Before and After Photo’s, The 2 Tricks Behind the Amazing Transformations

You know the pictures and the captions: From “scrawny to brawny,” are you a “hard gainer”? And my favorite “from this to this in 90 days”. It’s almost like magic they are so amazing. So, how do they do it? Well if you are the magician…….you know the “magic”.

The first thing that I have to admit is that all of the before and after photo’s that I am aware of are in fact real. Not photo shopped, or altered to any great degree. The physical transformations that they represent did and do actually take place. It’s just not portrayed exactly as it happened.

Let’s start with the skinny guy transforming into an Adonis. The hard gainer. The facts are that when it comes to muscle building, we’re all hard gainers. You don’t add 30 lbs of muscle easily. No one does, or everybody would do it, wouldn’t they? Now some people’s genetic predisposition and body type makes it somewhat more difficult to add size, but everyone will, eventually. And therein lays the first trick.

The before and after photo’s of these fantastic transformations are taken YEARS apart. Not months, weeks or days. Years. If you notice the photos closely there will always be a difference in facial features, though they try to avoid direct straight on face shots. The hair style is different, often different color, shading and lighting will be changed and skin tone is usually darker in the after. These are all done to enhance the after, and it work’s, and to take your attention away from the fact that the skinny before photo is 5 or more years old.

News flash: Lift a lot of very heavy weight often, eat a lot of protein and work hard at it and in 5 years ANYBODY will pack on muscle. No miracle weight lifting routine here.

Then there’s the Doughboy before photo becoming Mr. Universe in the after, and doing it in 90 days. Well, this DOES happen. Have you ever seen what a professional lifter looks like if they go 30 days without lifting and add 15 lbs of blubber to their body? They look a LOT like the people in the before shots. Big, beefy, even chunky,very soft and smooth looking. But if you have ever had 3% body fat before, you can get back to this number 10 times faster than doing it for the first time. Same with muscle memory in lifting. It can take you years to get to a certain level of weight for bench or whatever, then injure yourself and have to take months off. When you hit the weights for the first time you might be able to handle 60-70% of what you were doing. But it comes back in just a few weeks. Same with fat loss. These before and after photo’s usually will be literally identical in every way. That’s because these will have been taken 60-90 days apart. But the before photo isn’t some schlub off the street. He’s a very muscular dude with 25 lbs of fat to drop. Been there, done that.

Lastly I have learned that the internet is loaded with useful, helpful FREE muscle building information. You just have to look for it. If you are too lazy to do that, and instead opt for some costly “program”, realize that buying it doesn’t make you NOT lazy anymore. Save your money.

Is Protein Supplementation Necessary?

These last few weeks for some reason I have become really aware of my diet. I think it has to do with the fact that I spent so much time in Florida, away from my normal routine, feeding myself was a bit more complicated than normal. That's my way of admitting my wife helps a great deal with my nutritional eating, and that she wasn't with me while I was gone.

Lunch, breakfast and between meal snacks I seem to do alright with, but it's dinner and after I struggle with when I am fending for myself. As a regular lifter I am keenly aware of the amount of protein that I need and I see how hard it is to hit my target amounts without a LOT of forethought. My biggest problem seems to be getting that protein amount in ways that don't require a lot of excess calories.

A man can only eat so much canned tuna.

So to ease my mind I started supplementing a lot more protein than I ever have before. To my pleasant surprise there are a lot of very good tasting high protein products out there. And for me the best part is that you can get these in low carb, low sugar and low fat versions. Hence, basically eating pure protein.

By cutting a few calories here and there, and then adding these weightlifting supplements to my daily intake, I get my protein but don't have to make every single bite I take tuna, chicken or turkey.

Makes me feel a little better about my chinese and pizza carry out!

The Diet of a 50 Year Old Weight Lifter

So how does my diet differ from that of a 30 year "weight lifting machine"?

This is a bit of a trick question. "Because the answer is not at all."

I eat exactly the same kinds of things that hopefully successful muscle building younger men and women eat. The difference is in how much of it.

