Temple Training: My Transformation

A Brief history

I have always been a large person, always the "fat kid" in elementary school! I was a very active individual, being involved in martial arts for 9 years - earning my black belt, playing soccer and baseball, as well as being very involved with the highschool football team. Unfortunately, a person can be as active as they want, but if their diet involves 2-3 bowls of pasta per sitting, fast food for lunch, 2-3 bowls of cereal before bed - THEY ARE GOING TO GAIN MASSIVE WEIGHT!!! and not the good kind of weight either!!

It was also painful to mention that a history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol runs in the family from both my father and mother's side - Thanks guys! Your the greatest!

A Change in Pace

I started my lifestyle change back in June of 2002 - a fresh graduate of highschool, and also a hefty individual, with my stats being 5'10 and a whopping 245 lbs of fat!

After finishing up highschool, my father set me up for a job in construction; as i wanted to take a year off between highschool and post-secondary in order to determine what program would best suit my future.

Physical labour is great! from July of 2002 to August 2003 when i was finished up i had melted 42 lbs off my body! i was weighing in at 203lbs - clothing fit loosely and people complimented me everywhere i went!

However, this was not the proper way to lose weight. You see i failed to perform any sort of weight training, and i still ate like i always did, however the physical labour gave me a false sense of hope that i was in fact getting skinnier, when in fact all i was losing was my muscle mass, with some fat loss added into the equation.

What this meant was a total burnout of my metabolism - as soon as i finished up construction and went into college for Police Foundations - i started to balloon back up again.

By the time 1st semester was finished , i was up around 230-235 lbs again! It was horrible and i had no idea what i was doing wrong!

A Revision in my Ways

By this time i started to make friends with online information, one of the key sources was www.bodybuilding.com - with its huge forum i was able to research and gain knowledge/advise from everyone.

I learned that losing fat and packing on hard lean mass involves 90% diet with training coming far behind it!

While this was all fine and dandy, i still failed to act seriously throughout most of my 2 year College program! My only saving grace was during the summers when i would go back to construction, lose 20 lbs or so, then pack it back on when school restarted, it was a horrible cycle.

I was actually making an effort to go to the gym and train hard, while it seemed easy to get strong and gain muscle mass, everything was hidden behind a large structure of fatty tissue. I just wasnt making the click between diet and losing weight!

Enough is Enough

Fast forward to December 05 - Enough was enough, quite literally. After spending years researching on the net and gaining knowledge, i decided to put it all to the test. A clean food regiment involving plenty of high protein low carb foods was implemented, removing all forms of fast food, pop, pizza, and greasy snack food from my diet.

I decided it was now or never, i was going to stick to it, or suffer a lifetime of unhealthy living, followed by an early death.

Here are a couple pics i took on December 2005 - when i weighed approx. 230lbs

Looking good eh? nice and tubby - well you can see there is alot of muscle mass beneath the fat, i just had to cut down!

So i followed this new lifestyle change of healthy eating, gym 4-6 times a week, lots of weight training and cardio - and bam, it was working! the pounds were melting off!

I am definitley going to make a few more articles induldging into the keys to weight loss and muscle gain - so i dont want to spoil it in this introduction, but here are the current results

I am currently sitting at 5'10 and 193lbs

here are the pics to prove: