It was a winter night in 2012 in New York, where I was staying while shooting a guest appearance on Nurse Jackie. I was standing at the window, looking down at the Big Apple, which bustled with life even at 10 minutes before midnight.
The phone rang.
It was director Malcolm Lee with news that The Best Man Holiday had just been green-lit. That meant the movie was a go. Great news! Right? It should have been, except I could guess what he was going to want from my character, Lance Sullivan, this time around.
“Morris, I need you to be ripped!”
I agreed to take the part, and hung up the phone. Then anxiety set in. Reality check. At about 220 pounds, I wasn’t exactly ripped. In fact, I couldn’t see my abs. They were hiding somewhere beneath a layer of fat. I may have looked fine with clothes on, but now I was going to be shot without my shirt on. I’d shot the original Best Man movie 13 years before, when I was in my early 30s and a good 30 pounds lighter. Now I wanted to make a statement that even in my 40s, I could be as fit as I was then. The question was, how?
I had only 12 weeks before the show started shooting. How was I going to lose that much weight in that time—especially at my age? I knew I was going to have to work twice as hard as I would have had to in my 20s or even 30s to look the way the director wanted me to. In an industry that is age-conscious, I couldn’t afford to appear in front of millions of people—and be captured on film forever—in the kind of shape I was in. It would make a difference in my being able to work as a leading man.
I knew I’d put on some weight, but my current role hadn’t required me to take my shirt off on camera. I’d been shooting in New York that December, and skipping workouts. I’ve also always had a sweet tooth, and I’d been having dessert after nearly every meal. Once I started down that path, the pounds quickly added up.
But now it was time to take action.
I decided I needed a trainer. A friend of mine recommended Obi, and when I saw photos of him, I was impressed. He was ripped! It’s easy for a 20-year-old trainer to be ripped, but Obi was in his late 30s, so I knew he was doing something right.
Working with Obi, I shed the weight, and fast. In 12 weeks, I went from 220 pounds to 187. I was surprised at how quickly the pounds and extra flab seemed to just melt away. But I’m going to be real with you: This was difficult. Probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
Yes, the workouts were hard, but the mental switch was even tougher. I was so out of shape when we started working together that it was tough to stay motivated in the beginning, especially before I could really see results. I worked my butt off to get my 44-year-old body in shape. Yeah, I had a few bad days where I didn’t follow the diet perfectly. But I didn’t quit. And it paid off.
Audiences apparently enjoyed my new look. The Best Man Holiday was a box-office smash, and it seemed like all anybody wanted to talk about was my shirtless scenes in the movie. Whenever I went on air to promote it—from Wendy Williams to Dr. Oz to the Today show to The Talk—the same clips of my body were played over and over. Instead of asking about my role in the movie, people asked me how I got in such good shape. Obi and I both were bombarded with emails and calls from around the world, all from people wondering the same things: What exercises do you do? What do you eat? What can I do to get into shape? In fact, more than two years later, people still want to know what I did to look the way I did on screen.
With so many people asking for our secrets, we realized it was time to share them. That’s what this book is about! We’re finally sharing the program behind my radical transformation—the plan that will help you create your own wonderful before-and-after success story.
Between shooting my show Rosewood and promoting movies like The Perfect Guy, I’m busier than ever before. But I’ve kept the body Obi helped me build—a body that I thought I could never get back. He and I decided to write this book to help all the people out there like me—fed up with the way you look and ready to make a change.
I’ve been there—I know what it feels like to be frustrated with the way you look, and concerned about changing it. I also know how great it feels to have that confidence back when you’ve done the work and have the results to show for it.
Obi and I aren’t into sugarcoating things, so we won’t promise you an easy fix. But if you give us 12 weeks, we’ll give you the blueprint to help you get your body back—or get an even better body than you’ve ever had before! We worked together to create a book that would work for anyone who’s ready to say “enough!” and get after it.
So let’s get going! You’ve got nothing to lose (but pounds on the scale), and everything to gain.
—Morris Chestnut, February 2016
I had no idea when Morris reached out to me in December 2012 that it was the beginning of not only a friendship, but a book! Morris saw me on the cover of a magazine, posing with a mutual friend. “I’ve got to get on this guy’s program,” he told her. When she told him I was a trainer—a body transformation specialist—he looked up my website and was impressed with the client success stories.
Morris and I started out as trainer/client but we quickly became good friends. The same month The Best Man Holiday opened, Morris appeared on the cover of Muscle & Performance. The hosts of every talk show (The View, The Talk, Dr. Oz, you name it!) showed that cover and peppered him with questions about how he’d gotten in such fantastic shape. After his promotion tour, we were both bombarded with emails, tweets, and Facebook posts about how people could get the same results that Morris did.
We realized we had a plan that worked, and a plan to share with everyone willing to work hard to get in the best shape of their lives. That’s the basis of this book, and what we’re excited to share with you!
—Obi Obadike, February 2016