Transformation: Nicholas Vasko Gets a New Body!

April 2015 to September 2015  |  5 months  |  @nicholasvasko

Nicholas did the whole thing from home with a barbell, dumbbells and a bench. No gym membership, five months, 36 pounds.

Where he started

Before this, Nicholas did almost nothing physical. A typical day was schoolwork then video games until bed, and the only reason he got up was to get something to eat. Occasionally he would shoot baskets at the park with a friend.

His weight climbed to around 210 between freshman and junior year of high school. A summer of daily walking brought him to about 190, and there he stayed until spring of 2015. He wore loose clothes and a hoodie whenever the weather allowed, to look less heavy than he was. He was happy in other parts of his life, but he felt his weight was holding him back from real confidence.

The turning point

One YouTube video, in the spring of 2015. He still remembers the opening line, something to the effect of: summer is coming whether you work or not, and you are going to want that six pack. He had watched plenty of videos about dieting and fat loss before. This was the one where he promised himself he was done looking the way he looked.

What he changed

For the first three months he walked five miles every morning, then trained afterwards. He worked out at home with a barbell, dumbbells and a bench, so his exercise selection was limited by what he had. On non-lifting days he did fifteen minutes of HIIT right after the walk. In the last two months he cut the walking back sharply and ran HIIT on rest days only.

Abs came every other day: hanging leg lifts to each side on a pull-up bar at the park, six sets of ten, plus a four-minute routine.

The split

• Monday, chest and biceps: incline dumbbell press 4x8-10, bench press 3x8-10, incline flyes 3x8-10, chest dips 3 sets to failure, barbell curls 3x8-10
• Tuesday, legs and HIIT: front squats 4x8-10, lunges 3x8-10
• Wednesday, back: pull-ups 6x8-10, deadlifts 4x8-10, bent over rows 3x8-10, two-arm long bar row 4x8-10
• Thursday, shoulders and triceps: shoulder press 4x8-10, bench dips for five minutes at 10-15 reps with short rests, upright rows 3x8-10, lateral raises 3x10-15, lying rear delt raises 3x8-10, close-grip bench 3x8-10, dumbbell kickbacks 3x8-10
• Friday and Sunday: HIIT
• Saturday, full body: deadlifts 3x8-10, front squats 3x8-10, clean and jerk 3x8-10

On food he ran intermittent fasting for all five months on an 18/6 window. He finished walking and training around 4pm and broke the fast immediately with a shake: three eggs, two tablespoons of peanut butter, a banana, two scoops of whey and eight ounces of milk. Two more meals followed, mostly chicken and spinach. He kept carbs low and cycled them down further on days he was not lifting, pulling the banana out of the post-workout shake and adding fats back in with sour cream or cheese.

The hardest part

He lost six to eight pounds in the first week, then stalled for two weeks and could not work out why. The answer was that he was not counting accurately. That stall nearly ended it; he says he wanted to quit constantly in those first few weeks.

The scale was the real enemy. He leaned on it far too heavily and worried himself over daily fluctuations, even while the tape measure was moving in the right direction. He also cut too fast, and thinks it cost him strength he had built before.

Where he is now

The thing he names first is feeling healthy, and he had not weighed this little in years. Second is how differently people treat him, which he says plainly: before, nobody really gave him the time of day.

Three things he took away. It is never too late. Discipline is the whole game, because without it goals stay theoretical. And setting a big goal, even an unrealistic one, is what pushed him to work harder than he otherwise would have.

The mental changes are more important than the physical, because I will carry what I learned with me for the rest of my life. Nicholas Vasko

His advice if you are starting today

Stop making excuses. People find reasons not to reach their goals, or someone else to blame. It is your responsibility to do the work, and if you put in the time and effort, you get results.

Results vary. This customer's results are not typical and depend on individual effort, training, nutrition and consistency. Statements on this page describe one customer's personal experience and have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. No product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.