My Primal Transformation: Discovering the Art of Fit
It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!
Hi, my name is Frank Sabia Jr.. My story starts out like most in that for my whole entire life I have struggled with my weight. I ate well as a child and never developed weight issues until my late teens when my eating outpaced my activity. From there it was a slow and steady increase in weight gain. Like a lot of people, I have a desk job and sit all day long. Sometimes my work requires me to put in long hours, frequently sitting for up to 16 hours a day in front of a computer. This only helped to make my problems worse. My sedentary job along with my eating put me on a path to poor health and uncontrollable weight gain.
At my worst, I exploded to a whopping 255 lbs and over 40% body fat with a waist at 44 inches. The shocking thing about this time in my life is that I still worked out 3 times a week yet saw no change.
My diet was a SAD (Standard American Diet) one which was typically high carb, low fat, moderate protein, filled with fast food and processed foods. I felt depressed and ashamed of how bad I allowed myself to become in terms of health. I had trouble breathing, aching joints, acid reflux, high blood pressure and was constantly tired just to name a few health issues. I was morbidly obese and knew I had to do something about it.
That all changed the day I stumbled upon Mark Sisson’s Mark’s Daily Apple. I had decided to commit myself in not only exercise but also diet. Having to travel frequently for my job I decided to do an at home exercise program that would incorporate body weight movements for both strength training and cardio fitness. During this time I slowly transitioned from my SAD diet to a full Primal Blueprint diet removing all grains, gluten, legumes and dairy. For the first time in my life I was eating whole unprocessed foods and was no longer afraid of fat. This is when I not only started feeling better but looking better. Over a 13 week period I managed to lose 43 lbs of fat, going from a little over 30% body fat to 12%.
Not satisfied with my results, I decided to see how far I could get with this new Primal way of life. I decided to use weights for the first time and mixed in some IF (Intermittent Fasting). Still keeping to a strict Primal Blueprint diet, I was able to enjoy foods I thought were previously unhealthy like bacon, butter and eggs. For the first time I tried coconut and loved it. I became a master Primal chef creating things like gluten free Mexican buffalo pizza. Never having cooked for myself before, I quickly become a whiz in the kitchen converting all my mom’s home cooked meals and recipes to Primal friendly versions.
All my illnesses quickly disappeared, the high blood pressure went from stage 1 hypertension to that of an athlete level. Gone was the depression, acid reflux, joint pain, energy crashes, and mood swings. I pushed myself to limits I never imagined possible. I now weigh 167 lbs with a 29 inch waist at 8% body fat while packing on extra muscle in the process. This all took place in a 6 month period. My final numbers were shocking to my doctors and loved ones, 48 lbs of fat lost, 4 lbs of muscle gained, from 30% to 8% body fat and all improved markers of health. My health and fitness-age, previously tested by a sports physician, went from one of a 42 yr old to that of a 28 yr old.
Over a short 6 month period, with the help of Mark’s Daily Apple and the Primal Blueprint, I finally discovered the art of fit.
I continue on my path to Primal living having completed my first race, through the mud! Grok would be proud!
Thanks for your help, support and continued inspiration.
Yours truly,
Frank Sabia Jr.
Grab a Copy of The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation and Start Getting Primal Today!
Posted By: Mark Sisson
That is an amazing story, Frank! Congrats and thank you for sharing.
Great job!
Like many others, I’m very curious what that pizza recipe is, and waiting for your post… Thanks!
I had this tonight – it’s great
http://blog.yourlighterside.com/2009/05/low-carb-pizza-dough-cauliflower.html
@ Breanna & Melissa
Thanks! Yes, everyone keeps asking me for the recipe. I have it scribbled down, so let me organize it and I’ll put it online asap!
I have a pic online though.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artoffit/5703297205/in/set-72157626701734698/
Frank:
This is the most extraordinary story I’ve seen on Mark’s site. Well done. You look GREAT, and so happy!
I have 2 questions:
1) At the outset, before and up to the time you decided to give Primal a try, what were your thoughts on change? Did you believe you could change your behavior, and yourself?
2) What is it that kept you persevering through the process?
Thanks, and grok on! (Love the mud photo.)
Hi Susan. Thanks for such kind words. I appreciate it. Yes, the thing people most comment on is how happy I look in all the after photos. I have had a permanent smile on my face since my transformation.
1. I hate to say it, but I had failed so many times in the past I really didn’t believe I would be able to change and even after 3 months, I wasn’t sure the changes would stick.
