My fitness kick - Why, When, and How - Part 1

This is something I've been meaning to address for a bit actually and had yet to tackle.

As with any tale its always best to start from the beginning right?
Well this one starts as many big changes for the better do, with an unexpected change for the worse.

It was January of 2011 and I had been feeling quite fatigued and almost constantly tired for a very long time.
A drastic change in my personal life gave me the kick I needed to go ahead and see a doctor finally.
A month or two of various tests and it turns out I have a rare type of anemia and also an iron deficiency caused by said anemia.

Now what does this mean in terms of symptoms?
Fatigue and weak immune system.

At first this news left me feeling a bit powerless and only worsened my state.
Its like having a doctor tell me what I felt was real made it excusable to me.
They like any good drug dealer of course wanted to put me on meds.
If you know me you know I don't really like to fuck with dumping drugs and chemicals into my body.
I passed on the meds and wallowed in self pity for a couple months.
Like I said during this time there were some drastic changes in my personal life and I was feeling overall quite depressed.

Now I'd like to say that what happened next was fast and an epiphany of some sort but in truth it wasn't.
One day I just decided I was sick of feeling the way I did and I figured I'd try to fix everything with a bit of exercise and a diet that would help promote better blood health.
I started running in April and added in some P90X stuff and basic exercises as well (push ups, sit ups, stuff like that).
Much to my surprise I started to feel GREAT.
What really made me hooked more than my body feeling physically better was the emotional and mental benefits.

Now I've heard many folks talk about exercise as a cure for depression but I was rather skeptical.
Well I was now most definitely a fucking believer. I couldn't believe the stress relief and the just general happiness this brought me. Its indescribable really.
I became hooked. It became such a release and so empowering in every way. Like I had broken self imposed chains of lethargy and self loathing.
Now I'd like to say it was easy to start but it wasn't. Habits are hard to form especially physically demanding ones.
Luckily I caught the addiction quickly and I simply HAD to run 5 days a week or more.
During this time I had many ups and downs. Periods where shin splints and brutal knee pain really threatened to slow down or halt my progress.
But I persisted through and used all the resources at my disposal to learn and prevent these problems.

Now after awhile of doing this some unplanned side effects did occur. My body really began to change.
My waist went down from 32-34" to 28-30".
My weight dropped from 168 lbs down to 150 lbs.
I began to look BETTER than I ever had physically.

Here is a pics from that time.

This was June of 2011.
Where I went from this point will be covered in Part 2.