From 155kg to 92kg! The story of Luděk Gerčák, who decided to change his life!

We have for you the story of LuděkGerčák, who managed to transform his life in an instant. We should take care of our body because how we look and how we like ourselves has a huge impact on our psyche and therefore on our life! Looking reality in the eye and changing is a big problem for most people... Some people don't even want to see the problems so they run away from them. Ludek is one of those people who have realized where they have come to thanks to their thinking, eating and lifestyle. Then the question became, do I want to keep living like this? And how much longer can I go on like this?

Ludek emailed us with his story and photos, followed by a question asking if we would like to publish his journey to a "Better Me". There was only one possible answer - the article is right under your nose!

Luděk doesn't have to be a role model or a driving force for us, just an example that if you really want to and you go hard for what you want, you can really do anything!

[AUTHOR: Luděk Gerčák ]

I, like all people who train, have undergone some change for the better. It's called progression and the word itself is quite motivating. But it has one small catch - progression is never final and one likes to push personal goals and possibilities higher and higher. That's how it is for me - fitness is no longer just an activity that makes me healthier, stronger and overall more livable. Fitness is a lifestyle for me.

In the beginning, 155 kg

Yes - the starting weight and starting point was at 155 kg, where I literally "worked my way up" thanks to my purposeful self-destruction. I just clearly didn't value myself or care about myself. I excused myself with the motto that I didn't care about me, that I mainly wanted my three-year-old to be happy, and I only understood later how much this nonsensical motto contradicted itself. So if you want to be there for the ones you love with all your heart and fill your lives, you have to think of yourself first and foremost. And there's nothing selfish about it, or some self-centeredness, etc. It's just a logical fact.

Appreciate yourself and leave your own comfort zone

One day I said to myself: "Enough!!! If I don't start doing something about myself immediately, I'm going to treat my life the worst way I can treat it."
Deciding and going for it for now - that's what this is all about - combined with awareness is the most important point. It's not enough to just talk about "should" or "must" - just do it now. Don't think about why it shouldn't go now, or why it won't tomorrow - that's just an excuse not to do it anyway.

Your own mind is the cornerstone of success

The most important thing is diet - with diet comes the cost of eventual success or failure.
I didn't have a "super polished" personal diet - just a brain-ready common sense.
I didn't set up any LOW CARB, no intermittent fasting, no LOW FAT, no miracle diets or anything else, I didn't even use a calorie chart app or a kitchen scale, which I still don't have to this day anyway.

I'm probably not going to "please" too many people here in this group, but I didn't have a customized diet plan, nor did I consult a nutritionist or other advisor, I just used my own brain and cut out all the bad stuff like sugar, white flour, semi-finished foods, cookies, candy, crap, and other useless nonsense. Nothing but regular and minimally processed food just works best - there is beauty and power in simplicity.

It all started in January 2018 - weight loss

In January 2018, 20 kg disappeared - I admit that I was scared myself and visited a doctor just to be sure. After several examinations and tests (even on specialized departments and for sure including oncology) the result was that everything was fine. The doctors' resumé was that the body, used to a huge calorie intake, was in a severe deficit and had started taking it from fat stores in the same scale - the pantry was simply "well" overstocked. Another fact of dramatic weight loss is that in obese people, as I was, the first pounds go off very quickly in the first phase.

In the following months, there was no record

On February 20, 2018, I walked into the gym for the first time and added movement and general exercise. Here today I don't remember exactly how the weight loss progressed, but I think it was that in February and March it was 10 kg. each, then March, April and May about 5 kg. each.

The bottom line is some 63-65 kg to date and I am currently at +/- 92 kg.
I didn't mark anything anywhere, nor did I take any photos, if only for future comparison - I didn't even think of it, maybe a pity, but I was doing it for myself in the first place. I didn't need comparison photos because I knew exactly what point I was starting from (155 kg in mind), where I was going and what direction I should, and most importantly wanted to take.

Hard work, sweat, blood and tears

Especially at the very beginning. In the gym every day from Monday to Friday, an hour of strength training and an hour of cardio. Weekends, an hour of cardio each. I worked like a dog and the hard work made me incredibly energetic. The gym is an incredible crusher of any stress for me. I could come to the gym with any unsolvable problem, I left the gym with three possible solutions. The endorphin release just works full blast for me. I rode this style until sometime in late May, when I did only strength training, which I then extended to about 1.5 - 2 hours, and I still have it today.

There is no stereotype

I had a fitness trainer in the beginning so I didn't tend to hurt myself in the gym. Really great for a start and I definitely recommend it to anyone with minimal or even no fitness experience. It's just that the longer I worked out, the more I understood that his salary was directly proportional with my gym attendance. I'm not saying he taught me anything wrong, he didn't. I'm sure he was teaching me the best he could, or as best he could, it's just that I needed to leave the workout exactly how I needed to leave it. Training at a precise time, and especially length, was no longer working for me.

From the very beginning of my training, I was still training in the evenings, and I still do to this day. I generally seek out information that interests me, read a lot, watch various videos and draw inspiration from people who have something to say on the subject. I try to adapt what I find interesting to myself and then apply it.

