Brain power: Arris Ford put his mind to building brawn

Even while you were flushing that nerd's head in a toilet in high school, you knew that someday he'd probably become your boss. Such is the story of Atlanta's Arris Ford, who as a youngster was picked on mercilessly for being fat. Today he's not only a budding architect, but he's also constructed the leanest, meanest physique any Poindexter could ask for.

Ford grew up on a typical American diet. Plus he had the bad habit of making downtime an excuse for mealtime. "Sometimes I'd eat just because I was bored," he recalls. "All I had to do was open the refrigerator to get it."

Ford had a particular weakness for Big Macs and ice cream--and it caught up with him, fast. "I was always 20 to 30 pounds heavier than everybody else," he says of his grade-school physique. But that ratio more than doubled when he hit adolescence. "When I was 13, I weighed in at 205, while the other guys were around 140."

Not only was Ford a big boy, he was also a big dork, ranked academically in the top 10 of his high school class. "I was a pretty smart kid, so I could handle jokes about my good grades," says Ford. "But when they made fun of me for being fat, I had no comeback."

Ford first saw the light of weight training as a 230-pound freshman at Tennessee State University. "Everybody did it," he remembers. "We never worked legs but overtrained arms and chest." While his training wasn't smart, it was good enough to yield some results, and Ford's self-esteem showed immediate benefits. By the end of his sophomore year, he was down to a muscular 180.

"Suddenly, girls were coming up to me saying that I looked good."

But by his fifth and final year (Ford was in a five-year program for architectural engineering), working out fell by the wayside. "I was really focusing on my senior project, and that was it." Worse, Ford fell back on old habits, eating fast food. His waistline returned.

By March of his last semester, Ford had hit a new low--make that high--weighing a monstrous 265. But with his project completed, he could focus on his physical education.

"I got on a program that made sense," he says. "I learned about giving the body more time to rest--no more back-to-back bench press days." Ford began training for muscular balance and attacked his belly with an intelligent diet plan. He shunned the drive-thru window in favor of a steady menu of fish, cottage cheese, fruits, and veggies.

After his May 2002 graduation, his physical progress really commenced. With his new and improved program, Ford began losing several pounds per month. When a friend suggested adding cardio to his routine, Ford's cuts came even quicker. "I started running as far as I could, then walking when I got out of breath," he remembers. "I kept that up until I could run a complete mile."

Friends and family marveled at the speed of his transformation, but Ford knew that, to ensure success, he'd need to outline his future fitness goals.

"I picked up an issue of MF, with the 'Year-Long Workout,'" he says. "It was a periodized program, so it never let me plateau."

Switching regularly between training protocols kept Ford motivated and consistently making progress. Today he's 25, and bigger and leaner than ever at 195 pounds. Now working for an architectural firm, Ford's confident he can still renovate his body, no matter what others say.

"Some people still make fun of me for trying to be healthy. But there's nothing funny about the results."

Yeah, it can be tough being the smartest one in the room. But Ford can live with that.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning