Joseph M.
For as long as I can remember I have always struggled with my body composition. I spent most of my youth overweight and battling depression. In 2005, I joined the US Marines and spent most of my time, for the next four years, overseas. Although my weight had changed during my service time, the depression and anxiety I felt on the day-to-day never ceased.
When I left the military I moved back home and started attending college full-time. Everything changed: lifestyle, food, stress levels, and surely, over time, the weight started to come back on. I spent countless hours in the gym trying all sorts of things, to no avail. At the time I was studying computer science, but I needed to find something more, I need to find a way to resolve this depression.
The depression had been a shroud covering me for years. It affected my work quality, learning was difficult, and my relationships with others suffered tremendously. I knew I had to make a change, so in 2011 I decided to start studying fitness and education with a minor in biology.
I started working as a personal trainer in 2012. During this time though, the one thing that never went away, no matter how much I knew (or thought I knew), was the depression I had been dealing with for years.
In 2014 I started working for Equinox, where I had even more opportunities to learn about health and wellness. However, no matter how much information I got, no matter how much I played with my nutrition, it never seemed to “hit the nail on the head”. And if I was having this problem myself, how could I ever give nutritional advice to anyone else?
That year I met a physician who referred me to a book that had helped her recover from a TBI, and she thought it could help me too.
I bought the book, I read it, and as a fitness professional I was enlightened. Some of the information was not new, in regards to social implications of western dieting, but could the carbohydrates really be doing neurological damage?
There’s no question about it at this point. After following the nutritional guidelines you set out in that book, Grain Brain, I have since been able to manage my bodyweight with ease, my depression has completely gone away, I am not bloated anymore, and my quality of life has tremendously improved.
I have given those recommendations to other clients who have also seen the results physically, emotionally and psychologically.