Why Do I Care About The Body?

A doctor: He might have stomach cancer.

People: Look at that fat guy, his tits bounce even when he's just walking.

Girls: Your character is nice, but I am not attracted by your appearance.

That was how the most part of my life looked like since 18.

In primary school, I was the one to make fun of. Or the bad boy's punching bag.

When teachers took me out in front of the table, my mind was triggered by the fact that I will become again subject to laugh. So even if I was prepared for the questions, I couldn't answer because my mind was not there.

Until the age of 15, I had only rejections from the girls I asked to be with, while many of my friends experienced some of that new part of life.

This has gone me into one of my toughest addictions I developed: porn. The more rejections I've got, the more I took refuge into it.

In my first high-school year, because of the poor diet I was eating, my body had a lot of toxins which could be spotted by anyone nearby - through sweat.

That made me close off from the world even more, and I found another addiction to save me: gaming. Being in my room, nobody I was playing with could see how fat I was or how bad I smelled. That decision isolated me even more from the world.

Still in high-school, in my first class-trip, I saw the smartest, pretty, rich (parents) girl in the class smoking. And because she was trying to integrate me in that group, asked me to try it.

Well, that's how I've got into the smoking addiction. Since then, because cigarettes opened many doors to other persons, it became harder and harder to stop it.

The new beginning

For my 15th birthday, my parents paid me a gym subscription, even though every penny mattered.

I weighed 100kg, but things started to change quickly.

Without YouTube, personal trainer, or nutrition planner, I had these results in just 5 months of psychopathic consistency:

• I got my first relation
• Self-confidence blew up
• Colleagues started to respect me
• I started to fight back those who made fun of me

How could I not fall in love with going to the gym?

The problem was my diet remained the same as before, extremely poor.

Over the next 3 years, with that poor diet and smoking, I hit 84kg, developing a good amount of muscles.

Another new beginning

Going through another breakup with the same girl, another addiction stepped into my face: alcohol.

For half a year, I've been more drunk than sober, and it turned out to be the last drop to fill my resistance glass.

On the outside, I felt the best in my life:

• I had courage (even stupid)
• I had no issues approaching girls
• People enjoyed the time spent with me
• The most important, my emotional pain was gone

But inside, there was a voice telling me the truth: that was the alcohol, smoking and faking, not myself.

You will pay, sooner or later, for every single action taken against your true self.

In 6 months, right after I finished high-school, until December, after my birthday, I had lost ~25kg.

This is how I was hospitalized at 59kg and diagnosed with Crohn's disease.

2 straight weeks I was close to death, even imagining it and losing hopes. I was just sitting in my bed, having no power to do anything.

Until one morning, when I looked at my 3kg dumbbells, and tried to do some biceps curls.

Man, it felt like I had the universe in each hand.

Somehow, I didn't feel demotivated or discouraged; I saw my ticket to raise again.

And so I just kept curling those dumbbells several times a day, including push-ups supported on my desk.

After 1 month of doing these at home, plus the extreme 40 pills a day treatment, I finally could return to the gym. Since then, I've never interrupted my gym training. It was 2014.

I wrote more details in a positive light about that period in this letter: A Disease Will Change Your Life.

The habit of going to the gym saved my life.

At that time, I had zero knowledge about mindset, mindfulness, psychology or philosophy. Those weren't even popular subjects on social media.

Looking back, my whole life was a mess.

My health was in severe condition, near death. I wasn't aware of:

• Whole foods
• Importance of quality sleep
• Fasting and intermittent-fasting
• Impact of refined carbohydrates
• Hidden effect of high daily dose of caffeine intake

I had a slave mindset, inclined towards negativity and execution, which will be discussed in the next letter.

But, all I knew I had at that time was the gym, which taught me a lot:

• Discipline over motivation
• Quit smoking to get better
• Quit drinking to get even better
• Don't make fun of starters, support them
• Talk with strangers to meet like-minded friends
• Stop fighting people, lift weights or punch the boxing bag
• Quit the ego, otherwise you'll die faster than doing drugs
• Learn consistency and get the desired body - like everything in life
• Train every muscle group and have no weak points - like departments in a business
• An attractive body opens hidden doors - easier job promotion, treated nicer, attract nicer partners

Yes, that's how many things you can learn just by going to the gym. And let me tell you, I wasn't present to realised every lesson fast.

Spirituality wasn't a thing for me at that time, and no wonder the lack of purpose and clarity in my life. I dedicated a separated letter for this subject: Why Do I Care About The Spirit.

The future

We are in the AI era, but it won't be able to do fitness or improve health for us.

As you can see, simply going to the gym has taught me a lot of life lessons, plus encouraged me to quit several addictions.

Your body is the boat navigating you through life. You may want to take extreme care of it.

Taking care of your health implies many habits, a strong mindset and actions, but don't stress, take them one by one.

When I started to train, I did it 12 times a month. Now I'm training 6 days a week, no matter the weather, how I feel, nothing. It's just how my mornings start.

I love the feeling of being energized at 8.30am, ready to work on whatever I have to, where most people procrastinate with coffee and cigarettes.

Because I've been at both 100kg and 59kg, and started my first several years without training legs and shoulders, my results were inefficient and took a long time.

Plus, after some time I've been stuck into a plateau of how I was looking, but I couldn't understand why.

To help my past version of me, I developed Just Overload. I use it every day to be able to push myself harder on every workout.

I don't even need to tell much about it, because the results are insane:

• Grew the legs in 6 months
• Grew the calves in 4 months
• Grew the shoulders in just 3 months

If you felt close to any of my past experiences, I hope this letter motivates and guides you towards chasing the healthy approaches.

But remember, the body is nothing but the first commitment towards freedom. We'll get to the second one in the next letter.

— Gab