My name is Jay Kim and I have a confession to make:
For over a decade, I was really bad at fitness.
Sure, I checked all the boxes of a so-called “fitness guy.”
- I worked out 4-5 times a week.
- I plumbed the depths of “Men’s Health” and other fitness magazines.
- I ate more skinless chicken breasts than any human being should.
I met every criteria but one: I was fat.
If the story ended there, I’d be a less-than-ideal fitness coach. Fortunately, it doesn’t.
After a decade of frustration, dead ends, and driving my wife to the point of wanting to murder me—we’ll get to that part of the story in a moment—I did something I never would’ve thought possible.
I hacked fitness.
I threw out every “truth” I’d learned about diet and exercise over the past 10 years and started approaching my fitness analytically.
Once I discovered the correct variables in the fitness equation, I was amazed at how simple it was.
After a decade of spinning my wheels, it took only three months of hacking fitness to achieve six-pack abs and single digit body fat. Ninety days wiped out all that misery I’d felt.
All it took for me to turn things around was a gut-punch comment from my wife.
How Losing My Job Helped Me Lose My Belly
When Bear Stearns went under in 2008, I found myself without a job.
While most people in my position—and there were a lot of us—spent their newly found free time obsessing over getting their career back, I kept thinking about my brother.
You see, back in 2006, when I was working on Wall Street and my brother was in town visiting, he made this comment as we worked out together:
“It seems like working out is not really a priority for you.”
Shots fired! I was on the defensive right away, shooting back, “You don’t understand. My job is really important to me and I don’t always have time to work out.”
I figured he’d show me mercy being my family and all, but he was relentless, saying, “If it was a priority for you, you’d figure out how to fit it in your schedule.”
He was right. I might have yelled at him in the gym and made an ass of myself, but his comment stuck with me because he was exactly right. I wasn’t taking my fitness seriously.
If I didn’t work fitness into my wide-open schedule now, I knew I never would. So I got to work.
Why Eating Clean Wasn’t Enough
My first big step was reading Tom Venuto’s book “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.” After reading that book, I started eating clean and prepping six meals a day, except it wasn’t me doing the meal prep.
That responsibility fell on my lovely wife, who supported me every step of the way while secretly plotting to poison one of the eighteen chicken breasts I ate each day.
I don’t blame her, either. It was exhausting to just eat that many meals per day!
On top of the endless meal prep, I was also cycling through workout programs like a junkie looking for a high. You name it and I tried it: Steady State Cardio, HIIT, P90X, Insanity, CrossFit, Soul Cycle, etc.
I wasn’t laboring in vain this time, however. I saw good results following Tom’s system, dropping from 183 pounds and 25% body fat down to 165 pounds and 16% body fat.
However, 16% body fat isn’t ideal for a man, which brings me to the lowest point of my fitness career. In 2014, just before showering, my wife saw me take off my shirt and said:
“For someone who works out all the time, you’re actually not that jacked.”
Gutted.
My most loyal supporter destroyed me with a single sentence. Just like my brother years earlier, she wounded me, but she also woke me up.
Something was wrong with my approach and I was determined to fix it.
How I Stopped Making Excuses And Hacked Fitness
I was always quick to explain away my fitness failures during the entire decade of struggle.
Growing up I told people I was a “hard gainer” due to my skinny frame and lack of athleticism.
When my weight ballooned after five years of working out regularly while ignoring my diet, I switched my story and told people I was born with a “slow metabolism.”
Life was unfair and I was destined to be six-pack-less forever.
My wife changed all that. No more excuses. No more crutches. I stopped reading “Men’s Health” and perusing fitness blogs, and started reading actual scientific studies about the body.
I didn’t have a lack of knowledge, but rather a syntax error. With one exception, I had all the pieces I needed to achieve my fitness goals, but I’d spent years putting them in the wrong order.
Once I added intermittent fasting to my fitness repertoire, the puzzle pieces finally slid into place. The results I’d been seeking for 12 years were realized in three months.
Stop Suffering and Hack Your Fitness
I don’t claim to be a fitness professional or an expert on diet and nutrition. Like my bio on this website says, I’m a desk jockey with a busy life and a family.
The truth is, I just don’t like spending time in the gym, so I created a Minimum Effective Fitness Protocol that gets you the results you want—single digit body fat and six-pack abs—in as little time as possible each week.
I hated asking my wife to prep six meals a day for me, so I created a dietary plan that includes two meals a day and, after some initial legwork, requires minimal tracking for each meal.
If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re at the point I was at in 2014 or maybe even well past it. You’re tired of expending countless hours and energy on a process that just isn’t working.
Don’t make the same mistakes that I did and waste years spinning your wheels. If you want the same results I do and want them to last for life, you’ve come to the right place.
Let me show you how to finally Hack Your Fitness.