My Story!
So my story. I began jujitsu in April 2010 Just before my 31st birthday. I originally started at Ellie boxing/UFC gym in Baton Rouge Louisiana.
I came in completely unprepared, completely out of shape. I was consistently lifting weights but not having any sort of endurance or cardio. I was 214 pounds and I’ll look every bit of it.
Within about three months of Jiu Jitsu I was down to about 190 pounds it felt much much better but the process that I used to get down to the way it was not something it was really sustainable. I came off some injuries took about seven months off about 2014 and had to lose the weight again I stayed around 200 pounds for quite a while
In the middle of 2017 after I had gotten my purple belt I decided it was time to try competing again. I hadn’t really competed except for maybe one time at blue belt and it had really slowed down my progress. At this point I have been teaching a couple days a week just to have some extra training sessions at 6 am for JM Modern Jiu jitsu
So after making this decision I registered at middle heavy and then dropped about 13 to 14 pounds using a Macros based or flexible dieting approach to lose lose weight. The first competition was not spectacular. I won my first match and lost my second to you and ankle lock if I remember correctly.
I competed a couple additional times at purple belt and then in May 2018 I was promoted to brown belt.
At that point I decided to really jump off in the deep end and decided to compete at world master. This would be both my first major competition as well as my first competition at middleweight. It took about 10 weeks to make the drop from middle heavy down to middle. I had an OK showing I want my first round and lost my second round.
From here I competed as often as I possibly could. I believe I competed to 12 or 13 times between August 2018 and August 2019. I used a flexible diet approach this entire time to ensure that my weight did not exceed middleweight any given point in time. I then went to continue to train hard and as often as possible, taking generally one day a week off with the goal of winning world master as a brown belt in 2019. I then fought fight five rounds and ended up coming in third place at the 2019 world master competition.
During this time I began coaching as many people as possible and helping out on other people see the success in both competition and weight loss as I could. I Launched BJJ Macros in January 2019. Since then I’ve helped many others achieve their weight success as well as competition success At some of the biggest tournaments in jujitsu.
In August 2020 I was promoted to black melt by Josh Macuso and Eric Raposo. This is been a long time dream and something that I worked for for over a decade.
I hope telling my story and letting you know the beginnings that I had in the sport serve as a source of inspiration to you. Realize that I wasn’t talented and that I just showed up and worked hard every day to reach that goal.
