Author: Admin_C

What happened next was a relatively small event but with life altering consequences. I guess it’s funny how when we look back when can often trace back our current path to a single choice. I finally decided—after slight persuasion—to make the trip from North Vancouver to Burnaby to go to the Revamped Fitness Solutions gym with Daniel.

Daniel was my friend and a team mate from Calgary who was also a trainer at Revamped Fitness. When I first walked into the Revamped Fitness gym, I said to Daniel, “Really, this is it?? How can we work out here if there’s not even a bench!?” He said to me something that I’ll never forget: “Don’t worry about it. We don’t do anything off our backs here.” Still skeptical but open-minded I followed along as we started our workout called The Turbo 150(!!).

The workout was a real eye opener for me. The healthy competition of training with a friend and team mate lit a fire under me and I pushed myself harder than I had since training for water polo. I must have nearly killed myself that day because I was sore for a week. And, I haven’t been to another gym since. This one choice set into motion for me a big lifestyle change.

Check out my before pictures and stay tuned for Part Three from Johnny’s Chronicles: In the Beginning!

It all started for me years ago when I became a member of the Canadian National Water Polo Team and moved to Calgary to train. I developed a hard-working, never-quit, “more is better” workout mentality. We had gym workouts and practiced every day, sometimes twice. I ate anything I wanted and everything in sight and I definitely picked up some bad “Mc-habits.”

After coming home from a solid performance at the World Student Games for Team Canada in the summer of 2009, I made the difficult decision to leave water polo and move back home to Vancouver. It quickly became evident that even as I left my life in Calgary and the rigorous training behind, those nasty eating habits and lifestyle choices had followed me home.

As you can imagine, I “may” have gained a bit of weight…a whopping 55 lbs in 6 months to be exact. One might think this couldn’t be possible for someone with such a high level of athleticism and drive, but I simply said to myself “I can eat anything. I’ll just work it off.” In those six months I had a gym pass and started to go pretty regularly, but something wasn't working. Sure my training in Calgary had been repetitive and sometimes I may have even questioned its effectiveness at times, but there were always my team mates around to make things fun and a coach to push me.

In Vancouver things went downhill fast. I was bored of my workouts within a month and I saw no real results. The frustration only got worse from there when I started to really realize that the mirrors weren’t lying and in all respects I was overweight.

Stay tuned for more from The Chronicles of Johnny!