Formosa Fitness

We've all seen the personal transformation stories in P90X and the movie 300. And I'm tired of reading top coaches talk about it. You know: a guy loses a ton of fat and gains a ton of muscle in a set period of time, usually 30 or 60 days. Well, I'm tired of just hearing about it, it's time to do it!

So here's my personal story.

This was last year and I was 78-79kg and doing fine. I was happy with my weight but not the amount of muscle that I had. As a personal trainer, I've always envied the other trainers in the field that look like a million bucks. I could name a lot of names like The Rock and Vin Diesel and those are names you know. They aren't super low in body fat and have a look I'd like to achieve. But another name you might not know is Christian Thibaudeau. As you can see, he looks a lot like Vin Diesel.

But here's the thing -- he didn't always look like that. He used to look like this:

I was reading one of his books and he talked about his personal transformation. He was a personal trainer and he looked like that on the left. He decided to transform himself for personal and professional reasons and now he looks like that on the right. Needless to say, he's charging whatever he wants for personal training and probably beating clients off with a stick.

His story and that of others really has stuck with me. I'm no where near my potential personally and haven't been since I was about 25 and in the army. Can I get it back? Can I get the body of my dreams and hopefully enhance my career? Heck yeah! Let's do it!!!

So last year, I started lifting heavy weights because I want to be a strength and conditioning coach as well as a personal trainer. I was making progress on the lifts and trying various diets, all with some success. In December of last year, I made a breakthrough and gained 2.4kg of muscle in a single month. I was so happy! And then came January.

After two months of bulking, I was getting a bit tired of the routine I was using. It was a bit exhausting doing 10x10 as I was doing and my business grew in January. So I found myself in between programs unexpectedly. I looked around for another bulking program because I wanted to continue that but I wasn't sure which one to go with. And here's the key -- the whole time I continued eating like I was still bulking.

February came and Chinese New Year meant the gym was closed for 9 days and I was home with the kids. I knew I still needed to work out so I used my 16kg kettlebell and did burpees, etc. as a home workout. I worked out every other day during that period but I still keep eating like I was bulking when I clearly was no longer on that kind of program!! This is a key to training -- your diet and training MUST match. If you're on a bulking diet but not a bulking training program then watch out! But I wasn't watching out. I had slipped off the program.

The end of February rolls around and I teach a Kettlebell Taiwan certification. The pictures and video come back and I look like this:

What the heck? What is that around my waist? It's a little pouch. I was shocked and weighed myself, something I haven't done in a while because I thought I was fine. Result: almost 85kg and over 18% body fat!!!! I was disgusted. I didn't even want to post the video we shot.

So that was last weekend and I'm already into day three of the transformation. The plan? The whole enchilada: gain muscle, lose fat, increase my weights on all the primary lifts. Basically be all I can be in 30 days.

Why 30 days? Because it's the least amount of time I can get anything done and if I go longer, I'll get lazy. Haha. If we need to extend it 60, I'll make that decision at 30 days.

I waited until day three to say something about this because I wanted to try it out for a few days and make sure this was somthing I wanted to do. After three days of training and getting my eating right, I've decided to go for it, so here we are!

I'm very excited and a little nervous about this. Being public makes it accountable in ways that make me uncomfortable. I don't like the spotlight like this but I know the added pressure may keep me going. If I talk the talk, I have to walk the walk, right? Yikes. Here goes nothing.

So this is the intro and I'll be posting training diet progress as we go along. I already have lots to say since I'm in day three already.

Stay tuned!