A few days ago, Facebook in all its conventional wisdom hit me with a Memories photo. It showed a picture of me on the left from about February 2009 and me on the right from April 2012. It was first big transformation pic I’ve really put out. It’s 2019 now and as I see this and look through my pictures now, it’s just wild how my body has changed over the years.
As some may have read in my social media before or might have heard my story, in 2008 I was at my all time heaviest — 385 pounds! In this picture, in 2009 I was about 365 pounds. The 20 pounds that came off were due to not only hitting the gym 5 days a week but also not drinking soda or eating so much candy, let alone fast food in the chronic manner I did years prior. The training consisted of stability and muscle endurance, along with a lot of cardio via treadmill.
By 2012, I had hacked all the way down to 275 and while I did work out 5 days a week, my workout days were significantly longer because well, band I was in was inactive, dating was pretty sporatic. As far as dieting went, I ate everything but avoided some artificial food as well as the aforementioned soft drinks and fast food at a minimum. My training at the time involved a combination of muscle endurance to powerlifting while my cardio would consist of hitting the heavy bag for a good hour and the elliptical.
While I could have shown the big change of 2016 when I dropped to 236 pounds, there were no picture of me doing a simple pose like in the 2009 and 2012 ones and thus presenting the start of 2019 at 250 pounds.
It is the beginning of 2019. 11 months having been on a plant based diet, with only one non-vegan cheat meal a month. My training is now about 1 hour/day, 3 days/week. I went from a swinging 285-275 of January 2018 to 250 as of now. In addition, fast food is virtually non-existent. If it wasn’t made in my kitchen, chances are more often than not, it’s not getting in my mouth, period.
My routine consists of a 20 minute walk from my girlfriend’s job to my gym those 3 days followed by dynamic mobility exercises in between sets of my weightlifting exercises. The lifting programs I set up are mostly Push, Pull and Legs, although I like to change the rhythm to Pull, Legs, Push or Pull, Push and Legs. The rep and set ranges I’ll adjust to anything from stability, muscular endurance or strength. Due to a cornea abrasion I had in my right eye, I had to bring myself down to stability and muscular endurance just to ease my nervous system into rhythm as I healed, given that the injury had triggered other issues — such as neck strain, light sensitivity, dizziness, my chest wanting to cave in and so on.
Thankfully as of now, my rhythm and strength is coming back to me and thus able to get back into a hybrid program I was in that combined endurance and maximum strength.
Something I also wanted to point out in these 3 pictures — in 2009, I was wearing 2XL and sometimes 3XL with 46-48 in pants. In 2012, I was down to an XL with 38-40 in pants. Today, on a bad day I’m wearing an L but on a good day an M but now comfortably wearing 36 on pants.
I am very optimistic regarding what the rest of this year will bring in regards to my health, as well as my career. I’m looking forward to many people today turn their health around as I did.
Until next time,
Ron Gunz
