BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE

My Story:
From Fat Boy to Fat-Loss Expert

I wasn’t always a bestselling author, personal trainer, and fat-loss expert, getting written up in Men’s Fitness and O, The Oprah Magazine. I certainly didn’t win- ning bodybuilding contests or doing photo shoots. All that came much later. At first, I simply had to be honest with myself. I was getting chubby. I was never obese, but I do know what it feels like to hate my body and be paralyzed with self-consciousness.

When I was a 14-year-old freshman in high school, that’s when it hit me: I had a roll of fat around my waist and what I thought was the worst affliction a warm- blooded male teenager could have—“man boobs.” I dreaded taking my shirt off for swimming class, and when we played basketball in gym, I prayed I’d be called to play for “shirts,” not “skins,” so nobody would see my “moobs” and ab flab jiggling up and down the court.

That same year, I watched a movie called Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The moment I saw Arnold on the big screen, my whole world stopped. I stared, frozen in awe. I had seen cartoons and superhero characters with that kind of body, but I couldn’t believe a real human being could look like that: He had gladiator pecs with slabs of muscle inches thick, shoulders like cannonballs, the V-shaped back tapering down to the tiny waistline, chiseled six-pack abs, and the arms—they were the most mind-blowing of all—huge, sinewy, and rock hard, with biceps like mountain peaks. It was the most awesome physique I’d ever seen. That was the moment I knew I wanted muscles….