#1 - Who Am I, What Am I Doing & Why?

This is probably the first question people will ask, and although I'm more focused on the results rather than the why, it's only fair to briefly touch on this question before we get started.

As it says, my name is Scott Connor, a 26-year old from Columbus, Ohio. I am not a licensed medical professional or a licensed trainer and/or nutritionist. I'm just a regular guy who went through a lifelong battle with various diseases, most notably, obesity, diabetes and hypertension. I decided to fix it all, go cold turkey, and do everything I could possibly do to rid myself of the constant medical bills, doctor's visits, prescriptions, pills, injections, side effects. Overall, what I now know, it was an absolutely awful quality of life.

I started to eat healthy, first by cutting out processed foods, adding in all fruits and vegetables to my diet and focusing on lean proteins and a wide variety of carbohydrates. I basically created my own eating plan that started with counting calories in and calories burned, but gradually changed to eating what I knew was healthy, tasty and satisfying at the same time.

The first part, the diet (as described above), can't work by itself however. Exercise is a huge part, in-fact, it's the most crucial in any sustained lifestyle. I went from someone who dreaded walking up the stairs to go to bed to someone that couldn't get enough physical activity. I started slowly, on a stationary bike, walking on a treadmill and doing some light weight lifting. It expanded to a wider variety of cardio machines (elliptical, stair-climber, etc..) and eventually into a majority of the focus turned to running. And yes, running became a way of life. From someone who struggled to run a mile in 20 minutes, I was doing five miles a day in fewer than 50. Some days, running a half-marathon wasn't uncommon. As I told most people, I usually stopped running because I was bored, not tired.

Keep in mind, this process started in January of 2009, after yet another physical with my primary physician where he warned be of my out of control diabetes and the continuing issues it was causing with my blood pressure, of course, all due to my weight and lack of physical activity. It became monotonous each and every visit. I would shrug it off, telling him that I knew I had to change and that maybe this time would be it. However, for years, the motivation was never there.

Something sparked in me that day. I decided to make a change. For the life of me, I can't remember exactly what it was, probably because it was one of dozens of times I had "taken a stand" against my diseases and vowed to change, only to see it die out in a day or two and the results come back the same after every visit. This time, it stuck. I kept pushing. Day after day. Sticking to the diet. Slowly building up my physical activity. I'm not sure at what point I realized it was working, but I'll tell you, once you notice a change in how you look and how you feel, it's addicting. You want to keep going. There isn't anything like it. It's unlike any high you can get from a drug and definitely better than anything you can get from food. It's what kept me pushing. All the way, full throttle, until April of 2010. Fifteen months after starting. I reached my goal weight of 140 lbs. There were no traces of diabetes in my system as my A1C levels were hovering around 5. My blood pressure was actually low for my age, and all of my other "physical numbers" were in the normal range, most of them on the very low end. Most importantly, I ran the equivalent of a half marathon, without stopping, in just over 2 hours and 30 minutes. I felt amazing. I could do anything. I was on top of the world.

However, that high you get isn't constant. Life still gets in the way. There are other worries, concerns, distractions, and for a little while there, my focus went away from my goals and I got off track a bit. I was still able to maintain everything, but I needed a new focus, and after seeing the film "30 Days Raw" and hearing about the story of Paul James, I decided this would be it.

With a vacation planned, it was the perfect time to get started, and I knew given the setting, it would be very easy to undertake. That set the stages for my 72-hour body shock experiment, and I have to say, I'm not even sure what I have gotten myself into! With that said, I want to show people how quickly you can shock your body, throw away months of hard work in a very short amount of time, and then get it all back in only three weeks. Along the way, I will document the highs, lows, physical and mental changes, body responses, feelings and the sheer before and after statistics. Enjoy!