10-26-2018, 07:56 AM
(10-25-2018, 04:45 PM)Flip109 Wrote: Man that sucks for you. Glad you have fought through and continue to fight. Like you said quitting on life won’t make your situation any better. You constantly have to stay on your A game and that takes a certain mind set and a remarkable amount of self discipline that most people can’t understand. People like you remind me to be grateful for my life and health as it is, because this can change any day at any moment. I read a quote a while back that certainly applies to you and anyone fighting through horrible life challenges and staying positive.
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved”
Helen Keller
Stay positive as you can man, and keep pushing till you can’t, then push some more. You only get one go around so it has to count no matter what.
Right before my diagnosis, i was running 5k almost every day, deadlifted 130kg for reps, 90kg bench, squat 110kg and pressed close to 60kg. all those lifts went down by A LOT when i was given intravein cortisone. I returned to the gym, feeling very weak. I hoped on the dip station to do some dips, and my whole body was shaking like crazy. Needless to say i did not even do a single rep in fear that i would fall down.
I remember i began squatting with 30kg, completely baby weight compared to what i was lifting, and i shit you not, i saw that as a victory. Unfortunately cortisone is a very long acting drug, and stays in your body close to 6months to a year after being given the drug. And guess what cortisone does to your muscle and fat tissue. It catabolizes muscle tissue rapidly and directly feeds your fat tissue. So in essence, it does the polar opposite of what anabolic steroids do.
So, i went from being athletic and having an athletic looking body , to being a puffy mess full of water retention, reduced muscle mass, and increased fat storage.
Right before my diagnosis i think i weighted about 68-69kg tops, but cortisone made my scale weight go up to 73.5 (this is the highest i have ever weighted in my entire life)
And it was not 73.5 pure muscle, it was a mix of water retention and fat storage plus reduced muscle mass. So... guess what happens next. It made my daily walking a strenuous activity and i would get tired after like 10mins of constant walking.
But i always kept on my mind that i was going to compete again. I was going to be successful again. I WAS going to make it . And i did. It was very tough but i did.
To my experience, if you have such a drawback in life you need to make baby steps . Every step is a victory. At first, just being able to go to the gym/university without feeling tired was a success for me. It can be very tempting to just give up at that point, and i personally know people who at the sign of first adversity just gave up their goals because "man look at what happened to me ". To my experience, as i already mentioned above, this type of quitting will make matters even worse and possibly lead to depression.