John Rowley realized he was getting a little chunky around the midsection nine years ago while putting in some long hours with a new business venture.
So he went out and bought a pair of size 32 jeans.
They were regular fit and way too small for him because he was a size 38 at the time.
“I couldn’t even get them on my legs,” recalls the 49-year-old fitness expert, author, motivational speaker and entrepreneur in a phone interview from Raleigh, N.C.
“And I hung them in the closet, right where I could see them every day.”
Rowley then cleaned up his diet and consistently hit the gym with a vengeance.
And within a few months, he says, he was wearing those jeans.
The moral of the story? Setting a goal and having a clear vision is an effective way to get ‘er done.
“When people have a goal, they do fantastic because they’re driven and they’re motivated,” explains the director of fitness and wellness at The American Institute of Healthcare and Fitness.
But goal-setting doesn’t work for everyone — namely astronauts returning from the moon.
“They say astronauts get really depressed after they land on the moon and come back because what else do you do after you land on the moon?” Rowley says with a hearty laugh.
There are no lunar excursions in his forseeable future, but Rowley certainly knows a thing or two about setting goals and achieving success.
In his late 20s, he went into real estate and became the youngest senior vice-president of any major real-estate company in Manhattan, he says.
Rowley also knows first-hand about overcoming adversity.
He was a 19-year-old collegiate athlete in 1979, when a near-fatal car accident cut his sports career short.
While rehabbing from multiple injuries, Rowley joined Brooklyn’s R&J Health Studio — made famous by Lou Ferrigno in the movie Pumping Iron — a gym Rowley would later own.
Over time, he managed to rebuild his broken-down body, making it stronger and fitter than ever.
Looking back, Rowley says one of the main factors was consistency — something he still practices today.
“It’s nothing magical,” he says. “I’m 49 years old. I’m in better shape than most of the 20-year-olds in the gym, but it’s consistency.”
These days, Rowley pumps iron four days a week for 35-45 minutes a session.
His workout length “depends on how many people are in the gym and how chatty I am,” he says. “If I’m travelling and I have nobody to talk to, I can be in and out of the gym in 30 minutes.”
On Monday, he trains his chest, biceps and abs, Tuesday is leg day, Wednesday is a day off, Thursday is back and abs, and Friday is triceps and abs. And on most days, he does 45 minutes of early morning cardio.
As for his diet, Rowley stays relatively low on his carb consumption six days a week.
Sunday through Friday, he also makes sure to get 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight each day, while ingesting good fats from sources such as fish oil, downing as many green veggies as he wishes and eating some fruit after his workouts.
“Then on Saturdays, I allow myself to eat whatever I want and it helps me stay lean.”
Along with consistency, it’s all about choosing to be disciplined, he says.
Rowley points out that “discipline” is almost like a dirty word in this era of instant gratification.
“It’s amazing. People don’t want to wait for anything,” he notes. “Everybody wants everything instantaneously.”
The grandfather, who wears a Size 30 or 32 pair of pants, is a fit 209 pounds at five-foot-10.
He turns 50 in April.
“At my age, I like being an inspiration to people,” he says. “So many people today, they’re running out of gas way earlier than they should, simply because they haven’t taken care of themselves.”
Visit www.johnmrowley.com for more on Rowley.
John’s three steps to success:
1. Set a goal and have a clear vision of where you want to be.
2. Put a plan together to achieve that goal.
3. Then comes the hard part — discipline yourself to implement your plan.
Cary Castagna is a certified personal trainer through Can-Fit-Pro.
