Body Transformation: Austin Hill Quit Bad Habits And Lost Over 100lbs!

Categories: Articles Motivation
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Before Stats
  • Age
    40
  • Weight
    345 lbs
  • Diet
    6000+ Calories
  • Other
    Smoker
After Stats
  • Age
    41
  • Weight
    230 lbs
Editor's Note: Everyone is different and these results may not be typical for the average person. To achieve these results you need to be willing to put in the work both in the gym and in the kitchen. Use this transformation for motivation for you to make the changes you want!
A heavy smoker, drinker and eater, Austin would eat 6000 calories per day and smoke up to 3 packs of cigarettes. But that was his life before losing 100 pounds!

Lifestyle Prior To Change

What was your lifestyle prior to your transformation?

My lifestyle before the change was what I would consider out of control. I was consumed with excess. I lived to eat, drink and party. Having a huge meal with an abundance of beer was the norm for me. The only thing I did for exercise was walking to my truck! Six years ago I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. I smoked non-filter cigarettes because I thought it was the filter that was killing everyone not the tobacco.
It was an easy thing for me to consume 6,000+ calories a day, then throw a 12 pack in on top of that!

  • Breakfast. A typical day started off with breakfast of four eggs over easy, half a pack of bacon and biscuits with gravy.  I would put a slab of butter in the middle of my plate, pour molasses on it and sop it up with a biscuit. I would wash it down with a couple large glasses of orange juice. Of course, I would have my normal pot of coffee.
  • Austin Hill Body TransformationLunch. Typically, I would eat at a buffet or eat a Wendy’s triple burger with cheese, "biggie" sized, with a diet Coke.
  • Supper. Supper consisted of fried chicken, creamed potatoes, pinto beans with corn bread.
  • Dessert. Dessert was a huge bowl of ice cream and cake.
  • Snacks. Of course, throughout the day I would snack on chips, sweet cakes, cookies, etc.

I had knee pain, back pain, and my wife used to say I grunted when I would turn the steering wheel.

I was up on all the latest TV shows. I used to sit and watch "The Biggest Loser" while snacking and say "I could win this." I was in total denial of what I had become. I thought I was healthy, happy and wise. I thought I looked stocky, not fat. I really had no idea I was fat.

I thought I felt good. I thought I was doing well. I actually thought I was in pretty good shape. When I saw myself in the mirror, I used to think "Look how big my arms are!" and "Man, I am still as strong as ever."

People used to tell me that I didn’t look fat and that I carried my weight well. I was killing myself one bite of food at a time, and numbing that out with alcohol.

I was in total denial about my drinking also. I was a binge drinker. Every day was a binge. If I didn’t have to fly that day, I was celebrating how great I was!

I got the wake up call on my drinking one day while drinking with a good buddy of mine at a bar in Miami.  I decided to try and convince him to slow down a little. His drinking was getting so bad that we would have to leave early, before the bar closed.

I talked to him about it and he said "Man, I don’t drink near as much as you do." I said "That's bull! Look, you can hardly stand." He said "Ask the bar keep." So I called her over and asked her to settle a little something for us.  She said "Okay." I asked her "Who has had the most drinks?"  She said "According to your tabs, he has had six rum and cokes and three beers. You have had nine Rum and cokes and six beers."  I said "Oh, okay. We are pretty close." She said "All your rum and cokes have been doubles." I was nearly floored. I was practically sober. WOW!  That really bothered me so I went back to the hotel that night and drank some wine to ponder my drinking.

The thought of what I was doing to myself, my career and my family never occurred to me. I was 40 years old, 345 lbs. and clueless.

What was your low point or turning point?

My turning point came two days after Christmas. I was at work back in Miami training for a new piece of equipment and getting ready to go into the flight simulator when my phone rang. It was my wife. She never calls me when I am at work unless something has broken at home or one of the boys has pulled a good one. I said "Hello" and when she started speaking I knew this phone call was not like the others.

