I’m Getting Fit. You Can Too with the Fight Club Workout.

What I'm aiming for, sort of.

You may not know it from looking at my 5’10”, 136-pound frame, but I’m huge on fitness.  I’ve worked out four or five days a week, whether it’s weight lifting or jogging, for the past couple years, but I hit a snag this past school year when I got tonsillitis and wasn’t able to do much at the gym until a few months after my tonsils got taken out and my strength came back.  Then summer finally came and I went back to the first program I did a couple summers ago and I’ve gotten results and compliments aplenty.

Ricafranca's Men's Workout Guide website is great.

I chose the How to be Ripped like Brad Pitt from Fight Club in 12 Weeks or Less, from Men’s Workout Guide, based on my love of Fight Club and general man crush on Pitt — swoon.

While I’m not quite ripped like Tyler Durden, after lifting three times a week and jogging lightly for the past 10 weeks, I’ve put on about eight pounds of muscle and I’ve noticed my arms, chest, and legs expanding each week.

The beauty of this program is its flexibility.  You can do what I did in the summer of 2008 and follow it religiously, listening to the program’s creator, Arnel Ricafranca, give his tips on eating and sprinting; I wasn’t in need of losing weight at that time but I dropped 15 pounds just by eating that food and running like a madman.

Or you can do what I’ve done this summer, by using heavier weights, eating terrible food along with protein and creatine shakes, and jogging instead of sprinting to enable my muscles to grow without losing weight.

I’m almost done with the Durden program, but that doesn’t mean my relationship with the website is ending.  Mr. Ricafranca offers several more programs, including a four-month hypertrophy (that means “muscle-gaining”) one I began last summer that helped me gain 10 pounds before the throat attacked me and I lost it all.  I’m either going to tackle that one or attempt Arnel’s scary 300 Spartan program.

No matter what I choose to do, I bet I’ll get up to my goal of 150 pounds and feel way healthier doing it.