That quest became an obsession: “How can I push myself to these extreme points, and then do it again and again and become better than last time?” He followed unsafe protocols shared by bodybuilding gurus to make his muscles pop, dangerously dehydrating his body ahead of competitions. He ate six to 10 times a day, restricting his diet to foods considered “clean” by the community at the time: sweet potato, brown rice, broccoli and boiled chicken breast. He skipped his own birthday for years to avoid eating off-plan and took scales to Christmas dinner to weigh out his turkey. “There were a lot of dysmorphic associations around food,” he says.