Joker's Journal of Change

I think I've been at the same weight or looming for weeks now too.....don't fret.

Run those numbers by me again....

How many hours of exercise do you get per week?
How much exercise (cardio vs weights)

What is your resting metabolism....should be about 2,200 calories per day.
What are you taking-in each day on average?
 
I usually am at the gym 6 days a week. Doing a FBW and steady state cardio 3 days a week and HIIT & cardio 3 days a week.

FBW usually takes me about 40-45 minutes to complete. On FBW days I try and hit 30 minutes of cardio following the workout.

HIIT is 30 minutes including warmup and warm down. Afterwards I will try and do an additional 20 minutes of lower intensity cardio. (Treadmill or pool)

Base metabolic rate is calculated at 1930 cals.

Ive been averaging between 1800-2100 calories consumed a day.



On an unrelated note, I was completely exhausted yesterday so I took it as my day off this week. Actually in bed by 9:30pm...which is very early for me. Probably why I woke up at 4am this morning. Im going to try and get a workout in this morning before work since Im up so early.
 
Well I got my first pre-6am workout in since I woke up so early this morning. Actually wasnt as bad as I thought it might be, I made sure I had a protein shake before I left for the gym. At work now so I will have to post the weights later, but made a small switch to the workout. Since I am already doing bent barbell rows, I switched from dumbell rows to high cable rows for this session. 20 minutes of cardio after the weights then it was time to get to work.

Im going to try and get some additional cardio in this evening after work depending on how exhausted I feel.
 
Today I broke 2 records in the pool......

Most impressive was the distance record. I consider a lap to be across the pool AND back (some people like to double-count). It took me over 3 hours, actually 3 hours & 25 minutes because of drink-breaks, piss-breaks, a nosh-break for a protein bar and a few breaks just to chat with people. Still, I nailed 130 laps and that means I covered 6,500 meters....or roughly just over 4 miles!!!!!! :D

I kept calories lite & lean today. I did have some sushi for lunch, but I loaded-up on their "salad bar" which had lots of weird vegetables, seaweed salad and other stuff that offered bulky fiber, vegetables. lean chicken & fish...all the good stuff. I kept dinner lean too. Right now I'm hungry....but screw it: if I eat a bit, I'll just feel MORE hungry and not satisfied....and then I'll eat more and regret it and feel like I didn't get the most out of the day. So I'm running lean and I'll just have to focus on breakfast tomorrow!

Oh...the other record I broke....the hottie-score. I chatted-up like 5 hotties today: Donna (VERY friendly and almost touchy), Rene, Rochelle, Stacey and some other gal who I don't recall her name. Dude: they're woman with fit bodies in bathing suits.....you know I gotta hit that chat-portunity. Of course, all along my huge diamond wedding ring glistens away and I occassionally make reference to the wife...so it's all good. I'm just a social swimmer....what can I see, I mean say. ;)

Tmrw, weights....time to hurt the upper body!

I'm liking it...the arms/chest are swelling larger and the muscles are getting more defined...while my waist is getting leaner. I really hope one day woman look at me and think "Damn, that guy has a great body"!!! In the musical words of the Beatles.....let it be, let it be...let it be, let it be....hoping for gawks of lust, let it be-eeeee! :D
 
Nahhhh.....

I'm a somewhat social gym-goer. When you do long-haul cardio, your body is totally in fat-burn mode and fat can only be broken-down at a certain rate. I've read that when you take a break, your body is still breaking down that fat and trying to bring-up & maintain the glycose/sugar level in the blood. After a 3-8 minute break, I just hit it again and keep on the cardio...I'm usually going to swim a set distance and chatting doesn't lessen my workout. I've read somewhere that taking breaks is actually beneficial...at least for cardio.

Also, I don't bother mentioning the 2 or 3 other dudes I quickly chat with too...so I'm an equal-opportunity chatter. With the woman, they can't miss my wedding ring, it's not big, but it has 7 diamonds across the front...like a beacon that says "HARMLESS". Players don't wear wedding rings...and besides, I'm talking fitness, exercise and harmless stuff. In the end, I doubt these gals would even say I'm flirting...just a friendly guy. If I brought my wife to the gym, I'd just introduce them all...and my wife keeps saying she wants to go swimming with me there...so we'll see.

