I started out as a confident kid, but in my teenage years, things shifted. While other guys grew taller and stronger, I stayed small and thin. Slowly, I lost my confidence. My frame looked weak, and I began to feel invisible, dismissed, overlooked, and rarely taken seriously.
What hurt most wasn’t just my appearance. It was how people treated me. I was seen as less, and my words carried no weight. Even with good friends around me, I often felt ignored.
But even at my lowest point, I held onto one thing – “a blind dream”. I pictured myself with a sculpted physique, even though I had no idea how to get there or if it was even possible for me.
Act I: The Ghost – The Frustration of Being “Born Skinny”
I was feeling normal until people who started growing faster nicknamed me, and even my voice was too childish.
I noticed the difference as my friends started forming groups and talking like adults. I wasn’t part of those groups, and that’s when the frustration began.
I thought I was too ugly, and I was. My teeth poked out, my hair stood straight, and my voice was childish. So I stayed away from photos, events, and restricted myself from everything. I turned into an extreme introvert who couldn’t even open his mouth in front of strangers. My body language was slouched, weak, and unconfident.
People started to comment on how I would survive in this world. I didn’t have the bare minimum appearance, couldn’t hold a conversation, feared talking on the phone, and even small clothes hung loose on me. There was nothing about me that stood out.
One day, I was asked by a person to go to his room. I thought he had asked me to pick something. I came back clueless. Then he took me to the room and asked me to look in the mirror. “See how you look. Look at your face. Why don’t you eat well and groom well?” That comment crushed me. I screamed inside, wondering if I could ever look better.
Another incident: when my teacher asked what I would become, I answered, “I want to become a pilot.” She laughed and said, “With this face, you’re going to be a pilot?” While others who gave the same answers were recognized.
That moment hit me hard. I started realizing how much looks mattered if you wanted respect and to be taken seriously.
At that time, I didn’t know a thing about muscle building at the gym. All I wanted to do was get bigger.
People around me always advised me to eat more and get bigger, but nothing worked. It wasn’t practical to track how much I ate. Still, I managed to eat well, and my mom gave me special care with nutritional drinks.
My body didn’t move an inch. I looked the same until my first year of college.
Act II: The Blueprint – My First Natural Transformation
All of a sudden, I started growing tall after the first half of college. It only made my appearance even worse. Just imagine being extremely lean and tall with an awkward frame. Instead of feeling proud of growing taller, I felt even more invisible.
One of my college friends told me, “If you go to the gym and lift weights above your shoulder level, you won’t grow.” I didn’t know any better, so I believed it. That single line was enough to push me into a gym. So, I joined a small, crowded gym near me. At that point, I wasn’t chasing strength or looks; I just wanted to stop looking worse.
In the beginning, I followed random advice from people around me. I did every machine in the gym daily, from shoulder presses and lat pull-downs to biceps & triceps everything, every single day. I thought more was better. I even believed another myth: “If you do ab crunches, you won’t grow.” So, I trained abs daily as my main workout. Looking back, I realize how clueless I was, but at that time, I was desperate for answers.
One day, the gym owner saw me and asked, “Why in the world do you work your abs every day?” I told him I didn’t want to grow, so I only did abs. He laughed not to mock me, but in disbelief. Then he explained the truth: ab workouts just build abs; they don’t stop height growth. He also told me that lifting weights above shoulder level wouldn’t stunt my growth. That moment opened my eyes. I felt embarrassed for believing the myths, but also relieved that, for the first time, I had factual information.
The next day he called me over and gave me my first proper workout plan. He explained the basics and told me to focus on one muscle group per day. That advice became my blueprint. It gave me structure when I had none, and I clung to it. For the first time, I felt like maybe I could change.
Meanwhile, word got around at the college that I had joined the gym. Some classmates made fun of me: “Hey Tamil, why don’t you eat properly first? Try lifting engineering books before lifting weights.” Everyone laughed. Outwardly, I laughed too, pretending it didn’t matter. But inside, every word cut deep. I didn’t want to admit it, but I carried those words with me. They fueled me. If I were going to be the joke, fine, but I promised myself I wouldn’t stay that way.
I remember hiding from my so-called alpha school friends so they wouldn’t see me in the gym. But they eventually did, and their sarcastic comments followed me around. Every time they mocked me, it stung, but I kept showing up.
