You are not alone. Not just in your sincere desire to get into shape, but in how you will actually get there. Now that you’ve picked up Complete Physique, you have every tool at your fingertips for bringing about the transformation to make you great again. This book is your story. It’s not about who’s lifting the most, who has more prominent abs or who looks best in a pair of pants or a dress, it’s about you. It’s about understanding that it’s normal to feel self-conscious and intimidated in the gym and that the incremental victories such as your first pushup or pull-up more than make up for the pangs of insecurity that we all experience from time to time.
This book has been meticulously crafted for any lifestyle and/or starting point. It is my sincere hope that, from making this program your own, for life, you achieve the ultimate personal satisfaction of being pleased when you look in the mirror. This book doesn’t just set you off on a temporary race, it guides you along in a continuing journey. There are, of course, moments when you will push harder, be a little stricter with your caloric intake in an attainable short-term effort to look good at the beach, fit into a wedding dress, or catch someone’s eye at a reunion. But the Complete Physique program isn’t about seeing how fast you can transform, but rather how transformative change can become permanence when the pedal is not floored, but rather steadily locked in cruise-control over the long haul.
The time to take action is now. No need to wait for a new year, another upcoming birthday or impending event, Your catalyst for change is simply you. Within these pages, you will be empowered to eat and work your way to a leaner and more powerful body without resorting to drastic measures for, at best, temporary results. You know that a salad and cardiovascular exercise alone is simply not going to work. It is the balanced program that yields balanced results.
There is a man I saw for months at my gym. His face was drawn, his attitude serious and his efforts determined. He systematically whittled away week after week and month after month to hone his body to chiseled perfection. And then just like that, he stopped coming. Upon his return weeks later, he was noticeably heavier to the point that all the cuts in his muscles had been replaced by globs of shapeless, bloated fat. Why I pondered, would someone who clearly worked so hard, just give up his craftsmanship? Why this extreme rebound effect? Why would he sacrifice extreme effort and discipline to peak his body, only to seem less than complete?
For this book, I define the word complete not only as “all-encompassing” or “total,” but also as “the sum of the most complementary parts,” or quite simply, “You at your best.” So with myriad fitness and nutrition books out there, why this one? Why Complete Physique? This book, told from the point of view of both author and practitioner, will keep you efficiently progressing from point A to point B so that you avoid the traps my fellow gym-goer described above fell into. This guide is gleaned from painstaking research and also from in the real-world trenches of application.
Let’s be clear on why you’re really here: you’re looking to simultaneously lose body fat and gain lean muscle mass—the ultimate two-pronged goal. Let’s also be clear on why you’re not here: Complete Physique isn’t about a achieving a finite state but instead it maps a targeted and systematic route that will take you to your destination, which is attaining your representational best. We are talking about long-term striking distance, but in order to get there, eventually, you must first reach an intermittent target. Just as a runner continues to run through the finish line and only slows down once the race is over and the time recorded, you can throttle back.
Most everyone is strong in pursuing their goals with regimented fortitude on Monday. This book will give you the tools to remain just as firm, focused and dedicated throughout the week. This book will reinforce what you already know: that you deserve to achieve your goals and in turn feel happy and proud of your accomplishments. This book will reinforce that living in a near-permanent rut, feeling sorry for yourself in a state that is both familiar and comfortable, need not be you. That the ever-slipping standards of excellence that many accept at being far less than their best need not be that state in which you live. Excellence, your excellence, is not only possible, it is essential.
This is not a bodybuilding book. This is a self-building book that serves as my tailored guide to what truly works in getting you back to being your best, with timeless principles. The general public is neither concerned with nor interested in developing large muscles and putting them on display to be judged, but if you’re reading this book, then you are concerned with losing body fat and showcasing lean and firm muscles, and that is, essentially, what a bodybuilder does.
Although experience dictates that stereotypes exist in any endeavor, and bodybuilding is certainly no exception, only a former competitive national champion bodybuilder (yours truly) is most familiar with the technical how-to aspects and the real-world experience of getting into peak shape. Sure, many nutritionists can get you skinny, but I have yet to see a client gain lean muscle while losing body fat over a period of time under the tutelage of said professional. The number on the scale may go down, but the composition of that number doesn’t improve. Ya hear me?
I’m proud of my bodybuilding past, and without the many years I endured under the cold steel, the endless chicken breasts I devoured at the dinner table, and all the posing I did under the hot lights in front of the scrutiny of the judges, this book would not be possible.
If you never thought you could, but wish you would, then this is the book for you. You don’t need tedious hours in a gym daily, nor hours in the kitchen every day to produce the grandest of physiques. Whether you’re a man or a woman, this is the Golden Fleece that we are all seeking, and within these pages is the map with which you will find it.