Author, Kevin Richardson
The only way to truly understand a path is to follow it yourself. To me the principles of healthy eating that are the cornerstone of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™ have never been merely rhetoric that I pass on to my clients in an official capacity as a personal trainer and a known figure in the health and fitness industry. Rather it is a way of life that I strive to follow as well. Throughout my career as a personal trainer, bodybuilder and martial arts teacher, I have done my best at all times to adhere to the same basic eating and training rules that I espouse. Interestingly enough, over the years I have received countless emails and questions about how I maintain such a low body fat percentage and many wonder what the ‘secret’ could possibly be. Is it a special supplement or rather a matter of genetics or my age that allows me to comfortably maintain a 5% body fat level?
The answer is far less complex, and has nothing to do with my parents, pills or my age. It has simply been a matter of consistency. I don’t believe and find it hard that so many have such little faith in their own ability to think that that you need something in a bottle to make your health and fitness dreams a reality. Nelson Mandela captured it best in his inaugural speech when he said that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. This applies not only to the vast potential of human accomplishment in the field of academic, financial and social success, but equally towards our ability to change our bodies if we sincerely put our minds to it and never give up. We are distracted so completely by the pressures put upon us to become consumers, to need things to help us do what we can easily do on our own, that we forget our inherent potential.
What Is The Secret To Always Being In Shape?
So how exactly do I stay in such great shape and am able to look better today at 35 (if we don’t take the hair loss into consideration) than I did when I was competing regularly as a bodybuilder in my twenties? The answer is as I said before, consistency- I never go off of my diet. Ever. Not for Thanksgiving, not for Christmas, not for Valentines’s Day, not for New Years’, not for my birthday or any other time of celebration. To me festivity is not about inflicting harm on your body, but quite the opposite- experiencing the joy of being alive in the company of friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, as was not always easy to be this way. As a teenager growing up in Trinidad, where partying is more or less a way of life, I had to learn how to go to a party, not drink, not indulge in foods that I shouldn’t and still have a good time. Impossible, you say? Not at all, it’s just a different path, but one where you end up enjoying every moment in life just because you are there to witness it. Not a bad place to be, in my eyes.
I don’t drink alcohol, juices or anything else except for water, and I am quite content with things being as they are. I will have some tea from time to time, but that is more of an exception rather than the rule. I don’t eat processed foods or anything that only exists thanks to the so called wonders of modern technology, and that includes everything from protein shakes to refined flour products and breads and everything in between. The more manmade it is, the further away from my mouth it stays. A simple rule, really, but it does exclude the majority of foods that people eat today on a regular basis. Growing up in Trinidad did have its benefits, from an eating perspective, as fast foods were almost unknown to most of us as well as the innumerable snacks that are available here in the United States. By the time I came here to live, some 15 years ago, I had already adapted to a lifestyle of trying to avoid processed foods as much as possible and so there are a lot of foods that I never tasted before and had no inclination to ever try.
Believe It Or Not There Are Those Of Us That Never Had A Snickers Bar
I have never had a Snickers bar, don’t know what an ice-cream cake tastes like, never had lasagna, and I couldn’t tell you what the difference is between a green M&M and a red one. I also don’t know what anything in Burger King or White Castle tastes like, nor do I know who or what General Tso’s chicken is supposed to be. Some foods I have gone so long without eating them that I can’t remember what they taste like. The taste of Coca Cola is fading from my memory, I think I preferred Pepsi, but I am not sure as the last time I had any soda was well over a decade ago. But don’t think for a moment that I am somehow different from anyone else and didn’t spend year and years working on improving my own eating habits to be where I am today. It has been twenty one years since I set out to eat in as clean and as healthy a manner as possible, and like everyone else, I have had my slips where I would eat what today I would certainly consider junk food. During my bodybuilding days, protein shakes and bars were the norm for me, as were donuts, pound cake and KFC- especially after contests. A great number of West Indian dishes were hard to give up as well, but over time, the desire to eat foods that really weren’t that great for me became less and less, until about 6 years ago or so I just stopped.
Willpower Has Little To Do With Eating Well, When the Body Is Healthy It Will Want Healthy Foods
There was no iron will proclamation or anything of the sort, I just stopped eating processed foods because my body didn’t want it anymore. I do not at all have any cravings or the desire to eat any foods that would not be beneficial to the body as a whole. Over time, my system has evolved in such a way that my tastes correspond directly with what is best for it, namely diet of only naturally occurring foods. Not to be mistaken by the ‘natural’ food label that is stuck on everything from cookies to soy milk- natural means that the food exists in its inherent state without any intervention by human beings. By assuming that a food is good because a manufacturer makes the argument that the ingredients are all natural is absurd. Cyanides are all natural, you can find it in small amounts in the seeds of apples, mangoes, peaches and almonds but it being natural doesn’t make it any less poisonous. The same argument could be made that cocaine, heroin and pretty much every drug on the planet is made with natural ingredients since at the end of the day it is more of a marketing ploy than a way to promote truly healthy foods.
Eating Well Doesn’t Mean Missing Out
Some actually feel sorry for me at times, and if I had a quarter for every time someone said, “You don’t know what you are missing.” I would be on a beach in Tahiti right now trying to figure out what island I should buy next! The irony is that I do know what I am missing- the headaches, the stomach aches, the digestion problems, the fatigue, the bloating, the blood sugar swings, the inability to concentrate, the joint aches, being out of breath- all of which I am well aware of, and I choose to follow another path. By 2015, seventy five percent of Americans will be overweight, so following the crowd doesn’t appeal to me as the crowd seems to be going in a direction that I simply don’t wish to travel. More pressing than not knowing what it is to be really out of breath after running up four flights of stairs, are the plethora of diseases brought on directly by eating the very foods that some might say I am missing out on. Heart disease, stroke, and diabetes all fall within the realm of diseases that can be prevented with a proper diet, many forms of cancer as well, yet they are the leading causes of death in this part of the world. Having worked with so many over the years that have succumbed to this ailments as well, they are not at all abstractions, but very real consequences of modern living.
Some might see having a six pack as the be all and end all, but to be honest I don’t really spend that much time looking in the mirror anymore. Those days are long behind me and in summer you won’t see me on the beach with my shirt off very often, when I am off to the gym, you’ll see tons of muscle, but I don’t dress that way when I am out with the kids. A neighbor of mine happened to be in the audience of a bodybuilding show where I was guest posing and he was shocked that having seen me for the past 15 years, he never had a clue that I looked the way that I do. I have heard the same from co-workers that I worked alongside for years when I worked with the formerly homeless and that’s the way I like things to be. I usually dress to downplay my physique outside of work as I don’t define myself by the way I look and I don’t think it is healthy to do so in the first place. A time will come when I won’t look the way I look now, but it won’t change much of anything, I will still eat the way I eat, exercise as much as I do, but most importantly, I won’t miss a thing!
NYC Personal Trainer Kevin Richardson is one of the most sought after personal trainers in New York City, a lifetime drug free bodybuilding champion and the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™. His unorthodox 10 minute workouts and customized dietary plans have been helping people get better results in less time for the past 19 years! Get a copy of his free weight loss e-book here!
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