2. What kept my going was seeing continual gradual change. Most importantly was the change in how I was now feeling. All my diease symptoms has disappeard. I felt so good health wise, I really had no choice but to stick to it. I would also go back and cheat from time to time. Doing this destroyed my health instantly. I felt ill, depressed and lethargic after cheating. So much so, I literally ran back to primal/paleo and quickly recovered. It was amazing to test different foods and see how I reacted. While at the time, it could be viewed as a small failure, the lesson I learned was worth it longterm. You only learn by failing.
Yes, mud runs are really fun, you should try one! They are very primal and a good time for everyone. And its really cute when a girl isn’t afraid to get a little dirt on them : )
Thanks so much for writing back, Frank. All so interesting.
My experience with cheating was similar to yours in that I just felt gross afterwards and wanted to get back to Primal as soon as possible to feel better.
Now I don’t even use the word anymore (“cheating”) because I don’t do it (because I don’t want to).
I’m pretty metric and organized in my approach, as you seem to be. The only thing I do from time to time is take a break from that and just eat whatever Primal food I want, in whatever quantity. Overeating doesn’t enter into it, and I don’t consider it cheating. It’s just a break from the usual plan. And then I get back to the plan which I like.
Really great of you to share your story and answer everyone’s questions. You totally grok!
Susan
Yes, EXACTLY Susan. You nailed it there. I agree. I don’t call it cheating anymore either or feel as though I slip up. I use it as a way to enjoy life and get a reminder of how much better I feel when NOT eating those foods. I do occasional refeeds to make sure I’m not dieting for too long and I don’t get consumed with a little weight gain during that time. It is about balance and enjoying life. Thanks again for the feedback!
Frank the inspiration you are providing is amazing. Do you think you have to stick to that rigorous schedule always? how did you work past the holidays? Did you not eat when everyone else was? I have so many holiday obligations I hope I can stay true to my commitment. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Happy holidays your results are a great present to all!!!
Thanks Amy. Yes, the holidays can be challenging. What I usually do is tell people I have food allergies and can’t eat certain foods as I will become ill. I always bring food that I can eat and have everyone try it as well. It usually wins everyone over and they ask me how I made it without added sugar or gluten. I just made a pumpkin pie for this past Thanksgiving and everyone raved about it. No sugar, no gluten crust and everyone loved the taste of the grass fed butter in it. I also tried some paleo pumpkin chocolate cookies and they got eaten first!!
Frank!! I make pumpkin chocolate cookies every year and would love to see the paleo recipe and try it out. Where can I find it?
Also, congrats on your “new” life. I love feeling strong and am looking forward to getting there again soon.
Hi Meesha. Thanks!
You can find the cookies on Paleo Digest.
Just search for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!! There amazing!!
Hi Frank, Your story is so inspiring and your words sweet! Thank you for posting!
Thanks Lynn, I’m happy you found it inspiring. We could all do with some motivation around the holidays and going into New Years.
wow, can you say “ripped”? Amazing what eating the way we were intended to eat can do for you.
I am so happy for you
Great transformation! Pretty incredible. I’m just starting a similar plan and was wondering how you achieved intense leg workouts at home. I’m doing bodyweight exercises and find them challenging for all muscle groups except for my legs. Do you use weighted vests when you squat?…or what? It takes me too long to lift to failure if just doing squats with no weights.
Hi Andrew, did you try one legged Pistols?
I’ve tried, but I can’t do them very well. I usually end up losing my balance…which probably just means I’m not strong enough to do a bunch of them yet.
At the start I only used my body-weight. But the last 3 months, I used adjustable dumbbells. So I would do squats or lunges with them as heavy as I could stand with strict form. My legs could probably do with heavier weights now, but I was pretty limited with what I could use as I didn’t have full access to a gym at the time.
Would you be willing to share more about your home workout program? It sounds (and looks) like it must be very effective!
Sure…I did the standard P90X route due to the fact I was traveling overseas and needed something easy to follow and portable. I didn’t have access to a gym…so I did it in my hotel/temp living.
I did first 3months standard and then modified it the last 3 months cutting back on days I trained as I got smarter about my diet and food.
Frank,
Awesome success story. Thanks so much for sharing! I read all the comments, but do not see an explanation of specifically what your workout routine was to achieve your results. Can you please share specifically what you did exercise wise and when/how often you did it in order to achieve your results? I’m curious.
Thanks in advance.
