My weight has marked me my entire life. It has cost me more than I can count, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I'm building something out of the pain that has plagued me for so long by mastering my fitness, and helping other people do the same along the way.
By the time I turned 16, I had already been diagnosed with a plethora of chronic conditions: obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, along with depression and social anxiety.
I've struggled with weight management and compulsive eating my entire adolescent life. It stripped whatever confidence I had, and I was never able to be at peace with myself because of it. I began isolating myself from friends and loved ones, and in time I stopped connecting authentically with people for good. I turned to food to comfort myself in the face of it all.
The isolation that marked my life for so long had a name. It took years to get there, but eventually I sat in an office and was told what I already suspected. I had been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety. Putting words to it didn't stop the self-destructive cycle of eating. It only strengthened it.
I understood what my weight would eventually cost me, and I wanted to change more than anything. But no matter how much I tried, I could never stay consistent. My weight continued to steadily increase over the years, and eventually I was diagnosed with hypertension, and then type 2 diabetes.
For most people at that age, this would be life-ending news. I have no intention of giving up. I looked inward and obsessed over reversing my obesity and all of the damage that has stemmed from it, once and for all.
Through my burning obsession, and years of trial and error, I finally understood what I was doing wrong. I was following the most optimal routines, instead of the routines I could actually sustain in my day to day life. Most of the plans I adopted were relentless, but they ignored the diversity and nuance of human life, which made them hard to follow consistently. Without consistency, there is no optimality.
Achieving consistency looks fundamentally different for every individual, but I asked one question that connected all the dots together. Wouldn't it make more sense for a fitness plan to be tailored to a person's life, instead of the other way around?
This realization made me build my own fitness plan. I came up with four daily components that would make my long-term fitness goals inevitable, and a set of rules that let me keep executing even on my worst days to ensure consistency.
I've tried to turn my life around more than a dozen times. Nonetheless, I'm content with the fact that none of these attempts worked, because now I get to prove what actually works, in public, from the very first day.
This is the culmination of everything my adolescence cost me. I'm going to document every step, 310 lbs to 200 lbs and the reversal of everything that came with it, and build something that outlives the suffering it came from.
At its core, EstrellaMethod is about documenting my story with the ambition of inspiring. I want to become a beacon of hope for people who feel backed into a corner with nowhere to go. That's where I've been for a long time, and on plenty of days it's still where I am.
I'm fighting anyway. I hope my journey can instill even the smallest flame of determination in the people who need it most, whether that's in fitness or in life.
Any help funding this keeps it consistent, and keeps it aimed at what it is for: documenting this honestly, and helping people who are in a similar predicament to the one I am in now.