Ty D.
PROGRAM
Lifestyle
TESTIMONIAL
My wife and I have been doing nutrition plans for about 3 years. I used to be really heavy, like 250-260, and then I started CrossFit and at the time I said I'd never be one of those dudes with protein shakes, and I really just worked out to live longer and not get a heart attack, but I planned to eat my same junk food diet. After a while I felt gross, so I started eating better and then dropped a bunch of weight, but then I wanted to maximize. It bothered me that I didn't look like the other fit guys, and being overweight most of my life, coming from an overweight family, I never thought I'd be the guy with a six pack, but once I got down to 205ish, I thought, if other humans can do this, why not me? It's just a matter of focus and dedication. So I hired a Nutritionist at a private medical clinic and told her what I wanted to do. Her solution was just to cut all my calories. She was used to helping people not get diabetes and stop being obese, not athletes (not that I considered myself an athlete but I trained every day). I dropped to below 175, and was hungry, tired and zonked all the time. I quickly rebounded back to 215. Not wanting to repeat that feeling, I looked for something else I had been seeing this "CrossFit" diet online a bunch, and then we switched gyms and the coaches at the gym and a bunch of the athletes endorsed it, so Dani and I thought, what the hell? Let's try it! We committed to a 12 week cut, and we were strict, like 90/10 at most. We lost a ton of weight, I dropped down to 185ish, was lean, had my abs and felt like a champ! Dani and I moved on to maintenance thinking this would be our new normal and we each gained back 10 pounds in the first week. We did another cut like this, same result. Then they released an App so we got the App. It was supposed to be dynamic and use Machine Learning (I work in Tech, it doesn't) and we tried maintenance and another cut and gained weight, so tried a more extreme cut, and I literally lost all my carbs in week 2! No gradual reduction, just here you go. Did this for the full 12 weeks, and again ballooned when it was over, and felt very defeated. This combined with my work requiring a lot more travel and being shorter on time, I was just really beat up. This even impacted how I looked at fitness, I was frustrated at the gym and started to feel like I was working out and measuring my food for nothing. Shitty feeling.
That's when Dani said she wanted to try something new. We talked to a friend of ours who is heavily involved in the Vancouver fitness scene and he knew one of the coaches at Black Iron Nutrition and suggested we try that, so we thought why not? Then the pandemic hit and we were locked inside together anyway so it was a perfect time for a new routine. When I first did the form I was pretty up front that I really just wanted to feel good (not slow and tired) and I wanted to actually LOOK like I worked out every day, because it was a lot of work for nothing. When I got my first check in, I wasn't keen on the "mental" side of it, I didn't want to talk about my feelings or what I was proud of, but I thought, well I'm here now let's give this a go. It's been 12 weeks, and to be honest on the other programs I knew exactly how many days were "left", with Nicole I had no idea we had been at it for 3 months. I lost over 10 pounds, without my macros dropping (not even really cutting) and I'm 15# heavier than when I finished previous cuts, but I think I actually look better. I feel way better. I'm eating full meals, I'm not hungry and I look forward to my weekly check-ins, her advice and it's really powerful to look back at the week and find something, anything to stamp as something you're proud of. This hasn't felt like a cut, and I've appreciate her insight and wisdom. The first couple weeks she focused on breaking habits I had formed, showing me how sugar alcohols were negatively effecting me (as an example) etc. I've been extremely happy and I'm just really impressed and look forward to continuing our progress.