Cheers guys, it been long overdue, I sadly put the weight on in my early 20's when I had some hard time coming to terms with some medical news on a neurological matter, that plus friends all going to uni took it's toll.
I woke up one morning in Jan 2006 and said no more, then I had a plan and stuck to it. In the start it was basically eating well, then after couple of months I purchased a static bike and used it at home 5 nights a week, one night stamina and the next HIIT ( my best advise for anyone trying to loose weight is HIIT). My other best tip would be the sheer amount of information that is available on forums all over the internet, I'd go as far as too say I read myself thin.
The weight was coming off at around 2lbs a week, which is what I was aiming for, then people commenting and what I saw in the mirror with added will power was enough for me. Around three months ago I joined my local JJB gym and a mate introduced me to weight lifting, in those three months I lost a lot of weight off my chest and my face, so it was a major boost.
In the last month I started to plateau, so decided to swap over to a 6 meals a day plan, 3 of them being protein shakes of one kind or another. That zapped the plateau and my strength started to make a great break through. Sadly my weight lifting partner moved away to live, so I moved to a 3 day split by myself. I now do 5 days in the gym, monday, wed, sat being weights with 10min warmup ( and 30min cardio if I'm on a cutting week ) and then 2x20min HIIT on all the other days, bar now I've started jogging outside once a week too. I also do a fair bit of core work on 3-4 days.
Last week I took the choice of taking my first week of 'bulking', with a sharp eye on my calorie intake, as I would still like to loose around another 15lbs, but I know that will be a very slow time coming, so I might start using the 6 weeks bulk 2 weeks cutting as I've heard great think due to hormone levels and etc, it works well. Also I'm not happy with my loose skin, but most people recommend a good year at this weight and see what my body does with itself, and then revaluate then.
So seeing as I've been in a negative calorie state, I'm happy with my lifting progress, I've obviously been loosing fat around my muscles so they look bigger, but I'm under no illusion that I'm gaining muscle, but that will come with time when I can be more relaxed about my diet.My leg muscles are big due to the weight I've had on them for the years, I get a lot of comments from some of the lifters in the gym which is always nice, and my chest seems to have taken well to the lifting hard.
I'm in two minds atm, as I'm hoping to travel and work the US come next Feb, and as much as I would like to be able to bulk a lot of Winter, that leaves little time after Christmas to try and loose the Winters fat, and I'd like to be as lean as possible for America. But on the other side, it seems my body now needs muscle to fill out as much as possible, so it's going to be a hard choice.
And to finish it all off, the attention I now get off girls, if worth every single second of the gym
Congratulations! Looks like all of your hard work has definitely paid off.
you do look great. You look completly different. Awesome job.