How Gain Muscle And Lose Weight Came To Be And Why I Started It
Dec 7th, 2010 | By Todd Bowman | Category: Uncategorized
Short Version -
I’ve been heavily into computers and working in the corporate world since 1996. But I knew there had to be something out there I was pasisonate about. I’ve also been working out since 1997. I never thought that I could marry my love for computers with my love for health, fitness and bodybuildig. Ahh, the internet. I love you little internet. You can monitize your passions via the internet. Thanks Al Gore for creating the world wide web. You’ve heard that one a thousand times haven’t you?
Back to the short story. I started this site in September of 2009. When I started Gain Muscle And Lose Weight, I wasn’t sure what direction it would take. I was only really able to add articles to it every so often after working hours. The boss wasn’t too keen to pay me to work on my own website. Strange.
Then I got another cush job in July of 2010. In the back of my mind I wanted to really develop this site so I could provide real value to people by helping them acheive their goals. Turns out this new “computer job” sucked the life out of me even more. Can you relate? I bet the answer is yes.
The stress of deadlines, a new work envoirnment, figuring out how the new company worked was too much. Not only that but I was becoming one of those dudes that comes home and bitches to their wives all night about, “Uhhh Jack in Legal was such a douche today, the way he just….” You get the picture. I didn’t want to be one of those guys. Plus, (a big plus) where was my passion for life? Where was my passion for working out? I was still working out but it was a grind and I only was lifting the bare minimum in order to go through the motions. All I wanted to do was pat myself on the back and be happy with the fact that at least I made it to the gym that day.
That’s not how I wanted to live.
I had a job that pays over $70,000 a year shouldn’t I be happy? With this economy being horse crap right now, who am I to complain about my job? Wrong. We should never exchange our passions, hopes or dreams for money. You see, the more the dollar gets devalued, the more our labor becomes less valuable. Then we need to trade even more “real things” like our time and energy to make the same amount of money for our employers. Plus when we quit working for XYZ company, what are we left with? Are we left with anything substantial? Probably just a little bit more debt so we can jump back on the hampster wheel to find another job. Never trade time for money. Decoupling the two is the most valuable thing you can do.
Anyway I always had a passion for health, read my diet page for more information about that. I’m very passionate about bodybuilding and weight lifting as well as success principles and lots of sports like surfing, basketball and tennis. But working at this company I was just throwing away who I was in order to get a paycheck. I’m sure you’re in the same boat.
Before I even joined this new company I already had a pretty great job as it was. So after about a month of being miserable at my new job and not wanting to go back to my old employer, I decided now is the time. I don’t have any kids and my wife supported me 100% to jump in and make this thing happen.
Talk about scary. Starting your own business is hard enough but going all or nothing is even more scary. But with my wife’s support, that’s when GainMuscleAndLoseWeight.com was born and started really taking off.
It’s been a long journey and now I work on the site full time. I’m constantly improving the sites functionality and my writing ability to provide the best possible quality to the most people I can. The only way you can really create money sustainably is by providing real value to people.
There’s lots of crap information out there, that’s for sure. So it’s up to each one of us to figure out which information we resonate with and start to pick and choose the people we listen to. My goal is to work hard enough and provide enough value to you so I can be one of the people you listen to.
The philosophy behind this site -
There are as many training methods and nutritional philosphies as there are grains of sand. The challenge is not only picking the right one for you but also picking the right one that’s in line with your goals.
I’ve been passionate about fitness since 1997 but only passionate about health since 2003. The two are VERY different. Just because a person is physcially fit, doesn’t mean they’re healthy. Ask Lance Armstrong.
Many people have a goal of putting on 20 pounds of muscle in 6 months. Many women want to lose 10 pounds by summer and they don’t really care about the methods they use to get there. That’s great for them and I hope my methods and content can help people like that. But personally, I want to take things a step further. In my mind, sacrificing your health to get six pack abs, huge biceps or lose 10lbs so you can fit in your bikini by summertime, is just not worth it. There are ways to accomplish those exact things but going about it in a healthy way.
Gaining muscle the healthy way is much different and takes more work than gaining muscle the unhealthy way. It requires more effort, more dedication and more natural living.
It’s never been a desire of mine to trade health for looking any particular way. My goal is to be as healthy as I possibly can as well as being as strong and big as I possibly can.
Offering real value -
I’ve had the benefit if reading hundreds of health and fitness books. My ipod literally has no music on it, just health lectures that I have been consuming at a frantic pace since 2003. Using a very conservative approach since 2003, I’ve probably listened to at least 4,500 hours of health and fitness lectures, audio programs and interviews with top level doctors, fitness trainers and scientists.
