Brad Kelly writes a weekly article for Quick Muscle Building Tips every Monday.  He is the perfect example of a guy who was able to over come many hardships and genetics to finally get the body he really wanted..

See his story here.

I have always believed everything in life happens for a reason, you may not know it now, but the hardship you are battling will have clear significance farther down the road. And every great journey or story has its ups and its downs, and my story is no different.

I grew up and still live in Panama City, Florida, a healthy kid, until the age of 12. I remember it like it was yesterday, laying in my bunk bed and waking up abruptly in the night vomiting. Little did I know what seemed like a small inconvenience at the time was something that would dictate my life for many years. After being sick for almost 2 years the doctors agreed my problem may be extreme allergies constantly aggravating my stomach so I began taking two allergy shots a week for 4 years. I spent weeks in hospitals, missed a whole year of highschool in a hospital homebound program and met many different specialists all over the country.

After being sick for many years in 2006 I had a major surgery called Nissen Funcdoplication at Emory Hospital in Atlanta, GA. The surgery alone never completely solved my sickness but it did help. Here is a picture of me directly after my surgery at 120lbs .

And this is where it all begins to turn around, in 11th grade I was accidently put into weightlifting as a “scheduling mistake” but as a surprise to me I enjoyed it. at 120lbs and being sick for so long I will never forget the first time I benched and could barely do over 100lbs. However I fell in love with weightlifting and had many great memories, I continued workout out every day at school and even got a second weightlifting class ( One at 1st period and one at 6Th) . With the help of my weightlifting coach , Coach Pratt by the time I graduated after only training under 2 years I was 190lbs and had tripled my bench from 100 to 300lbs.

I continued working out for strength and even wanted to do power lifting, after working out alone off and on after highschool; I had a 345 bench and 440 squat at 190lbs bodyweight.

Then it hit me, the greatest gift I ever received in my own life was a healthy body, so I wanted to be able to give that to others. This is where I chose my career of being a personal trainer. I then passed all of my own tests through the National Academy Of Sports Medicine and started my career.

9 months ago I took another step forward in helping others by beginning natural bodybuilding, I wanted to show people around the world what you can achieve in as little as a year of serious training.

9 months later I felt was enough, I had shed 20 plus pounds of body fat, lost 6 inches of my waist, and added pounds of lean muscle. I did this with no diet at all, but by purely training both smarter and harder.