AT his heaviest, Stephen Campolo from New York, weighed 305lbs and was struggling as an obese teenager. Aged 13, and Stephen was 100lbs overweight with zero confidence and got bullied by other children. Stephen told Truly: “Being overweight was a death sentence. When you're young, you're a teenager, people judge you on your appearance. I got bullied a lot, I got called fat boy. My last name is Campolo, so kids would call me fat Polo”. Stephen was fed up, no girls wanted to talk to him and he was even rejected by his crush. When Stephen broke his finger at 14, the doctor delivered some life changing news. “The doctor told my dad 'your son is clinically obese, he has to make some type of lifestyle changes or he's going to have some serious health complications'. So if I hadn't broken my finger and had to go to the doctor, I would have never known that I was clinically obese." In order to make a difference, Stephen made lifestyle changes, stuck to a strict new diet and ran every night. “I lost a bunch of weight, I wanted to build my body, be confident with myself, feel strong, feel sexy and feel confident!”
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00:00I never made the baseball team.
00:02I never got invited to the school dances
00:04because no girls wanted to go with me
00:06because I was the chubby kid.
00:08At my heaviest, I weighed 305 pounds.
00:10The turning point for me
00:12was when I had a crush on a girl
00:14and I just wanted to ask her out on a date
00:16and I was too fat and I had no confidence
00:18and I was super insecure
00:20so I knew something had to change.
00:24That led me to start weight training.
00:27I think I'm going to add another 50 pounds.
00:29Have I ever squatted this much before?
00:31No.
00:32Am I scared?
00:33Yes.
00:39So this was me at my heaviest.
00:41I was about 300 to 305 pounds here.
00:44You can see it in my face how big I was.
00:46Here I was about 14 years old.
00:48I was a fat kid.
00:50Being overweight, it sucked.
00:52When you're young, people judge you on your appearance.
00:54I got bullied a lot.
00:56I got called fat boy.
00:58My last name is Campolo so kids would call me Fat Polo.
01:00It was a crappy situation.
01:02It was traumatizing.
01:04It was something I had to face every single day at school.
01:06So I have pretty mixed emotions
01:08being here
01:10because most of the memories I have
01:12trying to play baseball at my high school,
01:14they suck because I got cut from the teams.
01:16I loved baseball when I was a kid.
01:18It was depressing to have to go home and tell your parents
01:20I didn't make the baseball team because of my weight.
01:22I was just so fed up.
01:24There was a girl that I was interested in
01:26and I knew the only way I was going to have any type of chance
01:28to possibly have her be my girlfriend
01:30was if I changed my physical image.
01:32So that was a turning point for me
01:34where I said, you know what?
01:36Screw it. I'm just going to go for it.
01:38I said, I do not want to be the fat guy anymore.
01:40And I said, this year I'm going to change it all.
01:42I started running every single night.
01:44I started losing weight quick.
01:46That first week I dropped five pounds
01:48and then the next week I dropped another five pounds.
01:50I became addicted to seeing my body change.
01:52I became addicted to seeing the scale drop.
01:54At my heaviest,
01:56I weighed 305 pounds.
01:58My weight right now is about 220 pounds.
02:04All right.
02:06So it's time to make a shake.
02:08Ever since that day, I've never looked back.
02:10So right now I'm making
02:12one of my super high protein smoothies.
02:14Here's a little trick for you.
02:16In order to get some more protein,
02:18I use liquid egg whites
02:20instead of just using water.
02:28So, so good.
02:30Now I'll have the fuel necessary
02:32to get through my workout at the gym.
02:34Let's go.
02:36When I lost like the initial 50 pounds,
02:38now I realized I had this like loose skin, right?
02:40Because I hadn't replaced the fat
02:42with any type of like muscle or muscle tissue.
02:44So now I'm like, okay,
02:46I have to do something about this situation.
02:48So that's what led me to join a gym
02:50and start, you know, weight training
02:52to really like build up my body.
02:54So today we're going to do some squats.
02:56So I'm going to try to squat like 350 pounds.
02:58I haven't attempted to do that in a while.
03:00So fingers crossed.
03:02So I'm going to do a few warm-up sets.
03:04I'm not going to jump into my max weight first
03:06because I don't want to pull something.
03:08So I'm just going to warm up the body,
03:10so I'm adding about
03:12100 pounds.
03:16All right, felt pretty light.
03:20So this was my max weight.
03:26Pretty easy.
03:28I think I'm going to add another 50 pounds.
03:30So we're going to do 365 pounds.
03:40Ooh.
03:42We did it.
03:44It was easier than I thought.
03:46I kind of want to add more weight on there.
03:50So that's 405 pounds.
03:52Have I ever squatted
03:54this much before? No.
03:56So am I scared? Yes.
03:58Ooh.
04:08We did it.
04:10405 pounds.
04:12Heaviest squat I've ever done.
04:16Feels pretty good.
04:18Honestly, I don't think I ever would have attempted it
04:20unless you guys were here.
04:22I'll probably be feeling this tomorrow, though.
04:24Crushed it.
04:26When people started following me and asking me
04:28all these questions, you know, how do I lose fat?
04:30How do I gain muscle? I realized, you know what?
04:32Maybe I could make
04:34a career out of this. Because I love the lifestyle
04:36so much, I became a personal trainer,
04:38and I started helping other people get in shape.
04:40I'm very proud of how far
04:42I've come on my journey, but what I'm
04:44even more proud of is that I'm able to
04:46use my own story and help other people.
04:48So my advice for anyone wanting to
04:50just start their weight loss journey is
04:52you just got to start, right? So take the first step.
04:54You don't have to go crazy. You don't have to join a gym
04:56right away. You don't have to go on a crazy diet.
04:58But just start making little, little
05:00adjustments along the way, and you'd be surprised
05:02on how big of an impact that has
05:04on your body.