By Brandon R., staff writer
Losing weight is difficult for a lot of people, however, junior Gedi B, with the right motivation and sense of determination, has defied all odds and lost over 40 pounds in less than a year.
Last year, during his first in-person year at Galileo, Gedi joined the Galileo soccer team for personal reasons. He said, “Playing soccer helped me feel connected to his roots and closer to my [dad].” But while playing goalie for the Lions, Geidi encountered people who made fun of him. He said, “The challenges I faced throughout playing soccer was my weight. When I played this sport I would be made fun of because of how big I was.”
Trying to play through this, he decided that enough was enough. He set a goal for himself and looked at his diet, and decided he needed to change it for the better, taking unhealthy food off his plate. “I used to want to eat pizza and chicken teriyaki, both of my favorite foods.”
He started to go to the gym daily. Over the course of seven months, he changed his entire health lifestyle, going to the gym daily for hours at a time, in addition to his better eating habits; cutting all the junk food out of his diet, he saw major results.
With his new-found physique, Gedi decided to join a different sport, one he realized he was really good at. He said, “I started on March 12th when football was introduced to me, and there was a combine that was happening to see the stats of the players. I tried It out and with my weight, I had an amazing speed and I gave myself more motivation to keep going. I hit the gym, ate [better], and gave conditioning a try.”
This was a sudden change, from wanting to lose weight to continue playing soccer to now, football. When asked why he said, “In football, you can talk to your teammates and be honest with [them]. I wanted a family and the football team was all about that and in football they believe in you, they don’t put you down.”
Even after losing that much weight to play football, he faced challenges that affected his health, both physical and mental. At the beginning of the season he had a swollen ankle that bothered him, causing him to run slow. During the Galileo versus Washington match in September, Gedi suffered an asthma attack in the sidelines that had him rushed to the hospital, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from playing the sport he now loved. He made the choice of continuing to play. Geidi played in the season finale for the football team, in which they blew out the Burton Pumas (32-0).
Now, in order to prepare for the football season his senior year, Geidi joined the wrestling team because he believes it’ll help him with endurance and to build muscle. He finished the season off with no further injuries, and will continue on with his same goal, to get stronger, and slim down even more.
