... then I found the way ...
After being teased relentlessly by my brother (the saint that he is), and just overall not being happy with the way that I looked and felt, I wanted to do something about it.
So, I picked up Men's Fitness and followed their advice about nutrition (low fat, but 6 meals per day). That worked to a point. I also started running, which I knew how to do already since I ran track and cross-country in high school. The scale moved down.
Then, one day I was going through the fitness mags, I saw an ad that was selling a computer software program that would program a diet for me, and I would get abs! Of course, I bought it.
I got lucky because it was a good program (Bodycraft), designed with the help of one of the legends in the strength training field (Dr. Fred Hatfield). Once I was on the phone with the sales rep, she talked me into buying the "fit for life" package, which consisted of protein powder (2 containers), bodyfat calipers, and a heart rate monitor.
Of course, the menu program programmed in the protein shakes already, and the exercise program that came with it required the use of the heart rate monitor ... so I bought it all. Hey, I wanted it.
That diet was my introduction to LC, because when I look at the menu plans, they were way high in protein and relatively low in carbs, which when used were whole grains, or veggies. Some fruit.
Anyway, everything kinda built from that. I got in decent shape and lost weight. When I wanted to weight train, I asked my Dad for a weight bench for Christmas. He said he would buy it, and that he thought he was wasting his money. Most of my family said the same thing. That pissed me off.
So I threw myself into it 110% ... nutrition, training, lifting ... Then the company I worked for put in a fitness center (I had been lifting at home).
I was in heaven. They even hired a trainer to make sure we didn't kill ourselves.
Well, I was helping some of my co-workers with their workouts before the trainer was hired, and when he came in I became friends with him. He told me, "Ya know ... If you got certified as a personal trainer, you could make a living doing this."
So, I went to get certified. At the very least, I knew that even if I didn't work as a trainer that I would at least know the RIGHT way, versus what the magazines tell us.
Eventually I was fired from that job, and it was a blessing. It was then that I decided to try working as a trainer. It was the best move I could have made.
Still, my fat loss had stalled. Nothing I tried worked. I was on the internet and subscribed to a mailing-list type newsletter. By chance, it was the same time that Lyle McDonald was still planning on writing his book about this funny thing called a CKD.
As he went deeper into explaining it, it sounded like something for me. So I did it, and liked the results. That was my introduction to the LC WOE.
Even though I am generally happy with the way my body is, I still want to see how muscular I can get. So, I alternate periods of intentional overeating (combined with heavy duty weight training) to maximize my anabolic conditions with periods of CKD which allows me to clean it up and see just how much muscle I gained.
My last CKD (before my current one) got me down to 205, then I bulked from November to January and got to 238. As I write this I am pretty lean (4 pack) at 220, so this bulk-and-cut works for me.
Here is a picture (used to be my avatar) from when Fern and I completed our last CKD, just before out last trip to Hawaii in May 2001:
We are going back in a week, so I am sure that more pictures will be up here ...
Whew. There it is. The TrainerDan story.
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