Hello, my name is John Arpino. I am 25 years old and live in Long Island, NY. My whole life has been an uphill battle from the beginning. When I was born I suffered from Meconium Aspersion. From the moment I was a new born until my early 20's, I fought for my life. After birth, I was quickly diagnosed with severe asthma & allergies which kept me from doing a lot of activities a normal child would be doing. I couldn’t go out and play with friends. If I tried to participate in sports, I would end up with an attack. I was allergic to a long list of foods which kept my diet very limited & a lot of healthy foods I was allergic too.
Due to my severe asthma a huge portion of my life was spent in pediatric ICU. I had to miss a lot of school and missed many holidays and family events from my long hospital stays. I was put on prednisone (steroids) at a young age for my asthma that ballooned me to close to 500 pounds. I was constantly bullied from a young age until I graduated high school. I couldn’t walk around school because of my weight so I had to be given a key to the elevator because I couldn’t walk up and down the stairs. I had to write book reports instead of participating in Gym Class. After graduating high school I allowed my weight to to stop myself from furthering my education because I couldn’t walk around a college campus or fit behind a school desk. I had to purchase a special office chair for my job to withstand a weight capacity of 500+ pounds. In 2015, after losing my grandmother, I went into a silent depression and gained the most amount of weight which almost cost me my life. After suffering a major asthma attack, I "code blued" in my house. When the EMS that arrived were not ALS certified, (they couldn’t administer EPI) I had a parametric tell me “I’m so sorry” as they wheeled me out of my house. At that moment while fighting for my life I pleaded with God to give me a second chance and I would make things right.
My life was spared so it was time to make those changes I promised. I joined a pulmonary rehab in October of that year because I was so out of shape and my asthma was so bad, I couldn’t go to a regular gym. When I gained enough confidence and lost some weight, I searched for a regular gym and that’s when I had found my personal trainer Steve. We actually went to the same high school together and he lost 100lbs himself so I knew he would be a good person to help me. We worked out 6 days a week religiously. I had lost 80+ pounds on my own, but my asthma kept me from losing more weight. Every time I’d have an asthma attack, I’d be put back on steroids which would result in a major weight gain. That’s when I made the choice to have to have Gastric Sleeve. At first my family and I were very much against the procedure, but after a lot of research and doctors visits I decided it was the only thing that could help me. In Nov of 2016, I had the procedure and I promised myself I would use it as the tool to it was made to be, not as the short cut so many people think it is. Fast forward to 2018 and I am currently down 244lbs! I work out 5-6 days a week and run a motivational instagram with over 14k followers where empower others to not only change their lives but purse their dreams.
I am currently following my dreams of my own. I always had the dream of becoming a professional wrestler; a dream of mine that I had since I was a child. It's something I promised myself I’d pursue if I ever lost the weight. Over my extensive journey I’ve encountered death more times than I’d like to admit; sometimes I think I even welcomed and waited for it. But I’ve learned that nothing is impossible and it’s never too late. Most importantly hard work leads to success! Nothing is given to us. I know that if I had someone like myself to look up to, I would have started my journey sooner. I would like to be that someone to people struggling who think it’s too late and have already or almost given up.
