Welcome to The Shape Within! My name is Corey, and I lost 80 pounds with healthy food and exercise.
When I was young
I have this memory of my gym teacher in 5th grade, walking down a line of students about to go on the end-of-year field trip to the sand dunes, and pointing out which kids that he thought would make it to the top, and which wouldn’t.
One by one he pointed at us with his pen.
“You’ll make it.”
“You won’t make it”
“You’ll make it.”
And so on…
I was one of the kids deemed a little too out of shape to make it to the top, one who should stay at the bottom and play in the river.
Well he was wrong, I did make it to the top. But he was also right… I was one of the chubby kids. I was always one of the kids at the back of the running line, walking it out with the rest of the kids who couldn’t make it the whole way without stopping.
My diet was really bad when I was young, even though most kids these days do have a bad diet… on top of that I was (and still am) a super picky eater, which meant that healthy foods were basically nonexistent in my diet.
But at the time I had no idea that the content of my diet was the source of the issue, I went back and forth between blaming myself, sugar, and calories, none of which helped or explained the source of my struggle in full.
I thought that I was doomed to be fat forever, and often thought that being fat was just the way I was.
I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to lose weight. In my teens I researched diet pills online, and even saw a couple people who I knew trying methods like taking pills or other fad supplements, and none of it ever seemed right or effective.
The best anyone could suggest at that time was for me to cut back on sugar, which was just a piece of my problem, and not effective or sustainable when my entire diet was bad.
Not to mention… trying to better yourself when you are a kid is incredibly difficult.
I was too young to have understood that the source of my weight gain and also the key to my success, was in completely changing my diet. It wouldn’t be until my mid-twenties that I finally did it right.
High School
During high school was the first time I was ever able to actually lose weight. I lost a lot of weight from freshmen year to sophomore year, but I did it all the wrong way.
I ate 1200 calories per day (was always hungry), and 2000 on days that I exercised. I lost what muscle I had… and it made me skinny, not fit.
Not only were my calories too low to sustain a healthy body, the content of my diet was still just as bad which meant that I was starving even more for nutrients at that time. Hence the muscle loss and being tired.
During the rest of high school, I took weight lifting classes 5 days per week, and got in pretty good shape without having to watch my diet.
When I graduated I weighed 165 pounds, I was very strong, and could run like the wind.
But my diet content was still very unhealthy, and my body was just waiting to return to its former fatty state.
After graduating I started to gain weight again very quickly.
Being overweight as an adult
My physical health was the last thing that I had on my mind after high school. I consistently started to gain weight year after year.
I don’t know how many hundreds of times that I looked in the mirror and pretended not to care… truly convincing myself in the moment that there wasn’t a problem.
My diet had no limitations. I was highly addicted to food, and ate junk from the moment I woke, until the moment I went to bed, and also in the middle of the night.
The way that I was eating was so unhealthy, that I didn’t stand a chance at being in good shape, even if I had continued working out consistently after high school (which I didn’t).
In addition to gaining so much fat, I lost the muscle that I had built. I was actually weaker when I was heavy, than I was when I was thinner.
During the years when I was working hard manual labor jobs… and even then, the exercise was not enough to combat the negative effects of my unhealthy eating habits.
I would drive to multiple fast food places in one trip, and I would buy extra so that I would have leftovers for the evening, and following morning. I’d often have soda, milkshakes, and spicy chicken sandwiches for breakfast.
For lunch I would often get an order of family-sized sesame chicken, and buy multiple sodas.
I would drink lots of soda every day, at any time of the day or night… and I would go for days without drinking a single drop of normal water.
I used to add sugar into cereal that was already sweet, and I would eat multiple bowls of it before going to bed.
I used to soak my waffles in syrup, and then I would microwave them so that they would soak up more of the syrup… and then I would drink a big glass of milk right before eating another bowl of cereal. One day I was buying 6 gallons of milk at the store for myself, and a lady said, “Wow, you must have a lot of kids!”
My life was filled with TV dinners, snack cakes, packaged junk, fast food, and super sugary drinks.
Eventually I learned how healthy food will make you lose weight and feel full at the same time, and even though I had just discovered the answer to my weight problem… it took me quite a while to finally dedicate to a healthier lifestyle.
I occasionally made halfhearted attempts to start eating healthy, but it would only last for a week and any results I saw would slip away, and I would start gaining again.
Being the picky eater I am and not ready to fully dedicate to making a lifestyle change, I tiptoed around healthy food, finding the ones that were “least gross” to me.
I just didn’t want it enough, I didn’t believe in myself… and at that age I wasn’t even seeing myself properly.
As the years passed, my eating habits only got worse. I was at my highest weight of 245, 80 pounds heavier than when I graduated, and much weaker as well.
I had just bought my first house after getting my first stable job, and it was the first time that I really became concerned with my weight, my health, and my appearance.
The house had a big lawn to mow… and I would get exhausted and take at least 2 breaks for both the front and back lawn. I started to realize that that wasn’t quite normal, and I was definitely starting to realize that it wasn’t the way I wanted to live.
