15 Year Bodyweight Comparison
Brad Pilon and I were discussing all the different sizes/bodyweights we have been at over the past 10-15 years…so I decided to create a quick graph to show you how much I’ve weighed and how it’s changed over the past 15 years.
My bodyweight has been all over the place in the past 15 years
In 1994 I started at university at approximately 180lbs, I’d already been weight training for about 3 years at this point (little did I know I was already closing in on my golden AI ratio)…it’s kind of depressing/embarrassing to look back and realize I was almost at my best proportioned body 15 years ago, only to mess it up for the better part of the next 14 years, and to finally return back to it this past year.
During university I started experimenting with steroids and my bodyweight shot up to 250lbs. At this point I was really big and blocky…I wasn’t concerned at all about carrying a higher percentage of bodyfat, I just really liked how big I was…I had no conception of proportions or aesthetics, all I was concerned with was being BIG.
Over the next few years I stopped using the drugs and tried to be big without them…my bodyweight slowly dropped until I hit a low of 186lbs when I was in florida. During my stay in florida I wasn’t exactly happy with my situation and I took up running! Yes running…I know I can’t believe it myself. My weight training workouts fell back drastically and I didn’t have what I would call very good proportions at all.
When I returned from Florida I started training with the powerlifting team and started to get heavy again (of course in my head I was telling myself this was all muscle mass…but it was mostly fat)…I went back up to abou 225-230lbs for about a year…during this time my joints and muscles always hurt…I needed regular Active Release Therapy just to make it through each week of powerlifting workouts. I knew this wasn’t a sustainable way of living/training so I ditched it.
This was right around the time Brad Pilon and I started researching body proportions and came up with the Adonis Index workout system. I started testing the system out in 2007 and have been working out on it ever since.
A few weeks ago I did a 5 day fasting experiment when my bodyweight dropped all the way to 176lbs while maintaining a golden AI ratio of 1.6.
Today I currently maintain around 181lbs or so.
So there you have it 15 years later and I’m right back to where I started at 180lbs. And this is easily the best I have looked throughout all of that time, I’ve got better proportions and less bodyfat now than at any point throughout the past 15 years.
Better late than never!
John
20 Responses to “15 Year Bodyweight Comparison”
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March 15th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Hey John, do you have any pictures of yourself while you were 250 lbs? I can’t imagine you that big. You should make a ‘before and after’ with your powerlifting style build and your build today…would be a good visual example of how bigger is not always better.
I had a very similar experience, but with not as extreme a fluctuation. I first started training standard bodybuilder style (doing 3 heavy sets of 8-12 for each exercise). When I started training 5x per week, I shot up to a weight of 175 lbs. My goal was actually 180 lbs….but seeing as I’m 5’6″ this was not a healthy goal.
Because of my bodybuilder style workouts I was getting injured all the time, especially during MMA training. Also I was surprised that it didn’t really look that good aesthetically.
I started training more for functional athleticism and my weight came down to 160 lbs. I felt FAR better, and got injured far less often. And I was surprised that it actually looked better too, because I was much leaner.
Over the past year I have gradually gained weight and am around 170 again. But I feel much healthier with it this time around. Because I built the bulk in high repetition workouts (30 to 40 per set total) it doesn’t cause me to get injured…and these workouts also keep me at a low body fat percentage. But I think that this is the maximum amount of bulk my frame can carry, so I’ve gotten rid of the temptation to just perpetually gain more and more.
How to did women respond to you at 250 lbs vs. your current 176 lbs? I definitely noticed a difference gaining or losing 10 lbs myself, so it must have been a huge difference going down 80 lbs.
Dan Rose
March 15th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Unfortunately I don’t. It would have been interesting to see pics at those various sizes side by side. Even when I hit the mid 180s’ in florida I didn’t look as good or as muscular as I do now.
JB
March 15th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Man, that’s crazy. I couldn’t imagine such a wild swing in weight.
I guess I’m lucky that while I got into working out relatively late (early 20′s, I’m 28 now) compared to how long I’ve been athletic (always playing organized sports since I was 6), I’ve never been concerned with being “big.”
Thanks to the internet and fantastic blogs like yours, I’ve managed to not fall into the typical weight lifting trap of being big just for the sake of bigness. Thanks for the great info, and keep it coming!
March 15th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Hey JB,
Interesting post..I had a kinda similar experience when I first started working about 10 yrs ago. I weighed around 170-175lbs.
I was a bit on the skinny side for my height of 6′-2″ and wanted to add some muscle size.. I always thought getting up to 200lbs would be ideal weight I needed to be to get the look I wanted.. I got to 200lbs last year and it was not what I thought I would look like…I was not fat but I was not more muscular and ripped as I thought I should be. Right now I am just focusing on getting to my AI score and hopefully I will like the result. I am already down to about 190-193 lbs. I have to get out of the mentality that dropping weight will make me look to skinny, lol, and also by not eating as much that I am goung to loose what ever muscle I have…I guess it’s something I have been made to believe all these years by the fitness industry and to be truthful I actually prefer eating less, which is how I ate as a teenager.. What do you think the average weight of a 6′-2″ guy weigh when he reaches is AI score…
Thanks for the work you have been doing..
