I'm 40 years old, my height is 6' and my current weight is 208lbs. Many years ago, I had practiced with kettlebells after reading and watching Enter the Kettlebell. I did the Program Minimum for a while with my DD 16kg but I wasn't very disciplined and quickly switched to barbell lifting. I had the tendency of getting bored with a routine and switching to something different without giving the current program a proper chance to help me. So I went from kettlebells, to calisthenics, to barbells and sometimes to not even working out. So as you can guess, my health, weight and strength fluctuated throughout the years.
After not working out for about 2 years, I had reached a weight of 235lbs. I wasn't feeling good about myself. So I started to workout again (mainly chin-ups, push-ups and 16kg GS snatches) and remembered being told that 80% of my success would come from a healthy diet. So I started to eat smarter. I drank a lot of water and tried to cut back my unhealthy cravings. That got me to 228lbs.
Then in June 2018, a group of friends and I challenged each other to reach a health goal by September 2018. My personal goal was to reach 210lbs, while gaining strength. While I had reached 210lbs once in the past, it was through dieting and looking like a weakling. So I was determined to do it the right way. I figured I had 12 weeks to loose 18lbs which is 1.5lbs per week. So I had to decide how I would approach this goal: loose weight and gain strength. I immediately decided I would use kettlebells as my primary tool (my friends were curious to see how I would turn out). Then I listened to Pavel's Simple & Sinister several times. Once I was ready, I ordered a set of kettlebells (16kg, 24kg and 32kg). In the meantime, I borrowed my brother's 16kg kettlebell and started doing the Simple & Sinister program daily (along with some snatches, push-ups, chin-ups and presses sprinkled on top). Now because I know myself and how easily I can get distracted with new shiny programs or how I could easily "take a break" from working out, I forced myself to log in our group chat every time I completed a training session. This helped a lot because if I didn't do the program on a particular day, all my friends would know.
But then I ran into a obstacle. My brother needed his 16kg kettlebell back and I had only received my 24kg from the set I ordered (the 16kg and 32kg were on back-order). So I thought, "How am I going to do my get-ups if I can barely do one with a 24kg?". So I decided to apply the strength training principles I had learned from Pavel and others to my TGUs. I would slowly do a get-up on each side, then rest 5 min... then do another rep. I would slowly reduce the rest time as my body responded to the new load. Eventually I was able to do them within 10min. Then my 32kg kettlebell arrived and I started to slowly introduce this juggernaut into my training.
Fast forward to the 60th day of my daily training and I tested myself to see if I could reach the "simple" goal with the 32kg kettlebell. Doing the swings was difficult but the TGUs was going to be my biggest challenge since doing 10 in 10 min requires very little rest between reps. But when I finished my last rep and saw 9:45... I was so proud of myself!
I was not only proud that I reached this goal but that I had stuck to the program. It's funny because now on my light days I use the 24kg kettlebell and it feels so light... yet 60 days ago they felt so difficult to lift.
Currently I'm on my 74th day of daily training without a single off day and I'm planning to purchase a 40kg kettlebell. I also reached my goal of weighing 210lbs or less with gained strength with time to spare!