My name is Peter Goens and I am twenty-four-years-old. I currently reside in Fairhope on the Eastern Shore of Alabama. I run an automotive repair and towing facility which is owned by my father. When I was in the first grade I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, which was kind of shocking being as I was not an obese child by any means. The high blood pressure was discovered a little too late though. My left kidney took some damage and was abnormally small. I went "under the knife" so to speak around a year after being diagnosed. They rerouted some tubes, but I still had to be on blood pressure medicine for the rest of my life. Well almost...  🙂So life went on. I got bigger and I got taller. Around the seventh grade I started looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Doctors said it was a fat pocket and I had bad posture. After a year of having chronic back pain a doctor recommended an orthopedic specialist in Mobile, AL. He diagnosed me with Scheuermann’s kyphosis. It was too far along to consider braces and other treatments. So I underwent surgery, Harrington rod placement to be exact. After eight hours I woke up with a couple of missing ribs (used for fusing the spine), two 18'' steel rods bolted to each side of my spine and years of nerve damage ahead of me. However, there was a catch. Before the surgery I was nearly 6'0'' tall. Eight hours later I was 6'4'' tall. My eight grade year in middle school I was a 6'4'' 255lb tight-end and defensive end.My father convinced me that it was unsafe to play football in high school and had me to believe that I would not get much of a college career due to the rods in my back. I knew deep down he was right. I joined the Navy JROTC. I put four years in and after graduation I got shot down by every branch of the US military due to assumption of risk. After graduation I really did nothing worth talking about. In many ways I became a couch-potato. Four years ago, I moved to the Eastern Shore to start working with my father. When I moved over here I was just at 335 lbs. Then around November 2009 I went in to work one morning and told the assistant manager, "Tomorrow I am changing my lifestyle. No more eating garbage and I am joining a gym dammit!" It took a lot of work! I was out of shape and my blood pressure was higher than ever! Hell my cholesterol and triglycerides were out of control. However, I could run like Forest Gump and I put it to great use.Now... 6'6'' 243 lbs and still working hard!Carb-Nite helped me get down from 260 lbs after hitting a plateau. That is why I am here. To gain more knowledge and be inspired to push myself even harder. Glad to be here people! Sincerely,Peter GoensP.S. My blood pressure is great and I have not been on any medicine going on three years.