The biggest change in my perspective has to do with WHY I exercise and eat well.
When I was younger and my focus was physique competition, my #1 priority was being big, strong and ripped. And I did a pretty good job of that, weighing in at about 225 in the off-season and coming into contests at about 195lbs.
My approach at the time was simple. As I had a screaming fast metabolism, I ate a lot – as much as I could of the following foods:
- lean beef
- chicken
- fish
- eggs and egg whites
- protein powder
- natural peanut butter
- oats
- whole grain bread
- whole grain pasta and rice
- frozen veggies
- occasional fruit
In addition, I trained about 6 days per week with fairly high volume (about 1.5-2 hours of training) and slept at least 8 hours every night. If I wasn’t growing doing this, I’d add in additional high calorie foods like home-made pizza, home-made potato chips, and more. And if I wasn’t getting leaner come contest-time, I’d cut calories and add cardio systematically until the body fat would come off.
However, once I put my bodybuilding days behind me, my focus changed. My goal was no longer exclusively aesthetics. And as I had other priorities in life (school – later work, new hobbies, relationships, etc) I needed to find a new balance.
Now, if you’re an “older” guy (or girl) reading this, you’re probably nodding in agreement. And if you’re a “younger” guy (or girl) reading this, you will be nodding in a few years – trust me! Everyone I know that’s been in this game for more than 15 years has experienced pretty much the same shift.
Now, I’m not going to lie. I’m still very interested in looking good. And that’s definitely a priority for me. However, before size and cuts comes health and function.
The all-out pursuit of being bigger and stronger – which had great rewards but was costly as I always had to be near a fridge and was always wiped out from training - has been replaced by having fun in and out of the gym and by trying to find the balance between my hobbies, my occupation, my training, and my relationships. And this balance requires that I don’t sacrifice all at the altar of my training and eating.
Yet, I believe that the base I built back in my competitive days has made it easier to continue to look good, train hard, and enjoy my time training. In fact, nowadays, I walk around at 180lbs at about 8% body fat or so.
Of course, this new attitude has led to some changes in my approach.
As my metabolism isn’t quite what it used to be, nor is my training volume, my training program has to offer a bigger bang for my buck. To this end, I mix up the high intensity intervals and weight training to keep my metabolism as fast as I can get it. Also, I pay closer attention nowadays to my food amount, my food choices, and food timing. If I eat like I used to, the abs disappear in short order!
In many ways, the
Precision Nutrition way of eating is the natural transition for folks once they’ve realized the metabolism isn’t what it used to be, that they no longer can eat what they want without getting fat, and that they need to find the balance between exercise, nutrition, and life. It’s been that for me, for sure!
I’ve got a lot of favorite quotes…depending on the situation I’m in. When it comes to exercise and nutrition this is one that I think is essential:
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
I think too many people think there’s some perfect program out there that they have to mimic to be doing things “correctly” or “optimally.” And it’s this focus on the “beautiful strategy” that leads to frustration for many. The most important thing with exercise and nutrition is the result. Are you leaner? Are you more fit? Are you healthier? Are you performing better? If so, keep up what you’re doing. If not, make the change.