Austin Hill At 345 PoundsShe told me that my mom had had a heart attack and was in the hospital and going to have open heart surgery in the morning. I tried to think of a safe question to ask to gauge how bad things really were. I started with an easy one "Is it bad?" She said "Yes." Then I asked the money question: "Do I need to come home?" She said "Yes!"  In 15 years of marriage and flying around the world, she has never answered YES! This was bad. I went home on the first flight out. When I got home, my wife and I went straight to the hospital. My mother was already in surgery. When the doctor came out to talk to us, he said the surgery didn’t go well. Due to her diabetes and the small size of her arteries, the surgery was more difficult than normal. It was also complicated by the worst case of plaque in her arteries that he had seen in 25 years as a heart surgeon. We were floored. We didn’t even know she had diabetes. My mother never told anyone.

When they got her stable after another heart attack in the recovery room, followed by three stints, we were allowed to see her.  She was so swollen, had a balloon pump working her heart and did not have a good prognosis.

That night when I got home, I walked in and got bum rushed by my boys and nearly broke down. When I took a shower the next morning and was shaving before going back to the hospital the next day, I took a good sober look at myself. What I saw terrified me. What had I done to myself? For the first time I saw myself for what I had become. It scared me and I knew without a doubt that what was happening to my mother was in store for me. I looked at myself in that mirror and said "That’s not going to happen to me! I don’t want my boys to feel this pain because their Daddy was too lazy to do anything about it." I told my wife I was done. I was going change. I was going to get back me. I apologized to her for my actions and committed myself to change. She said "Okay, honey. You're perfect to me the way you are."

My Mom is a fighter and pulled out and is back to her normal self, but she is concerned about her health now! When my Mom got stable, I went to the Hospital Wellness Center that my wife had signed us up for months ago to get started. I met with a trainer, discussed my goals, where I was now and made a plan for the future.

Austin's Training And Cardio Approach

What was your weight training approach and split during your transformation?

The first thing I did was get a trainer. He measured me, took my bodyfat and gave me a strength and flexibility test.

Man was I fat. Now the truth was coming out. I was off the charts in danger zones for everything:  diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. I was going get them ALL. Then came the strength test. I knew I was going to do great in this test because I was stocky and had always been strong.

Well, my first test was the flat barbell bench press. I thought he was going to load the bar up and see what I could do. But he had a different idea. He put two 25 lbs plates on the bar and told me to lie down and see how many I could do. I kind of laughed and thought "How much time do we have? I can press that all day!" Well, I laid down and got started. When I un-racked that weight I thought "Man, that seems heavier than I remember." I started knocking them out and around six I was sweating. At eight I was struggling, at 10 I was shaking, at 12 I was done, and at 13 the trainer was having to deadlift it off me. I was spent and embarrassed. Then he said "Good Job." I said "Really?" He said "Yes, good job." We did some other things, reviewed the results and made a plan. For the next week I did everything he told me to and how he told me to do it.

I started a simple diabetic diet at that time to loose weight. I knew enough about diets to know I did not know anything. My wife is a nurse and she offered me some of her old text books.  I welcomed the information.

Austin Hill

During my research I came to several conclusions.

  1. The last sentence in every diet book I had was the same. It was “With proper nutrition and exercise you will meet your diet or fitness goals.”
  2. The calorie is king. If you take in less calories than you burn, you will lose weight.
  3. Lean muscle burns more calories at rest.
  4. You need a support network of fitness - successful people.

So with proper diet and exercise and limiting my caloric intake I will lose weight.

But with more lean muscle I will burn more calories when I am at rest.

That is what started me down a quest for more muscle. The big question was where to find this information. Then one day I saw a Men’s Health Magazine and on the cover all my questions were answered: a workout to gain mass for men over 40, a diet to maximize my weight loss and to keep my lean mass and articles about people who were in shape. So I tried them all. The workouts, the diet, the recipes and reading all the articles.

I have always liked bodybuilders and powerlifters. They were amazing to me with their dedication to their sport and lifestyle.  When I went back to the bookstore to see if there were any books on weight training and diets I found everything I was looking for.  I found books or manuals on weight training and diets. I also found magazines full of bodybuilders and even workout books some of the bodybuilders had written.  I had found a new source of information and support. Now you might think it is funny to say you get support from an article in a magazine or a website, but to me they were telling me what I needed to hear, how to do it and to never quit.

