and currently weigh a healthy 155-160 pounds with about 8-10% body fat. (It varies according to the number of cookies, donuts and pizzas I consume.)
Despite how I look today I am not a big guy. I'm actually small-boned and naturally thin. Without weight training, I'd be lucky to tip the scales at 125.
I was born August 27, 1961 which makes me 47 this year. Aside from the graying goatee and deepening laugh lines around the eyes, I can honestly say I'm in better shape now than I was nearly 20 years ago when I was training to be a top competitive bodybuilder. I'm not as big as I was back then, but I'm healthier and look and feel a heckuva lot better.
Believe it or not I'm a lot like many of you reading this now. I'm very busy, have a family, put in 16-18 hour days, I don't train as consistently as I'd like or eat as healthy as I should and only take my vitamins when I remember to---which is rarely. I also don't have much time to exercise.
Now that I've published my training system and finished this website, however, I've actually been able to start practicing what I preach and train again on a more consistent basis. I generally hit the weights for 30-45 minutes two or three times a week and weather permitting, go for walks, hikes or bike rides with my wife and 2 year-old son.
Growing Up:
I was drawn to weight training back in the early 70's after seeing a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover of a bodybuilding magazine.
He was everything I wasn't: Huge, powerful and built like a comic book superhero. I was small, thin and tired of getting the crap kicked out of me by bigger, stronger kids.
Back then I figured if I had a body like Arnold's no one would mess with me, so I started lifting, oblivious to the fact it took many years of intense training to create such a fantastic physique.
Obviously I wasn't transformed overnight, but weight training did give me the confidence I needed to face my foes and give them an encounter they would not soon forget.
Several bloody noses and fat lips later---mostly my own---the bullying stopped. Word traveled quickly win or lose, I would stand my ground and fight. Before long the bullies sought out easier prey.
I continued training and as my body and confidence grew, so did my thirst for knowledge and passion for bodybuilding.
High School:
I entered high school standing 5 foot 3 or 4, weighing 105 pounds---and made the mistake of joining the wrestling team both my Freshman and Sophomore years. I say mistake because back then you did everything you could to "cut weight" including starving yourself (unless you were in the heavyweight division, in which case the heavier the better).
Freshman year I lost 7 pounds just from attending practices, going from 105 to 98. Since there were 2 seasoned wrestlers battling for the Varsity and JV slots in that weight class already, my coach decided I should drop another 9 pounds and wrestle at 89.
After weeks of starving myself I was able to get down to 92. I was little more than skin and bones and so weak I could barely make it through practice. My coach told me to go back to 98. Too late. By then my body was so screwed up and anorexic I had a hard time even putting weight on. By season's end I was still only 96 pounds.
Eager to rebuild my body and looking forward to the same growth spurt my friends were enjoying, I ate and ate and hit the weights.
My Sophomore year was equally disastrous. I started the school year an inch or two taller and weighing 120 but wrestled at 105, once again dropping 15 pounds through severe dieting and calorie-annihilating practices to make weight.
Though I continued my weight training through the season and usually out-muscled my skeletal opponents, my strength took a back seat to their superior technique. I could only break free from the pretzels they twisted me into for so long before running out of gas and getting pinned.
The worst thing about my short-lived wrestling career wasn't the fact I lost almost every match I had, it was the damage I caused my body. Considering my father and three brothers are all 6-foot plus, I truly believe starving myself during what would have been normal growth phases effectively shut my system down and prevented me from achieving my true height and weight potential.
I'm not complaining, I'm simply putting this out as a warning to others so they don't suffer the same fate. I can't stress enough the importance of good nutrition---especially during your formative years.
If able to do over, I would have pursued my passion for bodybuilding all through high school instead of starving myself for an activity I participated in based on a whim.
Junior and Senior years were spent dealing with the typical problems all teenagers face as they struggle to find their identity and learn to juggle family, friends, jobs, schoolwork, girlfriends and boyfriends, college and career choices and all the other responsibilities that come with adulthood.
Unsure of my own path through life, I left those hallowed halls of higher learning and stepped into the real world at my present height and weighing 140.
While almost 10 years of lifting had given me a more defined and muscular body than most, I was still smaller and lighter than I had hoped, and light years behind the image of the mighty Schwarzenegger still etched in my mind...
COMING SOON: My Real Education Begins
