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'Why not me?'Date: 07.06.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
Financial adviser hopes to become Mr. Oklahoma Bodybuilding
Robert Duenner knows there may be bodybuilders on the stage Saturday at the Union Performing Arts Center who are bigger and buffer than he is, but he figures, "Why not me?"
Why not work out twice a day, an hour in the morning and another in the evening after work? Why not drop your daily diet down to two gallons of water and 1,900 calories? (Athletes his size usually eat closer to 3,000 per day.)
Why not tan, shave your body hair, slather on motor-oil hued grease and don a skimpy bathing suit on stage to work those flex poses for the judges?
Because that's what bodybuilders do, and if Duenner wants to be a bodybuilder, nothing will stop him.
Not the eye-rolling of his three kids (two of whom are teens and think bodybuilding is kind of lame), not the fact that he has skinny legs or that he slipped on another contestant's body grease his first time on stage.
"It's a little bit addictive, like running," Duenner said.
By day, he's a senior financial adviser for Morgan Stanley, but by this weekend, he hopes to be Mr. Oklahoma Bodybuilding. Winning at the Oklahoma National Physique
Committee's Bodybuilding and Fitness Championship would mean he had reached another goal (and could go to nationals).
Lest you think bodybuilding is a silly sport, Duenner would like to remind you that one of the world's most famous bodybuilders is now the governor of California: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Duenner is down to 4 percent body fat, because vascularity and definition are what make the difference at showtime. He eats six small meals a day (including in the middle of the night), mostly protein. This means waking up and eating salmon at 3 a.m.
Don't get him wrong, he'd rather be eating Mexican food, pizza, Wendy's, anything with salt. After this weekend, he may finally get to have some Taco Bell and a slice of pie. He dreams about junk food.
But he has to keep that body fat down, because that's the only way to get those veins to pop out. The tricky part is, a lot of the exercises that help you burn fat can make you too skinny for bodybuilding. He had to quit running because his legs looked like toothpicks, he said.
He doesn't use steroids, even though they would bulk him up considerably. He wants to win the natural way or not at all, he said.
So why go through it all -- the grueling workouts, the crazy restrictive diet, the "embarrassing" stage gear?
When he turned 40, Duenner said, he decided that every year he would do something completely "outside the box," set a challenge and meet it. He's 48 now, and he's skydived, run marathons and worked the past few years on his bodybuilding.
"My No. 1 thing is 'Why not me?,' " he said. "You read about people doing these things and you think 'Why not me?' "
He hopes he inspires people. His clients at Morgan Stanley. The younger athletes at the gyms where he works out. His own kids.
He's trying to talk his kids into watching him compete Saturday, but they're worried about the embarrassment factor, he said (teens, always thinking Dad's hobbies are dorky). His ex-wife might be there (they get along), and so will his girlfriend and some of her friends, his buddies and trainers.
He wants the people who've witnessed his transformation to see him shine on stage.
Several years ago, he broke his leg and ballooned up to 250 pounds. He lost the weight through disciplined workouts and eating Subway every day for lunch (that Jared doesn't lie.)
His body is what it is now because he worked so hard -- running, swimming, lifting weights, sacrificing.
"If I can do it, anybody can," he said. |
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