Hey all, my name's Eddie, I'm known as the Magic Monk on Youtube. I belong to the Endomorph body type - which means that my body stores fat very easily, particularly around the waist. In ancient times when food was hard to come by, this was actually an advantage, because it meant that Endomorphs will be able to survive a bit longer. However, living in an environment where food is everywhere, the tendency to put on fat does not help.
The funny thing is, I actually used to be quite skinny in my early childhood. However, starting from when I was 8 years old, my third grade teacher was super strict about how much time we had to eat lunch. Before having her as a teacher, I used to eat super slow at home (which was a good thing - something that I didn't know back then). However, my teacher forced us to finish all of our lunch within the allocated time slot (10 minutes), and then she forced us to fall sleep straight after (3 bad habits joined together - eating fast, ignoring the 'fullness' signal from your stomach, and sleeping straight after eating).
Since developing the habit to eat faster as a result of my teacher's training, I started eating more as well as fast, not just in school but at home as well. I gained so much weight that people around me started calling me fat. This reinforced my thinking that I was fat and there was nothing I could do about it. On top of my bad habits and negative self image, I was spending a lot of time sitting at home due to the lack of outdoor space where I lived, and with the lack of exercise my weight just continued to increase.
When I was 11 my parents decided to immigrate to New Zealand. They bought a house with a basketball court in the front yard and I went outside and played basketball just about every spare minute. At school, we had a whole hour to eat lunch and we could play sport after we had eaten (instead of going to sleep). Starting from the first day, my friends at school refused to call me fat. They said to me "You're average" even when I was overweight. This completely cured my lack of self confidence in my body image. By the time I was 12, I was thin and athletic. Our teachers made us run as part of P.E. classes and I became fit. I took up kung Fu and tennis in addition to my basketball and this helped my fitness even more.
When I was 16/17, due to the need to study for university entrance exams, I spent up to 3 or 4 hours each night sitting in my bedroom trying to study. I started putting on weight again. We moved away from my house with the basketball hoop to another house without the basketball hoop. My parents also bought me a car so I stopped walking to school. All of this contributed to an obvious weight gain.
When i was 19 my family immigrated again to Australia when I started university. I didn't have a car again so I had to walk + catch the bus. The university I went to was a big campus and I studied in three different faculties so I had to walk everywhere. I lived next to a basketball / tennis court and I went out to play ball again every afternoon. I had friends waiting for me at the courts most afternoons and we would play 2 to 3 hours of singles tennis. My weight slashed right down again until my mid 20s, when I started working full time and driving to work again.
I had to drive pretty far for work. It was a solid 2 hours in the car daily. After I started gaining weight, I realized that I had to do something to keep my weight off so I joined the gym and started swing dancing at night. Recently I moved closer to work so I could spend more time at the gym rather than travelling in the car. I also read some more books on nutrition so I focus on eating good food (vegetables) rather than processed foods (e.g. chips, cake, lollies, biscuits). I also don't drink any soft drink.
I hope my experiences will help people stay in shape. This is what I look like now:
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