One night I got up to use the restroom, and I couldn’t get enough air, and passed out, falling backwards flat on the floor. It was common for me to get light headed when I bent over to pick something up.
One day when I was doing yard work, I stepped up onto my porch which is less than 2 feet tall, and my knee made a loud crack, popped out of its socket, and I fell again, right in my front yard.
I was thinking, “What the heck! This isn’t the man I wanted to be. Am I really in that bad of shape?”
All of a sudden, I began to realize that I was missing out on my life.
For the first time in a long time, I looked at myself in the mirror and really saw my gut, the stretch marks, and the man boobs. It was the first time that I truly saw myself for being obese, and truly considered the physical, and mental consequences of living the rest of my life as a fat man.
I got tired of how I was living, how I looked, and how I felt about myself, and so I finally made a change.
Living a healthy life full of adventure and confidence was all of a sudden the most important thing in the world to me, and so I decided that I was going to reshape myself.
Finally starting to lose weight
When I started my journey, I had a lifetime of unhealthy habits to break, and so I started small by eating at least one healthy meal every day.
I started by eating one big healthy meal per day, consistently, then day by day I added more and more healthy food into my life.
I kept trying new healthy foods, and as I found foods that I liked I added more and more healthy meals/snacks into my diet. The more healthy foods that I ate, the less unhealthy food that I ate/craved, and the more weight that I lost!
I ate natural, nutritious, super healthy foods, which allowed me to satisfy my hunger and cravings, while keeping my calorie consumption and insulin levels low.
My go-to weight loss meal was chicken and brown rice, and still is (with broccoli added).
I focused on making healthy additions, rather than restriction, and built my healthy habits one step at a time, at a pace that I was comfortable with, which you may come to find is a huge part of my method for helping others lose weight.
Focusing on healthy additions rather than restriction is an amazingly powerful concept. It allows you to bring healthy fat burning foods into your life, while naturally and effortlessly reducing junk foods. The good simply replaces the bad, and you don’t have to go through the stress of actively having to, “quit” junk food like the drug that it is.
This method works both on a physical and mental level. Not only does it put you in a frame of mind that makes healthy decisions easy, but the nourishing food that you consume fills your body with nutrients and a large volume of food that will reduce your cravings to near nothing.
The small changes that I made added up very quickly, and soon enough my entire diet was healthy. I was losing weight faster than I ever had with exercise alone or counting calories, and the best part was that I never went hungry, and retained my muscle.
I always say that eating healthy foods for weight loss feels kind of like cheating, because you see people around you struggling with counting calories or exercising endlessly, and you’re losing weight faster than them with a big smile on your face and a full belly.
Then I added exercise into my routine… and combined with my healthy eating habits, it took my transformation to a whole new level!
I did floor exercises at home, I lifted some old rusty free weights at home as often as possible, I bought a bike, and joined CrossFit eventually which has been amazing.
But beyond healthy eating and exercise, one of the most important things that you can do to assure your success in losing weight, is to not strive for perfection.
I see so many people who fail a perfectly good healthy diet, not because they aren’t trying hard enough… but because they think that you have to be perfect to make a difference.
In reality you can lose tons of weight, and go all the way from being obese to being super fit, by being way less than perfect.
The key is to consistently improve your habits over what they previously were, and to take more forward steps than you do backwards ones.
This is the day that I ran my first non-stop mile in 10 years. It was on a cool Sunday… just me and the track, where I went to high school all those years ago.
And… me working my butt off at CrossFit
After 1 year I had lost 80 pounds, and was back at my high school graduating weight of 165.
The difference in the way I feel from before till now, is a change so amazingly profound for me that the words to describe it are hard to find. Before, jogging was painful, and now I can run faster than I could in high school. Before, I didn’t want to see myself in the mirror, and today I love the person staring back at me.
One of my favorite parts of these photos is the change in my posture and facial expression. You can actually see the difference of how I stand, and how much more confident I feel.
My overall energy levels are far higher than they were when I was younger as well. My healthy diet makes me feel full and alert, and not lethargic like junk food had been making me feel for so many years without even realizing it.
It’s amazing to just spring out of bed… with strong pumping blood, no head rushes, and less of a thud when my feet hit the floor.
The best part is waking up each morning, and seeing that the previous day’s efforts caused more progress towards my ultimate goal. Nowadays, it’s amazing to truly feel happy about the way that I look.
I’m passionate about sharing my weight loss story and helping others lose weight, because I don’t want you to have to struggle for zero to little results only to find that your diet wasn’t effective, sustainable, or healthy.
I show people how to go on the journey of weight loss, from obese to being in the best shape of their lives!
Truly amazing things can happen in one year… all you have to do is decide to make a change, and keep making improvements in your diet and exercise routine until you are living and looking exactly how you want!
Want to start your own weight loss transformation today? Start your 8-Week Weight Loss Challenge! Read more about the course here or get your free copy below!
