Bodybuilding Forums

Just wanted to say thanks to Mark for encouraging me think outside the box when it came to health and fitness. I have worked out for years and have always been in decent shape, but am very ectomorphic and not genetically inclined to gain lots of muscle and could never quite get those really defined abs and I always felt my body was too soft for how much work I put into it (4-5 days a week at the gym). After these past few months of changing my diet and workout strategies based off Mark's suggestions (I still can't commit to MANS completely but I'm trying), while I still weigh about the same, my body fat has gone down from 12% to 8% and there are definite improvements in muscle definition and quality.

Just wanted to share my before and after pics, it's not a wild transformation like some have made since I started off being in decent shape already but it is a definite improvement that I would not have made without Mark's help. Maybe next thing you can teach me Mark is how to take good pictures because I seriously can't do it without them coming out blurry lol.

Before I found MuscleHack:


After:

Hey man great work. You might not have lost 50 lbs or anything but what you did is probably more impressive in my opinion. That muscle definition has exploded. I am at like 13% or so right now and getting close to where you were when you started. If I look like you by this summer I will be pumped. Just curious, did you do any cardio or just the THT plan or what. I am sticking to the THT right now and am going to add some sprints when the spring rolls around, but would love to here what you did.

I did not do any cardio, my workout program was just a 5-day split similar to what Mark suggests. However I've always been skinny stick figure my whole life so I'm not prone to storing excess fat and didn't want to do anything that might remove any muscle since its hard enough for me to get any more of it as it is.

I can definitely say the results all came from my diet, since I was already working out similar to THT beforehand but with an old fashioned high carb and low fat diet. I could not commit to MANS as a permanent lifestyle so I went more with Mark's suggested GLAD approach and hovered around 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs. A lot of Mark's recipes and meal suggestions helped me replace much of my excess carbs with more protein and fat. While I know results would probably be faster with MANS this is just something I can more easily live with on a day to day basis and I know I will be able to stick to it for as long as I need to in my life.

harryt43 wrote:You might not have lost 50 lbs or anything but what you did is probably more impressive in my opinion. That muscle definition has exploded.

As a much fatter person, I gotta say I agree. Ripping from where you were to where you are is a more-dramatic improvement than even losing 20-50 pounds for a fatty. I've gone down from 35% to 28% to 19%, and am shooting for the 10-13% range by June. Getting and staying below 10% is quite an achievement. Good on you!

--Matt B.

SurferX wrote:I can definitely say the results all came from my diet, since I was already working out similar to THT beforehand but with an old fashioned high carb and low fat diet. I could not commit to MANS as a permanent lifestyle so I went more with Mark's suggested GLAD approach and hovered around 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs.

Thank you SO MUCH for sharing that! I have been reaching the point where I felt like I needed a 40/30/30 diet too, only like you, it was going to be 40% protein instead of 40% carbs. I can cut my carbs some, just not to the extent MANS requires! It's so nice to feel not alone!

I figure, sure some protein may be converted to glucose, but there's an efficiency hit that isn't there if I was eating 40% carbs, so it may not be as good as a full-blown ketogenic diet, but it's a damn sight better than the SAD diet and even slightly better than the GLAD diet!

You look amazing!

Hey Surfer X, you look great my friend.

I'm more than happy to have helped.

Would you like the pics and some of the text added to the testimonials section? If so, can I have your city & country. You can leave your real name, but if not, I can use SurferX.

Thanks, and keep moving forward!

Mark