A new year, a new me

R

ReanimtdCowboy

0
I am 20 almost 21 years old, I go to school, work almost full-time. I weigh around 175 lbs, doing some online calculations I have 14.5% body fat, who knows how accurate. I know that I am not in any need to become better, I have a solid frame, my girlfriend loves me, nothing could be better. But in January my girlfriend and I are going on a cruise and one could only help but look their best. My girlfriend has been doing tae bo and has lost weight and toned up, looking good. Since the end of November I have been trying to tone even more and lose some more weight. I've cut out soda which has helped, clean up most of my diet, and become even more active. I try atleast 3-4 days a week run 3+ miles, lately I have been running 5 or 6 miles, I can see a difference not so much on the scale but in the mirror. I've been trying to weight lift, but I have limited weights and also its only at my girlfriend's house that there is a weight bench. It seems that I might only be able to bench like 140-150 lbs. It sucks because all the weights seem to be different weights, but I've been trying. Now there is only 10 days until the cruise and I know that I won't be able to get the six-pack before then, but I want to atleast at the beginning of the new year start to bench more and weight lift, I'm not worry about my legs so much, but my arms and chest are the primary targets.

I measured my arms and in diameter they are 12.5" and my chest is 39.5" at the top of the chest.

By Mid-March I want to be able to bench 1.25-1.5 my own body weight, so like 230lbs or so, and also become very toned, lose maybe 5% body fat. I know that I really have to cut out all the little snacks that aren't so healthy and also be active everyday. Problem is that I'm quite pressed for time most of the time.

Any suggestions, whether from experience or from outside advice, please help me as to what to do. Thanks!

Newbie, Frank.
 
Cowboy just list your exact goals and your exact routine and diet then I could help.
 
My goals are no different than most, but mine to be exact are to lose a lot of my mid-section, I don't have much but especially around my obliques. I don't want to so much lose weight, but I DO want to shave off about 5% body fat. I want to bench more, Like I said previously my girlfriend's dad's weights are all off whack and I think that I can only bench 130-140 and so I want to atleast bench 1.5 my body weight, so another 100 pounds to the 130. I want to be able to run a 6 minute mile, but actually today I went and tried it out to see what I can run. I ran a 6:30 mile, so I'm thinking of recalibrating it to maybe 5:30 or even 5 minute mile.

My routine is basic right now I run, run, run. I try to lift but with being in school, I'm a poor college student so I can't pick up and accurate weights. I work bad hours so I don't really have time to do lifting, and with the rest of my time I try to be with my girlfriend. I try to run everyother day, short and fast one day, long and slow the next and so on and so on. I do however have a weighted vest, I can go up to 100 pounds (weighed it to make sure). I don't use it much because I don't like to do exercises with not that much weight because I want to get stronger faster, but after the new year I'm going to start off slow.

My diet is less than good probably. I eat 4-5 meals aday, a decent size in the morning, little one mid-day, larger in afternoon, a yogurt or piece of fruit for a snack and then a smaller than decent one in the evening. I try not to eat after 9:30pm, I usually work until 9 and get home around 9:15, so I try to eat something tiny so I don't go to bed hungry. I eat fruit, eggs, and some toast usally in the morning. For a snack I eat fruit or yogurt or some cheese, Lunch is a sandwhich with some noodles or some other side. I TRY TO stay away from sweets, but I usually sneak in a few M&M's or something once and awhile. At night I usually a sandwhich without the bread and some fruit. For liquids I have pretty much cut soda out of my diet, I may go a week or two without one. I like to drink water now, I have always drank a lot of milk, I might almost have too much of it, on average I drink a good 6-8 larger glass or around 120 fl.oz. As well I love juice, not so much cranberry or tomato but everything else, yum.

So thats me, thanks for any help.
 
Ok, so yesterday (Jan. 1st) after not having done much working out, I set the benchmark, and besides due to injury, I can only go up from there. I weighed in at 174lbs, my mile time was around 6:30-6:45, my stopwatch messed up, but I had my MP3 player running and I konw how many songs I went through. I was able to do 30 good push-ups, 55 sit-ups, and 6 pull-ups. I'm not really all that interested in benching anymore, just do some at-home-type exercises. Today I started my 12 week revolution, I threw on my weighted vest with 20 pounds in it to start easy, and every week I'm going to throw in another 5-10 pounds, I'm able to go up to 100 pounds. Every Saturday I'm going to do a lighter workout, not run as far, not as many exercises. And then Sunday will be my comparison workout to see how far I've come. Monday more weight, and then run everyday, with exercises everyother. I would love to see a 10-20% increase (so if i could only do 10 push-ups after the first week be able to do 11 or 12)

So, It being the first day with weight, I weighed 173 before the extra 22.5 lbs (the vest empty weighs 2.5 lbs), I went for a 2.3-2.5 mile run for 30-40 minutes, I was able to do 27 push-ups in one set and 25 in another, 33 sit-ups and 34 sit-ups in the next set, after the workout I weighed 171.5 lbs. I'm not really looking to lose a lot of weight, just tone up a little more, and lose body fat.

Day one looks good, I know it will have its UPs and DOWNs but like this great quote I heard once, "One is only limited by one's fears." And as my signature says, "Sink or Swim, Do or Die!" You just got to keep going, can't let anyone or anything stop you, also you got to be down for the challenge. When presented with a problem or challenge, I never roll over and die, ha ha I love it!

I'll keep writing,
Later~!
 
