Have you ever seen the show Ink Master?
I’m not even sure if it’s on anymore but I loved it.
It’s got art and tattoos and contrived reality show drama and Dave Navarro for some reason and requisite self-important contestants. What’s not to enjoy?
For the uninitiated, Ink Master is, in brief, a competitive reality show about tattoo artists. Each week they participate in different challenges that mostly revolve around designing and applying tattoos to volunteers who are curiously referred to as “canvases”.
(SIDE NOTE: Imagine if, instead of referring to people as clients or members, we called them “meat suits” or “bags of muscles and bones”? That would be weird.)
Pretty straightforward but let me tell you the craziest part.
Because this is a competitive show where the artists themselves often have control over some of the variables (who tattoos who, what the designs look like, what style the tattoo must be done in) they will often try to trip up their fellow artists by assigning them a tattoo they have no experience with or have to idea how to accomplish.
Keep in mind, this isn’t some sort of henna or special temporary disappearing ink they are using. They are laying down legitimate, keep-for-your-whole-life tattoos on people that they don’t necessarily know how to do. Crazy.
Another show that I know is no longer on the air but had a similarly wild premise was The Biggest Loser.
Again, if you’ve never seen it, TBL was a competition show that featured overweight people who were trying to lose weight with the assistance of professional trainers and nutritionists.
Sounds wholesome and worthwhile, right?
But here’s the twist.
They were trying to get these people to lose the weight as fast as possible (they did have a production schedule to keep, after all). And to make things even more spicy, they would throw all these “real world” temptations at them that, quite honestly, never existed in the real world.
Like when in your life have you ever been placed in a room with every possible variety of pie and tempted with $50 for every slice you ate?
During a fever dream on a swampy night? Sure, we’ve all been there.
But in the actual real world, this just doesn’t happen.
You’ve probably heard - or, if you haven’t, allow me to fill you in - that nearly every contestant on The Biggest Loser, all of whom experience massive weight loss on the show, regain the weight they lost (and often more) within one to three years of their time on the show.
And you might assume that this is just due to the rapid nature in which they lost the weight or the hijinks of the show. But, the truth is, this type of result isn’t limited to television contestants.
Depending upon which research you reference, three out of every four (at best) and nine out of ten (at worst) people who lose substantial weight end up regaining that weight.
That is a fail rate of 75%-90% for those of you who, like me, barely squeaked their 8th grade math class. Apologies, once again, to my teacher Mr. Coffey.
Which leads me, as the title of this blog indicates, to the most impressive part of my own transformation.
In case you missed it, I was not a natural athlete nor did I grow up going to the gym nor was I blessed with a natural tendency towards good body composition.
No, the truth is I was an asthmatic kid who grew up shopping in the “husky” section who found themselves balding and about 60lbs overweight in their mid-late 20s.
(The balding is irrelevant but I thought I’d throw it in there to get some sympathy votes.)
On the left, 2 weeks before my 28th birthday when I decided to make a change. On the right, one month before my 40th birthday.
And apologies as I’ve told this story before, I decided to try to lose the weight starting right after my 28th birthday in June and, hopefully, arrive at something better in time for my wedding in late October.
All this acted as a catalyst to lose 60lbs in those 5 months, leave my advertising career to pursue a full time career in fitness, write two fitness books, become a “competitive” weightlifter (I have to put competitive in scare quotes here because compared to real weightlifters I was an absolute joke), sit on the advisory board for Men’s Fitness magazine and open up the best damn gym in America (my deepest apologies to other gyms).
And while all this sounds impressive, particularly when it is jammed into a single, hard-to-read paragraph as it is above, truly the most impressive thing about all of it is that I didn’t back slide.
Sure, as my body composition changed and I got into strength training my weight moved as well. But the important thing is that for the past 25 years since this all started I’ve managed to stay relatively lean and never again approached the, by my best guess, 30-35% body fat I was at when this all started.
This all begs the question “how did I do it?” What tips and tricks did I use to be the statistical outlier who made changes stick?
Truly, there are probably a dozen things that have contributed but in the spirit of not boring you to death further than I already have, let me give you what I think are the top few.
First, anyone can hack together a diet. There are more popular diet strategies in the mainstream consciousness these days than at any other time in history. Paleo, Carnivore, Whole 30, Intermittent Fasting, whatever that Celery Juice thing was, If It Fits Your Macros, Flexible Dieting are likely diet strategies you’ve heard of, perhaps implemented or even swear by.
Any of these strategies can work to get you to your goals as long as they result in a calorie deficit and the restrictive nature of them doesn’t lead to nutrient deficiencies or disease.
But if the strategy is so restrictive or unenjoyable that you are just counting down the days until you get to your goal weight so you can go back to “regular eating”, then you have put yourself on the path to undoing everything you’ve done and then some.
Your strategy must be something that not only fits within the structure of being able to deliver the results you are looking for, it must also be sustainable, affordable, relatively convenient and, to some extent, enjoyable. Because if your nutrition plan isn’t something that is infinitely sustainable, you will not continue to reap the benefits. And, last I checked, you want to be healthy or achieve aesthetic goals in the long term and not for just a single moment in time.
Secondly, being a fit and healthy person has to be less of a goal to achieve (although it can start that way) and more about how you identify yourself. And I realize that this is a slippery slope but unlike Scientology, being fit doesn’t have to be your entire identity. It just has to be a meaningful part of who you are.
Because goals come and go, but your values and self-image are much more likely to stick around.
Third, I’m a fan of a well-rounded approach. For me, it started with my diet. Shortly after I added steady-state cardio on bikes and stair masters and the like. Then I progressed to group fitness classes such as cardio-boxing and jump rope. Then, ultimately, I found my way to the weight room where it all came together.
Attacking things from multiple angles really helps with the identity piece described above but, perhaps more importantly, is going to give you the outcomes you want - health, body composition, strength, confidence and aesthetics - in a much more meaningful way than just chasing a number on the scale.
Numbers should be saved for performance goals like 1RM squats or 2k row times. Body composition goals incorporate a much more complex amalgamation of factors and judging it solely on body weight is going to make long term success very difficult.
It’s also going to give you a false sense of accomplishment. Take me as an example. In the “after picture” above I was about 20lbs heavier than I was at my lightest. But that twenty pounds helped me achieve more of the look that was appealing to me. Less isn’t always more.
I could probably throw a lot in the “finally” category but I’ll end with this: you need a support system. If it’s a coach or dietician or training partners, that’s great. But at a baseline you need to be surrounded by people who at least understand what you are trying to do, accept it and don’t try to sabotage your efforts.
Sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised how much anger, insecurity and even sadness you will witness in others when you try to change who you are while they are unhappily stuck where they have been.
Hopefully that won’t be a problem for you.
But if it is and you feel like you are fighting an uphill battle with your friends and family and you don’t have anyone who understands, reach out. I’m here.