didn’t help things and just feeling worthless and sick all the time was terrible too. So I had weightloss surgery.

I started working out more and more and picked people’s brains on here for things I could do. I came to love it. I found support here and a desire to keep pushing. I thought how cool would it be to be muscular and fit after all these years. A little over a year ago I got down to around 245 and felt that I was killing it so I looked into skin reduction surgery. I was told i was still not at a BMI that the insurance wanted for the portion they would cover. It sucked being told after all my work that I was still too fat. I remember talking to my CB friends and coming to the realization that I could either wallow in that and do nothing or get to work.

I got down to 201 this past summer (cleaning up my nutrition and macros and doing more HIIT) which cleared the bar set for me by insurance. It was still going to be an expensive procedure but it was gonna be worth it with some sacrifice. So September 23rd I had 8 pounds of skin removed from around my midsection.
Its been a long recovery (and I’m not done yet). I’m still forbidden from heavy and compound lifts. I can’t engage my core in exercise for a few more weeks. But now that the swelling has gone down quite a bit I can run and lift arms and legs (within reason). I’m not sure what the future will hold I may do a similar procedure for my chest, for now, it’s cool to see and feel better. I haven’t stepped on a scale since my surgery either. I lived my life the last 5 years putting value in a how many pounds I weigh. I am still living and eating healthy but I’m also done worrying about that for a while.

My goal for next year will be to trifecta in spartan and see if I can get back into the 1000# club after my exclusion from heavy lifting is over. I may also do that above-mentioned chest procedure. Thanks for reading this far and here’s to another 50,000 posts filled with GIF bombs, Religion posts, FO hot or not, and lots of laughs.

For those who are interested there are some pics in a post below of my journey through the years (these are part of the reason I roll my eyes when cbers make fun of gym progress pics)