I want to be able to look back at this and remember what it was like in the beginning, remember how this all started, and remember what my motivations were and what my real focus and motivation was... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My name is Will. Will A. Carpenter to be a bit more specific. I was born on October 6th 1984 in Melbourne, FL. I've lived in the Finger Lakes region of New York since I was about 4 years old, and my parents were 36 when I, their only child, was born.
Both of my parents had been obese much/most/nearly all of their adult lives. Sometimes less, sometimes more. I was a really skinny tall string bean of a child...until about 3rd grade. Sometime over the summer between grades 3 and 4 I slowed down on growing up, and started growing out. A LOT.
This isn't something you really understand as a kid. I was really active, and I tried very hard to keep up with my friends. In many cases I was more active than my ectomorph neighbor kids...but I still never really lost the weight, and I had a bit of a rough time because of it.
I'm not looking for pity, and I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for me...I just want to lay down the story as I see it.
When I came back to school fat...I'd lost a lot of my "friends" I was in classes with the same kids...but they didn't play with me as much at recess or they just got closer to other people. It was weird and it changed how I reacted towards people and how I found different ways to interact and get attention. (I wasn't the bad kid in school, sometimes the suck up teacher's pet...what can I say I like kudos)
One time really hurt, the one time where my fatness really made me feel terrible, one time where I was squarely kicked when I was down. I was in 4th grade and I came down with Viral Meningitis. If you know anything about meningitis you know it's preferable to have viral since A) you're not contagious (or at least not nearly as much) and B) you're more likely to live after it without some of the possible problems like nerve problems or hearing or vision loss. But that said having your spinal cord inflamed REALLY SUCKS.
To be honest I thought I was going to die. I actually asked my mother if I was dying, it hurt a lot. I was in the hospital for two weeks and spent another two weeks at home on bed rest. While in the hospital my class spent an afternoon all writing me get well cards, stuffed inside a GIANT get well card.
90% of these cards took a direct aim at calling me fat. Specifically they drew pictures of Orcas and wrote "Free Willy!" The teacher apparently thought it was just a fun play on my name being will, but I took it as a bunch of kids comparing my fat ass to that of a whale while I'm trying to NOT DIE. Many years later a kid from that class actually told me that he felt bad about writing that on his card and that it was a big joke that day about how I was fat and my name was will.
F*** you Simon Wincer and Warner Bros.
But I got over that, I grew up. I made new friends, better friends, even a couple of *gasp* fat friends.
I became my own person...who happened to be fat, instead of being my own fat person.
Over the years I did feel that I'd been held back by my weight, by my girth, by my lack of ability to do some of the things I wanted to do.
But when I compared myself to other fat guys...things just never added up. I get around better than most of the fat people I know. I am more active than these people. I have better habits than these people. Why am I so large, if I'm so much more active and each so much better than these people? Obviously it's that I do things better than them, but nowhere near good enough.
Several times, for several reasons, I tried several different methods of weight loss. The two best times were 1) when I was 16 and I wanted to be a better lacrosse player because I naively thought that if I was better at the sport I would get more game time. and 2) when I was on a serious weight training/physical conditioning/nutrition regimen for 3 months one school semester.
The problem with method 1 is that when I got results with my body and actually became better at lacrosse and actually got to show my skills and actually did great in the game...I got benched for the rest of the season...for no "real" reason...I lost my motivation, I lost my drive, and I gave up.
The problem with method 2 is that I did too much, too fast, with a lack or real planning. I was juggling too much in my head, I was over training and I just could not keep up that pace. As soon as I hit a plateau I was done. No point busting your hump for no results. So my old ways quickly set in, I gained all of the weight back plus another twenty and then you have me around May 2009...
I'll write about that later. Right now I have to get ready for a workout.
Welcome! You are in a good place, surrounded by a lot of very smart, very kind, very supportive people.
I empathize with your 4th grade experience. When I was little, my mom was dying, and my dad medicated me with donuts. I don't blame him, but I do wonder what the hell he was thinking... and I suffered for years because of my poor eating habits (among other reasons). Like you, a few of the perpetrators eventually apologized. I try to not to hate them all the time.
I'm walking 60 miles for a breast cancer cure, September 11-13, 2009! Please support my walk and help me raise funds for cancer research by donating to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/...nal&fr_id=1300
I was referred here by early episodes of The Fitcast, and because a lot of the really smart and awesome people that I've been reading up on...seem to hang out here from time to time.
I don't hate people if I can help it. I dislike many of them. I have used a good many things as a stand offish method of self respect. By that I mean if I'm fat and you can't like me because of that, then I don't need you in my life. If I have purple hair, and you can't like me because of that, then I don't need you in my life. Nowadays I have NO HAIR, and if you can't like me because of that...tough luck pal, it ain't coming back.
And my plans are already in motion. I am going to keep writing here in the coming days (I work overnights so since I'm done with my workout it's about time for bed) I may post part II when I wake up, if not then tomorrow morning.
I promise to talk about what I've achieved so far, how I've done it, why it's better than what I have done, what I plan to do next, and what my long term plans and goals are.
Heck, even if I wasn't already excited about putting this down in electronic ink...I have a *reader* now! Check me out.
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They call me Amanda, that being my real name, and "They" being people who know me in person as I don't go around introducing myself in real life as "scribess." 'Cause that would just be strange.
