Team Beachbody Guest

As far back as I can remember I had always struggled with self-image. I mean what is our worth really if we don’t love ourselves? That is not a rhetorical question but rather the question that I hadn’t been able to answer until the last few months. To understand my life you need to look at the peaks and valleys. At the center of it was always this feeling of inferiority. I think it started when I was a young boy. I was about 8 years old and I started to get chubby like a lot of kids do. I would sneak food because I had to endure the taunts from my younger brother. He was three years younger then me and wearing “slim” pants and I was the “husky” kid that he simply called “Big Whoppa.” His taunts weren’t really malicious they were just one brother teasing another but they left me feeling like something was wrong with me. I mean why couldn’t I eat like him and remain thin?

Growing up in grade school I used humor to compensate for the pain I felt inside. I became kind of the class clown. I was treated well but I wasn’t popular. I was just the class clown. I was loud and obnoxious on the outside but dying on the inside. My biological father died that year and I internalized that pain even further. I never dealt with his death in a healthy way. I continued to eat secretly a lot of times. I learned how to hide the food I ate so that people wouldn’t judge me. In fact this was probably the beginning of my nutritional issues. I did not eat with the family at dinner. I would pretend to eat or give my food to the dog in my lap. Later at night when I was alone I would binge on junk while nobody could see me.

This went on for a few years and my mother started to worry about me being overweight. She didn’t want me to be teased or wind up with health issues so she told me I needed to diet. The first three letters of diet are “die” for a reason. The more she pulled the more I pulled away. Then a funny thing happened in the summer between 7th and 8th grades I started eating less and I hit a growth spurt at the same time. So the fat began to melt off me. About this time I realized that people liked the “new” me. I was receiving all kinds of attention for the way I looked and so began my descent into body dysmorphia. The more people commented the less I began to eat. I was becoming dangerously thin but that is not what the mirror said to me. The mirror told me I was fat, the scale was now my enemy. Every day three, four, and even five times a day I would weigh myself. If I didn’t hit the right number on the scale I would eat less. I was starving myself and thinking I was fat. My mom began to worry and now was threatening to take me to the doctor if I didn’t eat. I now realize that I was anorexic during that period. I struggled like that for most of high school. I did manage to gain a little weight in college but my abnormal image of self still persisted.

At the end of College my body dysmorphia took on a new dimension. I was dating a girl and she had begun working out. She looked amazing and soon I was working out. My anorexic tendencies were beginning to subside. An interesting thing began to happen. People began to notice that I was putting on muscle. Slowly over time I learned how to workout. I learned about proper nutrition and began eating. I was filling out. I felt healthy. People thought I looked great but again that mirror started talking to me. I was 185 pounds. I had gained a solid 40 lbs of mostly muscle. I was strong and fit but I thought I was weak and out of shape. My perception was not matching reality. I now look at pictures from those days and am amazed at how great I looked. 185 pounds at 5% body fat. But the mirror said, “your not big enough!” I began working out harder and longer. I was eating more protein and making small gains. All along I was searching for how to get bigger. I had to get bigger. It was the only way I would get attention I thought.

At about this time I was working out with an ex-professional bodybuilder and he suggested that I take steroids. I was always against steroids and never thought about taking them. That is until he “enlightened” me and showed me how many people were taking them at my gym. And so my descent into body dysmorphia and self loathing took a darker more sinister turn. This was a dark period in my life as I took steroids for a year. I was getting bigger and bigger but there were unwanted side effects. My cholesterol went up, my flexibility went down, and my mood plummeted further. On the outside people were amazed at how big I was and how strong I was but on the inside if they only knew how weak I was they would have been even more shocked. I was 210 pounds at 8 percent body fat during this time. I was 5’7 and gigantic but in my mind I was too small. I took steroids for a year but ultimately stopped when I get mysteriously sick (probably from a batch of steroids that wasn’t pure). who knows what you are taking when you get performance enhancing drugs without a prescription.

