- Bachelors Of Design from York University
- Certified Personal Trainer from Henselmans PT
- Gained over 30 pounds of lean mass
- Solved my chronic tendonitis, and other aches and pains
I'm a co-founder of Bony to Beastly in 2011, Bony to Bombshell in 2014, and now Outlive in 2019.
I've written hundreds of articles about how to become stronger, how to burn stubborn fat, and how to become healthier through exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle.
Our projects has been referenced by:
- Medical Health Today (referencing my article on how to build broader shoulders)
- Psychology Today
- ZME Science
- Big Think
My business partners, Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, have been featured on segments on CTV News and WHYY (NPR).
How did I become a strength and nutrition coach?
I started struggling with tendonitis near the end of high school due to spending nearly every waking moment on a computer creating websites and working a part-time job at a graphic design firm. (I was also the lead singer of a few local hardcore bands.)
As the pain worsened, I started with simple remedies like icing and wrist braces. They didn’t work. When the pain became unbearable, my doctor prescribed physiotherapy, ultra-sound treatment and Naproxen (a prescription painkiller medication that gave me nosebleeds)—none of which came remotely close to solving the issue. The pain was getting to the point where I couldn’t even be on a computer. So, my solution was to learn to use my left hand instead, which was working well until I developed tendonitis on my left arm as well. My physiotherapist said she had never seen tendonitis in both arms in such a young person.
My future business partner, Shane Duquette, and I met at university, and we started a graphic design business after we graduated. After work, we decided to do an “experiment” we titled Lean to Mean. The goal was to gain as much muscle as humanly possible over the course of four months. In the first month alone, I managed to gain 22 pounds. (To be clear, these results are highly atypical. In fact, this is the fastest rate of muscle gain we've ever seen. Your results will almost certainly vary.)
All it took was those 30 days of weightlifting and nutrition to completely change my life.
Over the next two months, I gained another 11 pounds, bringing me up to 163 pounds (shown in the photo). It completely changed the way I looked and felt. I was hooked.
Building all that muscle had helped my tendonitis, but I still struggled daily with the pain.
We began to blog about our success, and a friend of Shane's, Marco Walker-Ng (BHSc, CPT), who was training professional athletes and Olympians kindly suggested some improvements to our plan.
The very first day I met Marco, he showed me a simple soft-tissue technique that he used to help the athletes he was training. Just a few weeks later, my tendonitis no longer affected my life. I didn’t need to stress about being able to do my job, and I was finally pain-free. It was a huge moment for me.
My wife lifts weights with me now, too, and we love it.
Lately, I’ve been happily hovering at around 175/180—over 45 pounds heavier than when I started.
I no longer see getting older as a downhill progression into more and more pain but rather as an opportunity to continue to get stronger, move better, and look better.