Since there are actually a few people to read these posts, I may as well fill you in on the back story a bit more.
I didn't start college right after high school. I graduated about a year earlier than most people, only because I was really young when I started school, not because I had skipped a grade or anything. I also took a year off and a half off in the midst of college, and wasted my first semester after I changed majors. Mostly because I didn't like the way the communications department was being run...which is mostly fixed now since they've really gotten much better facilities for the place.
Anyway, what this means is that about 3 years ago, in the spring, I was taking two gym classes: Weigh Lifting I and Physical Conditioning. I had PC on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and WL on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I really got into...too much into it. I would be in the gym six times a week. Twice Monday and Wednesday, once on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then on one of the weekend days depending on when I worked. (oh yeah, I also worked a LOT at my crappy sweaty kitchen job then)
During that time I wen from about 325 - 282 lbs. and then I just got stuck there. I was over trained, I was exhausted, and my classes ended. I tried going to the gym over the summer, but with being over trained I just needed the time off. Over then next 3 years I finished school, I got a second job that eventually became my only job, and I even started doing stand up comedy for a while. Good times.
Three years ago my cousin (female) had gastric bypass surgery. She was in her mid 30's at the time, she's lost a lot of weight and had a lot of positive results from it. I'm glad she had it done, and so is she. Fast forward another year and a half...
Both of my parents received gastric bypass surgery in early June 2007. They had their reasons of course. My father had many of the typical problems associated with extreme obesity: diabetes, fluid on his legs, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, out of control cholesterol etc. My mother was falling apart at the seams with knee problems and hip problems and evertually a total knee replacement. Think about this if my mom took 5000 steps a day (half of the active amount of steps) with her total weight loss that's 800,000 less pounds on her joints every day!
My parents lost the weight and have kept it off. My fater was cleared for weight lifting about 18 months ago and has kept up a steady routine since. My mother failed to become as active and her muscle atrophy has really cost her. She fell at work around 6 months ago and her shoulder internally looks like a freak show. But she's getting by and a specialist surgeon is at least a bit hopeful. Her shoulder works...she's just in massive pain and can't sleep well.
And then there was me: how do I fit into this new world? where my cousin, both parents (and now another cousin) habe had to go to surgical solutions to their weight problems? Hell my mothers side of the family pretty much all NEED the same type of solution, just none of them have. I have two obese sides of my family, but I'm more active than all of them, I'm in "better shape" even though I'm out of shape as well. Now is the time in my life when I can make the RIGHT changes in the RIGHT way SLOWLY to correct the mistakes I've made, reprogramm myself and put myself on the correct path for a LIFETIME of change.
I know what the number one problem is with people that want to diet and exercise...they see these things as short term solutions to lifelong goals. It doesn't work. I could starve myself to death and lose some weight, but as soon as I go eat a sheet pizza that weight is going to come right back. I knew something needed to be done, but I was too paralyzed to do anything about it. People call the term analysis paralysis, too many options that you just don't know what to do. I spent some time trying to push it from my mind. I focused on school, on getting a better job (that didn't work) on paying down my bills...until one day it happened.
One Saturday night I went o sleep around midnight (I sleep "normally" on Friday and Saturday night, during the days on weekdays) I usually sleep in on Sunday as it's the last time I sleep until Monday when I get home from work...but this day I work up at 3:30am. I felt supercharged. I felt ready to take on the world. There was no denying it. I said I was going to go for a walk, but I knew that couldn't burn up the fuel I had ready to unleash.
I went out to my garage, upstairs to our gym. My dad was into weight lifting and body building pretty much twenty years before it was popular with "normal people". Literally people thought my dad was some sort of freak for wanting to lift heavy stuff back then. I jumped on my rowing machine (somebody tossed out one of those nice Concept 2 rowing machines you see in all of the commercial gyms, I brought it home and lubed it up and it works great) I threw on some angry music. I started doing some circuits. I did something like this:
15 minutes rowing machine
(all of these a couple sets of high reps low-ish weights) (I was out of shape didn't want to go too heavy...some of it probably was at the time)
95 lbs bench press
100 lbs lat pull downs
95 lbs dead lifts
body weight squats
jumping body weight squats
swiss ball crunches
I remember doing some tricep push downs and hammer curls as well.
10 minutes on an exercise bike.
I came back inside and flopped down in bed...I lay there for another 15 minutes before I realized that I just hadn't blown off enough steam to sleep even though I'd spent and hour in the gym. I decided to be at least partically proactive and made a workout playlist on iTunes. I have something aroung 18 THOUSAND songs in my music collection at any given point, so my workout music was a list of...843 songs. This took some time.
I also searched my computer for, and found, the FitDay software I had gotten years before. I set up a profile and poked around and then decided I didn't want to mess with any of the meal logging and stuff, but that I might still use it for other things (I've hardly incorporated it yet, but I will be doing more of it soon)
My dad got excited about this. Apparently he'd finally worked his way up over the past 15 months to the point where he was hitting some plateaus and really wanted his old workout partner back. We work well together especially since we have the same weird body type: narrow shoulders, high waist, long arms and legs. Our only differences come in some of the strengths and weaknesses I get from my mother: extra strong quads and triceps, slightly weaker hamstrings and biceps etc.
After my dad's next workout we talked about me joining him again, how we would work the time into our lives and how we would start up our routine. By the time his next workout came around... I joined him and we haven't missed a day since.
Now that I'm finally getting to some details I'll save the meat for the next post. Keep letting me know if you guys (as in people) are reading this, it helps. I'll post again in about 12 hours when I'm home from work.
*Subscribed* Good read so far! I'm curious to see what your goals are, if you have workout program, a diet philosophy, etc. You sound very motivated, so keep it up and you'll go far
Thank you everybody who's reading, especially those who are replying here, it's motivating for one, and two...I'm a talker, I've written several thousand words here and haven't even GOTTEN UP TO DATE yet. So if there's something you're wondering JUST ASK. I will *literally* answer any question honestly and to the best of my knowledge. This comes with a disclaimer: if you don't want to real answer..don't ask.
Phil Stevens said it best: "It takes a lot of work to get your body into shape. Any shape. I've been (low 200's) lean and mean, and it took a lot of work, I've also been (low 300's) really sloppy and that took a lot of work too. It's a lot of work to eat crap all of the time, it's a lot of work to do that much nothing."
I agree with that completely.
I have recently purchased several books on fitness, nutrition, exercise science, lifting, stretching etc (recently as in most are still in the mail recently) but before that I found that a lot of the "general knowledge" type books really helped me out.
Fight Fat is a Men's Health book from 1995 that really gave me the mindset to workout back in my 3-5 month workout binge. I'm not going to say anybody should follow anything the book says word for word...but it does drive home one GREAT point: All things in moderation.
Do you want to lose weight? Don't eat so much crap. Do you want to be able to walk up some stairs without losing your breath? Workout more. Do you want to do better at your job? Focus more.
It also does a good job of getting the simple points of: Eat when your body needs food not when your body needed food two hours ago. Plan snacks and small meals, and eat more times a day, and hey maybe you should hit the gym and maybe a workout doesn't always HAVE to be a 5x5 or 3x10 in the gym...maybe you're on a business trip and you jump rope for a while and run up and down some stairs then do some push-ups.
The #1 point most people get wrong is to think that diet and exercise is HARD. It's not, it's just not. Knowing the RIGHT information without knowing TOO MUCH is hard. But eating fruits, veggies, nuts, lean meats, wholesome carbs...that's not hard. Knowing that you should shut off the TV and go do some moving or lifting...that's not hard. It's only hard if you can't succeed after eating okay and working out a bit. If you're having problems...then do your homework.
Where were we in my episodic soap opera? Oh yes, starting this whole working out thing.
I joined my dad as he switched to a new routine, and he transitioned from a local commercial gym (all in all better than the others around here, but not super awesome, I liked the place for what is was though) to our home gym.
What you need to understand is that my dad *thinks* he is one of those guys who doesn't care about how much he can lift or how much weight he's using..and to some extent he is...but he DOES care at least a bit. My dad weight trains for 3 basic reasons:
1) it's been a hobby of his forever and he enjoys it
2) when you drop 130 lbs you have a lot of loose skin, what better way to solve that problem than to fill it up with nice hard muscle?
3) it's a hell of a lot better than running in circles for your health.
Those reasons mean that my dad is primarily a bodybuilding based weight lifter. A lot of fitness guys like to complain about body building, and I understand their arguments..but I'm not going to fight you on it. Yes body builders concentrate on a lot of smaller movements designed to make a person look like they're really strong when really they're not. I disagree however because my dad really is old school (he's 60 BTW) and his reply to "how do you train your legs" isn't "leg curls, leg extensions, calf raises" it's "squat. squat like you're life depends on it, then squat some more...and then maybe throw some of that other stuff in some other time, or for specialization"
Yes my workouts are (at least my big training days) primarily bodybuilding workouts, BUT I'm always doing a full body complex as our main lift of the day. Some days two (the next routine we're doing involves dead lifts and lat pull downs)
My motivations are simple: I want to make fitness a part of my life, and I want to reap the rewards associated with it. I am not, I repeat, AM NOT doing this to lose weight. Will I lose weight? Most assuredly. But I'm not checking the scale every day. In fact I'm not really measuring, and I haven't taken pictures yet. The time will come for all of those things.
I just want to break the cycle of doing crappy things I don't really care about, and start doing better things that I enjoy and do care about. I didn't get fat from eating junk food alone, I got fat from over indulging in some grade A quality chow as well. I could eat enough chicken breast and broccoli to get fat given a long enough time line.
So I'm working to change that. Workouts give me a time to hang out with my dad, a chance to talk, a chance to just SHUT UP and NOT have to talk for part of my day, some time to blow off some steam, some time to really prove something to myself, to fight the iron, to wrestle the weights....to set myself up for a small victory.
Often times I'll get done working out walk in the house and my mom will say to us "how was the workout guys?" and my response will be "I'm a F***ing BEAST" because I set myself up to succeed, to prove myself worthy.
I love that. EVERYBODY needs that. At work, at school, at home. You need a challenge, but one you can see results on NOW or SOON. 3 days a week I get to test myself, to take everything I have and just GO. I love that.
Plus hey, I'm looking better, feeling better, losing some weight, spending less money on food and my joints hurt less.
Where exactly is the down side? Oh yeah..work. It takes some ACTUAL effort to do these things, that's why we all (myself VERY included) have excuses for not doing this stuff..but if you plan better...it's less work, it's just your routine, just what happens naturally...then you've really improved your life.
