Transformation Testimony - Joshua M.

We love our body transformation success stories here at Fringe.

We love celebrating and sharing the success of those transformations even more!

We want to give a public high 5 to all of you who have worked so hard, struggled, endured, sacrificed and disciplined themselves to achieve their goals and improve their lives.

It doesn't matter what you're shaped like: an eggplant, cucumber, celery, potato, carrot, banana, cantaloupe, pear, peach or whatever.

EVERY BODY FIT IN.

You ALL fit in. 

You fit in because you make the effort to get fit. 

Like Andy from Shawshank Redemption said, "Get busy living or get busy dying." 

The best way to get busy living starts at the gym.

Whether you want to fit in a new pair of pants or a dress, with a new group of friends, at your gym, at your job, or at school, we want to support you to look and feel your best wherever you are, at all times. 

If a sit in means to occupy a place as a form of protest, then a  fit in protests against the contagions of exercise apathy and sedentary sloth running rampant in our society. 

There's plenty of room to comfortably accommodate more people on their journey to higher quality living.

C'mon, fit in, there's no time to waste making ourselves awesome.

Here's the latest member of our "fit in." 

Give a warm welcome and a nice round of digital applause to Joshua. 

Thanks for sharing your story and journey with us man!

Name: Joshua M.

Age: 29

When did your transformation start?

It was about the third week of May. (2018)

What prompted your fitness journey?

Well I've always been a lifter per se. I probably lifted for the last 10 or 11 years pretty steadily and just kind of plateaued and I do sit at a desk 45 hours a week for a living. So that kind of altered some of my body composition and got to a place where I wasn't all that pleased anymore. I looked athletic but not fit.

And at the same time my wife and I had just had our second daughter in February and so she was wanting to do a body transformation as well, lose weight and get back in shape kind of thing because she's done having, we're done having kids and things like that.

So I've always been a solo dieter, solo lifter. And so I saw the opportunity to clean up my diet, make my workouts more efficient, things like that. And so then I kind of kicked off the diet part for both of us. And then once the diet part kicked in, I started seeing a lot of physical results, which kind of changed what I'm capable of doing with my current muscular structure.

What are your goals? Are they health-related, extrinsic, intrinsic…?

Not really. I've always been pretty healthy on all of those (blood pressure, etc.). I do have extremely sensitive skin. So this is where I'll go into my diet a little bit I actually switched to. So my previous diet was as much protein that I can consume and then whatever junk came with it. And so when my wife and I both went on a diet, we switched to Keto and so essentially I went to 2300 calories a day with 170 grams of fat, 130 grams of protein, and between 30 and 50 carbs a day. And I've been doing that for about the last hundred days and I've seen ridiculous results from my skin. Getting heat rashes and those things like that totally dissipating. My conditioning is improved a lot. As far as endurance, I used to be a sprinter, now I can run upwards of four to four and a half miles with no issues.

Not really body wise. My original goal, so I started out, I was about 205 pounds and about 26 1/2, 27 percent body fat. And my original goal was to be 180 and gauging I was estimating I could get to about 16 percent body fat. Right now I'm about 178 and I'm between 10 and 12 percent. 

I do what is referred to as Ninja Warrior training. So I do basically obstacle training two to three days a week. So, I mean I do salmon ladders, I do body control, some calisthenics and things of that nature. And then we have a gym at work, so I do bodybuilding, lifting three days a week and then mix in cardio as well. So I work out almost seven days a week.

Do you have any mini-goals to hold yourself accountable, keep you motivated and help you see progress?

We set up mini goals and challenges and things like that and so I do grip challenges every week, like yesterday I carried 115 pounds in each hand using nunchucks, like one inch nunchuck rods and like little like micro challenges if you will, to really challenge and find out what my boundaries are and how to basically defeat those. 

And so, yeah very weird. Very, eco-centric grip training because some of the stuff I do, I don't know whether you're familiar with Ninja Warrior, but we have obstacles like  what's called a cliffhanger where you're eight to 10 feet off the ground and all you have is a one inch lip that you have to basically use all your entire upper body weight and your strength to hold yourself up on a one inch platform and walk along it with your hands.

Why is your health an integral part of your life?

I strive being able to do things that people don't think are possible. It's kind of like the way I'm wired is if somebody tells me I can't do something or that I shouldn't be doing this I try to do it. And I like to be the best at everything I do. Anything I pick up. I try to do. I am known for doing things to the extreme and being extremely strict when I dedicate to it. And so I take a lot of pride in that. And when it comes to health, I mean I've always been an athlete. I've always lifted weights. I played soccer for 15 years and things of that nature.

So I've always been athletic and there's a lot of interesting things around the dad bod and things like that. And so I'm 29. I have two daughters. I have a two-year-old and a six-month-old and I'm an android developer for a living, so I write mobile apps for a living. And so I sit at a desk 45 hours a week. I have two daughters to take care of and so I have basically I guess the daily complications, but I still want to be able to show that with time and dedication, nutrition, you can have whatever, you can look like whatever you want.

What other kinds of things has your journey helped you with outside the gym? 

Oh, well I definitely think like confidence for sure. Like I'm not so self-conscious around friends and family, like taking my shirt off is not a problem now, and there's definitely a self-worth increase in terms of outlook and attitude on things I can and can't do and how to overcome any obstacle in the future. 

Can you think of one example that specifically helped out with your self-worth?

A perfect example is I like to do things that seem slightly ridiculous just to prove a point. I'm either going to fail at it or I'm going to succeed at it and I'm going to continue to challenge myself even further. So we'll be in the gym doing thighs and back day or doing dead lifts and pull ups, something like that. And I'm like, hey, let me take these two 45's and hang them from a belt and see how many pull ups I can do. Or actually. And so I've actually had my cousin who's about 115 pound dead body weight, get on me in a piggy back and be like, hey, let me see if I can do a pull up with you on my back, which is undistributed weight, 115 pounds undistributed, and see if I can do a pull up. And if I can, if I can get above a 90 degree L, I'll consider that success. If not, then I'll do progressive overload until I can actually do that.

And so I think being able to do things like that and constantly challenging yourself and seeing what your limits are, allow you to build one that confidence with anything.

The results: