 insecure about and that's been dogging me and then I lost my main source of income we head for the sky it's all right our wings wouldn't fly it's all right if we aren't crashing down again what is up my youtube family right youth to razi here and today i want to talk about something that i've been pretty insecure about and that's been dogging me that for the most part this whole year especially during the pandemic which is my weight as a lot of you know i've been a natural competitive physique bodybuilder for the past three going on four years now got my pro card last year did my first pro show at mussel beach in venice in october of 2019 and i placed third amongst two other veteran bodybuilders veteran pro bodybuilders so i was stoked that's like the best that i could have fathomed i would do and i wasn't even expecting the place so that was amazing anyway since then my weight has steadily increased so my weight when i went to the competition was like 159 160 which i will admit is not a sustainable number for me for my body that's like i can make i can have that weight for like three days and then we're being unhealthy so that's the way it is with competitions you shred shred shred shred get as lean as possible for those for that one day in particular and then you go back to a normal healthy weight which for me being still being really lean but also healthy i would be closer to like high 160s to 170 i think is a good goal weight for me since then over this course of this year i and the thing is i've never weighed more than 174 pounds so over the course of this year my weight has slowly but surely been inching upwards that's in large part to the fact that i'm no longer working bartending shifts for eight hours at a time where i'm constantly running around on my feet on the go go go go go fast and serving tables at the same time which was really high-paced burned a lot of calories i know that in addition gyms have been closed in LA for almost the entire year and so there was a period while i was doing at home ig live some of you joined me for that thank you i hope you got something out of it but you know it really wasn't doing it for me it was it's a good like hit body weight stuff but man do i miss strength training hypertrophy training with with maximal resistance pushing myself to failure like that's that's what i love to do and then in addition to that i haven't really had access to the cardio well okay rake why don't you go run why don't you go run a couple miles you can do that well i did i did that i tried it and i was going every morning for a while and then i got shin splints and then i got weird like weird pains in my achilles tendon and my calves from the high impact running i kept going even though it hurt for like a week or two but it just it just kept getting worse and worse and worse until i was having trouble walking so at that point i had to say okay we tried that it's not gonna work anymore it's not working for me let's pivot so i kept trying to like think of new ways that i could incorporate but at the same time while this is going on it's not enough and on top of that i'm not eating as healthy i've just kind of i've been busy so i've been getting a lot of delivery and a lot of delivery is not healthy or it's expensive and i've slowly been putting on more weight so i'm talking about like we went from 160 stage weight to like 170s chilling that's like that should be my limit right there to stay in good shape so i'm photo ready if you would say and then we're creeping up to 175 and then when i hit 180 i was like whoa i've never weighed this much ever in my life that's a lot and for a while it chilled there and then you know with not being able to run it inched its way up to 184, 185 and then in the past month or so i hit i hit 190 zero after a solid meal 192 that's a lot that's over 30 pounds from stage weight of fat that is not muscle and on top of that one must assume since i haven't been strength training that i've actually lost some muscle mass i should weigh less so that's even more fat so over 30 pounds of fat easily so for a while i was trying to pivot i'm like okay what else can i do so i you know that we have a pool on our roof it's like three and a half feet deep it's not like a swimming pool but i was trying to like do laps back and forth do some stuff on the roof uh do the stairs even the stairs hurt after a while um and the pool i'm getting old man i'm just getting old i just gotta this is what this is what happens face the music but i was trying to do the swimming too and then and i was doing that every morning as soon as i woke up before anyone got up there before it was even open i snuck in and then i lost my main source of income my primary source of income which was a huge blow for me uh and so i was desperate to find a job my parents happened to be looking for a sales rep and i mentioned this in the last video and so i jumped on it 40 hours a week salary got a commute to orange county a lot of days which is about an hour or so away depending on traffic and so i can't wake up in the morning and go do that on the roof anymore either that was my next solution i can't do that anymore either because i'm waking up at like 5 5 30 a.m so i can get ready get on the road and get to my job in orange county by 7 a.m so there you have it and so my weight has climbed and i'm bringing this up because it's so easy to get down on yourself and to blame yourself and to just and a lot of times you know i do catch myself being like gross and seeing things not i just don't feel i don't feel vibrant and like alive and fit and all of that and it affects my psyche and it affects my attitude and all of that so i very consciously have to work against that anyway i want to show you what i'm talking about in the mirror and this is really vulnerable for me because i don't want to show this stuff but here we go okay so here is a picture of me when i was really lean in my ideal weight range and now so this is me now you know it's not as noticeable my weight like in my arms and my in like from here up by really and even here it's not like it doesn't look like oh rave gained you know over 30 pounds but me and my genetics i retain a lot of my fat and weight in my lower back in my glutes and in my thighs actually let me sit here now you can really see i mean i'm not like it's not like i'm overflowing at this point but for me for where i was at if you compare it now like you know let me make sure that's focused like that's a big difference