Written by Jacob Cassidy

New Habit #1: Lifting Weights

Topic: New Habits, Operation Herculean

Discuss: 6 Comments

This month, to kickstart Operation Herculean, I’m focusing on implanting a regular habit of lifting weights. While diet gives the body the building material to make changes, exercise forms the blueprint that tells your body what to do with this material. So this month I’m focusing on the blueprint, and next month, making sure the right muscle building materials are present.

I first became interested in bodybuilding when I was 15 years old and begun my life long passion of learning more about health and fitness then. Magazines like Muscle & Fitness (would be more accurately named as Muscle & Fiction) and Muscle Media served as a fountain for my thirst of bodybuilding knowledge. As I begun to learn more, I discovered the magazines were full of misinformation and only had one purpose, to make money.

All mainstream health and fitness magazines either have their own supplement line they pimp out hardcore, or work closely with a few supplement companies they pimp out for them. The articles are only written for the purpose of selling more supplements. The more confused and frustrated they can keep you, the better they can keep pointing to new supplements to solve your never ending problems. If you’re reading health magazines for any reason other than motivation from the pictures of fit individuals, now’s the time to cancel your subscription.

I’ll write more detailed about supplements in the future. For now, know that 99.9% of all supplements on the market are a complete and utter sham. It’s a dirty and criminal-like industry bent on making maximum money at any cost, much like the pharmaceutical industry, only without any regulation whatsoever. The 0.1% of supplements that are useful are there to supplement one’s diet, not fix it. So before you even think about supplements, you need to get your diet in good order.

I first got interested in bodybuilding as a teenager because I bought into the media conditioning that popular and well liked people looked sexy, and muscular men got it all. I was a shrimp who didn’t even break 100 lbs soaking wet when I started High School. But, I wanted to look like Arnold, and be that muscular man with all the sexy chicks hanging off him, or at least one ;)

I was invisible at the time and no one even noticed me (something I worked hard at after being picked on all throughout elementary and middle school for being deaf), and I wanted to be noticed and liked. Bodybuilding was my key into a great social life, or so I thought.

My first breakthrough with muscle building came when I discovered a book called MuscleNow. In it, the author, Francesco Castano, revealed the lies and scams within the bodybuilding world and what it really takes to build muscle. It served as a light in my frustrated attempt to gain muscle as a skinny hardgainer.

While the MuscleNow program is far from perfect (I found it leads to overtraining for me personally), the author has always responded to all my questions with immediate and detailed answers, making the cost of buying the program well worth it when I was starting out.

After I got the MuscleNow program, I begun putting it into action off and on depending on if I could work up the motivation to push pass the numbness I was feeling in life. I started at age 16 at a wimpy 119 lbs and 3 years later, working out inconsistently, I managed to build my body up to 181 lbs at age 19. Here’s what my before and after pictures looked like from that time…

I discovered that bodybuilding did help me become more noticed and girls started complimenting me on my body often. It was awesome to be feeling physically powerful, athletic, and admired. But, I soon found out that looks, while great for initial attraction, did absolutely nothing to improve my social life and bring me success with women. Apparently, things like a winning personality and the ability to relate with others were far more important. Who would thunk it? ;)

After having horrible luck with the ladies, I became even more depressed and hopeless from my actions not resulting in any changes, and stopped bodybuilding altogether. At least it serves as a humorous flashback for my childhood friends, who always reminds me of the times and laugh when we get together. Oh the anguish! My best friend alone accidentally stole two dates from me at different times. It would be years later before any girl returned my affection, but that’s a whole another story.

After I lost interest in continuing bodybuilding, I still retained a passion in health & fitness, and continued to learn as much as I could about the subject in-between the times I was too depressed to do anything other than watch movies. This led to me implanting a habit of having a pretty healthy diet, and as such, my weight as remained between 170-185 lbs since I stopped (the higher end during the inconsistent times I did lift weights temporary, and the lower end when I was physically inactive).

I did attempt to start bodybuilding many times since I stopped caring all those years ago, but never lasted longer than 4 weeks. I simply didn’t have enough joy, love, and passion in my life to drive me any further. Now I’m starting again, this time for myself and to inspire others to improve their own health and fitness. The circle has come full around and I’m now highly motivated to build muscle again from a completely different perspective.

To develop the habit of lifting weight consistently, I’m going to lift weights 45-60 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for the next 4 weeks. I’m actually going to be using the MuscleNow program I bought over a decade ago as my exercise program this month. My goal isn’t to gain much muscle this month, but rather to recondition my body for movement, work out some of the imbalances and inflexibility, and prepare my nervous system for the stress of intense bodybuilding exercise.

At the end of the month, I’ll post an update on how my habit implantation turned out. Now I’m excited to get my first workout in after a long postponement. Wooha!

Posted on February 1, 2010

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