When I started working out I was about 16-17 years old. A buddy of mine and I both got weight sets and we worked out at each others houses in our basements. I was about 5’10 or so and 145-150lbs. I was pretty lanky, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. All I knew is that I wanted to be bigger, that’s it.

Best shape of my life at age 37

I read bodybuilding magazines to find out how to workout (the internet didn’t exist back then). After about a year of working out with weights at home I was finally ready to graduate up to going to a gym. This was an entirely new experience. There was so much more equipment and so many new exercises to try. There were also so many new people to talk to and observe. I tried every exercise I saw the bigger guys doing.

I talked to as many people as I could and tried to find out what worked best for them. I wanted to experiment with everything they had done so I could experience for myself.

This lead me to experimenting with all kinds of workout patterns and philosophies, supplements and even drugs. I wanted to experience it all.

Now 20 years later I can say I know whats its like to train with a world class powerlifting team, top level amateur bodybuilders, varsity athletes (hockey, football and rugby), and most recently fitness and figure competitors.

I know what it feels like to use steroids and bulk up to 250lbs, and I know what it’s like to come down off of those drugs and rediscover my body without drugs and find it’s natural strength and size limits.

Along the way I’ve worked at multiple sport supplement companies and had access to products and ingredients and used them at doses that nobody would dare try and could not afford (unless they were working there with me).

I’ve tried low carb diets, high protein diets, high fat diets, mega bulk up diets, you name it I’ve tried it.

I guess you could say that the past 20 years has been an ongoing experiment with my body, exercise and diet. The experiences I’ve had have led me to the creation of my current workout system for me the Adonis Index Workout and the Venus Index Workout for women.

The experiment isn’t over. At 37 years of age I’m in what I could easily say is the best shape of my life and my next order of business is to see how long I can maintain this condition.

Working out and paying attention to the way your diet affects your body isn’t a passing fad, or a phase that you go in and out of…at least not if you expect to have lasting results. This is a lifestyle, and something that has to be placed at the top of your priority list.

The point is that this is a process that never stops, and that doesn’t necessarily have a destination. It may have detours and stops along the way, but overall the look, shape and condition of your body will always be your responsibility and within your power to control if you choose to.

Your job is to decide what you want to do with your body, and then start the process that will make it happen.

John

As you move through life it seems that progress or success is associated with concept of addition and making your life bigger. When you’re young you add more friends, more social activities, more responsibilities. You go from a small school to a big school, from no job to a part time job, perhaps you add in a sport or hobby. Then you may add a relationship, and responsibility of a more important job, or maybe new credentials, licenses or certifications.

Maybe you just need a little less of what you already have

From there you might to add to your resume with more responsibility, a bigger title, a bigger family. Then it expands to more  money, two cars instead of one, bigger tv, a bigger house, more vacation time, more social events and so on.

For most of your life the concept of success and progress is quite literally tied to the idea of adding something, anything, to your life.

This concept of addition = success may fall apart on you when you consider the unique situation of diet/fitness/health and weight loss.

Many people make the mistake of assuming the path to a healthier body, a better looking body, being in better shape, improving their fitness and losing weight is the result of adding yet another piece to their life that has been missing.

The addition could be a supplement, a new workout, a new cardio routine, a new yoga routine, a new functional training program, a new kettle bell, a new bosu ball, a new magazine subscription, a new trainer, a new functional food, a new diet, another new diet, another new diet, another new diet (this wasn’t a typo…I’m just trying to capture the concept of how many diets most people try), more supplements, more functional foods, more healthy food choices…more more more.

Most people never consider the concept that what they need to get in shape is simply less of what they already have. Less food, less magazines, less diet and fitness information, less supplements, less functional foods, less workouts get caught up deciding what to do with, less diet books to read, less of all of it.

Simplifying your diet and fitness life is likely the first step that most people need to do nowadays before they can make any real progress towards getting in shape. Once you start down the path of diet and fitness ‘addition’ there is no end to the amount of things you can add (and money you can spend) without making any progress.

In direct contradiction to the rest of your life, diet and fitness progress is almost always made when you take the path of less not more.

Your job is to find the sweet spot and add only what is necessary to make progress in diet and fitness without overloading on too much of everything. In most cases you and I and everyone else has already added way more than what we need. This means your main order of business is downsizing what you consume (both food and information) to get in shape and stay there.

John

Over the past two weeks I have moved from my former dwelling to a new one, in between the two places I went on a 4 day excursion to watch the opening college football game in Syracuse and visit with a good friend of mine. When I got back into town my new place still needed to be furnished and outfitted with just about everything from the ground up.

The point is that I spent almost 2 weeks without being able to cook a meal at home. I spent the entire time eating out and on the road. This isn’t how I would recommend anyone to go about eating but when it has to happen then it just happens.

This is about what my diet and workout routine has felt like the past two weeks

The interesting thing I noticed was how short of a time it takes to develop a habit or routine. When I finally got my new place set up I found it odd and almost as if I was an imposter when I finally cooked a meal at home. I even found the first trip to the grocery store to stock the new place with food to be a unfamiliar event. Even though I’ve been to that store 100 times before and I bought most of the same stuff, it just felt like it was a totally new thing. I almost felt as if it wasn’t my place to be buying groceries because I hadn’t done it for almost two weeks.

This experience just reminded me how quickly habits and routines can be formed. In just two weeks I completely lost touch with what it felt like to shop for and cook my own food.

The same thing goes for working out. It’s fine to take a few days off, and 2-3 times per year I advocate that you take a full week off and let your body recover/recharge/rest. But if you don’t plan for it, and you’re not paying attention to it, a few days off can easily turn into a few weeks off and before you know it a month will go by without working out.