Peace & blessings
March 15th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
so the point would be that we are born perfect and our shapes are in nice but not perfect ration and instead of adding fat we just need to add 10-12 pounds of muscles and we done
March 15th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Whats funny to me is that a lot of guys in the gym are “using help” trying to get that “lean look” and they think steriods can do that for them. I think they are sucessful for putting on size but they still all look big and bulky looking. I sometimes even wonder if they can achieve the lean and good proportion look with the “help” of these drugs. I wonder if they can even lose weight while using steriods.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I think most people would be shocked at how lean and muscular they look if they actually lost bodyfat.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Kidafi,
Depends on your somatotype to some degree…but at your height you’d probably hit your golden AI around 190-195ish…give or take 5lbs
That is my best guess without seeing you in person.
JB
March 15th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Bart,
That is pretty much what I think is really going on. I’d say that most guys will get 90% of the way to their genetic potential for muscle mass within the first 3-4 years of training…and the rest of the time is just refining and maybe working on specific muscle groups.
Most guys just don’t want to accept this and get stuck in a bulking cycle for decades like I did.
JB
March 15th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
190-195 for a golden a.i. on a 6’2″ guy? Damn. That’s my height, and I’m 166-171. 20 pounds on me would be impossible. My shoulders are only 44.5″, but my waist is 26 inches, so, I’m technically already there, I’m just not all that imposing.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
John how did your strength compare now as to when you were
250………….
235………….
Thanks
March 15th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Alex,
We’re working on correction factors for ecto and endomorphs.
In either case it shouldn’t be that big of a deal because we’re dealing with a ratio…so as long as you’re at the 1.6 ratio you should have a good look and taper. Some guys will be leaner and some guys with be thicker…but the ratio is what matters most for the look.
JB
March 15th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Al,
Strongest when I was 250, but that was also due to some chemical enhancement…I’d say when I was 230 I would have been about 70% of the strength I had when I was 250
JB
March 16th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Wow…250lbs to 176lbs, that’s such a huge shift in weight, I’m sure you are probably faster and more agile. I’ve come from 215lbs & I’m at 174lbs now, yesterday my cousin I hadn’t seen in months said I “look skinny”, I looked at an old picture & my face is leaner and I have a more angular/muscular frame. I don’t think I wanna have the old body I had. The way its looking, I’m gonna have to weigh btwn 165-170lbs to have those abs poppin!!! But all in all congrats on that weight loss dude!!
March 16th, 2010 at 2:19 am
I wish I never tried to bulk up….worst diet/training thing I’ve ever done.
How has ur life changed since hitting 1.6 John?
March 16th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Do you mean you did a 5 day fast? If so how tough was that? That sounds nuts.
March 16th, 2010 at 6:43 am
I was wondering about the 5 day fast too. Do you mean you did 120hrs fast? Were there any obvious visual changes like your muscle definition being much sharper? And do you have before the fast and after the fast pics?
March 18th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Thank you all!
Very interesting thoughts and experiences, too.
I always wanted to be muscular with 5 feet 10″, but never yet have reached my goal weight of 100 kg ( 220 pounds ).
I was rather fatty already at 211 lbs.
Now, down at 191,6 lbs, I can finally see my 6-pack from the mirror for the first time in my life!
What made the difference? I control my abs and obliques as often as I can (remember)! Without this new training of mine I can at last see any progress.
How did I come to this? The late Charles Atlas sold muscle training courses of this principle. He had developed a He-man body
mainly by tensing his muscles. It is probably called isometric training(?).
For those, who think, that when we grow older, I would like to tell my own age, 72 years. I am training with free weights and cables etc. weekly, sometimes daily. I never felt better and healthier and happier in my life!
I started lately to do 20 rep sets of squats and deadlifts again to increase in muscularity. It really works!
It is nice to be strong when growing old!
Just do it!
Aimo, a body builder for life.
March 18th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
When I was playing Rugby 40 years ago, I was 200 lbs. At that weight I could do anything.
I got sick with appendicitis and was away from training for 9 weeks putting on 20 lb so an ex army PTI worked me to death and got me down to 175 lb. Unfortunately I was so weak I could do nothing. so I went back to my normal diet and training and within 3 weeks had drifted up to 195 lbs.
At this weight everything was fine as I do Karate as well but over the last 7 years my weight has gone back up to 260 lb.
I will be 66 come June and I.m trying to get bak to around 200 lb where I started out, I have been upping the training for muscle retention and eating less to loose fat and I lost 15lb in the last 6 weeks.
I’m going to fast for one day a week from now to see if it will speed up the process.
Will let you know the results
March 19th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Phil,
Great stuff, please keep us posted.
JB