To respond to Juleske: I set my goals in a lot of different ways, if you've talked to any personal trainers or really big people in the business they'll always talk about how people set the wrong type of goals, the kind they don't have enough control over, or they're too specific. I agree, but I think it's a good idea to have several types of goals, maybe one for next week, maybe ones for next year, maybe ones with no set date, so mine are all along the same lines, just different time lines or lengths in some sort.
Goal 1: I want to continue to workout without missing any days. My dad and I agree if we're going to miss 1 workout..it's going to be leg day. This is a bit less likely for me because I've fallen in love with squats (see my icon) but the hardest stuff you're the least likely to do. 3 months in, 3 workouts a week without fail. We rock.
Goal 2: My next weight goal is to have lost 10% of my starting body weight. The first time I weigh myself (a week or so into my training) I weigh 348.5 on my scale (a full 23.5 pounds heavier than I'd ever been) so 10% is 34.85 lbs to lost meaning my target weight is 313,65 It's good to keep in mind right now that I'm not really all that concerned with this goal or when it happens, just that it does. I know that professionals will tell you when a person is as obese as I am (BMI of roughly 42, considered extremely obese) you can lose up to 4-5 pounds a week and be okay health wise...but I don't care. I know that if I lose weight at whatever natural rate just happens while I'm eating better and working out better I am much more likely to keep it off, I am much more likely to see my strength and musculature go up and my fat go down.
So far I've lost like 22 pounds, in 3 months, without weight loss being my actual goal. In fact I didn't look at a scale for 6 weeks. I could see my chest and shoulder muscles filling out, and my gut drooping, and started to see some biceps and quads...who needs a scale!? Hell I've probably put on a MINIMUM of 15 pounds of muscle in the past 3 months. Add that to my 22 pounds lost and I'm down 37 pounds, go me!
Besides if I lose 1 pound a week for a year...I've lost 52 pounds, I am NOT going to complain about that!
Goal 3: Be able to complete movements in Bench Press, Dead Lift, Squat using my body weight on the bar. This goal is fun for me. Some people would say that's a bad goal because it's really far out of my reach right now...but think of it this way. Say I never ever squat more than 250 pounds...al I have to do is lose weight until I'm 250...then I completed my goal. I can work at it from both sides! (by the way I've already worked my way up to 210...so 250 seems pretty achievable over this next 6 months)
Goal 4: Master the Front Squat. Our next leg day...next Tuesday I believe, I will do Front Squats for the second time in my entire life. They're going to be the squat variation we do for the next several workouts, and I want to get good at them.
Other than that I just want to keep plugging away, and improving my diet and workouts as I go.
My diet plan: Eat several times a day, try to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, skim milk, low fat cheeses, not so many carbs but I do love the carbs so I make sure that I used better versions. I use a multigrain plus flax wrap for some burritos or wraps. I eat whole grain lower carb breads, I love the taste of whole wheat pastas. I try to limit my portions, which several meals helps that out a lot.
I cut out soda. I kind of did this naturally anyway so I just made it part of the plan. I drink a LOT of water and a lot of tea, hot or cold, usually green. I have 1 liter Sigg bottle that my SO got me for graduating (that's not ALL she got me, mostly she got one and wanted me to look trendy too) that I carry everywhere and I drink probably...6 liters a day? I'm not trying to drink about 1.5 gallons of water a day..I just do. Mostly that's because when I get busy at work I just down some tea to hold me over until I get a minute to eat..that covers 2 liters right there. Also I am an active, fat, man. I sweat quite a bit, need to replace that stuff. And I drink a lot of fluids with my supplement pills...and throw in some protein shakes.
For supplements I take:
Vitamin C x1
Fish Oil X6
Greens+ (plus) X8
Fiber Greens+ (plus) x6
EGCG x2 (sometimes I drink a lot of green tea so I don't bother, sometimes I take a third if I haven't been drinking any)
And I take a multi vitamin occasionally. Why? Because I really do eat a lot of good for me food, and I take greens+ everyday, so I don't need all of those huge doses of multi vitamins all at once, especially when I use supplements like protein shakes to help with some of those.
I also should mention I take those 2-3 times a day. I take half of those in the morning, some midday, the rest a couple hours before bed.
I'll be adding some ZMA in before bed soon actually.
For what most people consider supplements...I like Metabol II protein powder even though it tastes a little bit like foot. Mostly because I used to use that years back when it didn't mix well and tasted worse..but it WORKED, and it still does, so I always have at least a little bit around. (I have the orange flavor right now...used to only be terrible chocolate or worse vanilla, I mix the orange with orange crystal light (the walmart brand is called orange early rise)
I use a caesin protein for my Tuesday and Thursday workouts because they're right before bed. That's a chocolate flavor so I mix in a serving of PB2 (best stuff EVER)
I make most of my shakes with skim milk, even if I use crystal light powder. Trying to get some shakes that I DON'T do that with so I can take the powder in a bottle with me on the road.
I just ordered some Cytofuse, which is a "recovery" drink. I did that because John Berardi (Dr. John Berardi) recommends having a 2:1 carbohydrate to protein ration during and after you workouts. I needed something a bit thinner than my shakes and more refreshing that had those balances. Raspberry Lemonade flavor is on it's way to my house right now.
We're in the midst of switching our routine up, but essentially we lift (and lift HEAVY) 3 days a week. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. We generally have 4 different workouts we do. That means that we just completed day 4 in our routine on Tuesday and won't hit day 4 again until the following Thursday.
