How one man finally got traction with his annual New Year’s Resolution

Reese Reynolds was determined that this year’s New Year’s Resolutions would be different. This year Reese was going to lose his ample gut and keep it off. Every year Reese made a vow that he was going to lose fifty pounds and regain that lithe, athletic look he had as a college football star. Each year for the past ten years starting January 3rd he’d embark on an ambitious plan to melt off his excess body fat; each year around the end of January he’d fall completely and irrevocably off the fitness bandwagon until January 3rd of the following year.

Reese was determined that this year would be different from all the previous years. One thing that differentiated this year’s attempt was that he was highly motivated: his doctor shocked him to his core when he told Reese pointedly that he was “borderline diabetic.” Another thing different about this year’s assault on his fitness goals was that he had decided to seek some professional help and had hired a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer.

His motivation this particular year was born out of deep hurt. Reese was a high school gym teacher and the offensive and defensive line coach for the Symington High Screaming Eagles. He was using the bathroom one fall afternoon when he’d seen the message scrawled on the bathroom stall wall. Written in indelible black magic marker it read, Coach Reese is a fat ass! His first instinct was to use terror tactics and find the perpetrator. He’d pull every last member of the varsity offensive line into his office, one at a time, and grill each boy like they were being indicted on a murder charge. He’d find the graffiti artist and make the author scrub off the message with a toothbrush. Then he’d suspend him for three days after a parent conference…that was Coach’s fantasy. The reality was doing that would make him look like an angry, mean, snide jerk – just like the kind of coach he’d hated when he was a high school athlete. The stall scrawl cut him to the bone like a knife – yet he had to man up and pretend it was an irrelevant nonevent.

In college Reese was a genuine football star, a real pro prospect. He stood six foot four inches and weighed a rock hard 270 pounds. He was an all star defensive end that had played for a winning bowl team on national TV. He’d won all conference honors and was drafted. Reese was selected by the Chicago Bears and labored on the Bear’s Taxi squad for three years before retiring. Nowadays Reese weighed 370 pounds. He was blubbery and un-athletic and unattractive and at age 37 he was determined that he would “show the world” by transforming himself back into that fearsome chunk of chiseled manhood that he’d once been. His timing was good. Reese was unencumbered with formal coaching responsibilities from January until summertime, so he’d have plenty of time to train. After the doctor shocked him silly, after the ‘fat ass’ graffiti appeared, Coach Reese began acting out of character. He began doing things he’d studiously avoided. For example, for years he had driven by a hardcore gym every day on his drive to and from school. In mid-December he impulsively swerved his jeep into the Iron Man gym parking lot; this spontaneous act would prove to be a life changing event. With trepidation and hesitation he pushed through the double glass front doors and got his bearings: the gym layout was littered with every type and style of exercise equipment imaginable. Huge guys were lifting huge weights. Reese Reynolds waddled over to the counter and made the acquaintance of a man that would rock his world. Ben “Bo” Bennington was a physique champion, a powerlifting champion, a mixed martial arts coach and a no nonsense guy. Bo knew what Reese needed before Reese opened his mouth. By the end of their initial thirty minute conversation, Reese hired Bo as his personal trainer.

The two men clicked; both were the same age and Reese was impressed by Bo’s mind-blowing physique, his articulate intelligence, his accomplishments and his no-BS approach. Bo told Reese the hard cold truth about what he’d have to commit to: the time, the energy and the intense physical demands that he would demand of Reese. “There are times that you will hate me.” Bo said. Reese laughed. Bo did not. Bo was tough as nails and told Reese that he would work harder than he’d worked since his football years. Unless Reese was willing to eat with complete discipline, unless Reese was willing to give up all the sweet treats and his precious beer, then it all would be wasted time, effort and money. Coach Fat Ass signed up and the two men met for their very first training session the very next day (Saturday) at 8am.  Bo called Reese into his office, sat him down and handed him a Parrillo Performance Nutrition Manual and a series of workout schedules printed on sheets. “Read, learn, absorb…This is the roadmap that will lead you out of the land of eternal obesity.” Bo then led Reese out onto the gym floor and proceeded to kick Reese’s fat ass six ways to Friday. Bo led Reese through a chest and tricep workout that pushed Reese in a way he hadn’t been pushed in fifteen years. After the killer weight workout Reese sat panting on an exercise bench. Sweat dripped off his head and onto the rubber mat gym floor. Bo said impassively, “That’s mild compared to what we’ll be doing Monday.” Bo then had Reese ride an Old School push-pull handled exercise bike for 45 minutes. Bo wobbled out of the gym physically shattered yet psychologically elated. In years gone by, Reese had jerked around with sub-maximal training and safe-as-milk diets: he pretended to train and diet and the softball methods pretended to deliver results. Comparing his previous “Resolution Efforts” to what he was experiencing with Bo was the difference between splashing around in the baby pool and being thrown out of a helicopter into a hundred feet of ocean and being told to swim or drown.

