I've seen garlic come here do a log, get in pretty good shape, loose a bunch of fat then dissappear for while or quit updating logs then next thing I see he put all the fat back on and he's back where he started. Seems like I've seen him do this a half dozen times. I always wonder why he works so hard to diet, train and get in shape then throw all that hard work out the window and get fat again. I'm thinking drug and alcohol addiction? Maybe Garlic will let us know????
Very observant lol. Of course I'll answer, I've always been very open and honest with everyone here. I think it's good for people to see the truth behind what happens so they can help better themselves and learn from my mistakes. Each of those logs has those details toward the beginning of them but I'll summarize it here. I know some will run with it but that doesn't matter, I'm here to help those that can use it.
I haven't used any drugs for a long time, but that has absolutely been the case before. Coke was my thing, which is why I lost so much size from years ago. I have that up a few years back for good and haven't looked back since. I definitely have an alcohol problem, I have a very addictive personality. My wife and I have the same issues, so there has been a tendency to feed into each other's issues. When we met we were both in the best shape of our lives. One thing led to another, people dying, health problems, etc. We had a pretty rough go for a few years and resorted to drinking and drugs to cope with those issues. We went from where we were to the worst shape we've both ever been in.
When I came back here, I was 210 and 40% bodyfat. I'd lost all of that hard earned muscle and was obviously very fat. I worked it off back down to 11% and can't remember my weight. I think that was over the course of a year and a half or so.
After that I changed the focus of my life 100% to my career. I had taken a job I wasn't really qualified for, but like anything else I've ever done, if I give it full effort I can learn and accomplish literally anything I set my mind to. I consider myself very gifted to have a mind that is capable of learning pretty much anything. So I focused on my career, worked my way into the position and beyond. During that time workouts became less important as did diet. Of course I also had far more money than I'd ever made before, and with all of the traveling and lunch/dinner meetings diet was also compromised and was replaced with a ton of gourmet meals and wine in places like Napa. I never really went back into the full blown alcoholic mode until fairly recently this year. I had started back again right before the 'Rona bullshit, then the whole shutdown thing, along with finding out my dad had stage IV lung cancer threw me into a pretty bad place and I had started drinking again. I'm also a really good cook, so that didn't help.
Then we decided together we were done with living that way, and that happened to be right when our gym decided to reopen against the government's orders. That was about 8 weeks ago. We've decided we can't afford to live like that anymore, and we're living the way we used to be. We have to stay healthy for our grandbaby so we can be there for him like we should be. I guess we have a bit more motivating factors now than we ever have before. So we hired Monte to coach us and haven't looked back. Neither of us even have a desire to drink anymore, and outside of our actual wedding where we drank a bottle of Schramsberg and felt like shit lol, we haven't and don't care to drink at all. Those days are behind us now. We still enjoy our high end meals, but that's just a here and there thing from here on. We're both down 20+lbs and feeling great.
Will we relapse again? Maybe but doubtful. I'm completely past that now. She is too. Bodybuilding will never be the #1 thing in my life, but it'll always be my staple. The regimentation keeps us on the path we want. This year I'm finally getting back to doing the hunting and fishing I love, and I'll be using that along to my grandson. So things are going good and a lot has changed in my life.
So that's pretty much that. I'm always open to answer any questions anyone has. I just hope I can help and inspire some people along the way that want to change their lives too.