PUSHING LIMITED | The fitness influencer says an eating disorder led her to join the fitness journey

Freihofer, 27, wants to raise awareness about eating disorders because of her history of battling anorexia. He said he first became aware of the problem during his junior year of high school and got on the road to recovery during his junior year of college.

Freihofer said: “Senior year of college, it was pretty good. But yeah, six and a half good years. …

Freihofer says she clearly remembers the incident that “flipped the switch” in her head regarding her eating disorder. During winter break of his junior year, he had a serious leg injury, which meant he couldn’t stick to his regular workout routine.

“But I was like, ‘I still need to practice,'” he said. “I can’t exercise, or I’ll get fat. You know, I’ll get fat, yada yada. So I’m going to put on weight and stuff.”

Since this coincided with the holiday season, Freihofer said he was surrounded by food and desserts at family gatherings.

“And now with the usual way of eating disorders, well, I’m smearing my face with brownies and everything, and I’m trying to get rid of it,” she said. But when you realize that I can’t run 8 miles every day, I don’t burn nearly as many calories.

After returning to ROTC, Freihofer recalled another contributor to his muscle gains.

“I was like, ‘Man, I’ve been eating like crazy,'” he said. “I was trying to exercise, but I was like, ‘I know I haven’t burned nearly as many calories as I used to.’ But I haven’t gained weight, and my arms seem to look bigger, which is what I want.’ I was like, ‘Hey, maybe there’s something to this.’ Like, eat more and I’ll put on the weight I want. And that was a minor point of comment. It is clear that it probably took another six months to a year to fully uncover the psychological mechanisms of eating disorders and other things.

When he first came to terms with his death, Freihofer turned to social media, looking for someone who had gone through something similar.

“I remember just going to YouTube; it was back in the early days of YouTube workouts and stuff,” he said. “And I’d be trying to look up, like, skinny to strong, or skinny to big, of you know, body modification, that kind of thing, but I was trying to find someone who had what I had, an eating disorder, but I don’t think I came to terms with what it was. until I finished it. But I was trying to find someone who has it, and I didn’t find anything.”

Freihofer says that the difficulty of finding an example to make him feel that change is possible is what prompted him to focus on eating disorders in his work.

“A year and a half after I started making videos, I was like, ‘Okay, I want to start talking about this stuff,’ because I’ve never had that person, maybe will reach one person, maybe. They can type the same things I did, and at least see, ‘Hey, it’s possible,'” he said what is great about it, but at least there is hope that someone someone else is going through the same thing. So that’s the point of sharing that story.”

Raised in Kentucky, Freihofer earned a degree in biology from Northern Kentucky University before joining the Army. After stints at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and Fort Stewart in Georgia, he retired from the military in 2021 and moved to Manhattan, where he has lived for the past three years.

After building a respectable following while in the military, Freihofer decided to try to make social media his full-time job.

“I was like, ‘If I’m going to try to do it, it has to be here now,'” he said. “I can’t wait a year and try, you know, because the way things are going, it’s up and down. So I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll try and see, give myself three months.’ , I saw if I could pay the bills with it,’ and I’ve been traveling with it for the past three years.

At this point Freihofer estimates he’s made somewhere around 15,000 videos.

“I learn a lot about myself in life, just by trying different things and trying to limit each one,” he said.

That thought led Freihofer to set himself the goal of beating David Goggins’ record this year. Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL and ultramarathon runner, set the first Guinness world record in 2013 for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours, completing 4,030 reps.

Freihofer said he was looking for a “full-body, mind-blowing thrill” when he watched the footage of Truett Hanes breaking Goggins’ record three years ago.

“I needed something to put a lot of my energy and time into and you know, emotional, physical energy,” Freihofer said. I just needed some kind of goal.

He said that one thing that made the challenge fun was that he did not know how it would go.

“I was like, ‘I know I’m good at powerlifting, but I don’t know if I’m going to be good at this or not,'” Freihofer said. “’Like, I might as well breastfeed. I don’t know.’ That was kind of… the good part, which means I’ll have to try harder to practice for it. ”

Every time he finishes drawing, Freihofer pledges to donate $1 to two charities: The Grunt Style Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping veterans in need, and The National Alliance for Eating Disorders, a non-profit organization that provides education, resources and support to individuals. having eating disorders.

Freihofer live streamed his first attempt on January 13 at The Foundation Sports Training Facility in Manhattan, finishing with a 3034 draw before being unable to continue due to a hand injury.

“That’s where I came so close, because I still had six hours to go, but I ended up getting that bicep, and it took two months to heal,” he said. . I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to do it again. This – it sucked.’ …

His second attempt was announced on June 29 from Dallas, Texas, this time reaching 3,161 pull-ups. Freihofer said his speed and preparation improved significantly in the second round.

“Secondly, everything was better,” he said. “I think between the two it was $6,000 raised for charities.”

Freihofer said Goggins also struggled before reaching his record.

“It took him three times to get that 4,000, and the first two times – I think the first time he got 1,000 and ended up having to give up, and the second time he got, like , 2,500 and he had to quit,” said Freihofer. “I’m not better than him, especially at the moment, but as we judge the times, my first two tests smoke his first two tests, it’s good, because it means I’m on my way.”

Between the mental stress and the physical punishment of the challenge, Freihofer is in no rush to try again.

Freihofer said with a laugh, “I hate to attract.” “They are breastfeeding. They are stupid. However, I didn’t really care about them before. Criticize them now, because I have done many of them. If you’re the night before the 24-hour day, you’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ But you have to do it. ”

However, the fact that Goggins did not reach his record until his third attempt prompted Freihofer to consider a third attempt.

Freihofer said: “It would be nice to get it a third time, he didn’t get it a third time. “And I feel like it’s a good story about it… you fail in front of millions of people, you fail with in front of millions of people again, and you finally got it. There’s a cool little lesson in that about not giving up and perseverance. So you can try to do that again a third time. We will see.”

Freihofer is about to leave Manhattan for Texas, continuing his career as a fitness producer.