The reason that I'm actually here, well you guys know that I like to edit here.
But they're actually filming kind of like a behind-the-scenes thing
for actual like CrossFit. I'm like filming with CrossFit. That's crazy.
As a YouTuber, you're your own boss. I'll wake up in the morning, go to the gym, film a
video, edit a video, make some Instagram posts, do my CrossFit workout, edit the
rest of it, make the thumbnail. The reason I even thought about
watching YouTube videos on fitness was because the way that I learned how to
play drums was through YouTube videos. So I was like, OK, well if I learned how
to play drums from watching YouTube, why can't I learn how to lift or go to
the gym or lose weight from watching YouTube? And then one of my friends was
like, "You need to make a YouTube channel." He really pushed me and was like,
"You have a story that can help a lot of people."
My childhood here was kind of, it was a little bit rough at the start.
My mom was, she was a drug addict at that time and we were actually, me and my
siblings were taken away from her when I was three years old. And luckily she got
clean after a year, so we were put back with her, which is something that really
doesn't happen very much, so super thankful for that. But we dealt with
being, you know, a really low-income family, so we were in government
housing and we tried to find food as cheap as you possibly could to feed as
many people. And then the way that we ate, my mom was so busy working all the time
that it's not like we sat down and ate dinner again, it was like she would make
food and then you'd go and get the food, right? And so if you wanted seconds
or thirds or in my case fourths, like you had to eat fast, then you got more.
And honestly, I probably ate fast food 80 percent of the time was was my diet. I was addicted
to soda. I probably drank over a two-liter every day, easily easily over a two-liter
every day, and I was just so uneducated with it. I just started gaining
weight slowly and then in high school I was definitely the biggest kid
at the school. I look back and I'm like, man, I wish I had this same mindset that
I do now then. Because I went out and I tried out for
football and that was my first time ever in a weight room. I never lifted or anything and
then I'm the biggest guy there, right, and they're telling me to squat 135.
I had never put a barbell on my back or touched a barbell. I tried to squat, it
doesn't happen. Like I started kinda like freaking out, hyperventilating.
I racked the weight. This guy kinda is like, "Man, you're the biggest guy here and you
can't even lift that? Like, why are you even that big, like
what are you used for?" I remember I left that practice and I walked home.
And like, I never played high school football.
I was probably about 300 pounds when I graduated, around there. And I gained
weight so fast after. The only time I would really leave my house was if I was
going to work or if, I was in a band at the time, if I was playing a show.
And so I just became really, really sedentary. And it's crazy because I didn't
even notice it. It's only something that I notice now looking back on it.
At my heaviest I weighed 360 pounds. I was wearing a size 5XL shirt and 56-inch pants.
My feet started to really scab, I was definitely like, I had really black
eyes, and as anybody when they're that heavy, I was just really lethargic, really
just no energy. This sounds crazy, but I was 20 years old and I was literally
terrified of being home alone because I was like, if I have a heart attack and
nobody's here, what am I gonna do? And I was 20, like with the rate of how much
weight I was gaining every year and in my head feeling like I've done
everything I can to try and lose it, or every time I try and lose it, I end up
gaining more. I just felt like there was nothing I can do. I got to a point at
my heaviest where I was just, I was OK with dying before I was 40.
I actually had been binge-watching Miami Ink on Netflix. There were so many
really, really cool tattoos that people were getting and I remember just
the whole time thinking like, that's a really nice back piece. It's so silly but
there's just these little things that people were getting that
made me feel like I can't do that and it's because of my weight.
In my head I realized this is my fault. Like, I'm doing this to myself.
The choices I'm making have got me to this point so I just need to make different
choices and see where I can go, right? Because again like I said, in my head I
was gonna be dead before 40 anyway, so why not give it a shot?
And it was that night watching Miami Ink, eating a double entree plate of orange chicken
and fried rice from Panda Express with a large soda, and their sodas are
huge, I ate the whole thing and drank the soda because I was like, I'm gonna wake
up tomorrow and I'm gonna start like, this is it.
I implemented what I call the
common sense diet. Cut out soda, cut out junk food and cut out fast food.
Which sounds kind of simple, but at the time, that was most of my diet.
It helped me a lot because at the time when I first started, I had really not much
money at all so I couldn't afford a gym membership so I wasn't able to go to the
gym. And so it showed me your diet is so much more important than what
you're doing at the gym. Over time it just kind of morphed into me wanting to
research more and then learning more. And once you know things, it's a lot
harder to make bad decisions.
