More inspiration..........

I got this e-mail the other day, and I wanted to share.  I really can't believe it when I get these kinds of e-mails because I see what I do as such a nothing.  So when I get them, I'm really blown away.

Dear Paul,

I´m sure you´re busy as hell and probably get a thousand e-mails form readers daily, but I wish you have the chance to read through this one.

I usually tend to keep stuff to myself, but I honestly feel the need to thank you.

My story starts on october 2010. I was 21 years old, sitting at a chubby 175, zero muscle mass and not a single care about it. Life was good, and I was happy.

Everything changed that month, tho. I lost a loved one, developed a severe depression and, all of sudden, life didn´t make sense anymore.

As a way to clear my mind, I decided I would go back to regular exercising and get in shape again.

It started well, I cleaned my diet and slowly started to run 3x a week. Phisically I was improving, but my mind was still fucked and getting worse.

Long story short, my depression was killing me. I started to run 10km a day for 6 days a week and was eating something like 1000kcal a day.

Not surprinsingly, I dropped to a malnourished and unhealthy 121 pounder at 5´10´´ in july 2011.

That same month, I completed a half marathon in 1h44min. Funny thing is I hated running. I only did it because I was afraid to regain weight.

One week after the half marathon, I was training in the treadmill and almost passed out. I was weak, sick and needed help.

That day, I decided I would turn my life around again.

I seeked medical aid, quit running and decided to go back to lifting weights, something I loved to do as a teenager.

As a compulsive reader, I started to research all I could on weighlifting. That was the time I came across your blog.

On August 2011 I was a little better, so I started `lifting´. I was doing the typical BB body part split you see on commercial gyms.

But as I dug deeper into your writings and learned about the compound lifts, I thought: Hey, that makes sense.

I slowly started to incorporate frequent squatting to my training. Then benching, chinning, deadlifting, OHPing...

Not surprinsingly, I was hearing crap from the `personal trainers´ at the gym, because the stuff I was doing was dangerous and I should just stick to cable flies and curls.

I didn´t trust them, tho. I trusted you.

So I didn´t care about all the crap I heard and all the laughs from the bros looking at me squatting the bar. I kept at it. I worked my ass off.

I was already disregarding isolation movements, but when I read your post from January 3rd I decided that 2012 was gonna be dedicated to smash the compounds and get as strong as I can.

Fast forward to today.

I´m sitting at a lean 158lbs, looking good and as healthy as possible.

People are complementing me daily, and life is awesome.

I´m currently squatting 240x3, deadlifting 355x3, benching 180x3 and OHPing 120x3.

The same bros that used to laugh at me now are coming to the squat rack to tell me I´m strong.

I can honestly say that your writings changed my life.

I can´t thank you enough for that.

Just make sure to remember that you are a role model to a lot of people, myself included.

Thank you for everything.