About 2 months late with this post, but I say better late than never (Thought this is wayyyy beyond late). I’d like to introduce myself to start. My name is Raj. I am 24 years old, am 5’11”, and weigh 245lbs. I am a big science buff, studied Biomedical Engineering as an undergraduate , and my dream one day is to be a physician. That’s me in a nutshell. Oh. And I love the game of basketball above and beyond any other sport.
As a disclaimer to fellow readers, my long-time friend since high school and co-contributor to this blog, Mark, is a far more exceptionally talented writer than I am. I will try to the best of my ability to piece together smooth and graceful blog uploads.
So what is the purpose and value of this “WhereFitnessHappens” blogspot? Mainly, to serve as a locale for self-accountability. Perhaps in the future, when we [mainly I] reach our fitness and health goals, we hope to have a reading base that has similar goals to whom we could mentor and guide in their own ways based on our experiences. Let me begin by chronicling my recent steps to this health oriented mindset.
It started in summer of 2009 when I finally resumed playing basketball after about 5 solid years of not playing. It was mainly outdoor basketball pickup games, usually 3 on 3, with my college friends in Boston. I had weighed closed to 280lbs that summer, but still had the inclination and capability to play sports. But there were several big obstacles as a result. I refused to partake in full court pickup games because I knew full well I could not keep up with the running, would lag behind, and therefore be a liability on both offense and defense. I’d always use an excuse that I was fatigued from the previous 3 on 3 game. This was personally embarrassing. I was 22 years old and supposed to be capable of playing hours of day with no rest. It was demoralizing and emasculating, especially when my friends and other playground folk were thin and fit for their age. My co-writer Mark and I would always joke about how we still had the athletic “potential” to make it big (150% jokingly though) since our superstar age equivalents (Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Lebron James) were already doing the same things at our age (completely ignoring the fact they they have natural and developed athletic talents).
That same summer, in particular, after one 3 on 3 pickup game, I noticed my right knee started hurting pretty badly. I knew on one play, I had changed directions very suddenly, and my right leg went faster forward than it should have, and just shrugged it off as a minor and temporary basketball injury. I played another pickup game a week later, but the pain was still there, and it actually increased when I made quick, jerky motions. I got really concerned and decided I just needed more rest and cut down my playing time a lot.
During Fall and Winter 2009, the harsh and unforgiving weather conditions of Boston usually prevented us from playing basketball, at least outdoors anyway. The motions of going to work and returning home to my mundane serial television show watching resumed. What also continued was my right knee pain. Anytime I walked up and down stairs, it would be a numbing pain. When I pressed on the soft tissue area (better known as the patellar junction) it would REALLY hurt. I knew I had done something to it that summer and that it was time to get it looked at.
I worked as a research assistant at Orthopedics laboratory at Harvard. I had the convenience of having lots of orthopedic surgeons around me, so I asked a fellow doctor friend to check it out. On the physical exam and based on my symptoms, he suggested it was possible I had a slight tear of my meniscus (layer of cartilage coating the femur/patella/tibia bone intersections). I got really worried and then finally went through the steps of going through my physician who referred me to an orthopedist specialst. The x-ray imaging showed no structural damage, though it did show some joint space narrowing. He determined it to be a conditional known as “Patellar Femoral Syndrome” Scary sounding, huh? I actually thought it was cool, and that it would be a “quick” fix by getting some sort of surgery. This syndrome is caused by misalignment of the patellar bone in sliding from the top to the bottom in leg flexion and extension. The lack of proper “tracking” causes inflammation, which causes pain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patellar_Femoral_Syndrome). The solution? Strengthening surround muscles (Quads, Calves) while working on flexibility of the lower leg muscles in order to get the patella to track up and down properly. This series of events was the impulse which triggered me to be more health conscientious . An individual of my age should not have this type of injury from what I consider relatively “weak” and “pathetic” pick up basketball. I knew I could no longer sustain my weight of 280+ lbs on my frame and that this would be only the beginning of other physical ailments if I didn’t change something in my life.
