A Fitness Journey

• (My personal exercise routine and diet is at the bottom if you want that without reading my entire story)

Once upon a time I was really into my fitness. Like, working out and eating took top priority. All I wanted to do was take some pre-workout, throw on a crop top and lift all the weights! This “phase” of my life lasted for about 8 years.

I was fully engulfed in the fitness industry, as was my wife, and we tried to learn as much as we possibly could about how to squeeze out just a little bit of progress every time we hit the gym. My wife has multiple college degrees around health and exercise, and went and got my NASM Personal Training certification so I could start up an online coaching business. I mean, that’s what everyone on YouTube was doing (minus actually being certified).

I should point out that I had a huge reason to learn about fitness. By the time I was 21yrs & 10mo old, I was 5″11′ and a hefty 130lbs. I was skinnier than Michael Jackson, though arguably with much better bone structure. My girlfriend at the time had a brother that had been bodybuilding for the past many years, and I saw how he could get fat (bulk) and then 3 months later he’d be ripped! He went through this cycle multiple times a year, and I thought it was pretty cool, so I wanted to do it too!

I have sort of an addictive personality, so of course I went from 6 to midnight and starting learning everything I possibly could about diet and exercise. I wanted to gain a butt ton of muscle, and my goal was to get to 170lbs and be super sexy. I started out with the basics – getting a gym membership, bought weight gainer and protein, and ate until I couldn’t move….for every meal. The first gains are the best gains, and I actually gained 20lbs in the first month!

These rapid gains didn’t last, however, and my gains eventually slowed down to a snail’s pace. I should add that I was also playing roller and ice hockey at this time, so I had trouble eating enough to support doing manual labor all day at my job, working out and also playing on two hockey teams. But I did eventually hit my goal after about the first 2 years!

Looking back on this time in my life, I realize that I knew nothing. I was taking all of the information that I read online and in magazines and creating a jumbled workout that was giving me results, it wasn’t tailored to my lifestyle or body. The only thing that really kept the results coming, even if they were coming slowly, was that I try keep the eye of the tiger. Basically, I’m like Rocky. My workouts were 5% knowledge, 5% technique, and 95% heart! Yeah that’s 105%, just goes to show how much damn heart I have!

LESSON: You can have the crappiest program, but as long as you give maximum effort, you WILL get positive results.

I was in knowledge overload at this point. I was hearing and reading so much conflicting information that I basically just started morphing my workouts into what was easiest and made me look the coolest at the gym. I kept trying some new things here and there, but I settled into a groove and stopped making progress. I wasn’t pushing myself anymore, and I was losing motivation. This is called “hitting a wall.” This is the most critical point in anybody’s life because it is so easy to get off-track and fall back into bad habits, but you CANNOT let that happen! Do you hear me?!?!?!

I’ve said this before and it has never NOT been true…these walls are paper thin! I like to think of hitting a wall like I’m a little ball of energy that needs to recharge every now and again – not unlike your electric toothbrush. You need to know that when you hot a wall, it will only be for a short period of time, and then inevitably you will supercharge again and be filled with motivation out of nowhere! This happens 100% of the time. The key is that even though you have no motivation and desire to keep exercising sometimes, you still have to go through the motions. Even if you are giving 50% effort, you still need to do it. It’s the simple act of making your body do the things that pulls you out of a slump.

In case you didn’t catch it, that was an amazing lesson!

I got into competing on stage when I met my wife about 6 years into my fitness journey. She had already competed herself, saw that I had built up a solid physique purely on luck and heart, and pushed me to connect with her coach. I was pretty excited to finally get some real coaching and get ready for my first show! That is, until I was giving my first routine. To give you an idea of what this looked like, here’s a couple parts that I can remember:

Legs:

• Back Squats – 4 sets 20 reps
• 1/4 Squats – 4 sets 8 reps
• Jump Lunges – 4 sets 24 reps total

Cardio:

• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) – 20 minutes total…30 sec all-out and 30 sec moderate pace cycles
• Do this EVERYDAY ^^

Bottom line, I hated the entire routine. It’s not that it didn’t work, because it really got me lean. But I lost a lot of size and strength, and it felt like I had just worked for 6 years to muscle only to lose half of it in 12 weeks. I went from 205lbs to 171lbs to compete in that first show. I learned a lot, like that I didn’t like lifting lighter weights for more reps, and neither did my body. However, this made me raise the bar on my potential, because I was starting to look like the guys (and some girls) in the magazines! I had never been that lean before, and it felt good! BTW, I got 3rd place in that first show.

I kept the same coach for my second show 6 weeks later, but I cheated on my routine and did some things that I liked to do too. I also ate another 200-300 calories over what I was supposed to. But I had full confidence that I knew what I was doing, and I was starting to work off of the changes that I was seeing in my body. The one thing I never slacked on was the cardio, as this makes the biggest difference between gaining and losing weight. I competed at 162lbs despite eating more and lifting heavier for fewer reps, and ended up with 1st place! I didn’t tell my coach any of this until afterwards so I knew that my plan worked..

At this point I wanted to do it on my own. That’s just how I am. If I can learn it and do it without help, I will. This is both good and bad, as I’m learning. Regardless, I went out and got my NASM Personal Training certification at this point so I could be my own coach, and one day coach others to the stage. It took about 3 months of studying before I was taking the certification test, and I needed every bit of it. I learned a lot, but like anything that you learn, I retained a mere fraction of the material. But I did pass the test!

