HIT training Results

Each time Dr. Darden and I have taken photos ( an absolute MUST for keeping track of your real progress), we've repeated certain poses, so the photos were easier to compare. These are two of them: the first is basically relaxed, with hands on head, and the second is a double biceps pose.

There's a substantial loss of fat, as you can see, but what's really been interesting to me is that as I've lost weight, I actually look bigger, muscle-wise. I'm over twenty pounds different between the first and last in these photos. Yet I look bigger.

Maybe I've said this before, maybe I haven't, but I worked out with Dr. Darden just once a week. For a maximum of 30 minutes. These days, we work out for about twenty minutes. No cardio, ever. The reason for that is HIT training is so intense, you are breathing like a racehorse after the first one or two exercises. Cardio is uncecessary ( not to mention, when it comes to running and the like, often DANGEROUS to your joints, bones, and everything else).

Another key thing with our program was SUPERHYDRATION. As in a GALLON of ice cold water each and every day. Dr. Darden went over all of this and other aspects of this eating plan ( I don't say the word "diet" anymore) in detail in his book " Flat Stomach ASAP" that is now out of print but still available online, by the way. A gallon may seem like a lot to some people, but I've always been a heavy drinker. I guess I was just dehydrated was the reason why! I went to CVS pharmacy and found a handy 1/2 gallon jug and just filled it up twice a day. It's been a lot easier that way.

Over the years, I had done everything from starving myself, to low fat, to low carb dieting. Atkins, Zone, South Beach, I tried them all at various times. They ALL worked. For awhile. But it's funny, I realized that the only one that really worked for me was the starving thing. It's effects were the most dramatic, and lasted the longest. But I did NOT want to starve again ( that was back in my modeling days ), just because I don't like it (who does?) and I didn't want to lose muscle mass. What I did with Darden, though, along with the crazy intense HIT workouts once a week, was to greatly reduce my calorie intake and cycle it, to keep the body guessing. I learned that it's amazing how many calories we ingest every day in the Western World, and how we really don't need that many. All the studies on calories restriction show that it prolongs longevity and lifespan.

We started at 1500 calories for a week, them 1400, 1300, and 1200. Then 1400 again ( I lost a lot of my weight this week, when my body started thinking "Okay, I'm not starving... I can drop fat again"), 1300, and 1200. That dropped me to 12% BF, and 174 pounds, which was our original goal. We did another week at 1500 calories, just to see what would happen...

To be continued....

HIT training works....

Man, does it work! This is me on April 3rd.
This one was on March 16th (sorry they photos are out of order). So two months, almost to the day, of when I started with Darden. I went from right at 196lbs to 174 lbs. From 25% BF to 12%.
This one is on March 3rd again, and at about 11% BF, 170 lbs. At a certain percentage, the bodyfat loss starts slowing down of course, as there's less to lose. I'll try to get a big collage picture of all of my before and after shots up here for you all soon. Then we can really compare
them to see my results.

So it begins....

On January 16th of this year, I took the plunge. I went over to Dr. Ellington Darden's homegym, and began to transform myself. As you can see, I had some decent muscle mass already built over these past couple of years back in the gym, but there was a pesky, pervasive layer of fat covering it.
Yeah, as it so happened, a full 25% of my bodyweight, to be exact!!!! At 196 lbs., I was astonished I had this much fat. Dr. Darden, having worked with thousands of clients over the past thirty years, has an incredible amount of knowledge. He was able to tell me in a matter of seconds my weak points (my calves and gut), my strong points (chest and arms), and my potential. We talked about muscle lengths, and fat storage patterns (blue eyed people like myself carry fat around their abdomens, so getting a six pack is gonna be tough).

Possibly most interesting to me, though, was that he confirmed that I had indeed NOT wasted the last twenty plus years of my life! Let me explain...

A lifetime ago (or so it seems), I thought I wanted to be a professional bodybuilder. Mr. Olympia, to be exact. But in college I started modeling (had to lose whatever size I'd built), which led me to meeting my wife, and moving to Florida. Where I became a cartoonist, a husband, and a father. And bodybuilding became a distant memory. I still retained some muscle thickness from a good foundation laid early in life, but that was it. In the back of my mind, though, I always wondered " Could I have?", "Should I have?" about bodybuilding.

Dr. Darden was blunt... twenty years ago, I maybe could have won some arm or chest awards had I went pro (and took steroids). Those, remember, were my strong points. However, I have high calves (chicken legs) and the fat around the midsection would have given me a problem. So, genetically, I was not destined to be Mr. Olympia. Steroids can only do so much. SO...... I made the RIGHT decision! Thank God! Some people might have been crestfallen at his analysis of them, but to me, it was AWESOME. It's great to be able to find out that I didn't "miss my calling".
So, now, at 42, it's time to see how good I can become. What's the best ME I can be?

Dr. Ellington Darden

So, in reading the "New Bodybuilding for Old School Results", I was intrigued. Work out harder, work out briefer, and work out less... to someone who used to work out two hours in the morning before classes in college, and two hours after class, but now has a busy business and is a devoted family man, this sounded like a Godsend.

THEN, lo and behold, I found out that the author, Dr. Ellington Darden (shown in the video above), lives a few mere miles from my house!

Plus, he offered personal training. I hemmed and hawed a few months, and kept putting it off. Finally, I figured my way of working out hadn't really well, "worked out" that well for me, so I'd give Dr. Darden a call (plus my wife finally said it was okay!).

More to come...