I was the only guy lifting 1kg dumbbells because that was all I could manage. To others, it looked laughable, and maybe it was, but for me, even that felt heavy. I didn’t care. Whether it was 1kg or 5kg, I pushed myself to do it every single day. Out of desperation, I even started going twice a day. Once in the morning and again in the evening because someone said more training would mean faster results.
Almost a year passed, but nothing significant changed. My strength barely improved, and my body still looked the same. I noticed small bumps in a few muscle groups, like my biceps, but overall my frame was still the awkward, skinny structure I had started with. That was the reality I faced: endless effort, almost no visible return.
I never really focused on my gym diet back then. People would tell me to eat a lot, to get more protein, but I didn’t take it seriously. Nobody around me followed a “special diet” in those days; we all just ate what was cooked at home. For me, that meant regular meals and, if I pushed, maybe an extra egg or two. I had no idea about nutrition, and honestly, I didn’t even have the money to follow one.
After a year of showing up every single day, lifting whatever I could, my body still hadn’t changed much. That’s when my first mentor, an older guy at the gym, came up to me and said, “You’re serious, but you’re still too lean. Why don’t you workout with me?”
I said yes. That moment became the turning point in my transformation story.
What Helped Me Achieve My First Transformation
The first big change came when my first mentor noticed me. He saw I was serious but still too lean. He started spotting me, pushing me to lift heavier, and making sure I didn’t give up.
At first, I struggled a lot. Some even told him, “Why bother working out with him? He can’t even lift 30% of what you can.” But he looked past my weakness and chose to stick with me because of my dedication.
Since he was older and working, he’d take me to fast-food to eat chicken twice a week when he had it. At home, I pushed myself to eat more, asking my dad for extra eggs daily.
The real turning point came during the semester holidays. All I did was eat, sleep, and train. No supplements, no shortcuts – just consistency.
And then, almost without noticing, it happened. By the time the new semester began, my body had changed. On the first day of third year, people who hadn’t seen me for a while were shocked. That’s when I realised my appearance was finally different.
I was naturally pulled into the backbenchers group in college, and I kept pushing harder in the gym, slowly growing my body.
Over time, with a better shape, I started looking different in shirts. My traps popped out, and formals fit me in a way they never had before.
But even as my body changed, deep inside I was still that insecure kid. My physique grew faster than my mind could adapt. I still feared talking to people, still felt very insecure. Yet, this was the first step. I needed proof that change was possible.
Act III: The Fall – The Injury That Took Everything
While I was thrilled with my first transformation, which made me well-known in college and my local area, I eventually hit a wall. I entered a stage of body dysmorphia, obsessing over abs that wouldn’t appear, despite doing hundreds of crunches daily. My major muscles had stopped growing because I was following the same random routine, stuck on a plateau.
The trainers in the gym offered only vague answers: “Eat 10 egg whites,” “Just eat more protein,” or “Buy Whey.” I didn’t yet understand that a low body fat percentage reveals abs, not endless crunches. This lack of proper knowledge was my first major roadblock.
The First Whisper of a Problem: Neck Pain
I continued training with the same bro-split routine. A year after college, a sharp pain started in my right hand, near the pinky finger. It flared up during front raises and bicep curls anywhere my wrist was involved. I rested for two weeks, but the moment I returned to the gym, the pain came back. It even hurt while playing guitar, a passion I was pursuing on the side, and while using my PC mouse.
So, I made a hard decision: I gave a long pause to the gym. My guitar ended up on a shelf.
Days, months, and then years passed. The pain didn’t go away; in fact, it got worse. A physical therapist told me everything was fine. But I was losing my gains and my confidence.
Two years after college, a mild neck pain began, radiating down into my right trapezius muscle. Soon, I couldn’t sit in front of a computer for long as the pain extended all the way to my palm.
A consultation at a major multispecialty hospital and a spinal scan revealed a minor, beginning stage of cervical spondylosis. The doctor said it was “nothing problematic” and prescribed medication and ultrasound therapy on my hand, not realizing the pain was caused by a nerve pinch in my neck.
A year later, the neck pain was debilitating. I couldn’t sit for even 30 minutes. I tried a different physical therapist, but a week of electric stimulation therapy only aggravated the pain.
I continued with the same pain focusing on career for the next few years.
The Roar of a Crisis: Chronic Back Pain
Five years after college, I went on a mountain hike to the Mt. Kanchenjunga base camp. After five continuous days of trekking, a mild back pain set in. Within a few months, it escalated into a serious chronic issue. I could no longer sit comfortably or even bend over to pick things up.
