OK, let’s recap: 2018 was an interesting year for me. The first half of the year, I focused on getting stronger, eating more and also gaining some weight. This was not a problematic weight gain, I still looked rather lean, just a little bit of fluff around the torso, especially those love-handles men usually carry around. Back then I gained weight with around 2800 calories a day and 4 workout sessions a week.

By the second half of the year, I decided to go on a body recomposition diet, basically a bodybuilding diet, as if I would get ready for a show. My goal wasn’t to get ready for anything, just to live through a part of the process.

Back to the drawing board

I took a step back and had to reassess my situation. What I didn’t understand and realize at all was to what extent I was undereating on a daily basis. On a high-calorie day, I might have had 2500 calories. On such a day I did 10k steps, one hour each of resistance training and BJJ. That wasn’t even close to being enough.

Once I took a step back from BJJ, I trained harder in the gym. My body was telling me on several occasions that I needed to change something – I simply didn’t know what or how. But in all honesty, I didn’t actually listen.

Training and working out was my way of dealing with a lot of stress. In a way it was my therapy, it still is and most likely ever will be. Once my body realized that I wouldn’t listen it made me listen (I dislocated my shoulder from a simple stretch).

I had to take some time off, had a chance to look closer at my life and make changes.

Here are the 3 most important changes I had to make:

1. workout less for a while
2. sleep and rest a lot more
3. eat a lot more

I eat a lot more nowadays and train a lot smarter, sleep and rest more. And still, old habits die hard, I went on this body recomposition diet – when I had no business in doing so.

Then again, it made me realize even more how much I had to give me, my body and my mind, time, energy (spiritual, emotional, nutritional) and love to heal. And that’s what’s next.

Project Big Stefan

My goal is to heal, in every possible sense of the word. One of the things that I need to do is eat more, build up my metabolism, build up a bigger frame.

This will get my hormones to a much better level in the long run. It will also shed a lot of light into a lot of darkness, which I finally admitted myself to face.

Life has been a rollercoaster and it’s been one hell of a ride.

Let’s do this

That’s how the general idea of Project Big Stefan emerged. Here we are with the first episode of Project Big Stefan (PBS). I’ll share with you what happened so far, what kind of workout I am on, what to expect and what routine I’ll start shortly.

As this is a completely new journey for me, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it. Let me know what kind of information you would like to know about and what to see.

Enjoy it and make sure to subscribe to my channel to follow along the journey.