<div>This is going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do, which is truly saying something. I have always considered myself an open book when it comes to speaking about my life and my experience, but I have also always had a very strict boundary that I have held myself to.

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<div>I feel like I am a very fortunate man. I can count on more than one hand the number of life-altering experiences that have bettered me as a person and completely turned me around from a dark path. In early 2007, I took a trip with my father and my then stepmother, Linda, to a family friend's house along the way to visiting my uncle in Boston. Along the 10-hour car ride, as well as the multi-day vacation, my lifelong struggles with my weight came crashing to light for my parents, and that weekend would kickstart the most amazing 2 years to follow.

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<div>All my life I had been obese. Not overweight, not even grossly overweight, medically obese. At my worst, the weekend of that trip, I had weighed 405 lbs as a 24-year-old man. It had wreaked havoc on my social life, my dating life, and my overall confidence and happiness for as long as I could recall. It had led to incidents in school with bullying, fights, expulsion, and depression, a thing which runs deep in my family. I can vividly recall moments where I would be hanging out with my friends, happier than I probably had ever been, until I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflective door and saw the size comparison (my best friend couldn't have weighed more than 130 lbs soaking wet), and immediately lost all interest in being in public. I had no way out. I had personal training, motivation from family and friends, dieticians, even medicinal help which assisted my brother in his weight loss, and none of it helped. I had resigned myself to a bitter existence alone, hating myself and being unable to break the cycle.

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<div>On this particular vacation, my prediabetic body gave out multiple times. I had severe sleep apnea and as a result, I was exhausted in even the most serene moments. This caused immediate concern among my parents, and following our trip, I was invited over the next week for dinner, which turned out to be an intervention. My parents told me that I was cut off. They were not going to watch me kill myself. Multiple times on that trip I would be mid-sentence and simply fall asleep. My body was fighting to survive and the fight was not going well. They told me that if I wanted to stay in their lives, I was going to have to make a change, and they gave me a choice. They would fully support me attempting, as I had many times in my life, to lose the weight naturally on my own, or they would support me in any way necessary with getting bariatric surgery, which was relatively new and seen as the "easy way out" (I can assure you this is a false narrative).

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<div>Knowing that I had failed an immeasurable amount of times to do this on my own, I took up their offer to get surgery. The picture above is the week of the surgery, after I had already lost 10% of my body weight, which was a requirement for me to be able to have the procedure done and the hardest I had worked to that point. What followed was a complete altering of my mindset and my life. Within a year I was down from 405 lbs to 235 lbs and feeling better than I ever had. But I was still not happy with my body. Not fully, anyway. As with everyone who has experienced massive weight loss like this, I had excess skin and couldn't stand the sight of myself without a shirt on. I wasn't regretting my decision, I was happy and healthy, but I wanted more.

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<div>This led to 2009, where I once again found myself consulting with a surgeon, this time for cosmetic reasons. An invasive and difficult tummy tuck was in my future, and I would soon be the lowest weight I had been in my adult life, honestly most likely since the 5th grade if I am being honest. I was able to drop, after the excess skin was removed, down to 205 lbs and was 90% of the way to what I would call my literal dream self. I had the world of opportunity in front of me, and was still in my 20s. Life could not have been better, and I owed an entire army of people from family to friends and strangers in their medical fields, to this happiness.

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<div>Why, then, am I asking for assistance? Why would I say I was 90% of the way to my happiest self? Well, because there are parts of my body that never recovered, and that I've never been able to repair in the same way I was with my stomach. <strong>My chest has remained a massive insecurity for me.</strong> It has always sagged, always been visibly off even through clothing. In fact, until this past week, I hadn't taken my shirt off in public in nearly a decade, and even then it was with two of my closest friends and it had to be at an empty pool where I still chose the chair hidden behind a tree and in the shade.

