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Take a look in the mirror. What do you see?

Over the coming months, I’m going to give you the information you need to make a positive change in your life. A change rooted in the dramatic improvement of your physique and well-being.

Take a look in the mirror. What do you see?

My guess? At best you see average. At worst, you see someone who is twenty-something pounds overweight. Pot-bellied, soft and sloppy.

You’ll say “That’s judgemental and shallow“. But it’s not.

You’ll say “How I look is not a reflection of who I am“. But it is.

You’ll say “I’ve got my priorities in order“, with work and family taking top slot. But you haven’t.

Millennials are sitting behind desks 8 – 14 hours a day. They don’t sleep well and they don’t eat well. Our bodies are continuously bombarded with all the wrong forms of stress and society pacifies and coddles us into thinking this is all normal.

It’s not.

As a man, you were made to be strong, lean and active. Your lifestyle choices should leave you feeling empowered and confident, backed-up by a physical presence that continually fuels that mental state.

YOU are your number one priority.

Your body has to last you a lifetime, and overeating, under-training and poor lifestyle choices will eventually cripple you. If you want to be successful at work and be a rock for your family, you’ve got to put in the work NOW.

You say, “I don’t have time.

I say, that’s bullshit!

You don’t find the time to look after yourself, it won’t just land in your lap. You have to MAKE time, and I’m going to show you how.

I have a successful career in Silicon Valley. I started a family at twenty. I’ve been married, divorced and remarried. I’ve sustained a sixty-hour work week for more than two decades, supported two families on two continents and still I’ve made time for me. Time to take care of my body.

I’ve been where you are

I’ve lapsed, “enjoyed life”, put the gym on the back burner and focused on priorities, like work, family and fun. But I quickly realized it was a terrible mistake. I’ve learned that while you can let things slip in your twenties, dropping the ball in your thirties and forties is a huge mistake.

As you age, two things happen.

  1. Testosterone drops naturally and starts a steady decline by the time you reach your thirtieth birthday.
  2. Our ability to routinely recover from periods of stress, both mental and physical, is also greatly reduced.

Factor in the inevitable increase in responsibility that comes with advancing age, be that mortgages, careers, families or ailing parents, and you have a melting pot of problems.

Done right, dropping body fat and working to forge a lean, muscular physique will improve all of your key health markers and leave you feeling confident and empowered.

And no, you won’t have to live in the gym or carry Tupperware around with you. This is about a lifestyle change. This is about making health, fitness and your physique a fundamental part of your lifestyle, not THE point of it.

So who am I? Why should you listen to me?

As you’ve probably realized already, I am not a fitness “pro”. In fact, I am just like you, with a career, a family, responsibilities etc. I just have muscles, 10% body fat and overflow of confidence to boot.

In fact, I’ve worked tech for twenty-five years, and I grew up on Dungeons & Dragons. Oh, and my primary was Benedict, a loud and rather pompous cleric who was a devout servant of the Church of the Iron Cross. Read whatever you will into that!

But be under no illusions, I have VERY average genetics. At 5’9″ (and a half!) and in an untrained state, I naturally sit around 160lbs and look decidedly ordinary. But while the genetic ceiling is real, the average Joe is so very far from realizing their full potential.

But it can be done, and I am living proof.

In the last few years, I’ve taken my untrained body and added nearly thirty pounds of muscle to my frame, all without adding any more body fat.

Dad Bod 175lbs and 10.4% body fat

But I’ve also made many mistakes, mistakes which YOU can now learn from. You see, this blog is not just another instructional text, it’s also my personal journey.

A journey you can share in, a path you can follow – we’re in this together.

But what’s with that blog name already?

Yes, yes. I know the words abs, secret, shortcut, unlock, workout, fitness and many more are all missing from the domain and site name. But I’m not into that kind of nonsense. This is serious stuff, you know. And regardless, “ChubbyCubbyFarmerHarvesting.com”, while literal in its approach, doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

When I conceived the name Visceral Shift a few years back, there was kind of a story.

First, visceral fat is the nasty stuff wrapped around your organs. Yes. Your organs. And if you have a pot belly or an excess of visual body fat, you definitely have more than your fair share of visceral fat.

Second, visceral talks to the deep-seated emotion within each of us, that twang of emotion you can’t shake. Gut instinct. Call it what you will, your biggest battles on a journey of self-improvement will be emotional, not physical. And yet, when you can tap into this visceral instinct, understand it and channel it… limits simply fall away.

Besides, visceral is a bloody marvelous word.

Say it – vis·cer·al.

Still here? Well I’m impressed…

…you’ve clearly got the kind of moxie needed to ride this out.

Over the coming months, I’m going to give you all the information you need to make a positive change in your life. A change rooted in the dramatic improvement of your physique and well-being. Through this journey, you’ll learn a lot about yourself. Yes, you’ll be stronger and leaner, but the biggest changes will be how you carry yourself, how you move, how you think and feel. And if we do this right, you’ll be healthier too.

As we travel this road together, I am going to use terms and techniques you may not understand. Some of them I’ll explain, some I’ll leave you to work out. Of course, if you don’t understand something, just ask. I’m here to help.

But I am going to point you to a number of other resources I trust.

Why? Because you’ll quickly realize that there is not a lot of new news in the fitness industry. Much of the knowledge you need to progress is already out there, lost in a vast ocean of noise and misinformation. You see, there are plenty of charlatans and protagonists out there. People who will bombard you with dogma, usually in the interests of selling you a silver bullet or shortcut to success using their special [insert magic here].

Hence, I’ll direct you to people in my network, experts in their field. People I’ve learned we can trust.

Exercise and nutrition science is evolving all the time. And while there are some fundamentals, some things accepted as fact, there is also a lot of educated guesswork and studies that fail to control for a variety of factors. As such, positions and opinions can change over time. To mitigate risk, we try stick to the fundamentals, and adjust or optimize where personal experience or new data suggests a better path.

“Stay committed to your decision but stay flexible in your approach.” – Tony Robbins

So where do we go from here?

Over the coming weeks and months, I am going to talk to you about the fundamentals of nutrition, training and behavior. I am going to share with you what I have learned, and perhaps most importantly, what I have learned that works.

In addition, I will be sharing aspects of my own personal journey, reinforcing the point that you are not alone and that we are in this together. I’ll also be giving you opportunities to share your own personal stories and ask me questions.

In the next installment, I’m going to share with you the three BIG mistakes that everyone makes when they first try to create a substantial improvement in their physique.

If you want to share in this journey with me, sign-up below for updates so you don’t miss the next installment. I promise never to sell your information to a third-party or use it for any other reason than to give you updates about this blog.

And if you want to reach me with questions in the mean time, you can find me active on Twitter.

Speak to you soon!

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