The Answers That Changed My Life

Sobriety, optimal nutrition, training, recovery, financial discipline, and education. In that order of importance, these are the things that have completely changed my life in ways I never thought possible. I would have never thought I could dig myself out of the deep dark hole I felt I was in back in 2022. Now, I've shown myself tenacity, determination, persistence, discipline, and relentless pursuit of my next goal. I had never felt empowered in my life until I showed myself how hard I could push myself and fight for my goals.

During the rollout of my most commercially successful album "Order 66", I knew the album would be quite  which made me even more nervous for it's release. I was drinking on average two dozen beers per day to the point of swelling my kidneys. I was also chain smoking "Breeze" vapes and finishing them on my own within 2 days. On top of those things, I was finishing about a gram of wax every 1-2 days. 

Now I'm completely sober from all addictive substances, my diet is as clean and nutritious as possible, I train hard 3-5 days per week, typically achieve 8+ hours of sleep most nights, cut my monthly expenses in half, and decided to go back to school where I have now almost completed my associates and will soon move on to my bachelors.

Getting Sober

The first and most difficult thing I decided to give up was the nicotine addiction. In the 5 year span of being addicted to vaping, I had attempted to quit 3-4 times and kept failing. I tried vaping juice with lower nicotine amounts as well as nicotine gum but those led me to only dose more and more until I got my nicotine fix. The method that finally ended up working for me was nicotine patches. I needed to be able to consistently control and monitor the doses of nicotine in order to properly taper off. I had heard that there have been people who have worn nicotine patches and then decided to cheat the process and smoke while wearing a nicotine patch. This had caused them to have a heart attack and die. This fear is what prevented me from ever cheating once on the patch. It took me 3-4 months to get through the cravings but finally I made it out! When the options are to keep fighting through the cravings or risk death, it makes it easier. Death is a hell of a deterrent.

The next thing I decided to get rid of in my life was alcohol. I strategically decided to plan the last day I would drink which turned out to be New Years Eve. I had a couple friends over to celebrate with me who knew this was going to be my last hurrah with alcohol. I purchased a bottle of white grape Ciroc which I thought seemed appealing at the time but then ended up tasting like rubbing alcohol. My friends and I got drunk that night but could not finish the entire fifth. Knowing I had taken my last shot, I was prepared to pour the rest down the drain and proceeded to do so. After realizing the strength I had to kick nicotine and no longer felt any residual cravings, I was motivated and used my newfound confidence to abandon my dependance for alcohol. Alcoholism runs in my family so I knew if this habit went unchecked, it would've ended up becoming far worse for me.

The last habit I kicked was smoking weed or more specifically "dabs" or "wax". I left this one to be last because I considered it the easiest to kick and least addictive of the 3 habits. I liked how I had very memorable dates for the last times I consumed each substance. The stoner holiday 4/20 was coming up, so I saw this as a perfect day to be my last hurrah with THC as well. I found that the withdrawals were very minor if present at all from the alcohol and weed. By comparison, the nicotine was by far the harshest in terms of withdrawals. Make nicotine your top priority and use the others as crutches in the meantime if you have to. Once you quit nicotine, you have unlocked the strength to let the other addictions fall like dominos. Take things one step at a time. With each little victory, you gain the confidence and strength to defeat the next task even more easily.

Diet

About a year later, I was out of the woods with my addictions but that meant I had no crutches in life anymore and was white knuckling everything. This had caused me to gain a lot of weight from "stress eating" or "eating my feelings". At a doctors appointment in April 2023, I measured 6'1" and weighed 268lbs. My weight at the time had gotten out of control as before I considered 240lbs to be my threshold for obesity. This was all a part of the growing pains. The cravings for substances might have been gone, but the battles still remained, just on a different front with food. It was about 6-12 months of eating whatever I wanted after quitting my prior addictions before I decided to put my foot down with my diet.

I had previously tried extreme calorie deficit diets and lots of running to lose weight but everything I had tried years in the past was a form of crash dieting/training and could by no means be sustained as a permanent lifestyle and therefore I always put the weight back on afterwards. I realized that if I was going to make a lasting lifestyle change, it needed to be eased into. I first began with reducing my amount of DoorDash orders as well as desserts. Over the next 2-3 months, from early summer into mid summer, I gradually became more strict with the diet I was consuming. The biggest factor in reducing hunger and feeling the need to eat cleaner was when I began weight lifting in the 3rd month of my new evolving eating routine.