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<div>In 2011 I took the massive risk of accepting a job in Tennessee, which took me far away from any support system I had, and left myself completely alone to my own devices. Over the next 9 years, I would slowly but surely slip back into unhealthy habits and began to put massive amounts of weight back on. In Spring 2020, just before the pandemic truly broke out, I had ballooned back up to 330 lbs, putting on a massive 125 of the 200 lbs I had lost so long ago. I was back to being depressed, unhealthy, and alone. I had an amazing group of friends, but no accountability for my behaviors, and I was unable to stop the bleeding.

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<div>In 2021 I stepped onto the deck of the Norwegian Gem cruise ship for what would be the newest life-altering adventure, a cruise with my favorite band, Coheed and Cambria, and what would eventually lead to my rededication to my health and an entire new group of chosen family to support me. This may seem like a weird tangent, which is my style, but to me it's the inciting incident in my recovery and where I currently am with my health. I had never partaken in the vast community of Coheed and Cambria fans, even though I knew they were essentially the new age Dead Heads, a network of close-knit friends that traveled the country more than anyone probably ever should in the name of seeing their favorite band perform live. So the decision to take this cruise was monumental for me. The first 48 hours were not smooth sailing for me. They were filled with heartbreak and disappointment, fumbles, and honestly making a bigger ass of myself than I had in a long time. I was ready to end it all and go home, never to be seen again.

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<div>But on that third day, I met some friends who will be in my life forever, and I started to realize what potential there was in these amazing people. I spent countless hours with these new friends over the next 3 days, and what I found was I was eating far less, being far more active, and that the idea of cutting back on food and calories was not as hard as I once thought it would be. I left that cruise not only with an entire boat's worth of new friends but a renewed vigor for my health. I immediately ordered a heavy bag to hang in my garage and subscribed to a calorie tracking app my friend Evan had used to get his health on track and I got to work.

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<div>It was surprisingly quick, seeing the weight drop off of me. In the first year, I found myself down 70 lbs from 330 to 260 and I was once again feeling like a new person. As 2023 approached and a second cruise with my friends was on the horizon, I decided it was finally time to conquer my fear of public exercise and join a gym. For the past 2 years, I have seen my energy and enthusiasm for exercise grow in a way I never thought possible. First spending a year working with an amazing personal trainer who taught me the discipline and technique I would need to be successful even beyond her help, and the better part of the past 6 months self-motivating and going to the gym 6 days a week like clockwork. I am in the best shape of my life and feeling like I'm ready to take my next major step in my health journey.

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<div>The two pictures above were taken 2 years apart, almost exactly, and I refer to this comparison any time I feel I need the motivation to keep going.

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<div>I am still massively self-conscious about my chest. I cannot get past it, and no matter how much I exercise, no amount of bench presses, incline presses, cable flies, or pushups has allowed me to develop the chest that makes me happy or even confident in the work I've done on myself. Earlier this year I consulted a plastic surgeon, one who is able to complete this surgery with expertise and at a fraction of the price of other consultations I have had in the past. However, I am no fool, and I am fully aware of the difficulties of the current economic climate. <strong>The last year has made this request a necessity, but also such a selfish ask, as I know I am not the only one who is struggling to make ends meet in the way that we were just a few years ago.</strong> The quote I was given is still too high for me to be able to pay out of pocket, and unfortunately, despite my best efforts, my insurance company will cover 0% of this procedure if I were to get it done.

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<div>I hate to come to anyone, hat in hand, asking for help, but this dream is so close to being realized that I can taste it. I am on the edge of being genuinely happy with every part of me, and I am humbly asking for any help that can be provided. Below are examples of what needs to be done and my progress in the past 2 years, and it's where that vulnerability I spoke about early is fully laid bare. I am incredibly proud of the muscle I have built, in my arms and in my shoulders, and I can see the definition in my chest, however, it is under skin that will not under any coaxing tighten. Any part of my body that is pinched in these pictures is what will be adjusted, removed, or tightened by the surgeon. I appreciate any help that is provided, and even if you cannot or do not want to provide any, I appreciate you taking the time to read my story.

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