Nj Rock Gym: Fill & Download for Free

Alright so my gym story is relatively atypical compared to most people, and I’ll explain why.I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism at age 9 and put on medication as a result.Being so young, this devastated me and made me feel abnormal. As a result, I mentally convinced myself I did not need my medication (cognitive dissonance, no less), and would simply throw my dosage in the garbage every morning instead of taking it.Now, the important thing to note about hyperthyroidism is that it speeds up your metabolism due to an unnecessary amount of activity in the thyroid gland.This, combined with social anxiety which often took my appetite away, and thus left me eating maybe one decent meal a day, made me underweight all through puberty.Underweight might actually be an understatement. I weighed 108 pounds and stood 5’ 10 tall.As puberty hit, I grew more and more disgusted with the person I’d look at in the mirror.The same disgust an overweight person may feel when looking at themself shirtless is what I felt seeing my skin and bones.My freshman year of high school had to have been my lowest point in life. My parents got divorced, which I won’t get too into, but I will explain the important parts to understand the impact it had on me.Basically, I had lived in NJ my whole life up till this point, and a good portion of my family lived in Florida. My mom had a very big dream to live in Florida, and my dad tried his best to provide that dream for her. Things happened, we moved, my dad could not find a job, so he stayed in NJ to financially support us. My mom then found another man and ended up leaving my father for him. This broke my heart and was the first real pain I felt in my life. As a result, my dad took me back to the jersey and decided it was best to raise me himself (mostly because my mom just decided to insert her new lover into my life without even asking my opinion).I was sad, antisocial, filled with anxiety, and maybe even depressed during my freshman year of high school. And to make matters worse, I was severely underweight.However, this is when things changed. Summer after freshman year I made a decision that I could not live with myself looking as I did. Puberty kicked my ass with acne, I was so awkwardly tall and too skinny, and so stressed out about my parents, which in turn made my grades suffer terribly.That summer I decided it was time to make a change with my life. I wanted to get bigger. I didn’t care about a fast thyroid, I didn’t care about anxiety, I wanted to put on weight and be satisfied with that person I saw in the mirror every morning.I went to the gym for the first time on the first day of my sophomore year. Here is a picture:I was ashamed to wear a shirt like that. The reason I made myself is that I wanted to own who I was. I figured out that in order to get back up, I had to actually hit rock bottom. I was falling in life, but I had to actually hit the floor to start my drive to get back up. That workout was the most frustrating I’ve ever had.I hated how I looked, I was tired, out of energy, and lacked proper form to lift any sort of weight correctly. It was that day a man came up to me at the gym and taught me the proper form of chest pressing dumbbells. He told me it wasn’t about the weight, it was about the repetition. That stuck with me.I got through that day, and I had never felt so good in my life. I had an escape. I had a way out. I went to the gym every day. I kept going. Here are a few months in:At first, I didn’t really notice any changes. For the first couple of months I gained about 10 lbs, and mostly just toned myself. I then started adding weight, started doing higher weight sets. A few months later:I weighed 125 here. That was 17 lbs heavier than day 1. I felt good about myself. I wanted to keep going, to keep going, keep pushing. So I did:My sophomore year started September, and this was in March. I weighted 130. 22 lbs up from my start.I’m graduated now, and after a few falloffs and whatnot, I’m still skinny. I weigh 145 now, but I earned all that weight through a lot of determination, and a lot of sweat.Here is me today:Thank you if you made it this far reading about my journey! I had a lot of emotions flowing typing it out :)Edit: thank you all for the kind words and positivity, it is all greatly appreciated !!!

An interesting exercise in memory recall not to mention a trip down memory lane. Will try to make this somewhat chronological. Some details are missing, which probably correspond to missing brain cells from that era.Iron Butterfly, ‘68, Drew Univ, Madison, NJ (met band after show)Jefferson Airplane, ‘68, Drew Univ (Grace was quite high and I remember her staring at the light show when she wasn’t singing)Frank Zappa, ‘69, Drew (called the white suburban audience a ‘bunch of fucking cheesburgers’)Sly & the Family Stone, ‘69, South Mountain Arena, West Orange, NJCanned Heat, ‘69, Drew U (lots of bikers in the audience for some reason)Chicago Transit Authority, ‘70?, Governor Livingston Reg HS, Berkeley Heights, NJ (Encored with I’m a Man)James Gang, ‘71?, Morris County Comm College, Randolph, NJHumble Pie, ‘71, The Cloisters, NYC (great outdoor show inc. Peter Frampton)James Taylor, ‘72, Gaslight Cafe, NYC (met producer Peter Asher while waiting in line)Billy Preston, ‘72, Drew U.Flash, ‘72, Fairleigh Dickenson Univ, Madison, NJ (specifically remember dropping sunshine at this one)John Mayall, ‘72?, FDU (mostly acoustic)Quicksilver Messenger Service/Poco, ‘72, FDU, Madison, NJ (outdoor show)Led Zeppelin, ‘73, Madison Sq Garden, NYCGrateful Dead/New Riders of the Purple Sage, ‘74, Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ (my first exposure to Deadheads!)Reniassance, ‘74, NY Academy of Music, NYC (great show)Beach Boys, ‘74, Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, NYGrateful Dead, ‘75?, Nassau Coliseum (fireworks in the audience?)Judy Collins/Arlo Guthrie, ‘75, Garden State Arts Center, Holmdel, NJLoggins & Messina, ‘76, Capital Theater, Passaic, NJ (great show, saw them 2x there)Peter Frampton, ‘76, Capital Theater (Frampton comes alive tour, first row!)Bonnie Raitt, ‘76, Kutztown Good Time Music & Arts Fair, Kutztown, PaPaul McCartney & Wings, ‘76, Spectrum Philadelphia, Pa (Wings Over America tour, very cool)Billy Joel, ‘77?, Fairleigh Dickenson U, Madison, NJ (just Billy and his piano, kickass show)Bob Dylan, ‘88, Tower Theater, Upper Darby, Pa (He sucked but his band led by GE Smith was very good)Billy Joel, ‘90, Spectrum, Phil (storm front tour)James Taylor, ‘93? , Jadwin Gym, Princeton UniversityTom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Jayhawks, ‘95, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (TP&H were great, Jayhawks not so much)Johnny Winter, ‘13, Bucks County Winery, New Hope, Pa (JW was dealing with hip pain, had to be helped to the stage but once plugged in he kicked ass)If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for playing!

Having attended both H.S and College….Include classes on financial acumen.Bring back trade classes, home ec, art, music, with the tech available now.Bring back gym classes and drivers ed.Offer shifts (we had them in grade school in NJ due to over crowding. This allowed both smaller class sizes, both HS and Grade to use the same building at different hours. Plus, you go to sleep in or get up and this get home early…Offer a salad bar at the school, I initiated one in 1980 in NJ.Take a survey of the student body and vote on which musoc to pipe into the lunch room. We had rock. Only 6 kids wanted the ‘disco’ station. Things would likely be the reverse today, as hiphop has a broad audience or latin music. But since the squeakist minority wins, maybe the rock kids would ger their way, who knows. But it was cool, as there was music during lunch. As student council pres, I just asked the Principal.