You know that phase of life where days start to blur together? Where screens and fast food become the closest thing to a routine? Where sleep doesn’t start until 3 or 4 in the morning, and waking up before 10 feels impossible? When everything just runs on autopilot?
That’s where Roma was at 27.
He weighed 98 kg, worked from home, and mostly stayed indoors. Mornings didn’t really begin until noon. Nights were filled with video games, Netflix, beer and the kind of rest that doesn’t actually make you feel rested. Movement? Rare. Motivation? Even rarer. His energy was gone, his spirit felt flat, his mind was foggy.
| “I was lazy, stuck, low energy all the time. Weak body, weak spirit, weak mind.”
Roma wasn’t taking selfies. He didn’t want to look in mirrors. Junk food, alcohol, nicotine, impulsive spending, those were the coping mechanisms. Distractions stacked on distractions. It wasn’t rock bottom. But it also wasn’t living.
Somewhere in the middle of all that noise, a quiet idea kept showing up: What if this doesn’t have to be it?
Now Roma is 30.
He weighs 70 kilos, but the number isn’t really the point. What’s different now is how he lives.
He wakes up at 6 in the morning, goes to bed by 10 at night. He trains most days, not because he has to, but because it makes him feel alive. He spends time outside: hiking, surfing, reading, moving and there’s no more beer, no late-night scrolling, no midnight fast food runs.
| “Well, basically everything changed. I’m a brand new person.
| The biggest shift? I stopped trying to escape.”
This isn’t some perfectly optimized lifestyle and there are obviously still tough days. But now he fuels his body with real food and feeds his mind with books, movement and stillness. The dopamine hits don’t come from distraction anymore, they come from progress. From climbing a hill, from the rhythm of the ocean… From showing up.
The transformation didn’t happen in a flash. There was no big moment where everything clicked. It started small.
Roma began with a paid bodyweight program just to get moving. After a few weeks, he realized he could start crafting his own workouts. He started journaling, too. Writing things down. Reps, sets, workouts, wins, slips, it all started to add up.
| “Record everything. Every workout, every rep. It helped. And working out on Impakt made it easy to keep everything tracked in one place.”
Progress was slow and messy. The first couple of months, he was still eating junk food ans still drinking. Sleep was all over the place, but slowly, the fog began to lift.
| “At first, training was like therapy for me. I know it might not be the healthiest thing, but I was turning mental pain into physical pain. Now, I don’t need that anymore. But a rock solid routine stuck. And that’s good for me.”
By the one year mark, the transformation wasn’t just physical. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, intentional living, these became part of the structure. Now, two years in, Roma says it’s not about fitness anymore. It’s about alignment. It’s about building a life that feels real.
Roma didn’t start this journey with some magical burst of motivation. He didn’t wake up one day suddenly craving broccoli and burpees. He just got tired of feeling like crap and decided to move, one small step, then another. And when things got hard (which they did, a lot), he got sneaky. He tricked himself into showing up.
One mat, one rep, one little lie at a time:
| “Trick your mind. Say, ‘I’ll just prepare a mat, nothing more.’ That takes ten seconds. ‘I’ll just put on my shoes, nothing more.’ Another ten. ‘I’ll sit on the mat and do one little stretch.’
And before you know it, you’re 20 minutes in, sweating, smiling, proud.”
That’s the thing about change, it starts with tiny negotiations. And it ends in full transformation.
“I’m lazy. I’m weak. I’m a silly creature. But if I was able to change, you 100% can do this too. Start small. Start slow. Try something new. Keep your mind open. The limits are only in your head. That’s the way to change. Good luck.”
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Roma, thank you for sharing your story so honestly. You remind us that the path forward doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be yours. And that transformation doesn’t come from hacks or pressure. It comes from persistence, self compassion and the quiet belief that life can be better.
Step by step, you will also make it so.