Ya know what's funny, some of the time when I talk to people they almost seemed freaked that someone is breaching the gym protocol of staying to yourself...once or twice I've even been worried that one of these guys may actually think I'm gay or something. The funny thing is, once you know someone, then it's the opposite; everyone loves walking through their gym and getting quick nods and salutations from casual friends "hey bud", "what's going on", "how you doing?", "what's up", "how's it going".....so it goes from anti-social to suddenly being like a frigin' bar!

If people see you being social and you talking with others, they're more apt to be friendly towards you. In the end, I enjoy the social interaction...it's all part of life.
 
I know...just bustin your chops a bit. The smaller gyms I went to were like that, too many people at LA Fitness to get to recognize regulars outside of people I already know.
 
Did a gnarly upper-body & core workout this morning...pushed it hard, trying to make the most of it.

Knee feels better each day. My appt. with the knee-specialist/surgeon was cancelled today...the doctor apparently has a sudden health problem and he'll be out for 6-8 weeks! The good news is that my friend, the hand/arm otrhro-surgeon says, based on my rapid recovery thus far, that I should just do physical therapy and see how far I can get...I may not need surgery!

In other news, my wife saw me working out and insisted on taking my pic. When I saw the pic, I couldn't believe it wasn't altered!!! I looked so vertical & thin it blew me away. I was sure she somehow set the picture to compress (the opposite of "expand" on tv's when watching wide-box)...but it wasn't...it was actually me!!!!!!!

Here's the pic, but it'll appear as a 'thumbnail' cause I'm not sure how to post the pic to some website and then refer to it there....

My wife insisted we take it on the grass in direct bright sunlight...so my skin is over-exposed and my reasonably-tanned body looks pale. You can see the arms, robust chest and even calves....complete with wrapped left knee.

Oh yeah...and in the privacy of my own home gym, I like wearing a wrestling singlet.....it's crazy-comfortable, let's me check-out my body and see what I'm working on, and it's actually very good at helping me watch my form. Many times I'll look in the mirror and be surprised at how I'm feeling like I'm in good form, but I'm not!!!!! Plus, in the warmer months I conclude my workout by jumping in the pool....everything is clean, including the clothes. You can swim in it too. And yes, my trainer Roz thoroughly digs it. Wear to my regular gym? HELL NO! :D
 

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Looking good buddy...you can notice the development in the shoulders and arms. Also congrats on the potential good news about the knee.

As for me, hit the gym tonight for some cardio...30 min of HIIT on the bike followed by an additional 20 minutes of medium intensity steady state on the treadmill.
 
Dude....

Your gym no doubt has a room full of "spin" bikes....get your ipod loaded with music and bring some bottles of water. Get it on, peddle some in the seat, some while out of the saddle. Peddle some fast at low resistance, some at high resistance (peddling through wet concrete they call it). Do this for at least an hour. Better yet, take a class.....you may be shocked at how addicting it is, and I'm not just talking about watching all the woman puming away in their lycra shorts :D

And don't forget that rowing machine....it'll burn some calories but also work to make that upper-body get developed. Few people hit upper-body for cardio, most the time the body freaks when you ask the upper-body to do medium or low intensity cardio for more then 3 minutes, it's just used to quick jaunts of heavy weights n' stuff.

Does your gym have a pool? That's good stuff too!!! Come on man, mix it up and melt that fat!!!!

What I've found is many of these guys who appear very musclar actually don't have large muscles, instead they have little fat on their bodies and that highlights & outlines their muscles!

I saw this nutritionist and in his office was a pic of him all buff...his arms looked enormous!!!! I then looked at his arms and they looked as small as mine (3 years ago) and I asked him what happened. He just told me he goes on a cut, gets down to like 8% and bam; HUGE MUSCLES.

Remember, the real reason you workout with your muscles it mostly to tell your body HEY, I'M USING THESE THINGS....SO DON'T GO STRIPPING THE LEAN MUSCLE TISSUE OFF AS YOU PERCEIVE WE'RE STARVING AND LOSING WEIGHT. That's right; we work weights to keep a toll on our muscles and prevent our bodies from shedding the unneccesary muscle while we diet. If you don't work weights, the body dumps muscle pretty quick. Notice how those Atkins dieters look like they've been starved? No muscle tone, wimpy!!!

Of course, the side-benefits of working muscle is larger muscles, increased metabolism and other stuff....but mostly we're trying to keep our muscle while we diet.

This forum is big on working muscle, cause it's macho. They don't push cardio...but that's cause it's not macho and most trainers can't make money training people on an elliptical machine. Cardio melts fat, simple as that. Mix it up, get it in.

