Michael Zimmet: Introduction
Wazzzzz uppppp. Fun fact - the true genesis of this newsletter was just to keep that greeting alive.
Of course this isn’t true and now I’m starting my first newsletter off with a lie, but I wouldn’t be complaining either if that result was accomplished in the long run.
Thanks for tuning into this week's newsletter! My name is Michael Zimmet and I’m one of the two founders here at BTY Performance. I’m also a hybrid athlete and soon to be certified nutrition coach. Unlike Sean Gray (the other co-founder), who is about to crush his first marathon in Aspen Valley, Colorado, my first marathon isn’t until December 2024; however, it’s in Honolulu so that means I have the upper hand on Sean…right?
If you haven't had a chance to check out our inaugural newsletter from last week, written by Sean, I highly suggest you give it a read after this.
So, if you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering who I am and what motivated me to create BTY Performance. Let me take you all the way back to 2005: I’m 9 years old and in my parents basement. I’m hanging out with my 3 older brothers (one of which is 6 years older than me and the other two are 9 years older than me) when I see an opportunity to do what younger siblings do best…piss them off. So naturally, seconds later, I find myself in some weird Mortal Kombat finisher position, letting out screams of pain similar to that of an injured Mallard, when I hear my mom yell down from the top of the basement steps, “Boys! Be careful wrestling your younger brother, you’ll accidentally break one of his bones!” And that’s when it really hit me - Michael... you’re super skinny. In my mom’s defense, I was an extremely skinny kid and if she didn’t intervene, I probably would’ve gotten hurt. But that feeling of being skinny and frail followed me all throughout elementary school, middle school and into my later years of high school. I hated being the skinny kid.
My junior year I was 6’4” and 180lb. I never felt confident or comfortable playing team sports as I got older, so I started taking Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) my freshman year of high school. That really saved my confidence and introduced me early on into the world of toning muscle (MMA consists of tons of body workouts, exercises and cardio, but doesn’t emphasize strength training too much). I got really good, really fast too. My favorite style to learn was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but I was also taking lessons in Muay Thai, Boxing and Judo. These sports were fantastic for making me feel like the biggest kid on the playground “mentally”, but I still was super insecure when it came to my physical appearance and how I felt I stacked up against most kids my age. I needed to put on some mass.
I had been to our local rec center tons of times with my friends throughout the years and poked around the gym like many kids do. I’d walk up to the dumbbells and hit a few curls, then go to a cable machine and grab a random cable attachment to use for a few reps, or maybe meander my way over to some machines that looked fun and would knock out a few sets there. That’s what I considered a workout. It wasn’t until my brothers took me to Gold’s Gym my junior year of high school that my love and passion for the gym really ignited. I was sore for the first time in my life, but it felt great. My brothers told me that being sore just meant I was breaking down my current muscles and regrowing new muscles. Of course to me, I interpreted this as I was soon going to be indistinguishable from Lou Ferrigno - that could not have been further from the truth.
But I finally understood what it meant to be sore from a good workout, but more importantly, I finally started grasping the concept that if I started busting my ass in the gym and eating right, I could prevent myself from being skinny ever again and could finally sculpt the body I always wanted. And as I got older and started achieving more and more results from lifting, not only did my hunger for the gym get amplified, but so did my knowledge:
There is no one-workout fits all for everybody,
Diets trends rise and fall like the tide, but being mindful of portion control and your daily macro/caloric intake are everlasting,
Consistency is more important than progress,
If you eat less calories a day than your body burns, you’ll lose weight,
If you eat more calories a day than your body burns, you’ll gain weight,
Going to bed early and waking up early is the new cool,
People don’t hyperfixate or care about you nearly as much as you think they do. Stop worrying about external validation,
It’s never too late for you to start your fitness journey. Age is just a number, unless you’re a cheese,
And lastly, I’ll leave you with this: you only get one ‘you’. It’s hard enough navigating life and trying to live long enough to earn the achievement of ‘senior citizen’. You owe it to yourself to see what the peak version of ‘you’ can be. It doesn’t matter if you’re currently a smoker, a big drinker, a partier, etc. the body is incredibly resilient and can achieve miraculous results if you start treating it properly. Use lifting, running, or dieting as your outlet to change who you were and create who you want to be.
But I can’t give away my whole story in my first newsletter, right? I’m sure you can slowly start to see how these events helped to shape, mold, and create what is now BTY Performance. Sean and I will dive deeper into how we formed BTY Performance in other newsletters over the next several months, and share some exciting things we have in the pipeline that we can’t wait to tell you about.
Thank you for taking the time to learn a little bit about me and for following BTY Performance. We really did create this company in the hopes of motivating and streamlining folks on their own personal fitness journeys. If you can learn from our mistakes and be consistent with your training and diet - you won’t believe who will be staring back at you in the mirror a year from now.
Be Better Than Yesterday and we’ll catch you next week!
Michael Zimmet
BTY Performance
