YOU wouldn’t know it by looking at him today, but two years ago Jesse Shand had hit rock bottom.
He was weighing over 300kg, was unable to leave his house and had become isolated from all of his friends and family.
Having given up on life and his future, and his days were spent viciously trolling strangers on the internet in an attempt to feel better about himself.
“When you’re actively trying to bring people down and get negative attention, it almost always reflects something in your own life,” he told today.com
From attacking women on a feminist website to taunting gamers on online forums, it appeared as if Mr Shand had no boundaries.
“The thing about trolling is that it’s easy to become disconnected from it — you don’t see your victims, you don’t see what it does to them,” he said.
“It’s easy to forget these are human beings.”
Mr Shard showed no remorse for his actions and had decided to focus his negative attention to the fitness community on bodybuilding.com
However, when a forum monitor complained about Mr Shard’s profile because it contained an avatar — not an authentic photo as the rules of the site stipulate — the troll did something that would change the course of his life forever.
Thinking he was going to bait users of the website, Mr Shard created a new thread called “Ask the fattest man on this site anything”.
“The thread immediately took off and became one of the most popular threads on the site,” he wrote on bodybuilding.com
“To my complete surprise, rather than get a rise out of the community, they started to try to convince me that it was not too late to fix my situation.
“I had a million excuses and reasons that I couldn’t do it. I argued that it would take years of dedication and willpower that I simply did not have. Slowly, over time, the many voices wore me down and started to convince me that it was worth another shot.”
At the time the thread was launched, Mr Shard was so unfit that even shaving his beard left him physically exhausted.
However, a month after tweaking his diet and adhering to advice from bodybuilders, he was able to walk laps around his mobile home for the first time in years.
“With the encouragement and suggestions I was getting from bodybuilders I began to add a bit more than simple cardio into my routine,” he said.
“Some supporters were kind enough to send me a barbell and dumbbell set and I started to work some basic strength training in.”
By August 2013, Mr Shard was walking 50 laps of his house and had enough stamina to leave his house for the first time in a number of years.
His first expedition outside of his house was to see doctor so he could assess the toll his unhealthy lifestyle had taken on his body.
“Miraculously, mostly due to my relatively young age, I had a clean bill of health,” he said.
“The blood pressure was okay, the cholesterol was fine, and I managed to avoid getting diabetes even after putting my body through such strain.”
As time progressed, Mr Shard gained more fitness and was regularly attending a gym and managed to drop down to 120kg.
“I am now able to lead a normal life. I bowl, I play poker, I practice archery and I meet up with friends whom I hadn’t seen in years to play racquetball,” he said.
Today, Mr Shard continues to work out at the gym every morning before he goes to his new job, although there is still something hindering progress.
As a result of his drastic weight loss, Mr Shard has large amounts of excess skin he will need surgically removed.
“[My excess skin is] causing me to be unable to wear clothes that fit well, it’s preventing me from being able to run well while playing sports, it’s causing painful rashes and is unhygienically trapping sweat which can quickly lead to serious infections,” he wrote.
Mr Shard was able to receive a referral to a surgeon, but he quickly discovered the costly procedure was out of his budget.
In a last-ditch effort to improve his quality of life, the former troll has created a GoFundMe page in the hope people will see his incredible transformation and donate money to help him reach his goal.
In the four months it has been live, Mr Shard has raised half of the $20,000 required for the procedure and he couldn’t be happier.
Until his goal is reached, Mr Shard is going to keep working out and is also actively trying to give back to the fitness community by helping others struggling with obesity.
“I’m trying to help other people. So I can make up for some of that negativity I spread,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment