This reminds me of a friend I have. This guy pretty much skipped most of the first 3 years of his degree to lift and get huge, bodybuilding style. From a sub-12

This reminds me of a friend I have. This guy pretty much skipped most of the first 3 years of his degree to lift and get huge, bodybuilding style. From a sub-120 lbs scrawny brainiac, he transformed into a ridiculously jacked 230 lbs monster, eating something like 8000 calories a day. And when he cut out carbs from his diet, he would cut down to 200 or so and be absolutely ripped. Then he stopped: got serious about school, graduated and got a job, etc. Stopped cold-turkey. It was pretty funny, I met up with him a few years after he stopped and he was a normal (though funny to me)-looking dude at 140 lbs. Eventually, for old times sake, I convinced him to lift with me twice a week. And my god, the progress he made off this was ridiculous. He started drinking milk again and eating to be full, not a crazy amount, but enough to sustain the lifting. The result? He shot back up to a relatively jacked 180 lbs in only 2 months. And he was able to maintain that so easily, even dropping back to working out once/week! I realized something. Muscle memory isn't just real, but it may be a great optimization over one's life. Sure, my friend was a bit crazy for 2-3 years, ate 8k calories and slept half the day. But now he can put in an incredibly small amount of work and maintain a really enviable physique. I bet if one does the math of hours put into the gym, not to mention time spent eating to recover, even though he paid heavily for it for a few years, over the course of the next few decades he'll be getting more (physique) for less. Gives me some ideas I probably shouldn't be having for graduate school ;)