I was sick of feeling tired, worn out and to heavy to do or wear anything I really wanted. I sized myself out of all of the clothing stores and wouldn't be caught dead in a bathing suit, let alone a bikini (*gasp!*). I felt like gravity was my worst enemy and my health was taking a serious turn for the worse. I remember walking out of the doctor's office with nine scripts in hand thinking 'I'm way too young to be dealing with medical issues like this!'. I started doing P90x with a friend of mine in January 2010 and loved the initial result. I went from my all-time highest weight of 247# to 230# in a few weeks on the program. Unfortunately my medical problems kept interfering with my workouts and I just couldn't get past certain plateaus. Eventually I turned to gastric surgery in hopes of overcoming the problems that were holding me back from reaching my goals. I had the vertical sleeve surgery in July of 2011 with a pre-surgical weight of 228#. I found out that while the surgery did help overcome many of the health problems interfering with my progress, it is by no means the easy way out. As I lost the bulk of my excess body fat, I also began losing my hair, my skin and fingernails became dry and cracked and my friends started commenting that I looked 'tired' all of the time. These all happened despite various supplements and the challenges of getting in enough water each day (which becomes an overwhelming obstacle post-op). One day I looked in the mirror and realized that while I was continually losing weight, I was very quickly becoming 'skinny-fat'. The muscle I did have was taking a beating because I wasn't able to eat enough protein each day. My brain was in a constant fog and my work was starting to suffer. That was when I met Michael. He took me under his wing and started showing me the big, compound lifts in the gym, how to perfect my form and slowly increased my weights. He also stressed the importance of taking vitamins and a protein supplement regularly. I thought, 'Hey, if this guy takes it every day because HE can't get in enough, then I CERTAINLY should be doing it!'.