Big Cat
RIP
- Dec 11, 2011
- 64
- 48
Hi, my name is Peter, but since year and day I’ve gone by the moniker Big Cat in the online bodybuilding community. I started on bodybuilding.com in the late 90’s and helped that site grow to what it is today. At some point around 2002-2003 It got to the point that so much of the content and the forum involvement came from me, that people thought it was my site. We got it up to some 2 million unique hits a day in that time, and seeing where it is now, I only wish it was my site 
I was head moderator there for a long time after. Back then my interest was very broad, but in the late ‘90’s I was fresh out of high school. 2 Masters degrees (Biochem and molecular bio) later, my interest was somewhat narrowed and it became increasingly harder to write pieces that explained the science of things in layman’s terms, the pieces that had somewhat paved my way in the online community. Around that time I met Karl Hoffman (Nandi) @cuttingedgemuscle and he was a driving factor in my continued involvement and expanding my horizons in regard to biochemistry and the reason Type I nuclear receptor Physiology became my primary field of research. The highlight came when Matt Boldt asked Nandi to make a compendium of ergogenics, and nandi brought me on board to help him write it. Sadly only months later nandi succumbed to complication of a genetic affliction at a much too young age (50) and I lost my friend and mentor.
That was the first blow that made me rethink things, the second came not too long after when my girlfriend at the time got pregnant. Fatherhood and family life rapidly rewrote my priorities, as did joining the work force. My decreased Involvement at BB.com wasn’t warmy received, nor did I receive much support from my supposed friends there (I have to add that I was also somewhat a figure of some controversy, which had something to do with it. I take my research seriously) and before long I was no longer a moderator there. Along with the strong shift that site was taking to be more mainstream, my involvement with the forum ended completely and abruptl y shortly after. Aside from CEM, where I became co-admin after nandi’s untimely passing, I got picked up by some old friends from the BB.com era, Gimp and raybravo, who had started another project, Muscle and science. Unfortunately it was hard for me to stay actively involved. With all I had going on and my ADHD it is very hard for me to keep up with things these days unless I get ample feedback and motivation. My involvement faded to next to nothing at both sites and I think I’ve been all but absent from the online bodybuilding community since. At that time I got dealt another major blow when I found out that my fiancée and the mother of my two children had been cheating on me for a month, since our youngest was only 8 weeks old. I got into a dark period in my life then, that I barely survived, but as the cliché would have it I came out stronger. I’ve since met someone new and not three years later we bought a house together, have plans to get married, and there may even be a third baby in my future, god willing, even though I said two was more than enough after the second was born I changed jobs to be able to see my kids more and all seems to be settling down right now again. For the first time in my life I seem to have found some peace of mind.
Despite my absence from the public eye, my research went on unabated, although its now mostly in the service of other researching students in various fields who are looking to make sport, bodybuilding or ergogenics their field, or part of their field of study. I try to help who I can, which has been very feasible, since I now only deal with questions from the few people who still know my reputation from back then AND were able to find my contact data, amouinting to maybe ten mails a week as opposed to the overwhelming 250 mails a day I was trying to struggle through in college in ’04 and ’05. Since 2001 I have also been very involved in training athletes of all calibers, assisting them in every aspect of their training : exercise, nutrition, ergogenics, mental acuity and rest. I’ve helped athletes win national, European and world titles. I still train athletes to some extent, but not as intensively in the past. Since ’06, when I started working at an environmental company some ways from home, I invested in a home gym, due to lack of time, and that also took away my ability to be in the gym with my athletes to a large degree. I suppose you could say my role has gone much more from being a trainer to being a consultant.
I’m hoping to get more active again, and hope to find some role for myself in which I can be of continuing help to the worldwide bodybuilding community, without taking away from my day to day responsibilities. I’ve heard a few good things about this board, and I look forward to giving it a shot !
I was head moderator there for a long time after. Back then my interest was very broad, but in the late ‘90’s I was fresh out of high school. 2 Masters degrees (Biochem and molecular bio) later, my interest was somewhat narrowed and it became increasingly harder to write pieces that explained the science of things in layman’s terms, the pieces that had somewhat paved my way in the online community. Around that time I met Karl Hoffman (Nandi) @cuttingedgemuscle and he was a driving factor in my continued involvement and expanding my horizons in regard to biochemistry and the reason Type I nuclear receptor Physiology became my primary field of research. The highlight came when Matt Boldt asked Nandi to make a compendium of ergogenics, and nandi brought me on board to help him write it. Sadly only months later nandi succumbed to complication of a genetic affliction at a much too young age (50) and I lost my friend and mentor. That was the first blow that made me rethink things, the second came not too long after when my girlfriend at the time got pregnant. Fatherhood and family life rapidly rewrote my priorities, as did joining the work force. My decreased Involvement at BB.com wasn’t warmy received, nor did I receive much support from my supposed friends there (I have to add that I was also somewhat a figure of some controversy, which had something to do with it. I take my research seriously) and before long I was no longer a moderator there. Along with the strong shift that site was taking to be more mainstream, my involvement with the forum ended completely and abruptl y shortly after. Aside from CEM, where I became co-admin after nandi’s untimely passing, I got picked up by some old friends from the BB.com era, Gimp and raybravo, who had started another project, Muscle and science. Unfortunately it was hard for me to stay actively involved. With all I had going on and my ADHD it is very hard for me to keep up with things these days unless I get ample feedback and motivation. My involvement faded to next to nothing at both sites and I think I’ve been all but absent from the online bodybuilding community since. At that time I got dealt another major blow when I found out that my fiancée and the mother of my two children had been cheating on me for a month, since our youngest was only 8 weeks old. I got into a dark period in my life then, that I barely survived, but as the cliché would have it I came out stronger. I’ve since met someone new and not three years later we bought a house together, have plans to get married, and there may even be a third baby in my future, god willing, even though I said two was more than enough after the second was born
I changed jobs to be able to see my kids more and all seems to be settling down right now again. For the first time in my life I seem to have found some peace of mind.Despite my absence from the public eye, my research went on unabated, although its now mostly in the service of other researching students in various fields who are looking to make sport, bodybuilding or ergogenics their field, or part of their field of study. I try to help who I can, which has been very feasible, since I now only deal with questions from the few people who still know my reputation from back then AND were able to find my contact data, amouinting to maybe ten mails a week as opposed to the overwhelming 250 mails a day I was trying to struggle through in college in ’04 and ’05. Since 2001 I have also been very involved in training athletes of all calibers, assisting them in every aspect of their training : exercise, nutrition, ergogenics, mental acuity and rest. I’ve helped athletes win national, European and world titles. I still train athletes to some extent, but not as intensively in the past. Since ’06, when I started working at an environmental company some ways from home, I invested in a home gym, due to lack of time, and that also took away my ability to be in the gym with my athletes to a large degree. I suppose you could say my role has gone much more from being a trainer to being a consultant.
I’m hoping to get more active again, and hope to find some role for myself in which I can be of continuing help to the worldwide bodybuilding community, without taking away from my day to day responsibilities. I’ve heard a few good things about this board, and I look forward to giving it a shot !