Protein, protein and more protein. It is the building block (actually the amino acids contained in protein) of muscle building. The analogy I like to make is you can spend all the time and energy you want on building your "muscle car" but without fuel in the tank, what have you got? Not much muscle, eh?

Protein is THAT fuel for your bodies muscle building efforts. So this means that I start with determining how much protein I need in grams. From there I multiply that by 4, the number of calories in a gram of protein.

Now I calculate my daily calorie needs using BMR. Subtract from this number the amount of protein calories that I MUST consume, and the remaining amount I take split between carbs, fats and sometimes more protein.

My diet is made up of basically 5 foods: chicken, tuna fish, peanut butter, beans and the only weightlifting supplement that REALLY matters, whey protein.

I NEVER eat a meal, or snack for the most part, without 1 of these 5 as the largest portion. And yes I do eat about 1600 calories a day in vegetables, some bread, fruit and occasionally sweets.

For the record based on my size, age, gender and activity level I consume 190 grams of protein a day and 2600 total calories.

20 years ago almost daily after work I ate a small bag of doritos (840 calories) drank 2 beers (360 calories) and had a shot (180 calories), for a grand total of 1380 calories.

I was not benching 330 but I did weigh 175 lbs with a 33 inch waist as I do now.

I wasn't a 30 year old "weight lifting machine."

But I wasn't 52 either. So except for the bench part my weight and waist haven't changed that much. What would happen NOW if I ate that everyday, all else equal?

So This is How I Feel All Winter Normally?

I was have spent the last 10 weeks staying in a Florida gulf coast vacation home rental (while working) and returned to my midwest home a couple days ago. When I was a young man I used to think that living in Florida would be alright but didn't really see what the big deal was. Of course, I thought who wouldn't want to be there during spring break and bike week in Daytona, and of course in my day the TV show Miami Vice made everybody aware of how cool south beach was. But Florida, or any really warm, year round weather climate, was just another place to live.

Now I get IT.

Being middle aged and spending as long there this winter as I did got my BODY used to the conditions. Now that I have returned to a northern climate (which unfortunately has been unseasonably cold this week) it feels like some one has taken a baseball bat to every joint and muscle I have. This is how I feel ALL the time during winters here?

Spending day after day in temperatures in the 70's and having the sun shine on you for at least some of EVERY day really is good for the body. Not to mention the mind. After my workouts in Florida, I'd leave the gym, take off my shirt and allow the warm sun to help me stretch and meander around during my cool down. But here? I have to bundle up, winter coat, gloves and hat, and still when I hit the cold outside air, everything just tightens up and I can't get "loose" again. Not to mention even in the gyn or inside the house, it just feels COLD.

So how does this pertain to weight lifting and muscle building? Well, I now realize that stretching, flexibility, massage and allowing myself the proper rest is even more important. Plus there is no doubt that you are at a bit of a disadvantage training under these circumstances. All the more reason, if you live in cold weather climates, to take fitness in general and weight lifting in particular more seriously.

Because knowing how these conditions make ME feel? I pity the poor people that struggle to get up a flight of stairs or have to do any physical activity at all (shovel snow?), and have to do it while being over weight, out of shape and lacking the strength and confidence that muscle building provides.

Actually Better Than I Thought

I was just reading a magazine and saw a stat that startled me. According to the Journal of Physical Activity and Health:

91% of people over the age of 18 have NOT lifted weights in the last month.

This means, of course, that 9% have. This is more than I would've guessed. But having said that, it's a pathetic number either way. So you want to get an "edge" in this world? There it is.

You will never convince me that the 9% of adults that have weight lifted in the last 30 days aren't better equipped to deal with all life has to throw at you. It is stating the obvious it seems that being in better shape physically (which helps being sharper mentally), gives you the strength and stamina to deal with the day better than someone who isn't. And it most certainly will help you out work other people.

Given the current state of our economy, who wouldn't want that advantage?

Building muscle is not just for people who want to look and fell better. It's for people who want to LIVE better.