Coach Reese loved the harshness and grit of hardcore training; he loved the gut-busting effort of Bo’s approach. It took him back in time and caused him to remember how he’d feel after a game or after a perfect practice. This was just a different flavor of how he used to train, back when he was a real athlete – had he forgotten all those lessons that he’d learned as champion. Back in the day Reese Reynolds was no joke: he not only won a college scholarship to a Division I school, he become a starter as a junior and had been his team’s outstanding defensive lineman. Reese’s physical disintegration had crept up on him one Twinkie at a time, one beer at a time, one bowl of ice cream at a time. Suddenly he was a few biscuits shy of weighing 400 pounds and the kids at school laughed when someone said coach Reese used to be a star athlete. A few weeks into his transformation Reese realized that he’d been guilty of applying a double standard: while he demanded his high school football players “strive for excellence” he strove for mediocrity. He had no problem screaming and yelling at his lineman, exhorting them onward and upward, demanding they work and sweat – yet he’d given himself a pass. In his own life, he used patty-cake methods exerting minimal effort.

Was it any wonder that he had to “re-resolve” with each approaching New Year’s Eve? Bo had a system that worked “every single time it’s implemented correctly.” Bennington’s Parrillo approach towards nutrition and training was rooted in Bo’s own  career as a top athlete. “When it comes to nutrition, I am 100% Parrillo all the way: Since I am, then you are too. You’ll learn the Parrillo nutritional strategy, you’ll institute a multiple-meal eating schedule and you’ll learn to prepare loads of nutritious food ahead of time. You’ll eat six times a day and take plenty of Parrillo supplements. Nutrition is everything. I can easily make you 50% stronger. I can easily get you into good enough shape to run a marathon – yet without the nutrition you can be strong and have great endurance and still be fat. The idea is build muscle and in doing so boost your sluggish metabolism. Simultaneously you’ll get lean and ripped. This ain’t no half-measure, let-me-ease into-this-thing deal; once we start we go all out – on all fronts – simultaneously.”

All of which was music to Coach Reese’s ears. After his initial Saturday training session, Reese stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the gym. He bought a mountain of boneless, skinless chicken breast, fish, eggs, scallops, shrimp and steak. He purchased a sizable amount of raw, fresh vegetables and some bottled water. As soon as he got home he emptied his cupboards and refrigerator, dumping sodas and beer down the sink drain, tossing pies and cakes and sweets into a green plastic garbage bag. Later that same day he ordered a pile of Parrillo supplements: Ben had been very specific about which Parrillo supplements to buy and how and when to use them. Reese purchased a month’s worth of potent Parrillo supplements and set up a “Parrillo cabinet” in his kitchen. By avoiding beer, sodas, junk and frozen foods Reese saved a ton of grocery money. He redirected the savings toward the purchase of quality food with plenty left over for the purchase of his Parrillo supplements. Essentially, Reese was eating healthy and clean and supplementing with delicious Parrillo supplements without increasing his monthly grocery outlay one red cent. Here is what Reese purchased for the month of January…

Big Reese absolutely loved the weight training and no matter how hard Bo was kicking his “fat ass,” Reese ate it up. He trained four times weekly using a classical training split…

• Monday legs and shoulders

• Tuesday chest, biceps, triceps

• Wednesday off

• Thursday back and abs

• Friday shoulder and arms

• Saturday off

• Sunday off

Reese performed cardio every morning before breakfast. On weekends he began playing basketball in a league and during his workday he might slip in some laps around the school gym or he might ride a stationary bike in the team weight training room. If the weather was nice he liked to run giant laps around the school grounds after school following a cross-country course. Reese started his renovation program on January 4th and by February 4th he’d dropped 23 pounds of blubber and felt fantastic. Factually Reese had lost 30 pounds of body fat and added seven pounds of muscle. Bo was happy. Reese was ecstatic. “You’ve got a lot of dormant muscle memory.” Bo said, “You are reawakening old athletic habits and instincts; your flaccid muscles are responding big time. I got to warn you – the gains come real fast for the first few months but after that initial burst you are really going to have to kick things up to the next level in order to keep the gains coming.” Reese just smiled. “I am so into this thing at this point that taking it to the next level will be no problem  whatsoever.”