I parleyed this momentum into my third Men’s Physique competition, and this time I would be my own coach. I did things a bit differently. Instead of giving myself 12 weeks to cut down from 193lbs, I gave myself 20. I had my weekend cheat meal religiously! It was always a pizza. I slowly pulled back on my calorie intake from the 3900 I had been eating to 2500 per day. After about a week I pulled it back to 2400 as an average, then 2600 when I felt weak or sore and 2100 on my days off when my body didn’t need the calories. This was the point where I started to work based off of feel and not what the program said.

I knew how my body worked now, how many calories I could eat and not gain or lose weight, how much I had to eat if I did extra cardio, and how much extra I needed to eat when I went a little too crazy at the gym. My body was becoming a machine, and I will tell anybody that, though my wife still rolls her eyes at me. I wasn’t starving myself, I wasn’t TOO uncomfortable, and I could still function. I was probably operating at about 75% during the last 8 weeks, which is much better than most when going into a fitness show, to be honest. It wasn’t until the final week that I felt like I was out of gas, but I was also eating about 2200 calories on a high day and 2000 on a low day.

I competed at 161lbs (photo at the top of the article) and took another 1st! I haven’t competed since then. Not because I didn’t like it, I just lost the desire to go through the motions, and it’s no longer imprtant to me the way it was before. Though I still workout 6 days a week, eat basically the same thing everyday, and have a NEED to stay healthy and super sexy. It’s a curse…

WHAT I LEARNED:

This is actually why I started writing this article, but went so deep setting it up, I thought some people might actually get something out of my entire story. That said, here’s what I learned throughout the process that can make anyone successful with their diet and exercise…

1. You need to commit to playing the long game. You will get short-term results, but you need to keep your eye on the long-term goal
2. If you want extreme results, you have to take yourself to the extreme limits
3. If you want to look like a professional athlete, you have to train like a professional athlete
4. Walls are paper thin, and you will quickly break through them
5. You have to do the things even when you don’t wan to. This is maybe THE most important part of your long-term success!
6. Effort is enough to get results, but smart effort is better
7. Listen to your body. If your joints hurt, eat a little more that day. If you feel bloated, eat a little less or do 5 extra minutes of cardio.
8. You don’t have to be as strict as people say, you just have to be extremely consistent. Follow the 80/20 rule
9. Did I mention consistency? Effort and consistency are the Holy Grail combo
10. Try different things until you create your own base plan that works for you. But change things until you find what works

There you have it. That’s my fitness journey in a nutshell. I started out being the skinniest guy I knew, worked my butt off, tried new things that did and didn’t work, learned as much as I could and gave it 100% (most of the time). Even though I have found success in fitness and health, I still didn’t used to consider myself an expert because so many people still know a lot more about fitness and the body than I do. But you know what, I do consider myself an expert now for one simple reason…I’ve simplified the process. I’ve taken all of the knowledge that I’ve come across, kept the small amount of information that was actually effective, and deleted the rest. Sometimes it’s harder to make things simple than it is to complicate the situation.

LESSON ALERT!! ^^

And just because I appreciate everyone reading this until the end (or just scrolling downward), I’m giving you my full diet and exercise routine right here!

Workouts

Saturday: Legs

• Squats – Heavy | 6 sets | 1-3 reps | each set is heavier and fewer reps
• Straight-Leg Deadlifts – Heavy | 3 sets | 6 reps
• Hamstring Push-Ups – Body weight | 3 sets | 8 reps
• Step-Ups to Platform – Lighter weight | 3 sets | 8-10 reps

Sunday: Chest, Triceps, Shoulders

• Barbell Bench Press – Heavier | 4 sets | 6,6,6,4 maybe bonus 2 rep set
• Dumbbell Pec Flye – Moderate weight | 3 sets | 8 reps
• Dumbbell Chest Press – Moderate weight | 3 sets | 8-10 reps
• Barbell Overhead Press – Light to Heavy | 4 sets | 15,8,8,4
• DB Lateral Raises – Moderate | 3 sets | 6-10 reps
• DB Front Raises – Moderate | 3 sets | 6-8 reps
• DB Overhead Tricep Extensions – Moderate | 3 sets | 8 reps

Monday: Back, Biceps, Shoulders

• Deadlifts – Heavy | 5 sets | 1-3 reps light to heavy
• Barbell Row – Heavier | 3 sets | 6-8 reps
• Pullups – Bodyweight | 3 sets | 8-12 reps
• DB Single-arm Row – Moderate | 3 sets | 6 reps
• DB Bicep Curls – Moderate | 3 sets | 6-8 reps
• DB Rear Delt Flye – Light to Moderate | 3 sets | 8-12 reps
• Barbell Upright Row – Moderate | 3 sets | 6-8 reps

Tuesday: Repeat Saturday’s leg workout

Wednesday: Repeat Sunday’s chest workout

Thursday: Repeat Monday’s back workout

HOW MUCH EASIER CAN IT GET?! I will say that I’m not trying to gain or lose weight, I’m just maintaining a healthy lifestyle at this point.

Diet:

*2400-2700 calories per day

5:30am

• Pack of fruit snacks and pre-workout shake before morning workout

8am

• Protein bar and weight gainer shake w/ 16oz of whole milk

11am

• Snack at work, usually a banana/Nutri-Grain bar/ Salsa Sun Chips

8pm

• 3 burritos with extra large tortillas, 6oz chicken, 3/4 cup of shredded cheese, yellow mustard and wing sauce

On leg days I will eat a pizza, sometimes twice a week. I will also substitute the 3 burritos with sloppy joes or tortellini at times. The key is that I ALWAYS stick to my overall calorie count, or at least very close to it. So if I know I’ll be eating a big meal one day, and will save my calories for that meal so i don’t go over my planned limit. It’s simple science.

I’m calling it a blog there. Hope this helps!

Go Big,

Jake