I quickly learned that when I exercised, I would automatically feel less hungry throughout the day and felt that fast food, fried food, or heavy foods like pizza would interfere with my workouts and caused me to feel abnormally sick and nauseous. That was the catalyst for me to go from controlling my amount of food to also focusing on quality and nutrition in addition to amount. Technically, you can continue to eat junk food in a calorie deficit and still lose weight effectively, but the reason it is not possible and heavy recommended against is because you will hit your calorie threshold far too quickly and it wont have felt like a lot of food at all. Whenever I eat a cheat meal of very calorie dense food, I end up becoming painfully hungry the rest of the day to stay within my daily calorie budget, or I more likely end up blowing past my daily calorie allowance.

For almost a year now, I have been switching between a cutting and maintenance diet. A maintenance diet is nothing special. It is far less strict than a cut diet and allows for a more reasonable and comfortable calorie budget per day. I can't stress this next sentence enough. Training hard is a complete waste of your time if you're not going to fuel your body properly to carry out the training/dieting effect you hope to accomplish. The key to your success is in a cut diet. Even if you're a skinny guy that needs to bulk, eventually you'll need to hit a cut after a solid bulk anyways to highlight your hard work and progress. I currently eat 2400 calories per day on my cut diet of strictly clean foods so I can still feel full and satiated by the end of each day. I may need to reduced it to 2200 calories soon though but I'm prepared to do so.

My Cut Diet Plan

Breakfast

-8oz Egg Whites (125kcals, 25g Protein)

-3 Links Chicken Sausage (90kcals, 9g Protein)

-1/4 Cup Salted or Unsalted Cashews (160kcals, 5g Protein)

-1 Slice Whole Grain Toast (70kcals, 2g Protein)

-1 Tablespoon Honey with Toast (60kcals)

Morning Snack

-Whey Protein Shake (120kcals, 24g Protein)

-5g Creatine (Mixed Into shake)

Lunch

-6oz Skinless Rotisserie Chicken Meat (240kcals, 44g)

-5oz Cooked Jasmine Rice (180kcals, 2g Protein)

-1/4 Cup Salted or Unsalted Cashews (160kcals, 5g Protein)

-1 Teaspoon of Hot Sauce onto Chicken

Afternoon Snack

-Chocolate & Peanut Butter Kirkland Signature Protein Bar (180kcals, 21g)

Dinner

-8oz Cod or Mahi Mahi Fish (240kcals, 52g Protein)

-5oz Cooked Jasmine Rice (180kcals, 2g Protein)

-1/4 Cup Salted or Unsalted Cashews (160kcals, 5g Protein)

-2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce 

Training

Since I began weight lifting seriously about 9 months ago, through trial and error I have learned many things that I wish someone would've told me. I am only now limited by an injury I accrued within the first several weeks of weight lifting. I have been dealing with quite a painful herniated disk in the upper part of my spine in my neck. This had me incopacited in my bed for weeks and it had nearly paralyzed me. I was in a very low point because I did not understand why I would be given such a set back or punishment for trying to live life the right way. I'm not a very religious person but I asked god to give me my body back and heal me, and in return I will never abuse myself again. I made a promise to myself and god that I would never take my body for granted again in any way. Eventually I started healing and was able to ease back into training. Still to this day I put an ice pack on my neck and treat the inflamation with CBD to make it easier to lice with but I am thankfully able to push on again. The reason I sustained this injury was because I had not taken any rest days for weeks, I was in a calorie deficit, I didn't warm up, and I tried to bench press a weight for far more reps than normal without resting.

Some tips I would give to someone on their journey with weight lifting is to try all kinds of grips and attachments and exercises to figure out which variations of exercises feel the best for you. Everyone's body is different so one exercise that might feel great for your friend may feel like shit for you. It's up to you to find a variation that is more compatible with your joints, tendons, and stature. I would also recommend at least 2 off days per week. If you don't rest, you greatly increase your chance of injury.

I know safety is lame, but as someone who has had a serious injury keep them from training, it is the biggest thing that can derail your progress and mental health and nobody wants to endure such a setback. Keep in mind that being in a calorie deficit puts you at a higher likelihood of injury and makes it more difficult to heal from anything with a lesser amount of nutrition and energy than normal in your body. Even if you've never been injured, consider the repercussions of it so you actively keep yourself in check. Listen to your body and if something feels a bit funny or you feel a tweak one day, DO NOT push through it. You're not a pussy for chilling out, but you're a stubborn dumbass if you don't listen to your body. Consistency is where the results are, not going past your limits every set. If you are going to failure in each set and hit far too many sets in a workout (aka junk volume) you will have a harder time recovering and would actually see less gains and greater risk of injury. Meanwhile, going 1-3 reps shy of failure in each set will keep you much further away from injury and still promote roughly the same amount of hypertrophy/muscle growth stimulus as going to absolute failure. Lastly, put your higher priority muscle groups at the beginning of your workout while you still have energy and then the low priority muscles at the end. When you're gassed, you won't be able to hit things as hard.

