I was bullied a little bit in school, and became interested when I found the Charles Atlas ad in the back of a comic book. I bought the book, and started training at 13 or 14 years old, using a cement weight set I had inherited from my uncle who died young. I made that set last through high school and summer during college, even as I ran track and worked on our dairy farm. I was fast and strong with huge legs for a runner.
Then I graduated college and gave up running in favor of lifting. At around age 35 near the start of my professional career I decided to really push it, and got my squats well over 400# all natural, and my bench up to 200#. I did the permabulk method, but was not terribly fat. Then I injured my back, took a few years off, got really fat. I started back lifting in 2009 and decided to give it one last run as a nattie, to see if I could gain significant muscle while eating a lot of food. I got up to 260# and probably 30%bf and looked terrible. I hated how I looked and felt. When I dieted down, I had gained only a couple pounds of muscle in a year. That was my turning point. I started AAS and hired a trainer and said f*** it I am going balls to the wall and wish I had done it years ago.
2 years have passed since then and I have gained 20 to 25 lbs of new muscle, and lost 40+ lbs of fat, and feel like a 25 year old again!
Now I can't wait to see what the next 6 months brings, not to mention the next 6 years. My goal is to lean up by summer, so I am at or below 10% bf, then to bulk up over the next few years to 250 and less than 10%. I want to start competing in BBing in the next year or so, to see whether I enjoy it. And if I like it, I'll continue until they put me in the ground . . .