It wednesday, I'm keeping track of where I am. I know I'm doing a bad thing by keeping myself so hyped up that I'm bound to burnout. I didn't work out today because my back is a little soar, and I am trying not to fizzle out physically. Tomorrow however I'm going to hit it big, and then friday tone it down, then saturday a more relaxing day, probably only run 2 miles. I can definetly tell a difference with my vest on, the 20 pounds doesn't seem like much, but when I run and push-ups I start struggling earlier. I LOVE IT!! I however don't feel as challenged with only 20 lbs. I may have to bump next week up to 40 or so, but we'll see after I test myself on sunday. I love when my body fails and I can't move, makes me feel like I'm getting stronger. I'm going to keep writing, lets me get some of my feelings out, even if no one is reading.

Later
 
So I'm bored and thought I'd write one more entry for the week (if not again on Saturday) before I go on the cruise next week. I was feeling bad about not working out yesterday and so I put in a couple more weights to the vest, making it 35 lbs. plus the 2.5 of the vest itself. I was stunned to see how many pushups and situps I was able to do. I did 3 sets of each, 2 before my 3.5 mile jog, and one more at the end. I did 34 situps followed directly by 26 push-ups, and then right after that another 14 situps and 15 pushups. My arms and abs were really burning. Then I jog for 3.5 miles, my legs were hurting and especially my side hurt the worst, it felt good in a sick way. When I got back I drank some water and then I was able to do 35 more sit-ups and 17 more push-ups. I'm trying to figure out how many of each I'm able to do without weights, and figuring that if I can do the same amount with weights as I can do without, then either the weights aren't helping or I'm increasing the same through weight increase and push-up/sit-up increase. For example, if I can do 10 pushups at 180 lbs, and then I throw on 10 EXTRA lbs. (190 lbs. then) and can do 10 then I'm increasing my weight by 5% and so my push-ups hopefulyl will increase by 5% as well, making the grand total almost 11. I won't know until I try but I don't want to get ahead of myself, I'll wait until sunday to find out for sure, and then on Monday, Jan. 16th I'll post again (I'll be on vacation) with my results.
 
wow your sure to get some nice results with your dedication!

looking at what you eat, I might suggest trying to eat some more protein and maybe cut some simple carbs (ie. juice), but if what your doing is working out for you thats fine too. i also drink a lot of milk- but hey, it does the body good, right?

your workout sounds good- going to the gym is great but theres something i like about using body resistance and/or things around your home/outside- just feels good to not be gym dependant lol.

anyways keep updating, and i hope you have an awesome time on your cruise.
 
So I figured this would happen, you go on a cruise all the food is free, and there is food always around you. I'll admit, I got my money's worth for the food aspect, the weather sucked but the food was excellent. I tried to eat on the healthier side of things, but I would eat a couple servings of the healthy things at one sitting (big appetite that I have), for dinner I'd have 2 starters, 3 entreés sometimes and 2 desserts (my girlfriend wouldn't finish it all). So figuring this was going to happen, I would run and work out a little bit at the gym on the ship. It was decent, several treadmills, bikes, eliptical machines, and weight machines. I came back weighing 3-4 pounds more than when I left, but I had also done some weights, and 4 sets with 10 give or take reps, so some may be muscle, some on the other hand fat. :( So when I get back I decide to keep going with my set plan, but my knees have been killing me, I went for a little bigger run, like 6 miles, and when I got back they were aching so bad, did I not warm-up enough, did I pull/tear something, what is going on? So I'm going to let them try to heal for the next couple days but this really messes up my schedule. This is a nasty set-back.
 
Alright, so its now the first of February, my plans have deviated from its original attempt to lean out. My knee has been bothering me so my running as ceased at least on the hard outside ground. I try when I can to run on my girlfriend's treadmill, but thats hard to do with going to school and working. But when I go to school I try to park away from campus so that even though its a mile walk, I have to walk it there and back making it a 2 mile walk in the day, I try to stay active when not studying and also everyother day I'v been lifting. My bench has gone up in just the past week or so. :D I think that this is all in part of the supersets that I have been trying to do, I'll do a brief warm up of the arms and a little of the legs even though they are not being used. Then I go to the support beam in the basement of the house and do some close grip chin-ups, I'm able to do 8 now, and then I drop to the floor and do atleast 30 push-ups, nice and slow so my numbers are a little lower than what I'm capable of. Next I go to the weight bench, and do 8-10 reps with the weight. Then I go and do some bicep curls, usually with the weight I have it is about 8. Then I do a different technique I've been trying and I grab a kinda heavy dumbbell with both hands and raise it over my head but by making a semi-circle from the waist to the head, so its always arm length away from the body, that is hard works the forearms it seems. Then I try to incorporate the core by grabbing the barbell used for curls and lift it up to about the upper abs and talk a walk around the basement, I make a cuple passes, first pass by walking forward, then next pass side stepping to my left, then to my right and then walking backwards to the starting point. Then I go back to the support beam and do as many pull-ups, and repeat the routine. I try to only rest 2 minutes between the completion of the walking to the next set of pull-ups. The sodium pumps really kick in and my arms blow up and are sore for a while. I try to get some protein into my system and a lot of water, and some fruit.

Lately, even though, I've been doing for a week, two weeks at most, I can definetly tell a difference in my size and even just in my self-image, which makes me want to continue.

So although my plans have changed, I still am eating right and trying to stay active, I think once its stops raining and gets nicer out, I may go back to my high school days and start to bike more often. In high school (before my car that is) I use to do push-ups for no good reason when just chilling around the house and sit-ups for that matter, as well as bike to school everyday and my knees felt solid. So I may have to do that, a low impact cardio, from now on.

I'll try to keep posting, if anyone is even reading this.
Later!
 
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