I’m Joseph.

Thanks for stopping by.

For a longer version of my story and to get a feel for my nutrition and training philosophies and principles, please visit my Substack here. (I’m also migrating those articles to this site, but it’ll be a minute before I get there—check out the Articles section.)

The short version is:

I’ve lived in nearly every body—fat/obese kid, lean and heavy teen, overweight and underweight young man, obese to underweight adult. Now, I’m finally a healthy, strong-ish man and plan to stay that way.

I've always loved being active, but for most of my life, I had a terrible relationship with food. Ironically, though I knew I could improve, I never thought I ate terribly. Still, I was constantly hungry, even at my heaviest, which felt like a cruel contradiction. When I did lose weight, it never lasted—usually fueled by extreme, unsustainable exercise.

From 2018 to 2019, after hitting a low point in my mental health, I decided to tackle my diet seriously for the first time. I dove into nutrition research and started applying what I learned. Through consistent effort and trial and error, I lost 130 pounds over 18 months. I did a lot of things right, but I did plenty wrong.

Then I hit a wall. I learned that most people regain their lost weight within five years, which terrified me. I kept dieting harder, but in doing so, I lost much of my hard-earned muscle and ended up injured—undereating, overtraining, and under-recovering. I was thin, weak, hurt, and mentally depleted.

Determined to fix this, I dove deeper into nutrition and exercise science. Over the next couple of years, I rebuilt my strength, maintained my fat loss, rehabbed my hip after a debilitating injury, and finally developed a healthy relationship with food.

Along the way, I realized that navigating nutrition advice is a minefield. There’s good science out there—but it’s often drowned out by loud, misinformed voices with agendas. Some advice is just plain wrong, some is unsettled science, and a lot is crafted for clicks over clarity, for views over value.

In time, I learned to separate the signal from the noise, find real experts, and focus on sustainable principles. The journey was long, but I’ve come out stronger—physically and mentally.

Now, I’m a Certified Sports Nutrition Coach with the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and also working on a master’s degree in exercise science and health promotion at Florida Atlantic University (spring ‘26).

By training and trade, I’m an English prof at a small college, and now I’m determined to help others reach their health, fitness, and body composition goals. That’s the core of the Flexitorium.