Jamie
opps! Nevermind, I didn’t see the additional comments pages. My bad!
wow! i sent the pic to my husband who is at 15 percent body fat and feeling chubby. he has been trying to lose the paunch and refuses to dive right in and go primal with me. he also loves to run everyday like a little hamster poor man.
he has finally started weight lifting but i like to do tabata style stuff and body weight and he is reluctant to try my routines. even though i have gone from 26 percent to 20 percent bodyfat in 2.5 months, he is still reluctant and skeptical. do you know what he said about your picture? Is that even the same person?! ridiculous. i hope it sinks in, if not at least I’ll be healthy.
Thanks for the kind words…I can relate to your story. I didn’t plan on switching to a primal life…I just did over time as I felt better and better as I removed things like bread, then dairy, then gluten till I went 100%. I still go back to SAD foods as a cheat, but mainly to remind myself of how ill I feel when I eat them. I instantly run back to a primal/paleo diet and recover pretty quickly from my cheat. I hope he gets the chance to try it. Let me know if you need anymore help convincing him.
OMG!!! Are you single??? LOL
Well done mate, so encouraging and so proud of people like you!
Hehe! Yes, I am single!
Well, not for long
one more time, well done! Incredible results.
Awesome job man!!! Keep up the good work!!
Nice articles there Primal guy!
Question: I’m almost 80 years old and have done weight training (off and on) for more than 1/2 my life. I did Atkins so it wasn’t too hard picking up the Primal way of eating. I’ve gone from 242 to 212 in about 8 months, mostly from trashing the carbs and sugar. Biggest problem is doing the movement and exercise stuff. But, like a lot of seniors, everything goes to gut and butt.
Ok, OK, do you have any testimony from run of the mill ol’ farts like me? Not the 1 in 100,000 that runs the 100 yard dash in 10 flat. That’s not an example, it’s an anomaly.
Wow! I see my New Year’s Resolution staring me in the face! Congrats, man. Incredible!
Frank, I missed it if you said, how old are you?
35
Love it!!!! I know all of the comments above have said this already but what an AMAZING story! So awesome. Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration.
BEYOND impressive! Awesome job, Frank!
- Jennifer
This gal is impressed. You were hiding a Hottie in there!
Yeah right who knew. I should have done this YEARS AGO!! I didn’t know what was buried under all that flab and goo.
Wow Wow WOW!!!!!!!
Holy shit, man! That’s amazing. I had to hold my hair down so you didn’t blow it back with that awesomeness!
Congratulations, sir!
Wow, is that head superimposed on that body? Lol just joking. Amazing work, you look incredible!
Hehe thanks! I guess I do look a little different. I wish it was as easy as that!
@ Kane…hold that hair!
Wow. Can’t not comment. Obviously you are an amazing inspiration. I want you to know, too, that in your “before” picture with a birthday hat, you are cute as a button, fat and all. And now you are a hot motivator. Thank you for sticking to it and holding the space for all of us. I’m assuming that you, unlike me, are not as addicted to nuts.
How different do you feel inside now that your outsides are so changed? Amazing story.
Hi Daryl. Thanks! Well my mom still loved me and thought I was a cute even as a overweight cake eating son. So I appreciate that. And YES, I have developed quite an addiction to macadamia nuts thanks to Mark Sisson’s many articles how they are the best nuts for maintaining a healthy Omega 3:6 ratio. Most of the times I have them in moderation like a handful a day. All the pies I make are with nuts as the crust, but thats only around the holidays. But yes NUTS are quite easy to overeat. Thanks again for your kind remarks.
uh, not be the only Debbie Downer here as I congratulate you on your success but amino acids and stuff? doesn’t sound too “primal” to me.
I have a hard time that this was all done in 6 months! WOW! I’ve been eating Primal and doing Cross Fit 3 times a week and walking almost daily for 5 months and no where near that!!! I’ve gone from a size 14 to a size 6 but only 17 pounds lost and I still need to lose more to get the belly gone. I’m starting to see some muscles in the arms but not even close to what you experienced. Even the guys that started with me and are eating primal and doing CF five times a week plus extra weights are not that cut.
Hi there. Thanks for the kind words. I know alot of CrossFitters and some of the mistakes I see them make is that they love it so much, they sometimes overtrain. For instance, a few will do a WOD per day ontop of other training and will eat less calories then me. And some eat primal 5 days a week then go crazy on the weekends. I think if your careful about your training and are strict primal eater and make sure you not running too much of a deficit, you can see results….especially with Crossfit. Most of the crosffiters I know are far strong and more ripped then me.