I feel I have a lot of value to offer people who want to get bigger and I can offer lots of great value to women (and men) who want to lose some weight. I feel the information I’ve been introduced to over the years is information that the average guy at the gym has no clue about.
Here’s a perfect example.
Did you know that there’s an optimal time of day to workout, if you want to build muscle vs losing weight? It’s called chronobiotic weight training. You see all of our organs and metabolic timing processes work off of a daily rythmic 24 hour cycle. If you’re trying to build muscle and workout at the correct time, you will see greater results than if you workout at a different time of day. See if any guy at the gym knows that, I don’t think so. Look up Atom Bergstrom
Here’s another example of a super hormone power drink that can reset your thyroid and hormone levels for years if you drink this drink every day for 3 weeks. I know it sounds totally disgusting and to be honest I’ve never tried it. But as weight lifters we’re trying to increase anabolic hormone levels (testosterone and progesterone) right? This drink will do exactly that in a big time way.
So here’s the power drink recipe:
- 1 TBS cow brain
- 1 TBS cow thyroid
- 1 TBS Adrenal gland
- 1 TBS testicle (ovary if you’re a woman)
- 1 TBS lung
- 2 TBS liver
- 8 oz raw goat milk
- 2 TBS raw honey
Sounds totally disgusting I know, but where else are you going to get this information? The guys at the gym only know what Muscle Magazine is telling them.
If you want more information about this power drink read up on Aajonus Vonderplanitz
That’s just 2 examples of some weird information that is interesting and can help people. I’ve been exposed to this type of information since 2003 and I think it’s time to share.
The point is I’ve been exposed to life changing information when it comes to diet, health, fitness and weight lifting. Most people have never heard of this type of information. So on one level I feel very excited about what I can share with people in order to help them reach their goals.
On the other hand I see sites out there where all they want to do is sell you something. The wheat will be seperated from the chaff soon enough.
I really focus on providing my readers the best value I possibly can. It takes me days to finish, edit and publish an article. I’m not the best writer and I’m working on getting better and better at it. Writing is a skill like any other and the more I write the better I get.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve tried to have this site have an angle to it. There are literally thousands of sites just like mine, what makes my site different?
What makes my site any different?
Honesty –
People that are out there just to sell you something won’t last long in this business or any business. It’s a real shame. There are real people out there who want real answers for their real problems. The last thing they need is some site selling something and not giving a crap about the customer. I hate that. I genuinely want to help people.
If there’s a product like critical bench and a woman is asking about it, I’m not going to recommend it to her. Most women don’t care how much they can bench press. Granted there’s a chance I could stand corrected on that but I’ll go out on a limb and say that I’ve never met a woman who’s cared about how much they can bench.
Certain products are better for certain people than others. It’s just that simple.
I get products to review all the time and most of them don’t even make it onto this site. The products that are on this site I really really endorse. Vince Delmonte’s No Nonsense Muscle Building is just incredible. The amount of information and training you get is pretty incredible. But certain personality types might do better with going to the gym with a personal trainer.
I’ve always been ahands on type of guy. I want to learn things by myself and understand how things work. So that’s why these fitness ebooks are so great. They’re great for guys like me but if you have the money and need a personal trainer, than that’s what you should do. It all depends on personality.
The problem with many people is they don’t want to put in the work. They want a huge chest or they want to get six pack abs but don’t have the discipline to stick with a workout program the entire time that’s going to give them the results they want. A workout ebook isn’t going to provide the kind of discipline it takes to show up to the gym because you’re paying good money to a trainer and don’t want to lose out on your workout or your money.
In that kind of situation I understand a personal trainer is better for some people.
That’s the type of honesty I’m trying to bring to the table here. I’m genuinely trying to help you improve the amount of weight you can lift. I want to see you get a body that you can be proud of no matter what training methods you like to use.
Value –
Value is what is created in the mind of the reader/consumer by reading one of my articles. I want the reader to learn something they didn’t know, become more motivated, print out a workout guide I came up with, learn how perform a workout movement better or be guided in figuring out which workout ebook is going to be right for their situation. I want you as the reader to actually walk away and feel like you’ve benefited from reading my content. I want to create value.
If at the end of the day you as the reader don’t walk away with something memorable from my website and articles, I haven’t done my job.
I’m just a regular guy just like you. My goal is to not only offer better and and better content for you but to have that content actually change how you workout. I want my content to motivate you to make changes in your health, your diet and your fitness. I want you to walk away with something you can use, an idea, video or anything that will help you reach your health and fitness goals.
