No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t gain weight. I spent several hundred dollars on powders and supplements from GNC. I did the same exercises week after week, but never paid attention to sets or reps. I didn’t eat the necessary foods to support my goals. Let’s face it, as delicious as foods like Mac & Cheese and Pizza Rolls are, they’re not the most conducive foods for building muscle.

Outwardly I was into punk rock, skateboarding, playing bass in my band, watching the Yankees, hanging out with friends, and well, anything that didn’t have to deal with the weight room. 

For the longest time, fitness was never really my thing. 

Secretly, I had a weight bench and some dumbbells in my mom’s bedroom. I thought in order to be a “real man” you needed to weigh at least 175lbs and have muscle. That was a far cry from the 135lbs frame I had which consisted mostly of skin, bone, and organs.

I had no idea what I was doing. 

Fast forward to my post-college life (nothing really exciting happened here). I moved to Washington DC, started selling craft beer for breweries like Sixpoint and Bell’s, and built a nice little seven year career in it. That weight I could never gain? Yeahhhhh it packed itself on in a big way. 70lbs of fat to be exact. This was NOT the kind of weight gain I was hoping to achieve.