I had found that in Huntsville, Alabama there are a lot more unsuccessful fitness people than successful ones. So I surrounded myself with the people I wanted to emulate and, even though they were in magazines and on websites, I found them to be supportive. I would find myself talking to people at the gym and saying I was reading an article by Dave Goodin and he says to do this or that, and they would look at me like who? I would say "Dave Goodin, he is a natural bodybuilder, over 40 and RIPPED UP!" Most of the time, they would look at me like I was crazy.  I was not crazy.  I was on a mission. I was on a mission to take back my life and my health.

As the weight came off, my workouts changed. I progressively got more old school in my workout and tuned and tweaked my workouts as I learned my body.

Here is what it has turned into for me. I do change it up time to time, but for the most part these are my core exercises. The ones that work for me.

Day 1 - Chest and Triceps

Day 2 - Back and Biceps Day

Day 3 - Leg Day

Day 4 - Shoulder Day

Then I start over with back day first, then chest day, then leg day, and so on.

My main focus has become lean mass building. I know when I go into the gym I might not be the strongest or the most ripped person in there, but I can be the hardest working one in there!

I try to make a little gain every time I walk in the gym. If it's by adding weight to an exercise or adding a couple reps, I always try to push. I am never satisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy and thankful for what I have achieved, but I am a work in progress. There is a monster in me and I am trying to uncover him one drop of sweat at a time!

Austin's Diet And Nutrition Approach

What was your diet and nutrition approach during your transformation?

The diet plan that I used was very simple. If I had eaten it before, I didn’t eat it anymore. I had a bunch of diet books with recipes in them. My trainer had measured me and told me I needed to eat like 2,800 calories a day to maintain my weight. And to lose weight I needed to take a minimum of 500 calories off that. His suggestion was to eat 2,000 calories a day, exercise and lose weight. So that’s what I did.

I went to between 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day and at first I only counted calories. Then, as I read more in my muscle magazines, I kept reading about the different proteins, fats, carbohydrates and how they worked in the body. So I took out my wife’s text book and started studying the different food groups and their effects. I did a lot of research and came up with a plan that sounded as old as man. I was going to eat six 300 calorie meals a day. I read articles on eating for muscle growth, learned words like catabolic and anabolic, the best time to eat in the morning to stop the catabolic state and what to eat.

So as I tweaked my diet and ate every three hours like clock work. I prepared meals ahead of time and carried almonds with me to snack on just in case I got hungry. I had my diet dialed in and my exercise program working well for me and it was like I was melting before my very eyes. I was going through clothing sizes faster than I could buy them. I tweaked my diet as the fat was being replaced by muscle. I would increase my protein intake and include protein shakes before and after my workouts. One of the big stumbling blocks I found to my diets before was being hungry. With eating 300 calories six times a day I was and am never hungry. I stay satisfied all the time and am never craving for anything. So the most important thing I found out was that with proper nutrition and exercise you can lose and keep off large amounts of body fat.

What supplements did you use?

Supplements. That’s a tricky subject. I guess I tried nearly every muscle builder out there. I tried a bunch of the nitric oxide supplements and many of the pre-workout drinks.

I would try something because a famous bodybuilder said he did. With most of the products I tried, I could not tell that they did anything for me. They were a waste of money. The ones that worked and I liked I still use today.  For protein powder I use Nature's Best Isopure.

I use Optimum Nutrition Casein Protein.

I cycle between Gaspari SuperPump 250 and MuscleTech NaNO Vapor. I found these two products really work for me.

I also take creatine, glutamine, vitamin C and a good multivitamin.

What Is Your Life Like Now?

My life now is nothing like it was. The only resemblance is that I am still a pilot, father and husband. Now, when I am on the road, instead of going to bars, I go to the gym. Instead of finding food buffets, I prepare my own food.

When I am at home, I play with the kids and the kids in the neighborhood. I help clean the house and, of course, I go to the gym. I also do all of the cooking when I am at home.