Many people write for the search engines and put out crap content simply to sell something and that model is dying fast. Where real value is created, people’s lives change.
When I first started this business I asked myself this question,
“If I stopped doing my business today, would people be upset that I’m no longer providing them value? Or would they not even notice that I’m gone?”
Whenever you’re starting a business figure out how to create true and lasting value for people and you can figure out how to monetize it later. If you focus on monetization and traffic first, you’re leaving out one key component, the customer (reader/visitor). Your business should be focused on adding real value to people’s lives and they will keep coming back.
Without adding value, you will never get repeat customers and you’ll have to do all sorts of weird spammy things to get more “one time” traffic.
If you can figure out how to create real value in the lives of many people, I don’t care what business you’re in, you will always be in business.
That is the goal of my site. I want to provide articles, videos, product reviews, how to guides, motivation, recipes that will help you gain real value. And if you enjoy my content, you’ll buy recommended products, sign up to my list, become a fan on Facebook, follow me on Twitter etc.
Before I can focus on having thousands of people join my list or my Facebook/Twitter community, I need to give them one hell of a reason to do so. That comes with creating useful, motivational, informative and unique content that’s going to benefit how people train and how quickly they reach their goals.
Many times I see people going about this the opposite way. They’re like a used car salesmen. All they care about is selling you first and then they’re on to the next potential customer.
That’s not how I do business and that’s now my intention with this website.
It’s all about adding value.
Passion –
I’ve had an insatiable appetite for fitness and health all my life. Because many similar and competing people with similar sites, don’t have the kind of passion I do, their sites don’t really grow or gain a following. They simply created the site for the sole purpose of making money, and then they realize it’s not making them money so they let their site sit there. They quickly realize it takes actual effort and energy (which is what true value creation really is) to make money online fromt their site, they just move on to doing some other get rich quick scheme. Sad.
Why am I so passionate? My mom got cancer back in 1995 and that forever changed my life. After seeing her go through all of that chemotherapy I thought there had to be a better way. A little while later I got into high intensity weight training and then after that I got interested in health, longevity and disease free living. Health is not just the absense of disease, it’s having all your faculties to live the best life you were born to live. Health is living your dream. Fitness is just one component for developing the necessary disciplines to actually live that dream.
I want to help other people not only become fit but become healthy so they don’t have to go through what my mom went through with non hodckins lymphoma. Trust me, you don’t ever want cancer. I encourage people to start developing deeper reasons for increasing your bench press. Find more meaninful reasons to squat 300 pounds. Develop disciplines that you can use in other areas of your life to become successful and healthy. Use weighttraining as a means not an end.
So my passion for health and fitness comes back to helping people succeed in other areas of their life like finances, relationships, health, business, success and longevity. I merely use the daily disciplines of working out as a way to live the fullest life I can.
And I want to help you accomplish that as well.
Approach –
Most guys in the gym (and bodybuilders in general) focus on eating tons of meat and animal products. As you can see from my diet page I’m not at all averse to eating meat. But when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad
As I’ve been applying this, it means I don’t write off all kinds of meat from my diet because “meat is bad.” Certain meat is bad, some meat is good. Just because you don’t support factory farming and the way in which animals are killed or their effects on the envoirnment, doesn’t mean you can’t eat other forms of meat. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Do I not eat fruit because it’s sprayed with chemicals? No I make a finer distinction and eat fruit that is organic and pesticide free.
People will say fruits are bad because they are too sugary. Well what kind of fruit? Are they talking about convential fruit, hybrid fruits, in season fruits, non ripe fruits, non organic fruits? Brocolli is a fruit, does that have sugar? So we need to make very fine districtions as far as making general statements whether it’s the kind of food we eat or the kinds of fitness routines and strength training workouts we do.
The focus of my training is full body strength training using compound exercises, 5×5 training methods and others for functional strength. I don’t want to simply look big I want to be strong so I can have strength to use in my other sporting pursuits like, Jiu Jitsu, surfing, running and basketball.
My approach is a holistic approach not focusing on any one area. I don’t focus more on diet than I do exercise. My approach is ultimate health. That includes cleansing, detoxification, weight training, yoga, cardio training, success etc.
Why go to your grave with six pack abs? What I mean is that don’t think it’s more important to have a certain “look” just because our culture tells you that you need to have that.
Focus on radical health and fitness and your body will look exactly the way you want it to.
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ALSO READ:
Are you a skinny guy? Can't put on weight? 
