From age 27 to 35 I had to eat some ridiculously high cals. every day to go from 150 to 165. Literally millions of extra cals. It’s mind-boggling if you add it up over time.
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I’m not blessed in that way. Perhaps it’s because I’m an ex-fatty? But I lose and gain weight super fast
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You’ve done pretty good for an ex-fatty! 
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Still waiting on his self-interview to give me his insight! We haven’t had a good ol’ self interview since RV.
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From august 2019 to early January 2020 i lost motivation and I was training and eating like shit. This because I had a lot of job issues that almost led me to depression. Plus, my bone marrow edema in my left knee was so painful that I had walking issues, too; training legs (heavy squats) through the pain has been a very idiotic choice, the problem got even worse. I am subject to “humor wiggling” so when it strikes, I completely lose motivation to do anything. Fortunately I solved my job issues (got a new and better job) and decided to “get serious” with training and nutrition. Helped by my wife (she’s a nutritionist) I started again to train and eat properly. I absolutely recommend “boring but strong” and “spinal tap” templates when it comes to 5/3/1 training; the warrior diet has been a game changer for my nutrition. This is a summary of my recent training and nutrition story. Still fighting with my bone marrow edema, but I decided to not train legs until it is completely recovered.
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Why? The convenience? I’m genuinely curious what you found that was a big difference for you.
Ah! This is the opposite for me! When i’m happy, with a girl or what, I want to have fun and pleasure, I go to restaurants, drink wine and eat shit with the family ahahah
When I’m depressed I have zero trouble being strict
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I’ve found (from the last transformation) that if I diet really hard for a few months with low carbs, when I reintroduce them I rebound really well and build some mass. There’s about a 5kg difference between this year’s after and last year’s.
For me, the main reason I don’t hold that shape end shape year round is I don’t want to, I love to drink beer and eat pizza and I just can’t stay at that sub 10% mark when I do that, but I like to know i can get there when I try hard 
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@kleinhound Slacker
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I think for most people this the truth. Some are good at dieting for 20 weeks and showing some real progress but what happens over the next 30 weeks is a slow decline in their training and they end up close to where they started.
I think for most of us, looking the same or slightly better whilst getting older is a massive win.
The realisation that you aren’t going to be 10% body fat or aren’t going to gain 10lb of muscle every year is a little sad but unfortunately true.
Its like back in the late 90’s when i finally accepted the truth that everyone in Flex magazine was on gear and prepped for a photo shoot. No one actually looks like that all year long.
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Thats generally how its been for me after my 2 attempts at getting stupid lean. I think ive figured out right about where my body likes to be after 15+ years doing this and there just isnt going to be a massive increase in muscle mass from here on out. probably about 145-150lbs untrained and eating “normally” and about 185 4-pack lean. Any time I push above 200 its like 90% fat gains.
So the cycle basically is get lean in the first few months of the year, and relax the diet the rest of the year and soften up a bit and take whatever muscle gains that come with that. I have actually gone 2 years in the past without dieting because my “bad” diet is generally pretty good still, but yeah year-to-year I basically expect to look mostly the same these days(years)
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Damn @Chris_Colucci, mad props to the massive amount of work this project must take you.
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I must admit when my two pictures were put side to side I thought “fuck its the same, how !? I’ve made loads of progress this year!” And I have thought that every year.
So I’m writing this for me more than anythin (a little narcissistic maybe) but maybe others may look at there own situations in the same way.
My 2017 entry pictures…
My 2020 pictures
In this 3 years since the birth of my son, I have switched from training in a well equipped gym to training at home with minimal equipment.
I have had 3 minor surgerys, 3 failed ivf cycles, bouts of what can only be described as stress and depression and very limited training time.
So I’m proud of what I have done in the long game, despite the disappointment that it didnt show in the one single front relaxed pic I’m actually proud.
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I actually thought your before/after were pretty decent, especially considering you’re not exactly in the “newbie gains” phase.
Your 2017-20 progression is awesome.
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Yup kd your progress 17-20 is very decent considering life, you’ve made significant changes is body composition waist size must be down a fair bit and shoulder/chest circumference up quite a bit?
Plus you’ve managed to maintain visible abs for 3 years, whilst gaining?! A great example of long term patience and graft.
Loving all the work in here, even if there’s regression, it’s pretty ballsy to put half naked photos on the internet (not the filtered well posed kind) for random people to judge you and hold you to account. Good effort for having the fortitude to continue and post up even when you’re disappointed in the results - that’s real accountability!
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Yer @Chris_Colucci you are a legend mate. Thanks or putting this all together and giving us all something to work for each year.
Ha, not gonna lie, I didn’t vote until today because I needed to take a break from looking at pics.
No prob, but this whole thing wasn’t my idea. It’s something the forum members started stirring up back in 2016:
Yogi and Lonnie started the first couple of threads about it. I just helped get it more officialized.
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I forgot about @Yogi1. Hope he’s alive.
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Is this definitely going to be a thing next year too?
Seems to be a reoccurring feature now.
I wonder if there is a hall of shame in case any people voted for themselves? 
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