I have to admit I catch myself watching every bite of food that goes into my kids' mouths. I can't help it but I count their calories and their protein intake. When I cook, I always cook a couple of different meals, one for me and one for the family. I know they do not want to eat what I do, so I cook things that they like, but prepare it in a way that is good for them. I make sure they get to eat candy and cakes. I just try to control the amounts without seeming overbearing to them.

My wife used to get mad at me when we would plan our vacations, especially early in my lifestyle change.  When she would tell me where we were going, I would say "Where is the closest gym?" She has gotten over that and now when she makes our vacation plans, she includes gym locations and plans around my workout schedule. She has really grown into a real source of support for me. Even though she does not understand my quest for size or even like it, she supports me. My kids are proud of me. They never tell anyone their dad is an airline pilot they always say "My Dad is a bodybuilder."  But the best thing about this is that my two youngest kids will never remember when their Dad was overweight.

Advice For Others

The advice I have for others is not wait to get started. Go join a gym, get with a trainer and assess your fitness level. Get in that gym and leave your old self on the gym floor, one drop of sweat at a time. Don’t be afraid of the people in there hitting it hard. And don’t be afraid of the free weight area. Sometime when people first start in a gym, they are intimidated by the free weights and the people in there grunting and groaning. Don’t be. Remember they had a first day also. Try to feed off their intensity. And by all means learn a little gym etiquette. I could write a book on that one.

Also, shop around for a trainer who fits you. There are good trainers and not so good trainers. Interview a bunch of them to find one what works for you. This is a subject that I could write a book on also.

Just remember 90% is diet. The other 10% is exercise. But you have to give both a 100% effort to be successful.

The only other thing I would like to say is surround yourself with support. If it is in magazines or in real people, find them. Also, continue to educate yourself on different types of exercise and diets. Read the articles, do your own research and, above all, listen to what your body is telling you. Good luck in reaching your goals. You can do it.  Just remember, you are not on a diet, its your lifestyle.

21 Comments
Jeff
Posted on: Fri, 07/05/2013 - 14:48

Man, that is me now! I'm 46 and drink about a six and 2 or 3 mixes a day,plus eating what ever pleases me at the time. I walk too and from everyday for my work so cardio is a daily thing.
Your story relates to me. now I need to go put my struggles on the weight floor to leave behind, to find my positive results!

Thank you for your inspiration!

HansNotFranz
Posted on: Thu, 03/28/2013 - 12:06

Bravo my friend! I'm going to hit the gym a little harder today. Thanks for the motivation.

John
Posted on: Sat, 02/23/2013 - 22:35

Austin,

Thanks for sharing your story and that of your mom. I stepped on the scale 2 weeks ago tomorrow and was at a new all-time high weight (5'9", 264#) and had completely let myself go. Funny thing is that I had a heart attack 4.5 years ago and had gotten somewhat serious afterward about losing weight and getting in shape, but ultimately let it go just about 3 years ago and have put on 55 lbs since. I'm done with that, have restarted and have dropped almost 20 lbs in 2 weeks. Like you, what worked for me before was eating 5-6 times per day at 200-300 calories each. I've been back at that again for 2 weeks and am always satisfied... never "starving".

My goal in addition to cardiovascular re-training is to focus also on muscle building, and what you've shared is motivational. GREAT job, Man. You look great and you've really turned things around.

John Whalen
Minnetonka, MN

Mark Hodge
Posted on: Thu, 02/14/2013 - 20:10

This is exactly what i have been looking for. I am a 42 year old Pastor who has let his desk and addiction to food any food take a huge toll on his body. In 2008 I dropped from 310 to 242 and was actually trainging to do some 5k races and even thinking of a marathon. Then a slight tweek in my knee and the next week I strained a shoulder while lifting was allowed to drain me of all motivation and Jan of 2012 I was 360 bu as of Feb 2013 I am 300. I am starting in the gym next week and can't wait but didn't know where to start but now I know I just have to start, period. Our local gym doesn't have a all access trainer and I am not completely sure where to start with supplements. Any further suggestions not given in your story would benefit me greatly. Thanks again for your story.

