S.D.M.F.

A lot has happened since I sat down and wrote my last blog.  I have gained weight and I have lost weight.  I'm always meticulously counting my macros.  My workouts have sucked, and then my workouts have gotten better.  I have changed jobs...again.  Kate and I are closer to being married. And I am best friends with an IFPA Pro Bodybuilder.  That's right.  Jason Childs went three for three with his shows and won his pro card.  And then won a pro show.  The guy's a freak.

I'm very proud of him not just because he won.  Because he did it all while balancing work, being a loving husband, and one of the best fathers I have ever seen.  He has also introduced me to some great people who are helping me on my journey.  These guys and gals have become such great supporters and friends.  They are all very driven and motivated people.  Surround yourself with like-minded people and greatness will happen.

Not to get sappy, but Jason said something to me when he won his last show that really meant a lot to me.  Kate wasn't able to make it to this show.  I was the only one there that didn't have his significant other.  I made a joke when we took the group picture and said, "here's fifth wheel Kyle".  After the picture was taken Jason hugged me, smeared my shirt with Dream Tan and said words that I will never forget.

"You are not a fifth wheel ever.  You belong here."  Simple words, with huge impact and meaning.  

Now then, lets dive in.  I like heavy metal music.  You probably know this by now.  Black Label Society has a song called S.D.M.F. and the words give me inspiration.  SDMF has become part of my life, though I have tweaked it a bit.  I took out the 'merciless' and replaced it with 'motivation'.  Though merciless has its place - you'll see what I mean.

What does each of these words mean to me?  Quite a bit actually.  Each one has a multitude of meanings that help shape my life.  Make no mistake, I have not shaped my life after a heavy metal song, my wardrobe maybe but not my life.  

Strength
What is true strength?  Does it mean being able to lift X number of pounds off the floor, push X number of pounds off your chest/over your head or squat X number of pounds for reps?  Yes.  Does true strength mean grinding out two or three more reps at the end of your last set?  Yes.  Does true strength mean doing that extra set or that last 10 minutes of cardio?  Yes.  In my mind that is true strength.  But, strength is also the ability to say no to cheating on your diet.  Strength is drinking water or a diet soda when all your friends are having beer/wine or whatever.  Strength is eating your pre-made meal out of your Tupperware when all your friends at work ordered Domino's.  For someone who has struggled with overeating their whole life, I think that latter is what true strength is.

Does that sound stupid?  It kind of is.  But not everyone has ever sought refuge in food.  I have.  There are days that food is a non-issue for me.  There are days where I can just use food for what it truly is, fuel.  That's not to say that I don't like to enjoy eating it, but it really is just fuel.  For the day, for the workouts, to replenish after the workout, you know, all that crap. 

But there are days that I walk down the aisle in the grocery stores and cravings hit so hard that it's almost undeniable.  It's like my brain shuts off and my emotions take over.  I want to get whatever I want to eat, take it home, eat it (ALL OF IT), and then I sit there in the reality of my failure with shame and crumbs on my now distended gut, and realize how weak I actually was.

Bottom line is be strong.  Lift your weights.  Do your cardio.  Don't cheat on your diet (by that I mean eat within your boundaries not clean eating VS IIFYM - holy crap I don't need to have this discussion AGAIN).  Do what you need to do.

Determination 

This is an easy one to define.  Set a damn goal and go for it.  Know what you need to and do it.  Know how you need to lift, and lift that way.  Know what you need to do for cardio and do it.  Follow YOUR diet.  Get smarter.  Get help.  Ask questions.

If this means getting up at 4AM to do your cardio, do it.  If it means doing all your meal prep Sunday nights, do it.  True determination means sticking to your guns, putting your head phones in and grinding out your workouts, eating your meals and wading through all the bullshit.  Believe me, there is a lot of it.

