My Story
Hi! I’m Lucky Butorac.
My fitness journey
Since I was a kid I loved sports. I was crazy about soccer and skiing from when I knew about myself.
I was always skinny. However, since I turned 40 I started growing my belly. I was losing muscle mass and gaining fat pretty fast. I got really good at developing my dady body.
In 2018 I had some serious health problems. I had bad diarrhea that lasted for over a month. I tried everything my doctors prescribed and nothing worked.
In my last desperate attempt to alter this condition, I tried to drink green drinks. After a few days, my diarrhea stopped.
As a nice side effect, I lost 5 kg. I decided to continue losing my fat and change my diet. I wanted to become healthy and never experience this again.
How I turned it around
Firstly, after researching healthy eating I started implementing it in my life. I lost 9 kg of fat in 3 months.
It was a nice change to lose fat. But I wanted a healthy life and something was missing. This is why I started working out. I built 2 kg of lean muscle mass in the first year. Then another 2 kg in the second year.
In summary in just 2 years I:
- Lost 9 kg of fat
- Gained 4 kg of lean muscle mass
I started noticing the difference in my mirror. I was hunched forward before, and now I’m standing straight.
Now my muscles are easily noticeable and improvement is evident. I feel more energized. I feel better than ever in my life and I’m in better shape than I was when I was in my twenties.
Besides making all these visible changes, exercise turned out to be so much fun. When I was trying to find the best exercise regime for myself I accidentally stumbled upon calisthenics.
When I saw impressive skills like muscle ups, human flag, front lever, and more, I was hooked and I will probably never stop doing it.
I like the changes fitness brought to me. I like my new life and I want to help everyone I can do the same.
This is why I started this blog.
Like most of us, I had my ups and downs in life.
So, here is my story in an attempt to give you an idea about the person behind these pages.
From nothing to a living human
I was born on December 24, 1971.
My childhood was pretty happy inside my family. I can even say that I was overprotected.
Me and my two and a half years younger brother were living guarded from the outside world by our parents. Mostly by our overprotective mother.
However, the world came on to us as soon as we were forced to socialize outside our parent’s home.
Kindergarten of hell
I had a really bad experience in my pre-school days. We had extremely bad kindergarten teachers.
I hated them openly and vice versa. The feeling was mutual. Unfortunately for me, they were bigger, and stronger, and in those days they could beat children as much as they wanted.
I wore two visible scabs on each of my temples. Those wounds were there because I tried to avoid getting slapped. By avoiding the slap I hit the chair with my head. When I was to be slapped from the right I hit my left temple. When I was to be slapped from the left I hit my right temple.
I couldn’t wait to get out of the kindergarten of hell.
Primary school – still warm in my heart
I expected the same treatment I was getting in kindergarten when I started to go to school. It started badly maybe just because I expected the worst.
I didn’t want to write anything that was written on the blackboard. I didn’t understand the importance of doing that. It felt unnecessary and boring. I also didn’t understand the annoyance and headaches this caused to my teacher.
I was interested in playing soccer outside and everything happening in the school bored me. So, as a punishment, I had to sit in front of the entire class on a special bench reserved for bad students.
This slowly forced me to accept my domestication.
Turning to an obedient minion
I gradually learned to hide the hatred I felt towards some of my teachers. I learned to do school chores on time and with the expected level of quality (which was never exceptionally high).
After a while, I became one of the best students in my class.
However, until I joined university I was never really learning at home. I did pay attention during the class and wrote my homework. But that was about it. Just enough to have my grades above average. Maybe I was just smart?
Throughout my kindergarten and primary school days, I always had one best friend. Unfortunately for me, just when we hit it off, those friends moved away and I was left alone.
Fortunately for me, I liked playing soccer and I had a ball. That was a great formula for making friends back then.
I was one of the rare people who showed up on the playground with the ball. I loved soccer and I was always in the game. Nobody would kick me out because it was my ball. If they wouldn’t let me play I would take my ball home. Instant friendships and fun!
Those were the days I still remember with warmth in my heart.
And then girls messed things up
From the first grade on I liked one girl in our class. She didn’t care for me, but this didn’t stop me from imagining us being married and living together. Stupid kid.
Luckily this illusion didn’t last too long. When I turned 12 I met another girl.
We were on our summer holiday. She liked me and I liked her. The last day we were there we finally faced each other. We exchanged phone numbers and went home to school (each of us in a different part of the country).
Then it happened. I was 13. We were on the summer holiday again.
I was with my best summer friend walking in the evening. We saw her coming towards us. I said to my friend: “Sorry”. But I meant: “I just have to go with her and leave you hanging”. He understood and without a word went on.
I turned around as she was just about to pass us by and said to her: “Sharp turn!” She smiled at me.
We were together for almost a month. Walking side to side and talking long into the night.
I was able to get one kiss and that was it. She didn’t want to see me anymore.
I was crushed.
High school (or kindergarten of hell part two?)
The worst time I had in my life. I was in a school where guys who had bad grades went because no other school wanted them.
That was the finest company you could ever wish for. The highest concentration of testosterone and stupidity in one small classroom. All they wanted to do was to pick a fight and get drunk.
I didn’t fit in. I wanted to get to university and I was good at math. Here I learned another important life lesson. Being good at math is not the most wanted quality for a teenager.
I didn’t want to be around those guys and they didn’t want to be around me.
Music saved my sanity
When I turned 16 I was just about to go insane or take my life away. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I had no friends and I didn’t fit anywhere. At that point, I didn’t have anything good going on in my life.
Luckily, my grandpa was a musician. He had an old guitar sitting in his closet. The guitar he hadn’t touched for years. I asked him if he would lend it to me for a while. He agreed.
I started torturing my parents by repeating the same few (wrong) notes, and the same few (poorly learned) songs over and over again. It must have been really hard for them.
That was one of those things kids do to challenge the love of their parents. To make matters worse my brother started to do the same.
I was awful at the guitar for years. But now I had something that was filling my time. I didn’t feel so awfully alone anymore.
Music saved my sanity and helped me go through this painful period of my life.
University – freedom and party time
Right after I finished high school I was able to get into University. Faculty of Electrotechnical Engineering was the only high education institution I wanted to attend. It was one of my luckiest days when I found out I was in.
This happiness didn’t last long. I was a pretty bad student. It took me the entire year to finally learn how to learn. Even more importantly, I realized how much I have to learn. It turned out I had to study each day for at least 8 hours per day to be able to pass an exam.
No wonder I wanted to quit.
Best time of my life
On the other hand, I was having the best time of my life. My brother and I were playing guitar and we met a bass player. He was our neighbor living in our building. We formed a band. We found a drummer and started rehearsing.
Our drummer started finding us gigs and we started performing. At first, it was embarrassing. But after a while, we composed around 30 songs. We played a few covers.
Our drummer was getting better and better at finding gigs. So, we started playing two tours lasting two weeks each. He organized one tour in the spring and one in the autumn.
At that point, me and my brother were eating more and more at the university canteen. We started living through the night and sleeping during the day.
Our mother called this arrangement a hotel accommodation for me and my brother. She was not a particular fan of our way of living at this period. She was cooking and cleaning and we didn’t bother to even show up (now I understand her perfectly).
My brother knocked up his high school sweetheart and he had to marry her. Pretty soon he became a father. He was our band’s lead vocal, so we had to find a replacement. I continued touring with my band.
During summer, we had the greatest of all time. We partied hard and a lot of pretty girls wanted to meet us. Because we were playing in a band. It was heaven on earth for us.
Time to get serious
When university days were coming to an end I had to become more responsible. It was time to get in the army and time to finish my college. I also started living with my girlfriend.
Playing the same songs over and over became boring. I decided in an instant and informed the guys. I’m quitting the bend.
I passed the last few exams and prepared my thesis. I had to join the army before I had to defend my thesis at my college. So, I did it by taking a day off from my army duty.
Right before my graduation party, my girlfriend left me. She found another guy when I was serving in the army.
I was sad at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best things that happened to me. We were not compatible. In the long run, I would not be happy and she would not be happy either.
Employment days (or a lifelong slavery?)
After I got back from the army I started looking for a job. It was summer.
When I was with my parents on our summer holiday, the phone call came. I was employed. From September 1st, 1999 I started working.
I was really happy with my job first few years. I was working as a PC technician and rapidly working my way up the corporate ladder.
First I wanted to become a system administrator. I got there pretty fast. After that, I wanted to become a team leader. That came pretty soon too.
My salary was rising with each promotion as well. I was happy.
Becoming a father made me a different person
In those first working years, I met my soon-to-be wife. I formed another band with my best man and my brother. We were gigging on the seaside and earning extra cash during summer. I started learning to play keyboards.
In 2001 I got married. In 2003 my first son was born. I never experienced so much happiness in my entire life. When I got home after being with my wife in the hospital and seeing my son for the first time, I fell apart. I parked my car in front of our home. I started crying like never before in my life.
My second son was born in 2005 and my third in 2006. Suddenly we were family.
This changed everything. I was no longer important – my family was. I turned from a selfish university graduate to a loving father. The man whose family comes first and everything else second.
Lifetime employment illusion shattered to pieces
In 2007 my company announced its 3-5 years plan like it did every year. This plan horrified me.
I have a young family and I’m now responsible for feeding 5 people. My company just announced they will reduce its workforce.
They will keep only one-fifth of all employees. I was working in an office with 5 people. They will keep only one of us. Four will have to go. I didn’t think I was the one they would keep.
And then I lost my job
I lost my job in 2011. Just before I lost my job, my father died. Both me and my wife were not working at the time. Luckily we paid off all debt and created a safety fund for this bad scenario.
My wife and I started a hairdressing company in June 2012. So, my wife started earning at least some kind of income.
But it got better
I found another job in October 2012 for myself.
We couldn’t keep our company alive when our landlord announced the rent increase. We closed it down just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world.
My wife found another job just before we had to close our company, so this played out quite smoothly.
This brings us to the present. I started this blog as an interesting side hustle. It may produce some sort of income. Even if it doesn’t, I’m having a great time creating it.
It helps me learn more and more about what I’m passionate about. I’m getting better and better at my workouts because I’m always trying to improve and implement what I learn.
It’s great for me and I hope it is also helpful to you.