I had worked out for 7 years straight. I had become really big, very lean, and amazingly strong. At this time my daughter was bon and I began to work out less and less. I was still big but not as “tight” as I once was. Two years later my son was born and I was working out even less. My image of self began to slip further. I retreated into myself more and more. I was bartending on the side as a job and began drinking after my shifts. Soon I was staying out after work drinking, smoking cigarettes, and eating terrible late night fair. Eventually in September of 2007 my marriage fell apart. I was at an all time low. At this time I finally began to realize just how far I had slipped physically and emotionally. I knew that I had some serious issues to tackle. I was unhappy and needed help. I saw a picture of myself in a bathing suit from the previous summer and couldn’t believe how out of shape I had gotten. Again the image in my head didn’t match with reality. I still saw myself as that lean and cut bodybuilder. Sure I was still 210 pounds but my body composition had changed greatly. Without the aid of steroids and weight training my body fat had risen from 8% to an astonishing 24% but I hadn’t gained a pound.

I had been seeing these infomercials for P90X around this time. I saw the testimonials and wondered if they were real. I decided to post on Beachbody’s message boards and ask. I went on the message boards (japaneseink) and asked “is this P90X for real?” That was my introduction to the program and the message boards. I took my before pictures and began working out and posting. In those early days I struggled but I stuck with it for a while. Life got in the way and I eventually quit my first round of P90X at about day 30. In all fairness I wasn’t working the program as intended. I was still drinking and smoking. I was posting on the message boards that I was hopeless yet I wasn’t giving myself a chance. I met some great people on the boards in that first year. Most of them I stay in touch with to this day. I struggled but along the way people from the boards wouldn’t let me slip to far away. Whenever I was about to give up for good someone would call me and tell me they missed me and that they would be here for me when I came back.

I started and stopped several rounds leading into 2008. I didn’t always work the program but I didn’t give up. I kept starting new rounds and posting on the boards. Between the summer of 2008 and 2009 I lost about 30 pounds using P90X. I was leaner and my high blood pressure had dropped so much that my doctor took me off my high blood pressure medication. In addition my cholesterol which had gotten really high had got back down to normal levels. In that year I gave up smoking and drinking. I was making small changes and hadn’t even realized their sum totals. I went from 210 pounds to a leaner 180 but I still wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t working the program like Tony had created it. I was working out but I wasn’t eating correctly. I remember reading one of Tony’s rants where he went off because of the way people eat. He said there were people that didn’t know how to eat and they had to be educated so they had some excuse. He said there are people that know what and how to eat but don’t do it and that was inexcusable because they had the tools to get the job done. I fell into this latter category.

In September of 2009 the first relationship I had been in since my divorce ended. I had lasted a year and a half and I was hurt badly. I retreated into myself and stopped working out. I spiraled out of control again as my depression and anxiety worsened. I know as someone that suffers from depression and anxiety how very important exercise is. I slowly began to realize that almost all of the problems that I experienced were because I didn’t love myself enough. I decided that either I had to change or I didn’t want to live this way any longer. P90X and the message boards were the only light I had during that time. My friends Peggy Mckie (macfit), Mike Ryan (ryansports), and Brett Cordell (bcp90x) all came looking for me during my hiatus. It was there encouragement and support that brought me back.

Over the last few months I have finally begin to accept myself. I realize that I am a great person and that people like me. I have rededicated myself to P90X and a healthy lifestyle. I have began to understand that a healthy lifestyle includes a workout program like P90X or Insanity (my next program), sound nutrition (such as the nutrition found in the nutrition guides or Michi’s Ladder), and sleep. As of writing this story my bodyfat has dropped to 8.2% and my weight is a sound 166 pounds. I am about to finish my first full round of P90X after three years. Things have finally begun to fall into place. I have normal blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Bad habits like smoking, fast food, and lack of exercise have been exchanged for exercising using P90X, snowboarding, running outside, and eating a diet based on proper supplementation and whole foods. Yesterday my brother the one that used to call me “big whoppa” told me that he didn’t want to hear anymore about P90X. I had just gotten back from snowboarding and was changing as he said that. A moment later he saw my abs and said “I didn’t know you had abs like that! If P90X works that good than I want to try it.” He was amazed at how great my body looked but I was amazed at how far my life had come in three short months. For the first time in my life I feel like I am proud of the person I am. I am at peace and actually like myself. Beachbody played a huge role in my transformation and the many friends I have made on the message boards are the reason I am here writing this. Thank you for saving my life and giving me hope.

Scott Kotarides
Nottingham, Md 21236