i got this gut in the front see the other side the light might be better like check this out this is this is big for me and so even this part doesn't look too bad it's just really it's really filled in with fat and i've got all this extra fat right here that used to just be really cut and here of course and then it's also evenly spread out amongst my muscles and you know so anyway that's been my struggle and so lately one of the things that i decided to do for myself is i invested in a peloton bike and right now it's really great because they have zero percent financing over i think it's three years which just means that you can split your payments up once a month over three years without having to pay any like interest on top of it like you would with a credit card or a loan so here's my baby there she is and what i really love about the peloton is that it's i mean it's got this huge screen first of all and it is touch screen which is brilliant and they've got all these classes you can take them online when they have them you take them online when they have them or you can take classes that have that are pre-recorded you can just do it whenever you can do different difficulty levels and it's just such a brilliant brilliant device and you can have it to automatically adjust the difficulty etc etc and they even have on the back of the seat a little rack for some weights so i've got some three pound weights some of the classes incorporate using weights and also this screen rotates to the side so you can take other classes that are strength training with just dumbbells you can do it on the floor and have this screen with the instructor to guide you or they have yoga meditation a bunch of stuff so it's really multifunctional love it you know i'm trying i'm trying to supplant the old gym with something new and so i'm hoping that i'll be able to wait lose some some weight now and get back into um just a weight class that i'm gonna be happy with and so i want to i want to track some of that journey and post that with you guys and share that with you so you can see it's not a linear progression towards a weight it it goes up and down and up and down and up and down and some of you have seen an instagram post i think it was maybe a two or three weeks ago where i was like okay guys i'm starting my weight loss journey i was 190 in a week i managed to shave off a little bit look at me now well i'm back up to 192 190 right now so we're starting at square one again and that's just the way it goes so stick around i know that um there are there are those of you out there who are also struggling with your weight and who are very familiar with making that attempt and it being a struggle and then having to start again and then and then falling off again and then starting again and you just get so down on yourself and it's like why should i even bother i'm never going to get there it's never going to happen but i can tell you that 90 of it is in your mind and then the rest of it is a matter of coming up with practical solutions surrounding yourself with things that are going to help affirm that's dookie sign if you can hear that coming up with practical solutions that are going to keep you in alignment with your goal so like not surrounding yourself with junk food and things like that and having friends who who who have the same you know values and health and fitness and eating right and things like that so it's all those little pieces as well as your mindset that are really going to make it or break it for you and and you know i'll touch on that more in in the coming videos but for now this is where we're at we're accepting it this is where i'm at today it's okay um this is exactly where i'm supposed to be and so it's all about the next step and what am i going to do now no looking back hey fam so i wanted to do a quick update i originally recorded this video way back in november like mid to end november 2020 with the full intention of releasing this video the first week of december that obviously never happened i've been so busy with work with multiple projects you can hear my phone going off right now i'm working for my parents 40 hours i don't even remember if i covered this in the previous footage but real quick i'm working full-time 40 hours a week for my parents at their plastics manufacturing plant i am also working with miss peppermint assisting her um and then we're also co-producing some projects exciting then i'm also doing plus life media content for them um i'm doing stuff with a hf and i am trying to work on my own as well but that tends to get pushed to the very end so that's why we haven't seen any videos from me i'm trying to be efficient with my time and trying to make it all work it's a learning process and it's very difficult but i'm gonna get there anyway so guess what since i recorded this video and i told you my weight i have gained even more weight um i'm now at 195 average pushing 200 so i've recently purchased a uh a bench a training bench and i've got 100 pound weights so i can do 100 pounds in each dumbbell great it's like well i don't need more weight than that i can't there's no way i can't i couldn't bench more than that in dumbbells so that's gonna be great for me that's exciting i've got my peloton to do cardio so it's a matter of figuring out my schedule and having time to do all this stuff for example like last week monday through thursday i had a total of all those nights eight hours of sleep that's not that doesn't work then i don't have time or energy to work out so i gotta i gotta work figure out how to use my time more efficiently and um yeah so there you go anyway i'm 195 pounds i'm still focused and i want to lose the weight and um not just because of the weight itself but because of how it makes me feel because i don't like being breathless when i'm doing basic things like taking duke out it shouldn't be the case and i know that has an impact on my health so it's really important that i get that under control and i'm gonna be sharing that with you i'm gonna make it happen all right cheers guys like this video if you liked it subscribe if you haven't already and please share um my content for with people that you think would benefit and would find value in this content because i really need that support from you guys too duke's here because he wants to be a part of it as always hey good boy okay you can go back to what you were doing all right cheers guys talk to you peace we head for the sky it's all right