Pastor Mark Hodge
Humboldt, TN

Deon Saul
Posted on: Thu, 01/10/2013 - 03:33

Awesome!!! I like the phrase: ... not a diet its your lifestyle. I get it?

Anthony
Posted on: Sat, 01/05/2013 - 02:05

Great Job on the transformation.
I am from Tuscaloosa, Al and it is great to see anyone take control of their life but it makes it even better when they are a fellow Alabamian.
I am beginning my journey at 46 years old... 6 ft/300#
My goal is to lose about 1 -1.5 pound each week while working out and dialing my diet in. Your story was truly inspiring to me and I will use it as motivation to achieve my fitness and health goals.

Grant
Posted on: Wed, 10/24/2012 - 21:37

Dude! Good for you! Just starting my journey...been a long time coming.

Patrick
Posted on: Thu, 09/13/2012 - 06:30

I just turned fifty a couple of days ago and have decided if not now, it ain't never going to happen. Your story has been a blessing to me. Thank you...I will set out to get my health together. Thanks

Jeff Thacker
Posted on: Thu, 09/06/2012 - 12:38

I really enjoyed this article. It has inspired me to journal my recovery from alcohol, drugs and a life of training. Obviously those don't mix well. I have 33 days sober and have completed the 12 steps. Along with a new trainer, the correct medication for low testosterone, bipolar medicine; I am now living life on life's terms. Training and dieting is a huge part of my recovery. I've trained off and on since high school and now I depend on it as an outlet when times get tough. I'm off to the gym. Oh and I am 40 years old. Thanks Austin!!

rey
Posted on: Thu, 05/10/2012 - 15:10

great job, gonna use this story as my motivation to change. just recently stopped drinking and started working out. thanks again for the insperation

Austin Hill
Posted on: Sun, 04/04/2010 - 11:40

Thanks for all the great comments. I hope everyone can find the balance they need in their lives to accomplish their fitness goals and healthier lifestyle.
Austin

Dustin Varnell
Posted on: Tue, 03/23/2010 - 20:15

Im a new member and I am sitting here reading you story. As I read, tears start to form and I realize that I am reading about myself. I hope I have as much determination and success as you have. I am happy for you. Great Job!

Jose Carattini III
Posted on: Fri, 02/12/2010 - 02:03

congratulations man.I have a question. Did you have any hanging skin. Your after picture looks like your skin is tight and I wanted to know how you managed that awesome feat. Fill me in as I have issues with that now. Again, Congrats!!!!

Austin Hill
Posted on: Sun, 04/04/2010 - 11:37

Yes I do/did have a problem with extra skin. It is a problem that drives me to get a big as I can get. I have found that I can fill the skin every where but at the belly button level.It actually is below my belt line and only visable with my pants off. so it not that bothersome to me.
Good luck with your goals and your progress.

Tatooed Lifter
Posted on: Tue, 01/12/2010 - 20:56

Very interesting story !! Thanks for sharing it with us. Parts of your story hit close to home. Keep up the good work

Shoalpt
Posted on: Tue, 01/12/2010 - 05:16

I probably never got that far out of shape but I take on board your words and find inspiration to continue on my path.

David
Posted on: Tue, 01/12/2010 - 02:11

amazing transformation.. Although it took a life changing event to really look at yourself and ask yourself why you let yourself go so badly. Keep up the good work you look great :D

Jim
Posted on: Mon, 01/11/2010 - 14:41

Totally awesome!!!!!I neglected my body for many years and it caught up with me last March when I had a heart attack at the age of 45.I'm down 65 lbs and heart and blood work could'nt be better.We all can learn from others.Taking that first step sometimes can be hardest.I'm glad that you took that step.

Regular JoD
Posted on: Wed, 01/06/2010 - 13:45

Thanks for sharing. What a great success story and very inspirational.

Kassandre
Posted on: Tue, 01/05/2010 - 15:21

I can only imagine how good you must feel. And you look YEARS younger, too! Congratulations on not only changing your life and but taking the lead in helping your family be healther, too!

Barry Anderson
Posted on: Tue, 01/05/2010 - 15:16

Very touching story. Enjoyed this very much!!!!