Scottymouth featured on Stronglifts!

Mehdi of Stronglifts.com posted my story and added his comments. This is a great honor for me and I invite you to read:

***SUCCESS STORY***

Mehdi,

When I found StrongLifts.com I was tight 38" waist and was pushing
220lbs/100kg with an estimated 25% body fat. I was sick and tired
of being that way and wanted to get thin quick. Using your advice I
started the StrongLifts Dumbbell 5x5. At 35, I wanted to be able to
keep up with my kids and not be an "old and fat" Dad.

Since then I have lost my job, then got a new one. I have 3 small
children whose daycare situation is always changing. Not to mention
getting sick and things of that nature. I have a wife who is a
beautiful skeptic and tight with our money. My schedule does
everything in "its" power to stop me from achieving my goals. I
have 2 herniated discs in my lower back, which I re-injured in May
using poor form on Deadlifts.

From February to March I was keeping track of my nutrition, but not
paying much mind to anything but protein. I was running 3x week and
lifting dumbbells 3x week.
I managed to get a sizable tax refund and convinced my wife to buy
a bench with Squat Rack and 300lb/135kg Olympic Barbell set.

I went full boar on the StrongLifts 5x5 program, but was too lazy
to work on form. I found out that my Squats were not low enough.
Then I hurt my back. I was feeling sorry for myself and making
excuses.

I woke up one day and read all of your posts again and got myself
motivated. I took 1 month and worked on my hip flexibility. In 2
weeks I was reaching parallel and in 3 weeks was Squatting ass to
grass.

My back still didn't like the Back Squats so I switched to Front
Squats and Rack Pulls. Since I began lifting and progressive
loading, I have deloaded 4 times. Mainly due to going back and
working on form and flexibility.

Then I read Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.
(NOTE: for more info about this product, click here:
http://stronglifts.com/burn-fat-feed-muscle/ )

I started to experiment with different calorie goals, macronutrient
ratios and cardio. At this point my stats were:
Age 35
5'7"/1m70
196.6 lbs/89kg
19.5% body Fat

I was squatting 210lbs/95kg before I deloaded to work on my hips.
My last deadlift was 210lbs/95kg, when I hurt myself. This was
August 1st 2008. I set a 90 day goal and made it my desktop on my
laptop so I would see it everyday.

It read: "November 7, 2008 - 14% 185lbs and a quote: The strangest
secret in the world is that you become what you think about - Earl
Nightingale"

I started a 40-40-20 ratio and a zig zag calorie intake regimen.
20% of my maintenance for 3 days and 5% over maintenance for 3
days. I was doing cardio 5-6 days per week and lifting 3x week. I
got serious and watched the fat drop while maintaining LBM. In 1
month I achieved my 3 month goals.
Now:
184.4lbs/83kg
11.5% BF

My body was waiting to get into shape, and when I found the right
formula, it let me - even helped!

I have been so strict about my diet and my results were so obvious,
that I started to research even more. My friends and family started
to ask me questions. I started to post my opinions on the
Stronglifts.com forum to help others who were in my same situation.
It has been amazing.

I have my "feed bag" everywhere I go and I am ALWAYS exercising my
discipline.
When I have to travel I make the arrangements beforehand if I can
and exercise on the cheap in hotel gyms and if there is not one, I
do my own version of HIIT with Push-ups.

My goals are not yet achieved. But I am close. Once I achieve my
fat loss goal, I will then set new strength goals and go for them.

Had it not been for Mehdi and StrongLifts.com, I WOULD NOT be doing
so well. My discipline in nutrition and physical fitness has
factored into every part of my life, and I am a better Human Being
for it.

Thanks - I owe you my life.

- Scottymouth


>>>MY COMMENTS:

Great stuff. Several things here I'd like to emphasize.

* Scottymouth failed first before he "got" it. Failure will often
precede success. Some people give up when they fail, other stick
through. Scottymouth sticked with it, found the solution, and then
made progress fast.

* Weight lifting is the safest sport when looking at the rate of
injury. However if you use bad technique, you drastically increase
the risk of injury. Adding weight too fast, too soon, is common.
Injuries are often the only way to make you understand that this
isn't the right approach. As Napoleon Hill said "Failure is life's
best teacher".

* Scottymouth wrote he lost 8% body fat and 12,2lbs/6kg body fat in
1 month. This is about 3lbs/1.5kg per week. It's a lot, he might
have lost some muscle too (good way to know: strength loss usually
means muscle loss) which is possible since he was doing cardio
5-6x/week. Maybe he lost the fat in 1month and a half, not 1 month.
This would be 2lbs per week which is more realistic.

* And at last: Scottymouth has a wife, 3 kids, lost his job, had to
buy a squat rack, injured himself, failed, etc. But he didn't made
excuses, he went for it anyway. And he deserves the results he got
for this reason.

Again: great stuff.