The reason is that we DO lift heavy and to failure of power (when you can't get explosive movements anymore) and we go for the gold. Balls to the walls, no guts no glory, grunting and swearing...okay it's extreme at times but generally we just give it everything we *can* and we want to have those muscles DAMN WELL RESTED before we hit them again. Less is more.
On off days I have stared doing recovery workouts. I walk a lot anyway... I haven't mentioned this but I'm a server. I get an average of 8500 steps a night in...just at work.
Side bar - if you want to lose weight...got spend the $5 to get a freaking pedometer at walmart...you'll thank me later.
I WANT to do more stretching. This is the #1 thing I need to improve. Guess what I just ordered with the rest of the books and supplements I just mentioned? That's right, Juleske will be happy - A Foam Roller! I plan on doing a LOT of foam rolling.
I also made myself some light...lightish Bulgarian Training bags. I keep the really light one in my car, and the other in my gym. On off days I'll do some dynamic stuff with those for a quick workout. I've also been jumping rope. It's amazing how fast that can just destroy a fat guy like me. If you haven't done it since you were a kid... got spend the $7 to get one.
I look forward to keeping you all updated here, and I look forward to learning more from my books, podcasts and all of you guys. If there's anything you want to know, just ask, and please keep the feedback coming!
Also if anybody has any sort of photoshop skills and would be willing to put together a couple of simple things for me...please let me know!
Quick note: If you need/want to get hold of me you can email me @ willacarpenter@gmail.com or reply here as I'm a subscriber myself...and all that email goes to my BlackBerry so if I'm awake I'll pretty much see it immediately, and if you want an email response I can pretty much do so immediately. Technology rocks, I miss being a total geek sometimes
What do you mean "putting things together in PS"? If you want to paste your body pictures together, that's incredibly easy using the collage option in picasa, which is a free download
Wow. That outshone even my original post of my pre-log. I'm going to have to stop thinking of myself as writerly verbose.
Great that you and your dad work out together--always nice to have a buddy!
Looking forward to seeing your progress.
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They call me Amanda, that being my real name, and "They" being people who know me in person as I don't go around introducing myself in real life as "scribess." 'Cause that would just be strange.
Okay Subscribed too! This is actually a pretty fun read. Will, you are starting off very well with a great plan. I do want to stress though that you focus most of your efforts on understanding nutrition over the next time period. There is so much "crap" information being given about this and yet it is the most important thing in your success. Look up Alan Aragon, Lyle McDonald and Jamie Hale. Read everything you can for free and then ask questions to figure out where to go next. Leigh Peele is also an exceptional resource and is on this board actually.
If you have the knowledge of how nutrtion plays in this game, you also have the tools you need to make it work and stick.
Oh yeah... and the weight lifting thing is fun (and great) too. Looking forward to next post.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Juleske: Not for my pictures, more for simple logo stuff. Think T-shirts
Scribess: I wasn't really *trying* to write that much, I just have really been thinking about this a lot.
kfisherx: My nutrition information is totally my next step, I totally agree. I'll check out the others you've mentioned and I already think Leigh Peele is awesome as well as John Berardi. Precisions Nutrition/Gourmet nutrition and The Fat Loss Troubleshoot are very much in my future.
And I know I can find some REALLY awesome people on that topic here and on The Fitcast, and Leigh just did an episode of my other favorite podcast IronRadio.org that I haven't listened to yet. (trying to catch up on years of information here people, I can't read or listen to it all!)
(trying to catch up on years of information here people, I can't read or listen to it all!)
I have that same problem. I'm looking forward to my upcoming vacation since it'll afford me time to listen to all the podcasts I have saved on my iPod. Or at least put a big dint in 'em.
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They call me Amanda, that being my real name, and "They" being people who know me in person as I don't go around introducing myself in real life as "scribess." 'Cause that would just be strange.
For now nothing is set in stone, and I think that's the way everybody should be to some degree, but especially when they first start getting all of this overload of information.
Right now if I was going to follow the advice of one person on nutrition, one program, it would be http://precisionnutrition.com/ by Dr. John Berardi.
I like what he says, I think he makes sense, I think he really care and likes to back up what he says both with real world experience AND lab results from studies etc.
What am I doing as far as nutrition goes? If anybody's (I'm sure some of you have) read the Dave Tate Project http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_a...tate_project_i I am certainly not nearly as bad as Dave was... and I'm not nearly as cynical about the importance of nutrition. I think Dave is a great example for that, look at what he accomplished by just doing the right things...But I take that as a real good guideline for myself. Eat a lot, eat a lot of the right things.
I think EVERYBODY worries too much about their diet. I do from time to time...but I'm just getting into this, I need to worry sometimes.
Note: I do not even OWN precision nutrition yet, because I'm trying to avoid over thinking my diet just yet.
But I follow those rules. I wake up and take half of my supplement pills with some water, if I'm not hungry I might grab half of a Muscle Milk Light RTD (found them for $.70 at a local store and juts cleaned them OUT)
Then I'll shower and get ready for the day, go to my SO's house and have dinner....that's right Dinner. What do YOU want to eat at 6pm? Omelet? No. You want Dinner. So that's what I eat as my first meal.