My Training Split

Chest/Shoulders

1. Warm-up Flat Bench (6-8 reps, 2/3 normal weight)
2. Flat Bench (2 Sets of 10 Reps)
3. Incline Bench (4 Sets of 12 Reps)
4. Chest Flies (3 Sets of 20 Reps)
5. Bent Over Rear-Delt Side Raises (3 Sets of 20)
6. Lateral Delt Raises (3 Sets of 16 Reps)
7. Shoulder Shrugs (3 Sets of 30)

Back

1. Stretch Lats/Back
2. Warm-up Wide Grip Lat Pull Downs (6-8 Reps, 2/3 normal weight)
3. Wide Grip Lat Pull Downs (3 Sets of 16 Reps)
4. Close Grip Lat Pull Downs (3 Sets of 16 Reps)
5. Wide Grip Rows (2 Sets of 16 Reps)
6. Close Grip Rows (2 Sets of 16 Reps)
7. Motor Pulls (2 Sets of 16 Reps)

Arms

 

1. Stretch arms
2. Warm-Up Tricep Close-Grip Bar Pull Down (6-8 Reps, 2/3 of normal weight)
3. Tricep Close-Grip Bar Pull Down (4 Sets of 16 Reps)
4. Tricep Rope Pull Down (3 Sets of 16 Reps)
5. Warm-Up Outward Dual Bicep Curls (10 Reps, 2/3 normal weight)
6. Outward Dual Bicep Curls (3 Sets of 16 Reps)
7. Solo Cross Body Bicep Curls (1 Set of 16 Reps per arm)
   

Legs/Abs

1. Stretch legs
2. Calve Raises (4 sets of 40)
3. Barbell Hip Thrusts (4 Sets of 16)
4. Goblet/Dumbbell Squats (4 Sets of 16)
5. Weighted Sit-Ups (4 Sets of 24 Reps)

1 Hour of Cardio (Brisk Walk or Fair Intensity Cycling)

Recovery

Once you begin the weight training and cardio, recovery needs to be prioritized alongside them. If you fail to get the proper recovery from sleep each night, it heavily decreases the amount of growth hormone that is naturally produced in the body. Natural growth hormone is a key part of the actual muscle building and recovery process. If soreness is a problem, more sleep will make it reside faster. You wont actually put on any size if you are lifting 5 times per week and sleeping 5 hours per night. The body needs an absolute bare minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night to start producing natural growth hormone. Ideally, you never get less than 8 hours of sleep each night.

Many people say thats impossible for their life, but thats why this is just as important of a step as everything else here. It really comes down to time management and self discipline which should be engrained by this point. If you cut into your 8 hours of rest and recovery time, it's practically making most of your active efforts with training and nutrition in vain. Also, being in calorie deficits or surpluses all the time is mentally draining. Lack of sleep on top of that will just cause ups and downs and hormonal imbalances which are never fun, it just makes life more of an uncomfortable rollercoaster. With proper rest and recovery being added to the arsenal of newly mastered skills, you should feel more clear minded, and have a more steady mood. 

Other ways I prevent deficiencies or imbalances in my body is with supplements. It would probably serve you best to have a blood test done if possible to see your hormone levels and where any vitamin deficiencies may lye. Though most of the things I take would most likely be beneficial for anyone. I get all my supplements from GNC. I start with a basic multi vitamin, then I add a vitamin D-3 pill on top of that because in Michigan, the sun is not very strong or frequent year round and I'm inside most of the time anyways. A fish oil gel pill is great for heart health, reducing triglycerides, lowering cholesterol, and lowers blood pressure. Magnesium is also great for muscle recovery and some say it has a slightly calming effect. Another vitamin I take is MK-7 K-2 which essentially helps the body process the rest of the supplements more efficiently.

The most interesting supplement that I take in my opinion is Shila Jit. Shila Jit is meant to boost natural testosterone production. With slightly higher levels of testosterone, it increases your rate and ability to put on muscle, positively effects mental health and confidence, as well as increase reproductive health in males. Last but certainly not least, Creatine Monohydrate. Creatine is a classic for many athletes and bodybuilders. It functions by holding more water in your muscles which aids in recovery and slightly speeds up your rate of muscle growth. Beware that you would initially gain about 5lbs of water weight in your first couple weeks of using creatine since it makes you retain water.

My Supplement Stack

-Basic Multi-Vitamin

-Fish Oil

-Magnesium Glycinate

-Vitamin D-3

-Vitamin MK-7 K-2

-Shila Jit

-Creatine