My Story.

My story is a bit complicated and quite long. Understand that this is not the complete biography of my life, nor is it strictly a log of my progress in the gym. This is a brief glimpse into what I went through to get to where I am, and a means to help explain why I continue to do what I do.

My name is Josh, I was born in the 90’s, I’m not from the hood, rather hood adjacent. I started doing combat sports when I was young, played a lot of basketball & hockey, and by the time I was a teenager I started lifting making marginal gains but never really seeing real progress. By the time I left highschool I was about 185 lbs, had almost completely stopped working out, and had begun smoking and drinking more frequently.

While I was 18 my mother was diagnosed with colon/rectal cancer. I started drinking daily, working 2 jobs, and trying to put myself through community college. I rarely slept, drank and smoked religiously, and paid no attention to my health or wellness. By the time I could legally purchase my own liquor i was already an alcoholic, both chemically and habitually addicted.

When I was 22 I was arrested for Driving under the influence. No one was hurt, no cars were wrecked, nothing dramatic. I was pulled over for speeding, The officer smelled liquor on my breath & I went to jail. I earned my stay.

Getting sober was a struggle which deserves it’s own deep dive. I’m not perfect and I don’t thump the Big Book like I used to. I don’t consider my sobriety perfect by any means. However AA teaches us to share our experience, strength, and hope so that’s what I try to do.

After I finished my probation and had been sober for a while I developed a pretty serious sugar addiction. I fell into horribly sedentary habits and shoveled peanut butter cups into my mouth by the fistful. by the time I was 25 I was bloated up to 225-230 lbs and I hadn’t set foot in the gym in 7 years and I was in rough shape.

It was right at this time that my mother finally lost her battle with cancer. I was crushed. I had lost my mom, I was borderline obese, depressed as hell, in a toxic relationship, and I finally cracked. A week after my mother died I jumped head first into the gym and began the war against myself.

The basics of my training regiment was lots of lifting, f*ck cardio, and start eating right. At this point I was working at a shawarma joint so I had access to as much chicken, salad, lentil soup, and clean Mediterranean food as I wanted. I started working out 3-5 dys a week and dropped weight pretty aggressively. People around me started noticing I wasn’t satisfied.

Now this is where things got a bit out of hand. About 8 months after I started I had lost nearly 90 lbs. I had dropped to 140 lbs and I wasn’t losing the fat i wanted to. Recovery was harder, I was losing strength in my lifts, I just felt wrong. By this point I was training almost everyday, sometimes twice a day, and I was only eating about 1300-1600 calories. I didn’t realize it but I had become clinically anorexic. My body wasn’t losing fat because i was literally starving to death. A doctor told me that what I was doing was unsustainable and that I needed to stop.

So, begrudgingly, I slowed down in the gym, started focusing on calisthenics and gymnastic exercise, while dumping extra calories into my diet. I jumped back up to about 155-160 lbs and I started feeling a lot better. This to was.short lived.

As i was finishing out university I lost my house. Shortly after the deal on another house fell through and I lost most of life’s savings. To open up 2020 I Graduated with a bachelors in film production, photography, and new media production. But I was homeless, living with my dad, working a dead end warehouse job, with no idea where to go, and worldwide shutdown on the horizon. I slowly fell off of the fitness wagon again, choosing to make excuses instead of changes.

In 2021 I left my warehouse job. I fell into another depression and started binging. By new years I was over 185 lbs, I hadn’t seen a gym in months, and I was starting to feel pretty f*cking useless. But this time was different. This time I was pissed.

With new motivation I started the war back up, but this time i didn’t fire one shot. I launched everything I had at myself. and by April, I was back and better than ever before 155 lean and healthy. My friends started taking note and asking me how I did it. So I decided it was time to show them.

This is how DATC was born.

This wasn’t an overnight transformation, nor was this a cookie cutter training program. This was a 4 year struggle filled with failures and hardship. This was a lifestyle choice and an investment in my future and futures of those around me. I’m not perfect, I haven’t reached the top of the mountain yet. But I’m still climbing, still trying to get better every day. I will reach the top one day. I hope to see you there.

God bless.