We've been making food at home, so it's become a lot easier to control my intake. Chicken breast, broccoli, skim milk. I'm trying to avoid carbohydrates because I would naturally slide to eating just a TON of them. Following JB's rule if I have carbs I try to stuff them into my life within 3 hours of my workout.
I will generally serve myself a portion of food that is sightly smaller than what I would have eaten before...but I will eat about half and then heat the rest up a few hours later and have that before work.
At work I keep some of my own trail mix in my backpack. I have all unsalted dry roasted nuts, dried fruits, soy nuts and sunflower seeds. I bag it up 1/3 cup in a bag and I don't eat one every night, but they're on hand if I need it.
At work sometimes throughout the night I will have a small snack or two and a largish lunch meal.
My lunch meal generally consists of chicken breast and mixed steamed veggies, or chicken breast over spring mix salad with lots of veggies tossed in with a light balsamic dressing. Or sometimes I'll use the "prime rib" meat and throw a few teaspoons of bleu cheese crumbles on the salad and make it a "Black and Bleu". Also I sometimes cook myself some Tilapia with the steamed veggies, maybe some steamed green beans.
My snacks include cottage cheese, low fat vanilla yogurt, fresh strawberries, fresh cantaloupe, applesauce, (at work only) 2% milk. Maybe an egg or two (over easy) on a slice of whole wheat toast (without butter)
At home I will generally make some type of wrap. I use FlatOut multigrain and flax wraps, I may have some chicken, or fat free refried beans to put in it, but most often I use some TVP that I've made with chicken broth and some sort of chili/taco seasoning. Maybe some fresh veggies or a piece of fruit if I haven't had much fruit that day. Might snack on my trail mix.
I try to make sure I'm getting protein throughout my day. I try to make sure my veggies are throughout my day. I try to make sure I'm eating different types of fats all day.
I like a lot of other foods, and I try to fit them in as often as I can. Saturdays I workout in the morning, have my post workout shake, get cleaned up then we drive to the city for my favorite Indian food place, Thali of India. It's a buffet. I simply CANNOT eat as much as I used to be able to, and as much as I love the breads and rice etc...I'm really there for the Palak Paneer and Chana Masala and (I think it's callled...) Shadi Paneer (basically anything with that awesome skim milk cheese, paneer, is right up my alley) and the Chicken Mhakni is amazing as well.
And guess what? It's about 90 minutes after my workout, when JB recommends I get my carbs in if I'm going to.
I am not at a point in my routine where I am willing to flat out deny myself anything. I've been down that road. If I want an Oreo I will damn well have one...but a) I don't really crave the junk. Especially since I can eat really high quality delicious food all day long. and b) I am much better able to control myself and I can have one serving of oreos, or one oreo or whatever.
I also try to eat low fat cheeses, or really sharp cheeses that have all the fat but satisfy faster.
What's my daily caloric intake? Probably high for somebody that's "supposed" to be on a diet. But WAY less than when I was eating cheese burgers and fries all day, and drinking probably 32oz of soda a day. And eating crap right before bed.
Plus I train hard. I don't always do recovery workouts etc. but when I do even THOSE are hard. Dave Tate got the way he was (a F***ing BAD ASS even though he lived at McDonalds) by training BIG TIME.
I could not tell you my carb to protein to rat ratios throughout the day. But I can tell you that eating more often, in smaller amounts, with a bigger focus on vegetables and lean meats really helps.
Hummus. I've recently become a BIG fan of hummus. But a lot of the stuff I can find isn't the best for you, I've found a couple better ones, but I should just make it myself...Gourmet Nutrition has a recipe for it. (I really just need to bite that bullet...maybe next week)
If you'd like to see more detailed nutrition information then just stay tuned because as this ride goes along I'll get there, but for now eating a lot better is good enough.
The biggest reason I say it's good enough...is because I will do it. A lot of people answer the question "what's the best training program/diet?" with "the one you're not on". For somebody in my position that's a bunch of BS. The answer to that question should be "the one you'll do." I agree that steady state cardio isn't the best thing, and that I don't *need* to do it. But if I loved running and would run every damn day, then that's what I should be doing.
That Jared guy lost all of his weight by walking all over the place and eating at freaking Subway! Is that the best diet and exercise plan on earth!? NO! But it DID work, for him, because it's something that he could COMMIT to. He did it day in and day out and lost his weight. Some crazy guy ate that one REALLY GIANT burrito at Chipotle's each day. Basically he looked at the nutritional info and was like "wow this has just about everything I need for an ENTIRE DAY...what if this was all I ate everyday!? I could be like that Jared guy! I'll make millions!" (which I don't think he did) but HE STAYED WITH IT. Sure he doesn't look as good as somebody that used a "better" system...but he lost the weight because he just committed himself.
I am VERY interested in progressing with my nutrition, but for right now I'm keeping it simple. Trying to eat somewhat "clean" with some good variety, with a slight bit of nutrient timing thrown in there for good measure.
If you have books I should read, send me a link. Feel free to tell me what you like, and why.
And *please* point me towards some good warmup/stretching/mobility stuff. I really need to buy Inside Out and Magnificent Mobility...but I need to pay for my car too.
I just got my foam roller in the mail and I'm excited to start some SMR ASAP. (wooo! love the jumbles of letters in this fitness world)
Today is our first day on the new routine. Day 1 - Back and Triceps. I'll talk more about it afterward. I'll also be trying out Cytofuse today as well. Check back for at least a taste review.
