NAME: Jason

HOME: Bellbrook, OH

OCCUPATION: Reverse Engineer

AGE: 34

HEIGHT: 6'0"

WEIGHT: 178

BODY FAT PERCENTAGE: 7.5%

Hello, my name is Jason and I'm a 34-year-old father and husband. I have a normal 9-5 job working as a contractor sitting on my butt all day. As you can see from my before picture, I let myself go years ago. So what went wrong? I got a job after college, got married, and had kids is what happened! After some introspection I decided that I had strayed from the well beaten path of good nutrition and exercise and decided I would like to get back to basics and get in shape.

College Years

During my college years I was a personal trainer at a gym located next to my college. Working out was my first passion in life. I even competed in my first body building contest, the Mr. Northern Kentucky, when I was a teenager. I kept my body fat low, never higher than 10% in the offseason and stuck to a steady diet of good clean food and plenty of free weights.

Marriage

When I was single, I had lots of time to spend on myself, working out in the gym all hours of the day and night if I wanted to. When I got married, I prioritized my time differently to include my wife and family, and I neglected to keep my "me time" in my schedule to keep my body lean and healthy. There is nothing like single life to keep your butt in shape. As I got comfortable with married life, my body started to creep on some unwanted body fat. Just a little, not enough to get all stressed about, right? If I only knew how hard it is to lose body fat after the age of 30. Ha!

Kids

OK, so now I go from weighing about 190 lbs in college to pushing 200 lbs shortly after marriage. Now throw in some kids and then I watched my weight balloon up to 215 lbs. Yes, yes, I know - we men do not have to bear children but we have to be around for the food that our pregnant wives eat. You know, sympathy pounds…at least that is what I kept telling myself.

Marriage + Kids = Higher Body Fat

So, you see, I am just an average Joe with a normal life and a growing waistline. Does this sound familiar? Are you getting tired of jeans being a little too snug around the waist? Who am I kidding? I think I just about gave myself a hernia with how tight my jeans were getting around my growing waistline. There is no way that I would admit I couldn't fit into 34-inch jeans.

If only an expanding waistline was my only problem. I decided it was time to get my blood work done. My blood results were less than idealistic. I now had high blood pressure and soaring cholesterol to boot. Great, I couldn't win. I lifted weights several times a week - I was athletic, I thought. How could I be unhealthy? Well, my nutrition and cardio went out to lunch. I needed to get back to basics and follow my own advice I used to give people when I was a personal trainer.