We’re all creatures of habit, your daily diet routine and your workouts are both just habits. Once you get into a groove with each of them it becomes much easier to stick to a plan. But as soon as something shakes you out of your routine you’ve got to work to get it back into the groove that you had before.

It’s kinda like the messy room entropy theory. If you don’t constantly clean a room it will invariably become untidy and messy until it’s a total train wreck. The same sort of thing will happen with your diet, workouts (or lack thereof) and your body…if you don’t constantly work out, and pay attention to your diet your body will also become a train wreck.

John

I just returned from a road trip to Syracuse to see the Orange win their opening game of the college football season (yes college football is my vice, I just can’t get enough of it)

The Orange came back and won in OT!

The weekend included all of the usual stuff associated with a college football game including tailgating and consuming lots of burgers, steak, and whatever else goes with a tailgate.

This brings up an interesting issue about eating and dieting. And that is about the company you keep. If you’re focused on attaining a certain body image or look then it’s in your best interest to associate and spend time with people who are also interested in attaining the same type of body image.

The company you keep on a regular basis will have a big impact on the look and shape of your body, namely you will start to look like the people you hang around with. Or better stated, you will start to look like the body shape and size that requires the least amount of effort.

You’re fighting an uphill battle if you’re the one person in your group of friends who really wants to attain and maintain a lean muscular fit looking physique. Odds are you won’t get there if you don’t have other people around you with a similar goal. This doesn’t mean you can’t spend time with your friends who don’t workout or share you  diet preferences, it just means you have to be aware of how much time you spend with them and how that time affects your body.

It’s not that anyone means to force you to break your diet, or blow off the gym, but the social pressure to do so is subtle and omnipresent when you’re spending time with people who don’t put diet and exercise as a high priority.

It becomes very easy to skip the gym and make an extra stop for ice cream when everyone else you’re spending time with is doing it. The onus is on you to lead the way to the gym, or find other ways to spend time that don’t involve mass consuming calories.

The issue arises because food serves multiple purposes. Food is social, people gather to eat, to celebrate, to enjoy each others company. Some people will even take offense or find the social interaction to be less pleasurable if you don’t partake in all acts of consumption with them. In other words, they might not have as much fun if you don’t go drink for drink and bite for bite with them every time they eat.

This is just the social aspect of food, paying no attention to the physiological and/or emotional aspect of food. We all know how much fun it is to go out and just feast with your friends/family and have a good time. But there is also a good feeling you can get when you’re on a roll with your diet and you can see it affecting the way your body looks and feels.

This second effect of food takes more effort, but the payoff is longer lasting, and it has positive effects on your confidence, self perception, and feelings of accomplishment…not to mention that you’ll just look and feel better too. But this is also the harder thing for people to accomplish with food. It takes more time, more attention, and some self control.

It’s hard enough to get into shape and stay there even with supportive people around. The social temptation to over indulge will always be there, and you must be aware of it, and accept that it’s happening.

For my road trip I was fully prepared for a big eating weekend. I enjoyed the time spent, and now it’s back to eating lighter and leaner. This is all part of the elusive state of maintenance.

The idea of maintaining a lean body isn’t to be perfect every day and have your ideal bodyfat % every single day. It’s really about having smaller swings in weight and bodyfat. Instead of going up and down 30-40lbs (or more) the idea is to pull that range down to 5-10lbs (depending on how tall you are).

After a few weeks of eating ‘loose’ I’ll gain a few pounds, at which point I tighten things up, reduce the calories, and those few pounds start to come off, I’d say it’s about a 5-7lbs range.

The idea is to stay within an inch or two of your ideal measurements or within a few pounds of the weight you have determined to be your ideal.

For me it’s a rough fluctuation around the 185lbs mark, as I approach 190lbs I know that I’m at my upper limit of my maintenance weight that looks and feels good. If I drop to around 180lbs I will look very lean (ready for a photoshoot etc) but it’s tougher to maintain at that level for extended periods of time, and I also feel a bit small at that size. Through experimentation I’ve found that approx 185lbs is the sweet spot for me where I’m lean enough to be happy with my look/definition, my size, and the effort it takes to stay there. The intersection of these three points (definition, muscle size, and effort to maintain it) is the elusive sweet spot state of maintenance that we’re all striving for.

Your job is to find YOUR sweet spot and learn what works for you to stay within a few inches/pounds of it while still enjoying all of the food related celebrations that life has to offer.

John

I’ve been interviewing some fitness and figure competitors as well as some bodybuilders and people who coach these types of competitors for their shows. After speaking with many of these people I’ve started to realize that there is a fundamental disconnect between the idea of ‘fat loss’, ‘muscle building’, and obtaining a particular look.

For people with 20% or more bodyfat, the main issue is simply fat loss. until you’re sub 10% none of the advanced bodybuilding nutrition techniques are going to make any difference.

At this condition the type of foods and when he ate them will make a difference on how Arnolds Abs looked.

Once you start reaching the single digit bodyfat levels things start to change. This is when the types of food you eat, when you eat and how you train can change the look of your body on a moment to moment basis.

Let me repeat, unless you’re in single digit bodyfat %  none of this will matter.

And this is the problem most people have when they’re ‘researching’ how to get in shape. Most people hear about what bodybuilders and fitness competitors are doing but don’t realize most of the advanced techniques are only put in use and of benefit for people who are already leaner than most of the population would ever hope to be.

For the vast majority of people, getting down to 10-12% bodyfat (for men) and below 20% for women is going to be attainable with a rather simple plan of eating less total calories (no matter what they are and when you choose to eat them).

This will get you in better shape than 95% of the population. Taking it to the next level and stepping on stage is where the more advanced techniques start to matter.

The take home message is to first be honest with where you currently are. This will determine where to best place your effort and focus.

John