Brilliant Frank!
I’m 243lbs and 35%BF. I look very similar to your opening photos and I’m in my very first week of going Primal (i haven’t even got the book yet – should be here tomorrow. Your story is another massive inspiration one for me to really give this a go. If I can get within 10% of your final body fat score I’ll be a happy man.
Well done
Thanks Mick. Glad you can relate, It always makes attaining a goal more believable when you can find someone similar to you who has done it. If your smart and disciplined I’m sure you can achieve similar if not better results then me. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
ok…thats your twin cause the after shot guy is like 20 years younger and 20 years hotter!!! i wish ihad someone to do primal with seeing my husband thinks he knows it all and hes 40 and looks 50..uuurrggg..congs though
Hey Frank, I echo everyone’s sentiments. Your transformation is really impressive/awesome/inspiring/unbelievable. It seems like you’ve kept very good records. Did you find at times that your weight went up and down? Were you able to pinpoint any reasons why that was so? How often do you weigh in?
Hi Solie. Thanks and yes I kept extremely detailed records of everything I ate, supplemented with and how many calories I would burn each workout. I basically wrote an email blog every week stating what I did and what affect it had. Lets say I would experiment with calories one week or the amount of carbs. I have detailed logs of everything. I plan to get them up on my site as soon as I can for people to read if they like. It’s probably a good way for people to see what worked and what didn’t. I weighed myself once a week and measured my waist at navel when I weighed to measure fat loss progress. The biggest factor I found was not going too far into a caloric deficit. If I kept a modest 500-800 per day deficit, the fat came off easy. If I went too low for too long then my fat loss would plateau.
Hi Frank… when you have a second… good work, first of all!! I’ve been primal for six months and gained almost 25 pounds and lost body fat… so pretty happy… am interested in the two meal a day. Do you eat any snacks at all inbetween? What do you do for any fruits – eat them with the meal? Almond butter with the meal? I’d still like to gain weight, but not fat, and am feeling too full all the time!! Thanks so much… very inspiring!
Hi David. Thanks! Way to go on the primal life. Are you feeling better too?
As for my two meals a day…I had such a compacted eating schedule that I was never really hungry for snacks, but if I was they were mainly things like roasted peppers, handful of nuts, celery with almond butter, Portuguese salad, or berries in yoghurt, or protein fluff. As for fruits, I restricted them to mainly berries and had them at the end of my meals. So that would be after protein and sweet potato carbs.
Hey Frank – thanks for answering… I’m feeling much much stronger (I am stronger!) and my workouts are better… I don’t get nauseous anymore from them… although I have IBS and can’t seem to get a handle on it no matter what I do… but don’t eat much fruit, no dairy, processed foods, of course. I’ve started now, trying to just eat breakfast at about 10:00 a.m. and dinner around 9:00 p.m. Still don’t know what is bloating me though!
Hey david, no worries. Have you heard of nightshades? I know sometimes when I have too many of them I get stomach discomfort and bloating. Same thing happens if I overeat broccoli. You might need to log what your eating for a week, then remove something and see how you feel. Like an elimination diet. I usually do that every couple weeks. I take a food out or introduce a new one and see how I do with it.
well done, go forth and conquer!
WOW!!! Frank – you are the man!!! That is amazing. You are a true inspiration. Frank, to summarise, your diet is Primal/Paleo, you use IF, and you mentioned P90X and 3 times a week bodyweight training with the later addition of weights, and walks for cardio (which you now reduced, yep I read all comments:). To complete my puzzle, could you please advise on the specifics of your training now, i.e., the full weight training (sets,reps, etc.)?
HI Dave. Wow, thanks for pouring over my many comments on here. I documented all my food, supplements and workouts in a email/blog to myself. I hope to load it online for people to read on my site soon. But the basics of it were….FIrst 3 months were standard P90X routine with only using a resistance band. This was mainly due to traveling. Second 3 months I did kind of a hybrid program focusing on strength and reducing the cardio. I was trying to swap muscle for fat rather then just get cut. In the beginning since I only had that resistance band my reps were 12-16. But last 3 months when I introduced the adjustable dumbbells I was doing more like 8-12 reps.
Oh yeah one last thing is that I do walk about an hour a day. I have a dog, so walking him gave me a small bit of extra cardio : )
Thanks for sharing everything Frank. And sorry but I have to say it just one more time, WOW!