My Stupid Mistakes

In around the year 2000, I found myself in a very bad situation.

I was extremely fat and unhealthy, had high blood pressure, pain in both knees when walking, bad posture, horrible acid reflux, loud snoring, sinus issues, frequent sickness, and more.

I was in horrible shape.

And all because I had gotten a new desk job, stopped most activity, started working more (at a desk), started eating more fast food, and watching more TV when not working.

I wasn't in bad shape before all of the above “happened” to me.

It didn't take long for me to turn from a healthy individual to a big, fat, out of shape tub of lard. I could have killed myself just trying to walk up a set of stairs.

I don't believe I let myself get that way.

I weighed in at about 220 pounds and over 30% body fat. That meant I was carrying more than 70 pounds of body fat around every day. No wonder my heart was having trouble. No wonder I couldn't breathe at night. No wonder I was just about dead.

I Started Walking, Then Running, and Starving Myself Along the Way

So first thing I did was start walking to burn calories. My goal was to lose as much weight as possible as fast as possible because I hated myself and what I looked like.

I knew that walking and starving myself had to work.

Once I was able to run, I started running. I pushed myself hard too. I would go outside in the middle of the summer months in 100+ degree weather with the sun beating down on me and no food in my stomach.

I would run for hours even with my knees killing me. Whenever I wanted to quit, I ignored my mind and just kept going.

Bad knees and all, I kept going for months with the running and starving strategy. I would have a single can of beans to eat each day and that was it!

It's a wonder I didn't kill myself.

But I tell you what — I lost weight very fast. I lost over 60 pounds of body weight in a short amount of time. I was amazed with my progress. All I cared about was the number showing on the scale.

And that's where I made my first BIG mistake:

1) I set a goal of maximum weight loss.

That was the single BIGGEST mistake I made when I started my journey to a better body and to better health.

Maximum weight loss in the shortest amount of time should never be your goal. Never. The only way to lose weight very fast is to lose huge amounts of muscle. Body fat comes off at a slower rate than muscle so losing weight fast means you are losing muscle.

Don't use the number showing on your body weight scale as an indicator of progress. If you do, you will fail.

So What Did I Look Like After Losing Over 60 Pounds?

Was I happy with what I looked like?

I actually think I looked worse than before I started. At least all of the body fat I had was spread out more evenly and wasn't sagging everywhere.

Now it looked like all the fat was still there but my body was smaller.

And that's exactly what it was… I had lost a ton of lean muscle mass and had kept much of the body fat I was targeting to lose. So my running and starving approach didn't work too well. It had actually put me in a bigger hole than ever before.

I was now skinny but fatter than ever before.

BUT, I couldn't even walk down stairs without using my arms and the banister to help carry my body weight. slowly down each stair. My knees hurt so badly from all the running.

What did I turn to next? Let's see…

Since I Was Only 155 Pounds, I Turned to Bulking to Build Muscle

I was down to only 155 pounds now and thought I would be happy once I reached my goal weight of 160 pounds or so.

Well, obviously, that happiness never came even though I reached the goal I set. I had definitely set the wrong goals.

I did some research and turned to some experts on the Internet.

I decided I needed to go on a bulking routine to get all the muscle back that I had lost while running and starving myself. With the experts by my side, I knew I would look amazing.

So I started following all the bulking diets in which I ate a mind boggling amount of food to take in more calories. I needed more and more food so I could build muscle. I didn't want to take a chance of not being able to build muscle.

So I started drinking protein shakes all the time and adding as much food as I could to each meal.

I started lifting weights with Nautilus Machines (big mistake) at a small gym about 15 miles from my home. I started getting bigger and building some muscle. I stopped running and doing cardio because the experts told me I didn't need cardio when I was bulking up.

Some of the machines didn't fit my body very well but I kept pushing it and doing them anyway. My knees got worse by using the Duo Squat machine but I didn't care. I wanted to build muscle.

I liked the results I saw from only a few weight lifting workouts each week so I started going to the gym every day and doing more.

As I was getting some results (larger muscles), I also noticed that I was getting fatter too.

So I decided to start running again. And all the knee pain got even worse.

Since I had read more and studied more about weight lifting, I decided to buy some weight lifting equipment and put it in my basement for home workouts. I didn't want to stop going to the gym so I decided to do workouts twice per day.

I did one weight lifting workout at the gym for a few hours each day, ran on the treadmill for another hour at the gym, and then did another workout at home with free weights.

I bought an adjustable dumbbell set and a standard weight lifting bar to start out with along with some standard weight plates.

I knew my strategy of more workouts would get me where I wanted to be.

And that's where I made my second and third BIGGEST mistakes:

2) Eating anything and everything in sight to build muscle.

3) Workout more often with more exercises to get even better results.

I had put myself in the biggest hole yet. But I was bigger and stronger now so I had reached my new goal to build muscle. Again, I had set all the wrong goals because I was impatient and wanted fast results.

I had really screwed my body up by trying to bulk up and my blood pressure was now higher than ever. I had pushed my body to the limit and continued to workout more and more.

I became sick frequently and would have to take time off from workouts.

It bothered me so much to skip workouts due to sickness and it stressed me out more than ever before. All I was trying to do was improve my body, my appearance, and my health BUT nothing was working because I was doing everything wrong.

How Did I Get So Lost?

I continued for several more years trying this and that.

I got so sick of myself and what I looked like that I eventually put my foot down and promised to stop with all the information overload from different internet experts and to learn how to improve my body once and for all.

There had to be a way, and I would find it myself.

I was just sick and tired of all the conflicting information out there. One “expert” would say do this and another “expert” would say to do the exact opposite. How could both of them be right?

I'll tell you why…

Because all of us are very different from each other. One person might be able to make amazing progress with one fat loss method while another person may get even fatter by using that same method. We're all different.

This means you have to find YOUR way.

Believing that someone else's way would work for me was another one of the stupidest mistakes I made.

I figured if it would work for them it must work the same for me.

Doesn't happen that way unless you and the other person are identical twins. And then it might not work the same way either. There are just too many factors within our bodies that are different. The human body is very complex.

So what did I do next?

I Bunkered Down And Started Study, Research, and Experimentation

For the next several years, I studied, researched, and experimented with myself and other people.

I learned that science doesn't always lead to real-world results. Science may tell you something is going to work THIS WAY but that's not how it actually works in the REAL WORLD.

Science can help lead you in the right direction, but real world results trump everything.

I learned about how different people react differently to specific methods.

I continued studying, researching, and experimenting — I put my body through every type of diet, every type of weight lifting program, and every type of cardio routine I could find.

With my Engineering background, I found ways to measure results. I found the measurements that really mattered, and the ones that indicate REAL progress to your appearance and your health.

The results of all my hard work, study, and experimentation are within the WLC System.

The WLC System works for anyone because it takes you on your own path. The system gives you starting guidelines and teaches you how to make changes every time something doesn't work perfectly for you. This means the WLC System will work for anyone because you find exactly what works for you.

Once I put the WLC System into use, the results were amazing and exactly what I had wanted from the very beginning. If I had only started with the WLC System, I would have never went through the permanent damage I had done to my body.

Now, you don't have to struggle and fight through tears of frustration. Start reading the WLC System and your path will appear.