When you're as heavy as I was, if you just make a small change you'll see a
big result. I made that small change, saw a big result, was more motivated to make
another change to see more results, and then it just kind of compounded and
it was like a domino effect.
I had posted a couple pictures of the
loose skin after you lose weight and I would get questions about it.
So I remember when I first started my YouTube, I told myself like, I want to make a
video about my loose skin to show people that were following me, at this time I
think I had like 4,000 subscribers, I was just trying to show them the
question they were asking. I put it up and then it just blew up and went
completely viral. And that's the day that my life really changed.
[Ellen:] I love this young man. After losing an incredible 160 pounds, our next guest bravely posted a
video of himself revealing his biggest insecurity.
[John:] When I ended that video and I
said, "I'm comfortable in my skin," I meant that. I am comfortable in my skin and I
love this skin. This skin is a battle scar from where I've been and where I was. I made it, so I was that big, you
know, that was a choice I made and it was a choice that I made to get smaller and
to lose the weight.
I was really down with the thought of going from one
extreme to the opposite, like going from morbidly obese to literally being
on stage with your shirt off. So I ended up doing a men's physique show.
It was good for me because I was able to really see that I am capable of that, but
at the same time I never want to do it again, because it was just, you become
really really focused on food, and through losing the weight I started
struggling with my relationship with food. I kind of developed a binge eating
disorder and that was really, really tough to deal with, especially because
when I was dealing with it I didn't know what it was. I didn't know that people
dealt with it. I just thought there was something wrong with me,
which in my head I was like, well, it makes sense, you know, you were 350 pounds,
now you're, you know, 190-180 pounds. Obviously your food's gonna be jacked up.
There was a point in my life where I really felt like I was just never gonna
be able to eat normal for a long time and it was
a really scary thing for me because people would ask me, "Are you ever afraid
of gaining the weight back?" And I would say no, but in my head I'm like, I don't
know, man, because I can't go on like this forever.
So doing the physique show was kind of scary because I was kind of still struggling
with that. It definitely got better, like I was able to work on it and so I felt
like I was strong enough to do the show. So, you know, I dieted down, I did the show.
And look who showed up? My brother.
Well, if I don't see you, good luck.
And my brother actually came
and he watched me compete. And it's funny because he actually met his girlfriend
now at the show and she did CrossFit. He was kind of interested in it. He was
interested in her and he started doing it. Seeing how much he fell in love with
CrossFit, like he was in right at the start. I ended up going to his gym.
I just fell in love with it. CrossFit has that community aspect of like, you are
doing the same workout as all these other people, you're suffering together,
and it makes the gym less of an isolated thing. Especially being a
YouTuber, I'm alone a lot of the day, like going to my CrossFit gym and seeing my
friends there, seeing my brother there, seeing everyone there, it really is a
family. On top of that, just physically for me, going from being obese I
obviously couldn't do much with my body. And then going into bodybuilding,
I was able to change my body, but I still never felt very functional.
And then going into CrossFit, I did my first box jump and then in that workout I think I
did 30. I've been able to do a muscle-up. Look, all of these things, as silly as it
sounds, I never thought I would do ever with my body, and I'm still learning
stuff daily. My relationship with food now is better than it's ever been for
my entire life, and for me that is honestly the biggest win. Now I eat to
perform and I eat to feel good.
Looking at the top athletes, it's shown me that that is capable by a human.
So like, not saying I'll ever be Mat Fraser, but you know, who doesn't want to
be Mat Fraser, but not saying I'll ever be there, but why can't you
get closer, right? Like if everyone else even at the top is getting better and
better and better, why can't the people in the middle get better and better and
better? And I never want to just use the fact that well, you used to be 360 pounds
so why aren't you happy where you are? Yeah, I'm happy where I am,
but just because I was there doesn't mean I can't go this way
further and try and get as fit as possible.
It's funny looking back, how I didn't even want to look at myself in a
mirror and now I have to watch myself for hours when I'm editing videos.
I'm just so much more confident now and if I were to see where I am
now when I was 20 years old, I honestly wouldn't believe it. Having such a
radical change from really being afraid of dying before I'm 40 to being like, I'm
in the best shape of my life now and I'm only getting more fit.
Before, the future for me, I didn't like thinking about it and the future was not very
bright at all. And now I just get so so excited to think about like where I'll
be in a year, in two years, in five years. Like, so excited.