136, to 151. My weight journey over the course of May 2022 – September 2022 has been one heck of a ride that isn’t planning to hit the brakes anytime soon. This article isn’t just to show off my progress but to spread encouragement to those who’re a hair away from picking up their first dumbbell. I’ve been dying to write about something like this but have yet to find myself in that state of exigence to do so. That is until I had a conversation with a good friend of mine a couple of days ago who’ll remain anonymous in this article. He’s been supporting me in my weight journey since the day I started, and now it’s my time to help him along with others.

A thing I’ve noticed is that many lack motivation. You can say motivation is wanting to lose or gain weight. However, I beg to differ. When considering what “motivation” is, you must ask yourself one important question. Why? Why do you want to lose all that weight? Why do you wanna gain it? Is it that you’re fed up with how you look? I know for sure I was tired of it. For the adults like my father, I know one reason he started out was that he wanted his family, especially his kids, to feel safe when around him. And he did a great job, an excellent one; in fact, he did such a spectacular job so much that he influenced me into wanting to do the same for my future wife and kids.

I remember never wanting to go to a public gym because I felt as if others would be quick to criticize me. I give credit to my friends for bringing me out of that shell. For cracking me out as if they were a nutcracker and I was the walnut getting cracked. I went to my first public gym ever this Summer, and my life has been completely different ever since. I wake up feeling good about myself, loving how I look now, and sometimes even receiving compliments from others who realize my growth. Prior to having an actual gym experience, I’d just been working out in my house gym located in our garage with room temperature rising to 90 degrees. With little to no progress being visible, I’d been considering giving up at that point. Defeated because I saw nothing but the same little flabby arms every morning in the mirror. I’m glad I didn’t. Because take a look. Is it not incredible? What four months of consistency can do to a person?

Finally, I’d like to offer the newcomers my school-friendly workout split to at least start you off with workouts to do. By no means of course am I a professional fitness trainer of the sort and reminder that all our bodies perform and react differently, you may not see similar progress or even disagree with the workouts, it took me forever to find workouts I actually enjoyed, and saw progress in doing.

Weekly Workout Split

Chest: Monday

-single arm cable pulls

-bench press

-incline dumbbell press

-chest fly

-chest pulls

Legs: Tuesday

-single leg extensions

-leg extensions

-leg press

-bulgarian split squats

-leg curl

Arms: Thursday

-bicep curls

-forearm curls

-hammer curls

-machine bicep curls

-tricep extensions

-tricep pull-down

-bar curls

Shoulder & Back: Friday

-lateral raises

-shoulder shrugs

-shoulder press

-lat pull-downs

-machine dumbbell rows

-dumbbell rows