I first met Marek when I used to go out and enjoy my not so healthy lifestyle. 5-6 beers a night about 3-4 nights a week. I ate like garbage. My breakfast consisted of 2 cups of coffee. Lunch would be somewhere around 2 pm and would be either nuking frozen burritos or tossing a frozen pizza in the oven.  Dinner was whatever I felt like. Sometimes Taco Bell, maybe some McDonalds or even a whole Pizza from somewhere. At one point I was addicted to sodas. We’re talking 5-8 cans of pepsi a day. I was also a smoker. I was smoking half a pack a day.

When I first met Marek, he was a door man at a local pub. First time I met the guy I thought, “Wow… this dude’s huge! He’d kick my ass.” So my first instinct was to get in good with him. Thanks to my raw Irish talent for being a funny drunk, I would always crack jokes at the door to get him to laugh. This was my ticket in. I’d make him laugh, he wouldn’t kick me out of the pub.

A couple of months went by and I went through some serious personal life changes. Realizing I was always doing everything for everyone else and nothing for myself was my eye opener that things needed to change in my life. I looked in the mirror and wasn’t really happy with what I saw; the pushover, the person that said okay to avoid guilt trips, the idea that I didn’t need sleep until I was dead. If I continued on this lifestyle of mine, yeah, I’d be dead before 60 like my father. So I turned away from the mirror before my reflection decided it was going to reach out and slap me one and I saw the dvd case to the movie Fight Club. There was a picture in it of Brad Pitt and I instantly said, “By the end of the year, I’m going to look better than that!” And so it was set in stone. How I was going to get there, I had no idea.

With my goal in mind, I had no clue what I was doing. I would go to the gym and lift and jog on the treadmill , but nothing was changing. AH HA! That’s because I was still eating bad. So I held my head in shame wondering where I would turn that could help me out. I decided I’d go out for a beer and think this one over. I happened to stumble up the Pub where Marek was manning the door. He looked like he wanted to just tell everyone the bar was closed and kick them all out. Thinking this wasn’t going to be a great time to ask him, I proceeded as usual; jokes and laughter. After bringing some levity to Marek’s oh so pleasant evening, I asked him the question which would either open the door to my goals or slam them in my face. “Do you lift to compete or you just lift to lift?” He replied, “I want to compete.”

I thought this was perfect! “So is it all weights or do you have to take supplements and what kind of diet do you typically follow?” His response gave me the indication that the door to my goals may soon be opened. He told me, “Well, most of it’s diet depending on what you want to do. Why don’t you give me a call and we’ll sit down and I’ll kind of show you what you would have to do and you can decide if this is what you want to do.” And he gave me his number and out the door I went.

Being a better writer than a conversationalist, I thought I’d hit Marek up on Myspace instead. We set up a time to meet at his place to go over supplements, diet, goals, etc. He opened every cabinet door known to man that had a supplement, powder, food item or storage container of some sort. He showed me all different types of foods that I never imagined putting down my gullet. I think I was the only person living in California that never heard of the brand Ezekiel. “What is that?” I asked. “It’s bread. Sprouted grain bread. Better than whole wheat.” I’ve never been a fan of whole wheat and here he was telling me of something else that was better than that. “OK” was all I could say.

Two hours goes by and my note pad is full of information. Enough to confuse even the best note taker. As I’m saying my goodbyes and walking out the door, Marek asked me to join him at the gym that weekend. We figured a time and off I went.

Gym day shows up and off I go with a bottle of water, dressed in my shorts, tank top and a long sleeve shirt. No gym bag, no straps, weight belt, wraps… nothing. We start training and I have to tell you, I have never been pushed so hard at the gym ever. As much as I tried to impress my new “teacher” I felt like a weakling. But Marek pushed me more and more and more. He laid out the workout and I followed in his steps, with about a quarter of the weight he had on everything. I continued to push. At the end of the workout he told me that I have the good foundation for a great physique in the future and invited me to compete with him 20 weeks from that day.

I was given the roadmap of what I needed to do for the next 20 weeks and onward I went. I had the diet planned out for me, I had mentality planned out for me, my supplements were planned out for me. Everything. About every week or two I updated my photos for him to critique me. He didn’t even need to be in the same room. He could see everything in the photos. He would have me adjust accordingly. When I joined Marek in the gym that day, I weighed 160 lbs. After Marek got me on my diet and had me bulk up I shot straight to 181. 16 weeks later I stripped down to a stage stepping 157 lbs and shredded. Granted I had some weak points that only I could train harder to improve.

When Marek first told me 20 weeks is plenty of time, I thought he was nuts. When I stepped on that stage, my wife didn’t even recognize me. I was transformed. Not only was I transformed, I was hooked. I never looked at fried foods or sodas like they were god’s last creation on earth. I followed that diet so strict to prove to myself that I can stay on track, that I can stay focused.

Todd's Continuing Success!

The following season, I had gone back to my bulk diet again. The only problem was that this time I couldn’t get above 165 lbs. I just competed 2 months prior at a weight of 157 and now I couldn’t eat enough to get above 165. I didn’t know what more to do. I was going to the gym, doing the same thing I did before when I was 10 lbs heavier. So I called up Marek. I asked him what I needed to do differently this go around. I’ve seen guys on bodybuilding.com and in the magazines. They’re ripped and eating like horses. What am I doing wrong? So he tells me, “You have to eat more!” I’m already at about 2500-2800 cals a day. How much more do you want me to eat? He pulls out this sample. It’s AllMax QuickMass. We’re reading the label and what is equivalent to one scoop is sitting in this bag. So we both read the nutritional card that came with the sample. 1 serving = 4 scoops = 1001 calories. This thing was going to be my experiment? So I did the math if I had 1 serving a day and ramped up the portions on the food I was already eating, I’d be consuming 4200 calories a day. I couldn’t imagine it. Yet people do it all the time. I walk into Costco and there’s someone eating 2 huge slices of pizza. That’s 1600 cals right there. I guess I could do it… besides. I just had to drink 1000 of it.

In the meantime, Marek also introduced me to some other supplements. He figured if I’m going to be eating big, I might as well be pushing big. Get some size on me. So he wanted me to make sure I wasn’t going to burn my body out with over training. He introduced me to a whole line of products from AllMax; AllWhey, IsoFlex, Micronized Glutamine, AllFlex, Caffeine, Leutor, R-ALA & Muscle Prime. What’s the difference between these and all the supplements I’d been taking before? I wasn’t going to be drinking a sodium loaded protein shake anymore, I’d have some of the purest whey protein on the market, I’d have a joint supplement so that I wouldn’t feel the effects of heavy lifting in my joints, I’d have a better pre-work out supplement, I’d have a lot more BCAA is my diet now with all these products, not to mention… They were going to help me get big.