Determination isn't something you can fake - you can't go through the motions.  You can clearly tell the difference between the truly determined, and those who aren't.  Typically the person who IS determined doesn't say a whole lot about it.  They just do it.  The person who IS NOT determined will more than happily tell you about how determined they are but will secretly over or under eat, sluff off with their meal prep, will skip workouts (especially leg day), give their cardio the brush off and spends a majority of their time in the gym chatting up the front desk staff and scrolling the news feed on a bench.

Motivation/Merciless

Me with IFPA Pro & Pink fan, Jason Childs

OK, so we actually can put motivation up with determination.  One who is truly motivated will do all the things that I listed above, or their own version of it.  The reason I say that, is because my goals are different than his, and hers, and probably yours.  There is no master plan.  There is more than one way to achieve victory...I digress...

Motivation is something that comes from within.  It's not watching a bunch of clips on YouTube.  It's not that one song that you need to put on.  It's not the poster of Arnold, or Tom Brady or whomever.  At the end of the day, your motivation comes from you.  I'm not saying that those things don't help motivate you.  If you need to picture yourself as Arnold or TB12 to do your best, do it.  If you need to listen to Just Give Me A Reason by Pink and that dude from FUN - I'm looking at you Jason Childs - do it.  But those are just fuel to your fire.  YOU need to be the spark.

Merciless is different.  There are only two things that I am truly merciless with:  my time and my diet.  I sacrifice sleep, family time, and outings with friends because I need to get my lift or cardio or both for the day.  I sacrifice cakes, pies, pizza, beer because sometimes you just can't make them fit your macros - sometimes you can.  Is that what merciless truly is?  Probably not.  But sometimes people have to realize that you will do whatever it takes to accomplish a goal.  I want to be a bodybuilder.  Period.  I will be merciless and do what I have to do.

Forever
When I say FOREVER at the end SDMF I think that means your committed to being strong FOREVER.  You're committed to being determined FOREVER and you will be motivated and merciless FOREVER.

Forever is a very, very long time.  It's it.  There's nothing longer than forever.  Someday, I think that we all will find out just how long forever actually is, but until then I'm just going to keep counting my macros, lifting heavy crap and sweating balls on the StairMaster.

S.D.M.F.
-Brann

Team Grit - Where I Belong

Dumb. Smart.

Well it finally happened.  I turned 30.  When I was 15, I never, ever thought that I would be 30 years old.  It seemed like it was an unimaginable age.  When I was 20, I was never going to be 30.  I was strong as an ox.  I could go into the gym and constantly make gains.  My form would be crap and the programming was garbage but the numbers would still go up. I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted because when the time comes I could just "take it off".  The "old timers" would give me advice on do this and do that, and I would just brush it off be cause I was twenty-something.  I was INVINCIBLE. 

I was stupid.

Let's take a little trip back in time shall we?

At 25 years old I was almost 400 pounds with no idea on how to "take it off".  I was full blown fat.  I was what I wanted to be.  A "strongman".  I did what I wanted to do, I accomplished a goal - but there was still an astounding lack of intelligence on my part.

Any form of programming in the gym was nil and my GPP was in the toilet.  To give you an idea on how out of shape I was, I could barely tie my shoes, walk up a flight of stairs or run more than 10 feet without having to take a break.  I would be red as a tomato and sweating bacon grease.  Let's put it this way, I couldn't even jump to a conclusion.  Late in 2009 I lost my desk job which was the catalyst that started this whole thing.

Fast forward three years and I have dropped about 85 pounds.  I'm a personal trainer and doing what I love to do.  I feel better about myself and am still strong - this was an absolute obsession of mine for many, MANY years.  I didn't care what I looked like, I didn't care about aesthetics.  All I cared about was the number on the bar.  Totals, man.  Totals.

5/3/1 was the program to beat all programs.  My life revolved around 45 pound plates, my power belt, and chalk.  Biceps curls were stupid.  If you weren't squatting, benching or deadlifting, you were useless. So what that I was still over 300 on the scale.  My total (there's that word again) was over 1500!  Raw!  The thought of "saucing up" went through my mind on a fairly regular basis, and I thought that this was the ONLY way to workout.

