 What's up ladies and gentlemen, this is Dan Whitmer from ZenDude Fitness and today we want to talk to you about our jump rope transformation story. This video was made because Brandon and I get asked all the time, why are you guys so attached to the jump rope, why is the main focus of what you guys do at ZenDude Fitness and also what was the story of you when you first lost a bunch of weight. As some of you know, for those of you who are new to the channel, I used to be 260 pounds, I had a much different life than I do now, I was working a corporate job and the issue that I always had was how do I work 60 hours a week and continue to lose weight and get the body that I want. My jump rope journey started because to be totally honest with you, I was tired of just doing regular ass workouts. I wanted something new, I wanted something fun and I also wanted something portable. I'm the kind of person who wanted to be able to travel around the world, continue to grow my career. So guys, the reason why Brandon and I fell so much in love with the jump rope is because initially it afforded us a few different things. First of all, flexibility, freedom, having shorter more efficient workouts and also having a tool that does a lot of different things and produces a lot of different results in one. I'm also someone who does not want to go to the gym, not because I'm against the gym or bodybuilding or anything like that, it's just it's not something I wanted to take two hours out of my day to do every day. I'm always someone who wants to be out moving, you know doing something fun and active. Initially it happened because I went to Boston visiting a friend who was jumping rope and he had lost a ton of weight, he was shredded and so I said what are you doing? And honestly the only thing he said to me was dude I play basketball and I jump rope, you should pick up a jump rope. So literally because of that I went back to New York, picked up a jump rope and started jumping rope, I would go out to parks, turn on some hip-hop music and just get after it. Not that we believe that the jump rope is the only tool for getting fit, but for me it was something that I would do consistently every day because most importantly I was having fun while I was doing it so my exercise was fun, I looked forward to it, I didn't feel like it was something I had to do and secondly it was one of the most efficient tools for me so I could go out get super intense jump rope for 30 to 40 minutes and be done with my workout and still feel, you know, produce the results I want in terms of losing weight, but also just feeling good, getting into a zone, you know letting myself clear my head from that day's stressful work or whatever it may be. So ladies and gentlemen as this was happening I was still working my corporate job, I was still jumping rope, but I ended up losing a very significant amount of weight, as Brandon and I've talked about I lost my initial 30 pounds just through lifting weights and kind of cleaning up what I was eating, but then the last 40 pounds came off strictly because I was jumping rope pretty much every day while honing in my calories and macronutrients. So for me jump rope was the finally the thing that I wanted to lose weight and to get that more lean cut physique like a soccer player, NFL wide receiver, you know NBA shooting guard, you know you get the idea. As I was going through this process I also felt to myself you know what I don't really like my job and I want to I want to stop doing that so I decided to try and start like a side business that was essentially jump rope workouts to hip-hop music and luckily the company I worked for was cool enough to let me come in and start doing these jump rope workouts for free for the employees, even as I incorporated and everything like that. So I got to test this on people and what I found was more so than the actual weight being lost or people sweating and all that stuff the actual workout it was that people were having fun and they were coming back and doing it again. People that wouldn't typically work out on a regular basis were coming back and that was a lot of fun so that's the first time I realized like you know what I think this jump rope thing could actually be pretty big. So my story around jump ropes quite a bit different from Dan's but it really did transform my life in a huge way. Back in the day, back in the day about I guess it was about almost two and a half years now Dan and I lived in the same apartment building and we had no idea who each other were it was just complete serendipity that like we just like met each other one day in our building we started hitting it off we started kicking it and Dan was always like yo man you got a jump rope it's what I use for fitness and it's like the most fun thing. I already went through like a 45-50 pound transformation myself because I also used to be a big dude I was 250 pounds myself and so I just like did all the stuff that's not fun to lose weight. I was the guy who was going to the gym six times a week spending up to two hours in the gym at a time I was batch cooking my food I was doing I was eating foods that I didn't like because I thought I couldn't eat the foods that I like because they weren't healthy I was doing all the things that made fitness not fun and not sustainable so I was just grinding it out because just because I had grit and I really wanted to create this transformation of my body but the coolest thing about when I met Dan is he introduced me into this new world of like yo man fitness can be fun and so I picked up a jump rope one day I started whipping it around I was like okay I started to get it I was like man this is actually really fun and I started challenging myself and being like all right can I jump for over 30 seconds can I do the jump rope regular bounce can I learn how to do a double under a crisscross and so for me I started building momentum to where I started doing less and less the weightlifting less and less the time in the gym and more of just like living my life and just grabbing 20 to 30 minute high intensity jump rope sessions three to four times a week when I started doing this I realized that like this whole fitness thing becomes way more sustainable because it's fun my body began to transform as well and so I was able to get down another 30 pounds or so to where I am today sitting around 180 185 pounds and so in total I went through a 70 pound transformation but about 30 35 of those pounds came after I started jumping rope and the biggest thing about it is now it's not hard to sustain I found a way to make fitness work to where it's not something that I think about having to do and instead like at the end of my day or as a break halfway through my day something I get to do I get to go jump rope I get to get in my zone let go of all the stress from my day and just enjoy getting my exercise in so thank you YouTube community for asking the questions that is the reason why Zendu fitness even exists it's because Brandon I found a tool that yes is very efficient so total body workout for losing fat but most importantly guys it's something fun that we consistently wanted to repeat we want to thank you guys for continuing to grow this amazing community for continuing to provide the support to not only you know encouraging Brandon I to continue making videos but to each other the amount of activity that's going on the amount of energy that we've been seeing the groups is much appreciated and much noticed so thank you guys continue to do the thing every single day continue to have fun jumping rope and let's live an epic life started off a thousand pounds jump rope for a month got down to 190 you know got involved in UFC won a championship whatever