P.S. Sorry if this is all misspelled and looks like crap, the forum is messing up on me, and FireFox isn't doing the spell check as I type right now either..
I subscribed. Well written. I may have missed it, but did you say whether you were or weren't keeping a food log?
You said that you weren't keeping measurements of taking pictures. I didn't either. But at times I really wish that I had kept those things. I'm now struggling to find a good "before" picture. But, it wasn't as though I was seeking out the camera when I was at my heaviest.
I haven't said it, but I'm not keeping a detailed food log right now. It's on my list of To Do's. I am however keeping a running tab food log. I've read about it in some Men's Health books or some such but basically you write down some stuff on a piece of paper like:
Then you put a check mark next to each item for each thing you ate from that category. I put liters of water and green tea on there too because I want to make sure my fluids stay somewhat similar. I had a nasty habit of drinking like 9 liters in one day and then something like 2 the next. It really messed with my digestion for a minute there.
This allows me to better remember what I had from one meal to the next, I'll write down something I feel guilty about as well, or if I felt any particular urge. Sometimes I feel like I just freaking NEED some carbs. I made whole grain pasta with turkey meatballs. Mady my own sauce that was really spicy with a base of some really plain tomato sauce. I had 1 cup of noodles and 3 turkey meatballs...put the rest in the fridge and ate it post workout for the next two training days. Turned a craving into good food down the road.
This is all off-the-cuff for me, just what bounces around my head, or my response to a question, or whatever I come up with as I'm typing. So if you people want this to be high quality...keep up the discussion. If I'm talking to myself it'll just get scary in here
As I get more on top of my diet (money also plays a role here, I can only buy SO MANY books/supplements/videos/tools before it cuts into my budget for things like organic foods and such) I plan on keeping a TRUE food log. I need a good digital scale, and one of those adjustable measuring cups. I picked up the adjustable spoons at a garage sale, went in to bite the bullet on the like $15 cups at my local grocery store...and they stopped carrying them! I guess it'll be Amazon or eBay.
While I'm on the topic I need to pick up some more earplugs, I haven't had any for a while. And I think I'm going to pick up a sleep mask. I'll expound on that later...right now? Dead lifts baby.
I didn't keep a food journal for many many months of my fat loss. But, when I got to a real plateau that I couldn't get over I think that the food journal was the one key thing that really made a difference. As long as you're consistently losing weight and feeling better then keep doing what you're doing. But, if you get to a sticking point I'd look at the food log as a key tool.
It's a fine line between changing your behaviors, and completely changing every behavior overnight. You won't be able to sustain the latter. So, I recommend that you don't make too many changes too quickly. If I started out 15 months ago by doing all the things that I'm doing now I would have never made it this far. I like tackling on behavior at a time, and once the new behavior becomes normal I'll move on to the next.
It's a fine line between changing your behaviors, and completely changing every behavior overnight. You won't be able to sustain the latter. So, I recommend that you don't make too many changes too quickly. If I started out 15 months ago by doing all the things that I'm doing now I would have never made it this far. I like tackling on behavior at a time, and once the new behavior becomes normal I'll move on to the next.
I totally agree. The way I look at it (because I've made that same mistake) is to look at what I REALLY care about, what are my REAL motivations? What are my real goals? Right now I want to clean up my diet, which I'm doing "enough" of that right now. I want to keep lifting. And I want to see some sort of progress both in strength and in the mirror.
My chest, shoulders, upper and lower arms, thighs and calves are starting to look muscular. Not defined mind you...but muscular. You could look at my shoulders chest and arms and tell that I've been working. My calves initially shrank due to fat loss, but now they're right about where they were, but stuffed full of quality muscle.
My gut has started to "droop" It's not pretty, but it cut my girth down literally about 6" my pants size is the same, but they certainly fit better.
As long as this progress continues I'll make baby steps and just learn more.
My next *big* move is going to be with warm ups, stretching and prehabbing.
Yes, I strongly advocate a "one habit at a time" approach. When I started it was almost an accident. I had actually just about given up on being fit and thin again. But, I decided to give up sugar for Lent. I'm not catholic but a buddy of mine decided that he was going to do this and I thought it was a good idea. I went along with him and did it as well. I lost almost 20 pounds in that 40 days. After that I figured I'd catch the momentum and take it one step forward. So, I decided that I could give up eating out for lunch; no fast food, no trips to the convenience store, etc. So, I started bringing a lunch everyday. I lost another 5-10 pounds over the next month. And so thats how I did it....one thing at a time. Anytime that I'd stop losing weight I'd seek out the next bad habit to get rid of, or the next good habit to include.
Yes, I strongly advocate a "one habit at a time" approach. When I started it was almost an accident. I had actually just about given up on being fit and thin again. But, I decided to give up sugar for Lent. I'm not catholic but a buddy of mine decided that he was going to do this and I thought it was a good idea. I went along with him and did it as well. I lost almost 20 pounds in that 40 days. After that I figured I'd catch the momentum and take it one step forward. So, I decided that I could give up eating out for lunch; no fast food, no trips to the convenience store, etc. So, I started bringing a lunch everyday. I lost another 5-10 pounds over the next month. And so thats how I did it....one thing at a time. Anytime that I'd stop losing weight I'd seek out the next bad habit to get rid of, or the next good habit to include.
