So...This is Me (Mac)

I figured I should put up a photo of myself to give you an idea of who is behind the posts here.  I snapped this photo this afternoon.  I am currently 185lbs down from 215lbs in mid-February of this year although I have been as high as 220lbs in previous years.  I am 5'-9 1/4" and, yes, the 1/4" counts and just turned 36 years old in April.  This is me living primally - the way my genes want me to be.

I am just a regular guy, I am not huge, I don't live in a gym, and I don't think I will ever have ripped, six pack, Calvin Klein underwear model abs - I am too lazy.  I do, however, have some decent muscle mass and that is my main goal.  I want to be strong and maintain as much muscle as I age which I believe helps to slow the inevitable degeneration that comes with aging.  Heck, if I look like this throughout my forties, fifties and sixties I am going to a very happy guy!  I don't think I will have much trouble keeping up appearances while living my current lifestyle which brings me to the topic of today's post which has to to with the amount of effort you are willing to give to achieve your ideal body.

One thing that you have to understand is that what ever you are doing dietarily or through exercise to create your ideal body you will need to continue that regimen for as long as you want to look that way.  In other words, your body will reflect your efforts - genetics not withstanding.  The reason I will probably never have a six pack is I am simply not prepared to do what it takes to get them and keep them.  I don't have the genes to be effortlessly super lean and I am not prepared to slog away on the treadmill, scrutinize my diet to the nth degree, etc. to achieve a purely aesthetic look.  I would certainly like to have less body fat, but I know that I won't maintain the effort indefinitely so I see no point.  If I continue to lean out as time progresses while following a predominantly paleolithic diet and lifestyle then, yay for me, but I want to live my life and not worry about single digit body fat levels.

To achieve my current state I am lifting weights for about half an hour Moday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Here is my current schedule:

Monday:
bench press - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
incline dumbbell press - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
weighted dips - 2 sets of 4-6 reps
cable press downs - 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Tuesday:
weighted pull ups - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
bent over barbell row - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
dumbbell curl - 4 sets of 4-6 reps

Thursday:
back squats - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
dead lifts - 4 sets of 4-6 reps

Friday:
dumbbell push press - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
lateral dumbbell raise - 4 sets of 4-6 reps
barbell shrugs - 4 sets of 4-6 reps

That's it - that's all.  I am able to do those workouts in the time it takes to watch a half hour of "My Name is Earl" (love that show!).  I walk when ever I need to go anywhere in town and I will walk to the neighboring town 3km away once or twice a week and on those walks I will occasionally throw in 6-8 sprints.  This is a workout schedule that I can easily maintain and commit to over the long term.  This may not be the "best" workout plan in the world, but I enjoy lifting heavy weights, I enjoy brief, intense workouts, and I am pretty happy with the effort/result trade offs.

The one thing I hear and see on a constant basis is this notion of "temporary".  People think they can go on a particular diet or exercise scheme, lose some weight, and then go back to the way they were doing things before ad maintain the results.  It doesn't work like that.  Your results are based on a certain level of effort and if that effort changes - for the good or worse - so do the results.  This is a concept that is totally lost on people.  If you have experienced results with any number of the diet plans out there then you have to stick with them indefinitely if you want to keep the results.  Of course these plans fail because they are going about fat loss completely wrong - their premiss of "eat less calories and do more exercise" is a miserable way to live and is wholly unsustainable.  Just look at the long term failure rates of these programs.

Anyway, I just thought I'd put a physique behind the posts to give you a better idea of what I look like and the results of this lifestyle Jody and I are living.  Just keep in mind before you get all gung-ho about a diet or exercise plan that if it gives you the desired results you will have to keep doing it for as long as you want the results - period.  Grapefruit, water, and coffee enemas for life, eh?  LOL  Have fun with that - I'll be over here chewing on some home made, 100% grass-fed beef jerky ;-)