The Diet And Training Combination: Figuring Out How You’re Messing It Up

You hit the gym 3 (or 4 or 5) days per week. You’ve been tracking your meals, and watching portions. You’re even starting to think about your rest and recovery habits as a part of this whole process of improving your aesthetics.

It’s the first week of February… You could be on your newly formed resolution to get fit, finally, or you might be on the continual course of self-improvement.

Regardless of whether or not you’ve been at these changes for only the past 4 weeks, or 4 months, you might not be seeing the results you’d hoped for.

This is understandable. Most of us are impatient, and want everything yesterday.

And it doesn’t help that the media is shoving unrealistic images, and catchy phrases down our throats every second.

In fact, here’s one crazy statement I saw in the supermarket.

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From Fluffy to Ripped, Sans the Obsession: Chris Brown’s Transformation

Back in February, I recall getting an email from a guy by the name of Chris Brown who was interested in some fitness consulting.  He found my work through my friend Google, and claimed to have devoured many of my articles since his discovery.

“Ever since I read your No-BS Approach to Looking Great Naked, I’ve been hooked”

is what he said in the opening email.

He went on to explain his experience in athletics growing up, which ultimately led to playing some professional baseball for a short time, before going back to graduate school to further his studies at Salve Regina University.

I knew from the beginning that I’d be able to work with Chris due to his experience in athletics, but his passionate desire to learn and grow he expressed in our email exchange.  I’ll never forget the last line of his first email that read “my work ethic is ridiculous and I love the gym, so I’m ready for the challenge.”

At first, I thought “okay, we’ll see how determined he is” and we continued our conversation which resulted in him starting the official JCDFItness training and diet protocol on Monday, March 7.

I was extremely pleased with his familiarity of the major compound lifts and willingness to let go of the reigns.

While I won’t go into his exact training protocol, I want to highlight a bit of what we did to get the results presented below.  To start off, Chris had been doing the popular Stronglifts 5×5 program.  I was already a fan of this guy – no bro-training to speak of.

Chris’ starting weight was 205lbs and ending weight was 186lbs.  He is right at 6 foot tall.  The time frame in between photos is about 16 weeks.  So on average, he dropped just over 1lb per week.  I think you’ll agree the difference in appearance is fairly drastic.  He transformed from a soft look into a very lean, athletic appearance. 

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JC Deen is a nationally published fitness coach and writer from Nashville, TN. Currently living in the blistering Northeast. Follow me on X/Twitter