I have a confession to make. Classified information to diffuse. An admission of guilt to disclose to you all….

My name is Nick Cosgrove, and I am a recovering sugar addict.

Yes, it’s true. The trainer who practices what he preaches and loves what he does (according to my hashtags on Instagram) has a dirty little secret from his past in which he has hidden buried in his squat rack until today.

The Not So Sweet Secret

To be honest, most of my clients that work with me already know that I use to have a severe addiction to sugary snacks. In fact, this is an issue that I still struggle with today. I think this is why my customized nutritional plans are so popular because I can actually relate to many of my clients who battle with their own food addictions. I understand how difficult it can be to cut out certain foods from our diets and can share the pain and discomfort that our bodies go through when these “bad foods” are decreased or eliminated all together.

The High School Misfit

In High School I was a terrible student. To be quiet honest, I have no idea how I even graduated. I rarely went to class and skipped entire school days on multiply occasions. However the one class that I did take interest in (besides gym class) was Science. But not just any science, human science. I was fascinated with human anatomy and physiology and was captivated by how a person could transform their health and aesthetics through diet and exercise. Unfortunately there was really only so much information that I was able to obtain in the little amount of classes that I actually attended. Therefore I learned very little about the study of biomechanics before I left school and stepped foot in the weight room.

Rookie Mistakes

When I first started training with weights, I did everything wrong. I trained my chest and arms everyday, and like most men, I neglected to even train my legs at all. My cardio consisted of walking to the nearest 7-Eleven to purchase what was labeled as and what I believed to be a “Protein Drink”. And my diet – well let’s just say I didn’t even know what a macronutrient was…….

Fortunately for me, there were no cellphones around in gyms when I first began lifting so I could not be so easily distracted with the problems that today’s generation faces with constant texts, tweets and butt selfies. I was also fortunate enough to learn how to train properly from some of the older guys in the gym, along with reading any muscle building literature that I could get my hands on or steal from the local gym or school library (#badass for you Millennials)

The Student Becomes The Teacher

With time, my knowledge of exercise physiology grew. I understood how to train efficiently, diet effectively and rest adequately. But just because I understood how to do these things, didn’t mean that I actually knew how to apply them to my own diet plan and training program.

This would only happen years later when I learned how to educate myself further about how the human body operates and responds to physical exercise and proper nutrition.

Yes, it takes drive, focus and determination to exercise regularly and eat cleanly for the most part. However it also takes an understanding of hormonal imbalances, fluctuating insulin levels, blood sugar spikes, age, gender and genetics to be able to design an effective plan and strategize a soluble solution to how a person is going to be able to transform their bad habits into good ones.

And this is where I (the ex-Junk Food Junkie) comes in……

Check Out Part 2 of My Three Part Blog – “The Life and Times of a Junk Food Junkie” next week, and find out how I help our clients eliminate the “bad foods” from their diets and incorporate the “good foods” without all the pain and suffering that most people who diet are fearful of having to go through.

And No. The struggle is, never was, and never will be real!

Yours in Good Health,

Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Peformance