Today we have an interview with Robert Robinson who placed 4th in the Transformation category in the latest Adonis Index Contest.
Check out his pictures:
Chances are that you too are just a couple of pounds away from being ripped!
You would say that a 30 year old guy who works in a lab and is getting a job as a teacher AND planning for his wedding in his spare time will be pretty busy (and maybe too busy) with his life to be concern with getting in shape or even entering a fitness contest.
As impossible as it sounds Rob proved to us again that it can be done, no matter how busy you are and how stressful your life is.
Rob told us that contrary to what we would guess, a busy life provides structure and it’s actually easier to get things done when you have very little free time. You may have noticed this yourself, that on some days when you have a lot of work, and need to get your workout done, you are really productive, because you have so much planned out, you have to keep going until it’s all finished, no laziness or looking for ways to kill time – productivity only.
Most people would consider being ‘busy’ as an excuse and would complain about how they have no time to go to the gym or eat properly. Not Rob, he saw an opportunity in this (that’s the spirit!).
Before we dig into his approach, let’s look at his diet and training history (expect some interesting stuff).
Everyone Expected Rob to Be Big for the Rest of His Life
Believe it or not, but at one point Rob was 300 pounds!
He was big, but like he said he wasn’t big like bodybuilders, he was big and overweight.
Back then he didn’t think about the look of his body and since it didn’t affect his work, he didn’t concern himself with it.
He loved Arnold’s movies, so he thought being big is a good thing.
It was also sort of expected from his family.
Rob’s transformation over the years, he lost an impressive 140 pounds! (The last two pictures are his transformation with the Adonis Index)
Then he had a moment when he visited a friend of his who had Arnold’s encyclopedia of bodybuilding. After reading it and going through the pictures he realized that he doesn’t look the way he wants or should and he needs to change.
Using some diet approaches he found on the internet he got down to 216 (from 300) and basically lost 80 pounds in six months (pretty impressive).
And then he stalled at that point for a while.
After some time he got even further down to 180 pounds, but he wasn’t sure what was causing the results. Which is pretty interesting, because even though he managed to lose that much weight he was still afraid of gaining the weight back…this is because everyone who lost weight he knew always gained it back.
At first he thought that just because he was eating a diet low in carbohydrates he was losing fat. Later after finding Adonis Index he realized that what really caused his massive weight loss was a reduction in calories, combined with a drastic increase in activity, and most importantly – consistency in these two areas over time.
He lowered calories somewhat unintentionally since he though that carbs are the bad guy or he would do hours of activities and not realize hoe many calories it was burning.
Being Big vs. Being Ripped
Rob was glad he lost all that weight, however like he said he was skinny-fat, he had (in his words) “no muscles at all” at that point.
At the beach when he would take off his shirt, he would just be smooth with no muscle definition.
He was low in bodyweight, but not satisfied with his physique, he simply didn’t look the why he envisioned for himself.
This is further proof that there is a huge disconnect from how you look and what the scale says.
People don’t understand this concept and get scared as soon as the scale number gets low (in their opinion).
The truth was that Rob never focused on developing any muscle mass, so it doesn’t come as such a surprise when you think about it.
We are so culturally focused on the number on the scale, but completely ignore the “quality” or the “whole picture” that makes up the look and health of our body.
Then at the end of 2010 Rob found Eat Stop Eat and Adonis Index.
He started listening to the podcasts, got the workouts and followed them as written.
Was it enough or did it work?
Well, scroll up and take one more look at the pictures.
Here are some tips from Rob you can incorporate into your approach:
- Don’t get caught up in day-to-day look
- It’s a process and the transformation is both physical and mental
- Enter the contest!
- You will not get abs in 8 days as you see in the ads, it will take more time, but it will happen
- What’s a couple of month or years of dedication compared to living the rest of your life as a happy and healthy person?
- Don’t get pressured into being ‘big’
- Realize that for most guys it’s not realistic to be 200 pounds and ripped (look at all the Adonis Index contest winners, NONE of them are over 200lbs)
- Stop looking at the scale and start looking in a mirror and best of all – take pictures
- There is no reason to do more work for the same results, be smart about your approach
- The podcasts are huge, listen to all of them
- Macros don’t matter, calories are responsible for weight loss or weight gain
- Eat the food you like, just eat less of it
- Don’t eat breakfast if you don’t want to
- You don’t need to live the bodybuilder lifestyle to have a great physique
Useful links from Rob’s interview:
- Adonis Index Main Workouts – The Main workout program, also responsible for one of the most amazing transformations online
- Adonis Index Community – The friendliest and most supportive community in the fitness world. UPDATE: Free access when you buy any Adonis Index program here
- Eat Stop Eat – Lifestyle approach to get lean and stay lean all year round, by Brad Pilon
- Anything Goes Diet – No BS Diet Book that lets you in on how fat loss really happens (Hint: It’s different than what you hear from media)
Read Rob’s experience with Adonis Index in his own words:
The result was an undeniable success, to me. Adonis not only helped me to get lean so that I discovered the great physique I had, but Adonis also helped me to do that while planning and organizing my upcoming wedding, moving into a new career field, and maintaining my normal social life. How can…
Listen to the interview here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
About Allen Elliott