Hi everyone,

I've been lurking these boards for a while. I would just like to thank all of you and wish you luck; seeing others go through the same struggles as I have has really helped me a lot. Anyways, my own personal story goes as follows:

I had been really fit in high school up until the end of my senior year when I broke my foot. While I had my right leg in a cast, I overdid exercise - I actually tried to run with my cast on because I didn't want to be out of shape! So what ended up happening was I dislocated my left knee and really messed up my knee cartillage. Anyways, when I had the cast taken off after 2-3 weeks I found that my right calve muscles had really whithered away - the dangerous running did nothing for me.

That summer, the ***.*** boom was still going strong and I was able to land a very nice job at a ***.*** as a computer programmer. I made loads of money doing nothing but sitting at the computer and eating the free snacks that were freely available. I didn't even think about exercising, and ate out a lot - I gained 20 pounds that summer and I looked fit no more.

Then school started - as some of you know, dorm food can make one put on a hell of a lot of weight. Anyways, during the period in the dorms I tried to eat healthy and tried to go running but by then my knees in both legs were so messed up that I could not run for more than a couple days without coming down with injury, it led to a lot of frustration and more weight gain.

Fast foward to the beginning of last summer - I went over to one of my friend's house one day and overheard her mother calling me fat boy. Great, I'm fat boy now. So my friends and I dedicated the summer to getting fit - I wanted to shed fat and my friends wanted to gain muscle - they're not fat to begin with.

So weight lifting went well. I got a lot stronger and every once in a while my friends and I would go run a couple miles. Yet, one day in early September I looked at myself in the mirror and I still had a lot of flab, I stepped on the scale and I was 190 pounds! I just looked so fat and disgusting, I had pictures of myself in high school and looked so much better then so I switched focus to losing weight.

I set the LA marathon in March as a goal and my friend and I started training for it. Within a week of marathon training I had shed 10 pounds. By September 20th I was down to 175 pounds and looking a whole lot better. My knees by some miracle were holding during my training and I just felt so damn good. I was eating right, doing cardio, and weight training. Two weeks ago I weighed in at 160.2 pounds and 8.2% body fat after a meal on my Tanita electric scale.

Then the injuries came. I hurt my knees playing basketball - I played very poorly. Hard headed as I am, I resolved to go out the next day. I played bad again and my knees got worse and my legs got tired. The next day I hurt my back so I gave up. While I was injured I couldnt run. My body's natural impulse when injured is to eat a LOT. so, I ate a LOT. Now this morning my legs finally felt good enough to go running, but my run was so difficult. I felt like I lost my aerobic fitness. I gained 10 pounds these last 10 days I havent run, I am 170.0 pounds and 11% bodyfat on my scale right now. I'm feeling a little discouraged.

So I guess I need a word of encouragement. I'm 21! I'm young, why do I have old man knee injuries!!