So began in December 2009 the beginning of my fitness journey. Weekly physical therapy visits to the hospital. We’d working basic exercises to strengthen my quadriceps while working on propioceptive motions (or simply…balance). At the same time, I knew I was not self-motivated enough to go to the gym and be “one of those people.” I knew a personal trainer would be necessary. Some Google searching and looking on Craigslist led me to one of the best [albeit costly] decisions ever. In hindsight, it was definitely worth it. I met Chris Nogiec, who is a great Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist in Boston (www.nogiec.com)
Our evaluation session was embarrassing and awful. I went through what he called a typical set of exercises that we would be doing. I ended up vomitting out of nausea. It made me rethink whether I wanted to do that. Frankly, it was scary. Later on, I would realize that what he had done was advanced, and the purpose of it was to find my physical limitations. One thing we would also work on was extending the exercises I was doing in PT. So a two fold purpose – exercising to lose weight while simultaneously working on fixing my knee problem.
So, commencing with my new physical fitness schedule in January 2010, Wednesday morning would be 1 hour of physical therapy, followed by a brutal personal trainer session with Chris on the evenings. The first couple of weeks, I would be sore and would walk in pain because of the soreness. One of the beneficial things about Chris was that he was also a legit nutritionist. I knew that nutrition was one of my biggest issues. During and since college, I had been accustomed to eating 1 large meal per day. I never ate breakfast and never ate fruits. He suggested keeping a food log to start, and eventually, it morphed into an accountability system, where I would bring in a weekly food log for each of my sessions and we cross out and scold me for eating junk food, etc. Because I met with him once a week, I wasn’t “working out” enough on my own. So, I had to get my own gym membership somewhere. Within days, I signed up for a great deal new and upcoming gym Planet Fitness had. My fitness strategies for the next year were set and in order of priorities:
-Phyiscal Therapy to work on my knee
-Getting in physical shape with Chris and 1 a week personal trainer sessions
-Working on my nutrition with Chris’ advice
-Employing the above A, B, and C on my own (daily) at Planet Fitness.
In June 2010, my physical therapy sessions came to a close. I had become an “expert” at all the exercises Nancy, my physical therapist, worked on me with. I no longer needed them. At the same time, I had lost about 20lbs, and was around 260. I was seeing results and it was great!!! Chris decided to accelerate the process and we eventually increased our 1/week sessions to 2/week. Summer had come around, and my goal by the end of the summer was to reach 230lbs and be 50lbs lighter than I was when I started the year.
The fitness and nutrition all started coming together. Over Summer 2010, I played so many pickup games, moreso than I had done since I was 12 years old. I did not huff and puff down the court, and my cardiovascular health was impressive (Relative to how I had been the last 10 years of my life). Better was how my knee pain subsided and as of now, has disappeared! I could last a 5 on 5 game finally! A big improvement!
However, a bunch of personal life changing decisions happened involving me deciding to leave Boston to move back to Philadelphia in order to take the first steps in achieving my dreams of becoming a doctor put a crink on my fitness schedule.
By September 1st, I was back in Philadelphia. I weighed an all time low of around 232 lbs and was noticeably thinner in all my photos. Friends who did not routinely see me saw how much better I looked. The positive feedback was great and it was encouraging to know that it was working. In addition, my knee pain was all gone. The worst part about my move (aside from saying good bye to my friends with whom I had been with the last 6 years of my life in Boston) was losing Chris’s training. I had gotten into such a physical groove with a 2 week sessions. Losing that hurt, and it would definitely take a toll.
I tried to replicate the intensity here in Philadelphia. I would go to Planet Fitness on my own here, but it was not the same. Nutrition would continue though. Through October 2010, I had maintained my weight, which I was blown away by. A voiced concern by both Mark and I was that I would revert to gaining weight. This did not happen, thank god.
But, I began a course to aid in preparing my MCAT exam in October, and the enormous amount of time I spent studying, combined with an equal amount of lack of personal incentive has led me to today, where I’ve gained about 15lbs and am thoroughly out of the conditioning I had 5 months prior.
I’m back to where I began, but am writing this finally to resume my training in pursuit of my goal of getting back to optimal shape for my age/height.
And so here my journey begins, and I hope my own path will help anyone in a similar [empire] state of mind/body.
Thanks for reading!
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