In April 2009 I weighed 216 pounds. I’m 6’1” so I didn’t consider myself to be overweight. In fact, at this time, I was riding my road bike 60 to 90 miles per week, and even competed in the L.A./Kaiser triathlon the year before. But my diet was terrible. I ate way too much food—including the wrong types of food. I had gained approximately 30 pounds (mostly fat) since I graduated college in 1999. It’s a true statement—“you can out eat any exercise program.”

I was in court one day in April 2009. For some reason I noticed that many of the older litigators were overweight (some were really overweight). It scared me as I was headed down this same path. I immediately made a decision to get into great shape—from both a fitness and diet standpoint.

After coming across Tony Horton’s infomercial, I started doing P90X at the end of April 2009, and started making healthier food choices. Six months later, I dropped from 216 pounds to 204 pounds. I still didn’t like what I saw around my mid-section. In April 2010 I was down to 198 pounds. I continued doing P90X religiously, and closely monitored my diet. In April 2011 I was down to 195 pounds. 195 pounds was still not where I wanted to be—my overall goal in April 2009 was to get back to the 186 pounds I weighted when I was in the U.S. Army at 21 years old.

In July 2011, I started following certain fitness gurus to find out what I needed to do to drop those last few pounds of fat. I was overwhelmed with all the advice and fads out there. Over the past few weeks I have pared down who I follow, and implemented many of these “guru’s” suggestions into my fitness and diet routines, primarily Brad Pilon, Rusty Moore, and Martin Berkhan. Within in a few short weeks I dropped those last few stubborn pounds of fat, reaching my goal weight of 186 pounds. 

Here’s a list of the fitness gurus I currently follow:

Brad Pilon: You can find Brad at his blog and on Twitter. Brad’s advice regarding intermittent fasting sounds wrong at first. We’ve all been told we need to eat six small meals a day to lose fat and maintain muscle. Brad says “no” to the six small means and recommends intermittent fasting two times a week. He wrote a book about it, Eat Stop Eat. (Yes his book costs $39.95, which is the same cost as 10 Big Macs—a bargain in my opinion.) Look at Brad’s physical appearance on his blog. Does it look like he’s lost muscle from intermittent fasting?

Rusty Moore: You can find Rusty at his blog, The Fitness Black Book, and on Twitter. This is one of the first blogs I read regularly—and still do. Rusty gives great advice, and there’s lots of free content on his blog. He has a book as well, Visual Impact Muscle Building, which I believe costs $47. Again, a bargain compared to how much we spend on unhealthy foods each week. Rusty’s advice in a nutshell is to follow Brad Pilon’s Eat Fast Eat diet, and at same time train in a fasted state. You can find lots of useful ideas and advice on his blog. I’ve been training in a fasted state for the past four weeks and dropped those last few stubborn pounds of fat. It really worked for me.  

Martin Berkhan: You can find Martin at his blog, Leangains.com, and on Twitter. Martin’s Leangains Guide is full of great advice. I’ve switched between Brad Pilon’s Eat Fast Eat and Martin’s recommendations in his Leangains Guide. Martin is also an advocate of fasted training. Martin adds supplement advice to his training recommendations. Primarily, Martin recommends taking 10 grams of BCAAs (Branch Chain Amino Acids) prior to training, and several hours after training is completed. The BCAAs provide the muscles with protein and allow you to still train in a fasted state. Just watch the fat melt away after a few sessions of training in a fasted state.   

P90X/Tony Horton: Where would I be without Tony Horton? I still do P90X a few times a week, mostly for cardio training. If you are out of shape a little—or even a lot—give P90X a try. Tony is great at motivating you and teaching you how to modify the workouts until you are ready to “Bring It.” You can order P90X here. (Yes, I know it costs $140. But how much did you spend on pizza last year?) You can also follow Tony on Twitter.

Stewart R. Albertson is an attorney in Riverside, California. Stewart helps people in the areas of Trust, Estate, and Probate litigation. You can find Stewart at his website, blog, and on Twitter.