For over 40 years, I wrestled with two different goals on how I wanted to look. It was either muscular or lean. I could never seem to get the two to line up, and I tended to bulk up more than I leaned out. My nutritional knowledge was very limited and I wasn’t being very smart about it. It was all about getting as much of both calories and protein, didn’t really care about the other stuff.
Over the next few decades I sat in the middle of not lean enough and definitely not muscular enough. Then I learned about the Zone Diet by Barry Sears and got totally absorbed into it. By my 40th birthday, I was the leanest I had ever been. It gave me a sense of what a balanced meal was and defined what macronutrients were and their role in good nutrition. It wasn’t totally correct and the caloric intake was incredibly low. Soon I was way off course with no desire to go back. I confess, I still was looking to get big.
What I learned from the Zone diet was how to keep some balance in my meals but was still cheated way too much. I did try to increase my knowledge in nutrition and discovered a nutritional expert who I admired and read everything he wrote. His name is Dr. John Berardi, and he eventually formed a company called Precision Nutrition where he and his associates helped thousands of people with their body weight issues. I was thrilled when I learned he was offering a certification program to become a Precision Nutrition Coach, of which I happily signed up.
Moving up to the current time, I am now a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach, and up until earlier this year, was still dealing with image issues regarding my excess body fat, especially when I was supposed to be representing a healthy lifestyle. After I completed my first presentation in April to our club members of “You Can’t Out-Train A Bad Diet,” I went home and started analyzing what I currently ate and how to adapt it to achieve weight loss. The presentation was my catalyst to show it could be done and you could keep it off. I was 180 lbs at the time, and my goal was to hit 160. Most people I met would not have considered me overweight, but as I sit on the cusp between middle age and my senior years, I had to change the view on how I looked at myself. Excess body fat contributes to many health issues and it sits on you differently, mostly around the mid-section. When I was 40, I didn’t have that problem like I do today. The other issue was that my workouts had changed. They were shorter and sometimes not as frequent. I certainly didn’t have the energy to spend hours on the gym floor working out like I used to when I was in my twenties and thirties.
Today, I sit around 164 lbs though I have been down to 162. The key for me is I have managed to keep it off even though my diet isn’t perfect. I still allow myself cheat meals on occasion but can always get myself back on track by the next time I eat again. I feel that if you’re a person of routine, you can have the greatest success in bringing your weight down to whatever goal you’ve set for yourself.
With this blog, I want to present information you can use to help you lose, gain or manage your weight in safe manner and be successful at it. It will also be about your workouts and how you should be approaching them. It may not all be ground breaking but you will learn something of value and I’m happy to share it with you.
You Can't Out-Train A Bad Diet 