That was the darkest period of my life. I remember crying at night from the pain, unable to go to the gym. It was a time when I had money, but my health was gone.
I saw multiple doctors, and their message was the same: “You shouldn’t lift heavy weights ever again.” Their treatment didn’t work. One doctor at a hospital for alternative medicine told me that after 10 days of therapy, my only option was surgery.
I returned home disappointed. It was always my decision never to let a knife touch my body; I knew surgery would change my body’s originality forever. Soon, I couldn’t even climb the stairs. I was clueless and in the dark at a young age, when I should have been enjoying life.
Two months later, I found a YouTube video of a Varma practitioner fixing a man’s back pain by directly adjusting his spine. This gave me a spark of hope. I sought him out, and he was the only person who told me my condition was fixable, but required time and consistency. He promised me that after the treatment, I could go back to the gym.
It was a 45-day treatment, and I never missed a single day. At the end of it, the pain was still there, but he explained it wasn’t an instant fix. He prescribed six months of complete bed rest, hot water therapy, and a nutritious diet of eggs, sticky vegetables like lady’s finger, and meat. No lifting, no driving.
All I wanted was to get back to the gym. So, I decided to do whatever he asked. After six months, 70% of the pain was gone, but traces remained. I still couldn’t bend freely. Another local therapist with a special oil helped me get to 90% recovery, but the final traces of pain made every move a cautious one.
The Unlikely Spark: Back to the Gym After Six Years
A friend who was like a brother to me was with me through all my treatments. He started his own gym journey during that time, opting to use PEDs for his first transformation and seeing massive changes.
He gave me the spark I needed. “Why are you staying dormant and worried at home? Come to the gym.”
I had to start from scratch, barely able to lift an empty barbell, while he was already strong and in a bulking phase. With extreme caution, I started training consistently. The gym owner simply told me to eat well to increase my weight.
I followed his advice and the eating patterns of others in the gym wheat bread, peanut butter, eggs, chicken along with my homemade food. I dove headfirst into a bulking phase. My only goal was to get big again. In four months, my weight increased from 76kg (167 lbs) to 95kg (209 lbs). At the time, I didn’t know about “dirty” vs “lean” bulking; I just knew I was regaining the size I had lost.
Act IV: The Rebirth – Forging the ICON Physique
Once I reached 95kg, I returned to the gym owner. I had done what he asked. Now, I wanted to get shredded. He gave me a new routine: a three-day superset split, repeated twice a week, paired with a generic fat-loss diet that was popular in the gym.
My calories weren’t tracked, and the plan wasn’t designed for my body, but it was a plan, and I was desperate. My focus was absolute. I followed the diet religiously, never cheating. I spent an hour on seven different ab exercises every day and another hour on the main workout. I added long walks in the morning and at night to burn more fat. My life became a cycle: walk, train, eat, sleep, repeat.
The frustration, however, was immense. I saw others who started with me transforming at lightning speed, not yet realizing the role PEDs played. I just put my head down and blindly followed the routine, month after month.
The first few months were a grind with little visual change. My weight and strength dropped. But in the third month, something shifted. My body fat finally started to fall. I went through my first “zero-carb” week and remember the sheer joy of the cheat meal that followed a key lesson in the psychological reality of getting lean.
I didn’t see a single ab for five long months. Doubt was creeping in. But as I entered the sixth month, hope returned. My abs began to emerge, and my entire body started to harden and sharpen. After a final zero-carb push, I looked in the mirror and saw the physique I had held as a “blind dream” for over a decade. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
My final weight settled at a shredded 69kg, and my hip size dropped from 34 to 28 inches.
Lessons I Learned From My First ICON Transformation
There are the lessons I learnt during my first ICON transformation, and prevented during the future.
These were the major mistakes I made, learnt and started avoiding during future transformations.
My Story is My Proof – And This is My Promise to You
The journey you just read wasn’t easy, but it taught me a powerful truth: transformation is a science, and the results are predictable if you follow the right blueprint. I am not a genetic freak. I am not a privileged athlete. I am the result of relentless consistency and the application of knowledge learned through a decade of trial, error, and triumph.
My transformations are my proof that this works. My mission with Natfit Pro is to give you the blueprint to cut through the noise and show you the honest, science-backed path.
The story isn’t over. Right now, I am in the middle of my next transformation, cutting down from a 103kg bulk to achieve my all-time best condition. I will be documenting and adding the final chapter here soon. Your own story is waiting to be written.