It's now 2013, only a year later.  I get a wild notion that I, Kyle Brann, formerly obese strongman turned 5/3/1 powerlifting disciple am going to do a bodybuilding show in October.  Not just any bodybuilding show.  A natural bodybuilding show.  I haven't "dieted" in years.  Let me be honest.  I hadn't dieted ever.  When I first went to see a nutritionist I weighed 311 pounds.   I had a stipulation too, if I can't be ready by October (it was April), I will never be ready.  Hello stupidity, nice to meet you.

Here we are, 2015.  You've all read (hopefully) about my journey so far.  You've read about the trials and tribulations that have come my way.  Different nutritionists, injuries, and set-backs.  Motivation and lack-there-of.  Different training splits, my weight goes up, my weight goes down.  I track my macros, I track my training.  More cardio, less cardio.  Egg whites and broccoli.  Pop Tarts and peanut butter.  Blah blah blah.  Things are different.  They've changed.  For the good.

It has been the wildest ride of my life.  I can't even begin to contain it with words.  I wish I can explain how badly I wish I knew then what I know now.  And keep in mind, I'm still very, very green at bodybuilding.  I am doing the absolute best that I possibly can with the tools that have been provided to me.  And am very grateful for all the knowledge that has been presented to me.

To give you an idea on how much things have changed for me since I started this journey I'm currently in a reverse diet (a few years ago I didn't even know what that was).  I'm eating carbs.  A lot of carbs.  Which for any of you who have been carb depleted know, is a lot more fun than NOT eating carbs.  I don't need 400+ grams of protein per day, and there is no need to do five to six hour of cardio per week.

I no longer am "chasing a show".  For the longest time I thought it went a little something like this:  "There's a show on XX/XX/XX, so I'm going to start dieting down on XX/XX/XX.  Get my training in order and I'll slap some Dream Tan on and BOOM!"  Sorry to say it doesn't work like that.  I wish it did, because I would have been on stage by now.  I would've looked like a complete idiot, but I would have done it. 

I'm hurt.  I hurt all the time now.  10 years of carrying around A LOT of excess weight and some of the worst form you'd ever see have left me with constant hip and low-back pain.  My knees ache - also weight related.  My elbows hurt when I do chin-ups and if I'm not warm, I can't train.  Ask anyone who lifts with me, I typically do a minimum of 3-4 warm-up sets on almost everything.  My warm-ups may take a while, you may be tired before we start the work sets, but your joints won't be in agony when you wake up.  Remember those "old timers"?  I should've listened.

Squatting and deadlifting, two of my most favorite things don't happen as often as I would like them to anymore.  With the pain in my back (that has gotten worse over the past two months or so) I can't do them as much.  So I have been doing a ton of squat variations, and Trap Bar deadlifting is awesome!  It's all a matter of training around and not through.  Training through gets you were I am now.  Hurt.

One of the most important things that I have learned is make it a part of your life.  Don't let it consume your life.  Family first.  A very best friend of mine says that all the time.  It's OK to have your macros on point, it's OK to make time in your schedule for gym time - even double sessions if you need to, but don't sacrifice your family for it.  I recently got engaged to Kate.  She is my world.  If I didn't have her all I would have is the gym.  I love the gym.  It doesn't love me back.  Kate does.  I'll let that sink in for a second.

Have fun.  At the end of the day, this is never going to be my career.  I don't think that bodybuilding is ever going to pay my bills.  At least COMPETING in bodybuilding won't pay my bills.  I have dreams and aspirations.  I have goals, but I want this journey to be something that I can pass on.  I want to inspire people.  I want to be a reason (not THE reason) someone decides to change their lifestyle.  If it's "work", if you feel like you "have to" do it, then I think that you're not doing it right. 

Training has always been something that I WANT to do.  I WANT to go to the gym I WANT to track my macros.  If I HAD to go to the gym, if I HAD to track my food I think that this would be a blog about what kind of soup I made on Monday, not how I have 150 grams of carbs left today and how I did pit squats last weekend...

Until next time, stay strong.

~Brann