Why... oh why, I do this.

 *Skip to Paragraph (5) to see why I favor Martin Berkhan's approach and how it fits perfectly with my life.

(1) Let's cut to the chase, growing up I was the little fat boy. By the time I hit high school, I was the skinny guy. I remember once a man said to me, "Your tough but not big enough." I liked that quote, at the same time I resented it. I was skinny but always carried a slight gut, always bothered me. It was just a matter of insecurity with my body.

(2) Lifting weights always intrigued me, I never understood why I got nowhere with it as far as results. I worked out but I never could get the results I wanted, ever. I remember seeing others who had the results I wanted and assumed, "Well they are just genetically more advanced than me." Sadly, I didn't know that nutrition had such a huge part to play. I give you this preface because look, I loooovveeeee food. I can just eat so much, yet I was fat and small in stature. No wonder why the gut was always there. No one ever educated me. I never educated myself. But once you do, it's a whole world of confusion when stepping into dieting/weight-training.

My Transformation

(3) When I returned from a two-year mission serving for my church, I weighed 165 lbs. This weight fluctuated but for the most part was gained in my last 6 month stay in a suburban area. I had many great families I visited and who fed me ALOT. I'm talking, all you can eat brownies, ice cream, enchiladas, it was heaven.

Yea, I was a round boy.

I knew I was way too fat. In the beginning of my College Career, my brothers introduced me to somebody who is now a close-friend of mine, Rory Hanson. I gotta get you some pictures of his weight change. Way drastic and awesome, the man truly represents re-composition at it's best. We started to workout: 5 times a week. We alternated body-parts worked everyday, it was set, and we always had a rule of usually 4 x 10 reps of 5-8 workouts. It was grueling but I stuck with it. Additionally, we ran for like 35-45 min. Nutritionally, I just ate whole foods and only ate out on the weekends. Whole foods meaning, rice, fruits, veggies, lean meats, dairy products. Just a rounded diet. Worked great, it was easy, just working out was challenging.

(4) In due time, I became fairly skinny. I got down to 155lb over the course of 6 months. I hovered since there from May 2009 - September 2010. The belly was still there, but for once I had muscles that kicked in when we started the Ketogenic Diet. The diet before didn't match up, specifically because of low protein intakes (too put it simply) and many others factors. I shot up in strength and felt a big progression. I did a Ketogenic Diet for about 4-5 months in 2010. It was grueling too because you felt wasted (from depleting glycogen) every week but the refeeds on the weekends were like heaven in the mouth. We would just binge on Five Guys, Chillies, than end nights with huge ice-cream shakes, just boys being boys. This was a CKD diet (Cyclic Ketogenic Diet). It was great, but again, I wasn't seeing results like I wanted. I lost fat and gained mass but It was slow. Most of all was this lifestyle was very hard for me to live by; going to the gym for a hour too two hours a day I could do, but in long run I didn't want that. I did it all because I just believed at this point that "working this hard is how you get results." I ate 6 times a day, kept protein high, made everything at home. I was strict and obedient to this diet and I would go out socially with friends only Saturday nights to eat out. I will just say that doing the diet right brings results, just in the end it wasn't for me and I wanted to try something different.

(5) During the beginnings of the Keto diet, I ran into a blog called, "Lean-Gains." I read into it and didn't understand any of it, but I book-marked it because I was curious. I returned to it occasionally when I understood at this point what Martin was talking about. In short, by Christmas I studied Martin's site like a fiend and wanted to understand every nitty-gritty detail. I was just tired of being in the dark with body-building/nutrition, tired of worrying about food, just tired of not achieving the results I wanted. After treating his site like a class, I put it to the test and I immediately was converted within weeks. The rules were less constraining, I feel I could relax more and enjoy the journey of working out and dieting. My favorite thing of all was Martin's ultimate tear down of fads and untruths of diet myths and how he backed everything up with science. This was just so revealing that I became a immediate follower. (I don't worship him, just he's the man). He really educated me and helped me understand that there are fundamentals to all diets that had to be included, but simply in the end I just discovered he has a "life-style" that I like and wanted for myself.

(6) So now, I overfeed on the days I lift and I underfeed on the days I don't. My cardio has been walking and I only go to the gym 3 days a week. The days of eating are still controlled but it makes life easier to focus on specific foods on the alternate days. I know how to go to any social event and make it easy for me to choose my foods appropriately. In summary, I still eat like a fat kid but now I'm not a fat kid.

                                               Lean-Gains (Fat-loss)                                                              

    January 2011 (155lbs)

February 2011 (152lbs)

                                                    

    Weight of 147lbs (9.5% - 10% Body-Fat) I think.... (March 2011)

MySpace pic 2

MySpace pic 1

MySpace pic 3 (Cholo Face)

This is including meals of:

Whole-Wheat/Lean Burgers

Protein Fluff (working on the perfection of this)

Reese Peanut Butter Puffs

Chicken Fingers/Sweet Potatoes/Spicy Honey Mustard

Brats/Cottage Cheese/Veggies

These were some of my post-workout meals and some rest day meals. I always maintain a high protein diet, control my calories (depending on the day), and cycle carbs and fats. Lots of veggies, fruits, fiber, and dairy. I also take a daily multi-vitamin and some omega-3's. I mostly eat whole foods, I keep treats to the minimum or try too, usually a treat with every post-workout meal.

 I still have work to do to get where I want to weigh. The results thou are truly significant. I think the biggest is my strength now considering I've lost 8 pounds and do fasted training (with a BCAA's supplement)

• Bench Press - I've maintained my 185lbs x 8 (Top Set)
• Squats - 295lbs x 5 to 355 x 5 (Top Set)
• Weighted Chins - 205 x 5 to 212 x 5 (55 weight belt to 65 on weight belt)
• Dead Lifts - 285lbs x 4 to 325 x 4
• Lat Pull Downs - 150 x 5 to 190 x 5 (5x5 - starting strength principles)
• Weighted Dips - 50 x 8 to 70 x 8

Now understand, all of this had it's time and place. There is a protocol and rules to adhere to. I measured all of these meals and matched them up together. If your interested in understanding this approach in more detail, go to Leangains.com and give the creator the attention he deserves. I personally would love to thank Martin Berkhan for having great character and being so charitable to people like me by providing the information that he has compiled together. I hope to soon donate to his work because he does an excellent job of explaining proper training, dieting, and most of all helping people mentally with body-building as a whole. I've adopted this life-style to make it part of my life but not MY LIFE. Make sense? I'm doing this so I can live a well balanced life in everything I do (school, work, family) and do it the smart way, not the hard way. Sure there is more than one way to diet/weight-train but I do this because it works for me, FIND what works for you.