We just cycled off of one workout routine, to a modified new modified version. Here's the differences for Day 1:
Previously: Dead lifts 3 set x 6 reps. At the time we switched I had achieved 6,6,10 with 210 on the bar total poundage/tonnage 4620.
Thursday I cut the weight 25% (ish) and did 160 for 3 sets of 10. If I had completed 3x10 the poundage would be: 4800...but I did 10,10,14 equaling 5440.
So I lowered the weight, but I increased my time under tension, and my total poundage lifted. And it worked the snot out of my grip strength.
We switched from heavy seated rows 3x6, to lat pull downs 3x10. I have it all written down out in our gym, but I think we did something like 95lbs for 3x10 but that was a bit too light for us. Our last set I got like 22 and my dad had like 26. So we added another 10 or 15 for next week.
We have been pairing triceps with our back day, and we just switched from skull crushers and push downs to cable kick backs and overhead extensions.
Nothing exciting there, haven't done these specific exercises yet so we're still finding our weights and getting back in form (when I say yet, I mean since either 3 years ago or 11 years ago)
Then we finish off with our custom forearm machine. Everybody should throw like 5 minutes of just grip type work into their routine, especially if they want to go big in dead lifts and such. I'm sure most of you have seen those like 1' sections of bar with the rope tied in the middle with a plate on the end...this is like that but jacked up. It's bolted to the wall, it has 8" wide and 3" thick grips that are completely gnurling. Rope to the floor and currently 52.5 lbs stacked on the tree. I have been doing 2 sets of 4 with only about 60-90 seconds in between. This exercise causes the biggest most insane rush of blood to your forearms that you've ever seen. So I roll forward until I hit the tree, then let it down, then roll it backwards until it hits the tree, that's 1. I do 4, rest about 90 seconds and by that time your forearms are literally an inch or two bigger looking, then I do 4 more.
My dad has been doing 1 set of 6-8.
That's it for that day. It used to be a bit of a longer day, we used to have pullovers in there in between back and tricep work, but that started bothering us with the heavy weights so we're putting those on the back burner for a while.
Today is chest and biceps day. I know we're cutting out the dumbell bench press for a while, we were getting too strong for our own good. By that I mean manipulating the heavy individual weights, swinging them up and down, was starting to become as, or more taxing than doing the exercise. So we dropped the weight a bit on our flat bench and upped the reps. I'll keep you posted.
Flat Bench: I dropped the weight in my bench, and upped the reps. I had been doing 3x6 with 155. Please note: I don't care about my weights so much as I'm always progressing, I've only benched about...10 times since I started lifting again, and I have REALLY long arms. I am not upset about my bench numbers, you shouldn't be either.
So my last workout I did 6,6,9 so my total poundage = 3255.
Today I did 120 at 3x10 and got 10,10,14 = 4080.
These aren't exactly comparable because I had been doing 2 sets of flat dumbbell presses after benching. After that we were doing dumbbell flys.
We dropped the dumbbell flat bench and flys and tossed in 3x10 dumbbell incline press. I started really light on these because I wanted the chance to get really comfortable throwing dumbbells around. Previously our weights for a bit out of hand with dumbbells and it got scary real fast. I almost hurt my shoulder, but was lucky enough to keep the motion under control, and smart enough to lay low for the rest of that workout, and the next workout, and to back off on those specific exercises.
We're rotating in and out some of the smaller things.
As we did back and triceps last workout, this one was chest and biceps. So what did we used to do for biceps, and what are we doing right now?
We were doing straight barbell curs, sitting on a bench. This exercise is a very specific exercise to work on just the top of the motion. I've heard somebody call them Lockouts when talking about bench presses. The reason being that when you're doing full motion curls you fail on the bottom of the motion not the top, so you never full hit the top part of the motion. The other way we try to help that out is for our main bicep exercise we do...
Preacher bench machine curls. We pull our preacher bench up to our low cable and pull like a MF'er. We lowered the weight and raised the reps in this as well. I was using 55lbs and I dropped to 40lbs. From 3x6 to 3x10.
Then, because remember these are bodybuilding workouts more than strength or fitness, we need to find an even more small and specific muscle and abuse that. So we did hammer curls.
We wanted to toss in something fun, fast, entertaining (different from fun for some reason) and brutal. We decided to do standing hammer curls using a double pyramid...or a diamond if you prefer.
My actual set looked like this: 10lbs x 5, 15lbs x 5, 20lbs x 5, 25lbs x 5, 30lbs x 5, 35lbs x 1...back down.. 30lbs x 5, 25lbs x 5, 20lbs x 5, 15lbs x 5, 10lbs x 5.
If you've never even tried doing something like that...I recommend tossing it into some workout sometime...just for fun. It's amazing how your ability to move something so small as a 15lbs dumbbell in each hand just falls right off.
We certainly won't keep those in there forever. We're looking at about 5 weeks for this routine, then switching it back up again.
Next workout? LEG DAY! I am going to be doing my first "real" front squats. By real I mean actually putting them in my routine instead of just learning them, or messing around with them once. I've only done them 2...well 3 times ever. Today at the end of our workout I just played with doing them to get the feel of them in my head. I'll be doing them cross armed for now. I'm a lot closer to the Olympic form than I thought I would be, but the last inch or so hurts my wrist so I need to work on that first.
Will A. Carpenter - The "A" Stand for Awesome
Looking forward to next post.
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