Randy's Journey to Fitness

[rengler]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this, but some one suggested I start a training log so I thought I would give it a try.

To give you a bit of background about myself, I live in Alberta, Canada, and I'm 34 years old, and married with 3 kids, a daughter who is four, and twins, a boy and a girl that are two. I'm about 5 ft 10" and currently weigh about 228ish. My goal is to lose fat and build some muscle. I'm also recovering from some leg injuries and surgeries, I've had my ACL and PCL replaced using allografts and have some ankle problems as well related to a fracture (all on my left leg.) I posted a "before" picture in the Photo section but it ain't pretty, I've got a lot of work to do. I've never been into fitness before.

To get started, I've purchased Alwyn Cosgrove's "Afterburn" manuals, the "New Rules of Lifting" book, the "Naked Nutrition Guide," and just yesterday I bought the "TNT Diet" book. So I've got lots of information, I just have to put it into practice. I plan on tracking my eating on Fitday, and following the TNT diet, and doing the resistance/HIIT training from the Afterburn program.

I got started today, followed the TNT "Plan A" guidelines throughout the day, and had my first "Afterburn" workout this evening. Here are a few observations from my first day:

a) My calories are a lot lower than I expected, probably too low, Fitday says I had just under 2200 calories today. I did eat 4 eggs, a bunch of cheese, some roast beef, some almonds, some broccoli, some cauliflower, some cucumbers, and some green beans throughout the day so I thought my calories would be more than that.

b) I'm in worse shape than I thought, I found the workout pretty tough. I also realized that I'm able to do squats, my orthopedic surgeon had advised against doing deep squats, but with the help of a board under my heels they weren't too bad. I couldn't do them without the board though due to pain in my ankle. I wasn't able to complete all of the recommended number of reps on all of the excersizes but I'm sure that will come with time.

c) I realized that I still have quite a strength/size imbalance between my left leg and my right leg. The weird thing is my strong legs gets tired first when doing squats, SHELC's, etc, it's like my weak leg isn't pulling it's share of the load. I'm wondering when I'm doing step ups, etc if I should be doing more reps with my weak leg to try and strengthen it more than my good leg.

That's about all for today, I'm going to sleep well tonight I'm sure, tomorrow the plan is to stick to the TNT diet, and try some HIIT in the evening.

Have a great day,
Randy

[rengler]

Day two of my Afterburn/TNT experience:

Stuck to the diet and was able to bump up my calories to just over 2300. Still not high enough I think.

Did HIIT tonight, 5 minutes of warm up, followed by three rounds on the stationary bike of 1 minute at 9-10 intensity followed by 2 minutes of 5-6 intensity, then 5 minutes of cool down. My system isn't used to doing this kind of work so I don't want to overdo it, but so far I feel good.

Back to the resistance training tomorrow.

Later
Randy

[rengler]

Day 3 (yesterday):

Stuck with the TNT plan, going good so far, no signs of the sluggishness/mental haze I've heard about when switching to low carb, not yet anyways.

Did the Afterburn workout B, felt pretty good, although my Bulgarian Split Squats were limited in depth on one side to due poor range of motion in my bad knee. I couldn't do the prone jackknifes very well either.

Today the plan is to stick to the low carb way of eating and get some more HIIT on the bike this evening.

That's all for now.
Randy

[liftintexas]

Good luck, Randy. You've picked some good programs to build with.

I have knee issues and the bulgarian split squats can be a bit rough at first.