It seems that everybody these days is jumping on the latest magical fitness phenomenom. I can’t go outside without hearing words like functional training, CrossFit, Metabolic training, or P90X.

Before you get sucked into a trend — think back and try to remember why you got into strength training to begin with. Didn’t you dream of packing on slabs of muscle? Or a ton of strength? Or maybe you were like me and really wanted to get big, veiny, sleeve tearing, girl seducing arms.

I also happen to have enormous arms. Aside from the Mr. Clean jabs, I get asked by dudes like yourself everyday how I got my physique.

But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, I used to be a soft, fat guy; The weight room saved my life.

At 28 years old, I was 50lbs overweight working as a creative director for an ad agency — I needed a change — so, in the four months leading up to my wedding, I lost 51lbs.

It wasn’t until I looked at the pictures from my honeymoon that I thought, “this still isn’t what I want to look like; I’m not fat anymore but I still look like crap.”

I read everything I could on working out and nutrition. I put in tons of hard work and it paid off. My doctor even asked me if I was on steroids. (I wasn’t and never have been.)

I did all of this before I trained a single person. I always figured you had to ‘walk the walk’ before telling others what to do. Now my guns have become a part of me. Everywhere I go it seems to be a show. I catch girls looking up from their phones (probably texting their boyfriends) to check…