Spotlight: Trevor E.

I've been overweight my entire life. I grew up in a house where you finished what was on your plate, made frequent trips throught the drive through, and developed a habit of using food as a coping mechanism for emotional issues.

In 2019 I started a fitness journey that saw me lose 80 pounds. Unfortunately I went about it all wrong. I'm 6'1" and at the time weighed 374 pounds. I was eating 700-900 calories per day and slaying it at the gym. Great progress, no sustainability. Unsurprisingly, I gained the weight back because I wanted to focus on my last semester of college (graduated top of my class).

Fast forward to the day before Thanksgiving 2021. I was fat, out of shape, and my wife had a heart to heart about how she does everything she can to look good for me, but I do nothing to reciprocate those efforts. I also want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Even though the military can drop humvees out of planes no sweat, there's a weight restriction at most facilities for skydiving.

So that was my motivation to get started. I started using My Fitness Pal for tracking but heard the episode with Layne Norton. Started following him on Instagram and got more familiar with his app Carbon Diet Coach. I signed up to use that, used my health insurance to get a discount at a local gym so it could fit within my budget, and have been working for a little over a month on eating well and going to the gym.

So far I'm down 28.3 pounds from my starting weight of 362, have incorporated running into my treadmill workouts or use much steeper inclines than when I started, and I've used YouTube to figure out a push pull leg split that I'm going to start doing. Some of those videos featured you, Ethan, as you're one of my inspirations - especially since we're the same height according to Google.

I have a journey ahead of me, it's true. I need to lose another 103 pounds before I go skydiving. After that, I'm not sure. I really want to get into calisthenics and having total control over my body. We'll have to cross that bridge when we get there, though. For now, I'm focused on fat loss.

I love the podcast and take something away from every episode. I appreciate you introducing me to so many helpful people.