Does your gym have a spin bike room? Does it have a pool? Does it have a rowing machine or some other form of cardio upper body?
 
Looking good buddy...you can notice the development in the shoulders and arms.

That pic is tiny. I've seriously not seen a pic of anyone on this forum who has a chest that comes even close to the size of mine. When you can swim 4 miles straight and bitch-slap a ho for 20 minutes....it's about muscle! :D

I'd like to get some more pics, but my wife is f-in clueless about photo composition and it drives me nuts. Most her pics suck. She can't compose a pic, offer advice on positions or much anything.....it's like my 5 year-old who just snaps away thoughtlessly. Frustrating. Think I got one other pic....
 

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Got into the gym tonight for my FBW...went light on the deadlifts while im working on my form. Also went a bit light on my DB shoulder press cause I was pretty wiped at that point but on the other hand noticed some improvement with my pullups and seated rows.

BSL...in response to the spinning class, swimming laps question. Yes they have both but my issue during the week is the amount of time I have to get my workout in. During the week Im usually getting into the gym around 7:30/8:00pm....and not getting home till 9/9:30 then its almost time for bed. I try and do my swimming and whatnot on the weekends when I dont feel pressed for time. I wish I was in ur position where in the middle of the day I could swim for 3 hours ;) As for the spinning class, I will try it soon...not sure if I am ready conditioning wise.
 
Whoa....I wasn't aware that you could click on the thumbnail and a bigger pic would appear!!!! Very cool, thanks!

That guy may have a point about the 2-man journal. For some of the more popular forum members who've been here a while, their journal is more like a hang-out with occassional friends stopping by. I'm rather convinced that if I started a journal, it would be more like typing to myself. It's kinda nice to know that someone may browse over what I type and there's some form of accountability. I really didn't intend on sharing your journal, I just started-out with tips & thoughts on your program and then started mentioning what I was upto myself. Then I dropped a picture or two and now somebody thinks we're sharing your journal.

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it honestly matters. A journal is little more then accountibility and perhaps a place to reflect on your current situation by realizing stuff as you type it. Honeslty, do you think anyone will ever read page 2,3,4,5 or much anything other then the last couple post made? I dunno.

Myself, I've got a trainer (gal) who finely watches my body and tunes on it and I've got a nutritionist who monitors my body-fat% and takes measurements....I've got my accountbility. Actually, even if I didn't post my workouts or pics here, people would see the both of us exchanging posts and still call it a 2-man journal, eh?

Dude...I'm worried. Without my ability to bike/spin/racquetball....we're talking about shaving HOURS of cardio out of my schedule....which in turn means about 4,500 calories per week; that means I have to eat 650 calories less per day if I don't want to change course. I dunno, I don't eat much to begin with. I'm telling you, I have to fight like hell to lose a little bit of weight...it's like my body just doesn't want to be lean. Oh well, at my current progress I think I can spin & bike in a couple weeks. As for racquetball, I'm not sure I'll be going back to that. I've heard that all those braces just help remind you that you have an injury and that they really don't stop it from happening again. We'll see...

Today sucked, no exercise at all and I probably ate a bit too much. We're up in lake arrowhead for the weekend, that means no exercise tomorrow or likely sunday either...I'll try to watch the calories, but oddly enough little or no exercise leaves me more hungry then if I were active!
 
i love how this is a two man journal lol hehe

He does have a point, we should post a "Chicks wanted" sign :D :D

Yeah, it's not that we're both posting our routines or anything.....it's just a series of you & me going back & forth chatting. Even if I didn't post my workouts & pics, he'd still have said that.
 
It seems like I have hit a plateau in terms of weight loss...been stuck at the same weight for 2.5 weeks now. I think I am going to increase the cardio on a weekly basis and see if that helps.
 
Be careful....your gain in muscle may be offsetting your loss of fat...making the scale how you no results and leading you to conclude you are on a plateau.

One single slice of what bread is 110 calories....if you really think about it, it doesn't take much or long before you hit 2,000 calories: it add's up. Most my best weight-loss has come from deliberately eating very little and enduring the hunger. As for exercise, seems the body becomes very efficient at it and then your body knows you exercised and prompts you through hunger to eat to replenish those calories burned!

Either way, stick to it and know that you're not alone. I haven't been on the scale for 6 weeks, I have no idea what to expect.

Knee continues to feel better....:D
 
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