Stupid size me

I'm a promoter of a 90 day health challenge, it's simply amazing, filled with the most positive people I've ever met. They're human beings, and nobodies perfect, but they just make business fun again.

I also really loved the 4 hour workweek by Timothy Ferris, he really lives the rule of 10% of your efforts giving you 90% os your results, I ran my lifting with that motto for a few years, and for a long time, I'd just go in an either squat, bench or deadlift then leave... I made great progress and had fun. One of my limitations, is I tend to overthink things quite a bit, and I'm always trying to please people... there are worse limitations, so I'm not too concerned about them... But overthinking my lifting and training really killed me for almost 2 years straight, and I'm only now figuring things out again.

I don't regret those 2 years, without them... then what? Who would we be without our mistakes. I've watched high level guys make progress on roughly linear periodization and progressive overload, and call it a miracle... All I see is just someone getting carried away with delusions of grandeur to be honest.

When I was younger, I had it figured out, I'd do just enough to get by in school, and save myself for what I actually liked doing, like video games, books, hockey, kickboxing, the gym... and just sort of zone out when I had to sit in a classroom run by a piss poor leader, who never left high school. I've never trusted someone who goes home at the end of the day and complains how a 15 year old ruined their day and was so hard on them.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen guys 15-17 conduct themselves more like men, than around the 1000 customers or over 200 employees I've had in my career in business. I played with Jessie Winchester in his first year of junior, who's now playing on the Ottawa Senators, and that guy knew exactly how to handle himself, and was the rookie of the year. He's also a really cool guy.

I've always tried to be like my mentor Paul Vaillancourt, and failed. I've forgiven myself for this once I put myself into Pauls shoes and saw what it was like a bit. The thing with Paul, is he makes a plan, then executes the hell out of it. He's learned to go more off page I think, whereas before he just had to crush everything in his path, and if he didn't it was totally unacceptable.

Like Paul, I used Shelby Starnes as my nutritionist, and had great results, but not Paul results, which used to be unacceptable. Shelby and Paul are both perfectionists, and honestly, Paul puts more effort into his diet than I do my training cycles. Shelby works with bodybuilders and anyone who wants to get into fantastic shape.

I just couldn't do it.

I worked crazy hours, and most days, I had to force myself to eat or I couldn't even remember, and when you've got anxiety and stress coming out of your ears, it's challenging to have an appetite. I've since learned how to do it, and it's more of a skill to eat clean than you'd think. It starts in the grocery store, then the kitchen then the refrigerator, then your cooler, and if you did it right, your mouth.

I guarantee you most fat people have empty fridges, and easy to eat snacks in the cupboard.

Oh those horrible horrible people.

Listen fatties, I had abs once... I think... I worked my ass off to get them, and I still really wanted a slice of pizza. I'm going to forgive you, it's too damn hard, and if you've got kids... holy fuck, I can't even imagine.

Keep in mind, I'm an extremely organized guy... it used to piss me off when people would see my car and make a comment. For fucks sakes, in busy years I had 25 employees, on 9-12 projects, with around 20k coming in a week, where I was in contact with every employee daily, every customer daily, and the pissed off customers every 5 minutes. If you've ever worked in the trades, getting a cheque at the end of a job can be a nightmare. I came up with systems so basically customers had to hand over a cheque at the end of a job, or they just looked like assholes, and I'd still have to personally collect 3-5 cheques a week, which was a nightmare on top of moving all that equipment from job to job, doing payrolls, getting all the paint organized, and probably 10 other things I'm forgetting to mention for fear of an anxiety attack.

But yeah, I can barely get all my meals cooked in a week. I have to get into a rocl solid routine to do it, and can't fall out of it. My girlfriend Megan is amazing, we keep each other on track like you can't believe, since starting to date me she's lost 15 pounds, and she was hot when I first met her. She went from 128 to 113 in a couple months, and she never really tried, just didn't eat junk food.

Junk food... I know I know... I'm supposed to spit on every mcdonalds I see... but honestly, they're a well run business, and run a lot better than most. During this summer, I ate most of my meals out, had mcdonalds daily, and I was at my leanest in my entire life.

It was pretty simple, 2 shakes a day, no ketchup or cheese on my burgers, eat clean when i could, the rest of the time, keep the sugar down, keep dairy a million miles away, and bam... I was in great shape. I lifted the way I always did, supplemented the way I always did, the only things I changed was no sugar or dairy. I'm sure there's a bit of sugar in the wheat patties, but not much.

If someone would pay me, I'd honestly do a documentary on it... Mcdonalds isn't my enemy, I'm trying to get people to have breakfast and lunch, then a shake snack, and dinner after a good workout. That's more than enough for 90 of people to drastically change things.

I've tried to debate with paleo natzi's.. and all they kept saying was how natural and pure it was... the one guy works 3 hours a day, and wonders why a regular person can't do it... but you get used to it with him, not too bright for how smart he is.

It's cool, Paleo is awesome, it gives great results, but there's the other 90% out there to be honest with you... If someone is doing paleo, great, I just don't worry about them... I worry about the college kids eating kraft dinner, and the poor house wife having a salad with a dressing that has 50 grams of sugar in it and not understanding.

Keep sugar and dairy low, the body by vi premium kit takes care of everything else, the omega 3 fats and green tea extract are going to kill cortisol, although immediately lowering your caffeine intake will help with this a ton. The multi vitamins are simply amazing, they're loaded with everything you need to get lean, if I had to choose between the multi and the shakes, I'd chose the multi... but the shakes are awesome too. The protein content is a bit lower than other shakes, but that's just because they've made it so you absorb all of that protein whereas other ones you'll pound 50 grams of protein and only absorb 30... there are ways around this, but honestly don't freak about it... it's not that big a deal, overdoing protein is just as much a problem as overdoing anything else. There has to be a balance.

So here's what you do... next time you're at a fast food spot, or restaurant in general... just skip the ketchup and dairy, eat the food, have rice as a side, or a baked potato, skip the fries... if you go fast food, triple patty, no ketchup no cheese extra mustard, or tim hortons has snack wraps that are amazing, 4 bucks for an eat out meal is good, just skip the sauce.

Save the caffeine for your workouts, the rest of the time that caffeine is going to your belly, it has to do with cortisol and a bunch of stuff I can understand to read, but to teach it is a different story, just trust me, don't do it, stay away from energy drinks unless you're about to train, then go for it.

Speaking of training.. if you really need to have that big cheat meal, save it for after training... that way the majority of bad stuff will be burnt off and you'll use the bad stuff.

No, it's not perfect... it's how you start. keep it simple, but just start. Milk this for all it's worth before you get serious, you'll be amazed how far it will take you. Take pictures once a week, and stay the hell away from the scale except for saturday mornings, get your weight, take a picture, have a cheat meal saturday night, another one sinday night, keep the week as clean as you can.. you'll go far.