I read somewhere that it's good to change your fitness routine after some time (maybe a year). Mainly because the muscle gets used to the angles and types of exercises quite quickly. It learns to work at a defined angle and can handle its stress load, which stimulates it to grow, much easier. The obvious solution is to add weight, but the muscle is still working at the same, stereotypical angles, just with more weight. Which logically leads to muscle growth but in the same defined angular form. When the muscle gets a different loading angle, it gets a different structural growth stimulus. This information I read made logical sense to me and after a year I changed gyms.

Speaking for myself, I have to say that the difference was unreal for me and I felt like I was at the very beginning of my exercise routine. On other machines, I suddenly felt the muscle load completely different, I expected that, but ordinary counter pulleys, just with a different grip handle, which I didn't expect the change from, suddenly felt completely different. Much better for me. So I can say with a clear conscience that learning on new machines has an incredible added value in the form of new muscle growth stimulation.

My supplementation

Now, logically, I have to get to this point. It's one thing to destroy muscles in the gym, often times driving them to complete exhaustion with subsequent failure. This is one of the most important phases for a muscle to grow, it knows that if it hasn't lifted it already that it needs to get stronger (grow) to lift it next time but the muscle doesn't know if that "next time" will be in an hour, two hours, tomorrow, or a week. The body logically starts the chemical recovery process at top speed. For this process it starts to draw on the large amount of minerals and vitamins it has in the body. It will start pumping out everything it needs to put the muscle part back together as quickly as possible and to build the muscle to handle that unmanaged load next time. The fact that we're cheating him a bit, and deliberately working him like this, that we just want to look good and be strong in a swimsuit, he fortunately doesn't know that. So, supplying him with what he needs to regenerate after he is destroyed should be a priority, otherwise what will happen is that the body will take all the regenerative elements from the places and processes it needs for normal, everyday functioning. Anyone who doesn't understand this should watch the children's series "Once Upon a Lifetime", nice episode by episode.
What I have just written is not from my head, after all I was 155 kg not long ago, but all this, I have read somewhere or traced and it just makes sense to me logically.

So what to supplement?

There was never a clear answer to this topic in the past. Every body is a unique original. I can only write what suits me, what I have tried and what works for me.

Definitely a good quality multivitamin, vitamin C, omega 3, zinc and magnesium. But just as important is protein. There is a plethora of not only brands but also types on the market and it is certainly not my place to go into their analysis. When I started working out, everyone told me "You only need this brand", the second one said "this brand", the third one told me that I can't take any other than "from this company" and the salesman said that everything is nonsense because "this is the only one I need and without it there is no point in working out". For me it was quite tiresome, because it's all a subjective matter first and foremost, it's also about which company was more and better at "marketing" their customer.

Personally, I've tried quite a few protein manufacturers looking for a way to "get my way". It's great to have the "best brand" of protein, but it's useless if you can't ingest it. Certainly no one would do wrong to choose their brand from the bigger manufacturers - none of them dare release total shit on the market if they're serious about their brand. Personally, I don't much like media massages designed to convince me of their qualities. I'd compare it a bit to, say, the automotive industry to make it more understandable.

There are a lot of brands on the market, Skoda, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Toyota, Peugeot, Renault, Hyundai, Kia, etc. and each of these, let's say now traditional brands, is fighting for "their" customer with a daily massage from the internet, TV, radio, etc. Each customer prefers, for purely personal reasons, something different. Then there are lesser-known, or let's say lesser-seen car brands on the market, and their customers have to find their own way to them, because they have their own added value. I like things that have a story behind them and that story is not purely commercial. A story where someone has materialized, for example, their dream and their vision to show people that if you want to, you can do anything in life. I have found my way to the USN brand of protein - Ultimate Sports Nutrition, their quality is undeniable, the taste is absolutely perfect for me and that added value in the form of a life story is a man named Ryan Terry who has been associated with the USN brand since the first time he left the factory, started working out and making his dreams come true.

From USN I use their Bluelab 100% and because I believe that every manufacturer on the market makes their products conceptually, in some meaningful way, I still supplement with BCAAs, Creatine, Glutamine and at night Casein Protein from the same manufacturer. It wouldn't make sense to me to mix multiple manufacturers, because it would be similar to me having a Skoda - speaking of cars - but I would buy my other supplements from, say, Toyota. Also, it probably wouldn't fit and match as nicely as if I bought the rugs again at Skoda. This is my purely subjective opinion.

Motivation & Motivation

Definitely the biggest inspiration and motivation for me is my four-year-old son. I want to be healthy and strong for him and I want to be here for him for as long as I'm supposed to be here - not a day, hour, or second less. Time is the most precious item in life. There are a thousand ways to kill time, but none to resurrect it, because we can't get back the one that gets away, no one will give us any more, and we can't buy any more. Go after your dream, whatever it is. Never give up on your dream or betray your dream, you would only be betraying yourself. The road to your goal may be hard, it may seem impossible at times, but the only one who can stop you on that road is none other than yourself.

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