Marcus: The Weight Loss Chronicles

uyis11 said:
Ya, it's definitely going to take some practice to get the form down so I can do it without thinking. My ass and hamstrings are so sore though. I was under the impression it was mainly a back exercise (from some dumbass workout poster on the wall in the gym), and I realize it's hitting the other side of my legs now and maybe only a few muscles in the back secondarily.
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Then you're doing it right. Quads, hams, ass, lower back, abs... it hits everything.

uyis11 said:
Fish, about the overhead presses, that's seriously a difficult exercise (at least relative to the amount of weight being moved). I've been stalled for over a month at 20lbs on each side + the bar and I still struggle with it. Part of the problem may be that I do it after dumbbell press and my shoulders are a little fatigued from that. I've only seen another person do overhead press at my gym 1 time before and he was like 55 years old. One thing you may want to keep in mind (that I've been forgetting, but am going to add into the overhead press) is the lat-shrug that Steve recommends. After the elbows lock above the head, he recommends doing an upward shrug using the lats before coming back down.
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The dumbbell press prior sure would fatigue your shoulders. Plus I also felt it in my upper chest a lot. And I agree, it is difficult. I've never done it before and I have only seen one person ever do it as well. I will give the lat-shrug a try next time out. My next session with the overhead press will be Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for the tip.
 
Sorry, LOL... I stand corrected, almost done with college, I mean :) I'm still lookin at a couple more years of school, so 7 days left is "done" in my head, hehe.

That ATL trip you have planned sounds like a ton of fun. You'll be fine, you can be sober and have an excellent time. I think a lot of it just depends on the type of person you are. You sound like you'll be aight... Most of my friends, the ones who drink almost everyday/night and the ones that do drugs, it seems like they are convinced they can't have a good time unless they are drinking or high or both... I must admit I used to think I had to be high all the time to enjoy anything I did. I'm now learning thats not the case at all. I like myself and I know I'm going to have a great time doing whatever I am doing without having to be under the influence of something....

Have a great trip!

-Sam
 
Another Thursday update--
Weight this morning: 160.5
Weight lost this week: 2.5lbs

This number has to be influenced by some dehydration. I had a few beers (yes, only a few) last night and that usually causes my weight to drop by a bit the following morning. It should rebound by tomorrow and hopefully not go higher than 162. Regardless, I'm updating the ticker for today & will adjust tomorrow.
 
Awesome workout today. Kind of switched up my order a bit. Today I did squats, dumbbell bench press, deadlifts, overhead press, and bicep curls in that order. I actually took off some weight on the overhead press and I think I'll continue to use less weight and work myself back up. Squats went really well again & deadlifts were awesome/exhausting. I swear, I was kind of winded after I finished each set on the deadlift. After the resistance workout, I did 30 minutes of steady state on the elliptical. I was doing 40min pretty consistently for a while there, but I feel it may be a bit of overkill now that I'm doing HIIT on two days of the week. Speaking of, I've got HIIT tomorrow & I think I've kind of leveled off at 7 intervals 30sec-int/60sec-rest split. I've been focusing on just making the intervals more intense instead of increasing the number of intervals or decreasing rest.

Looking at the ticker and realizing I'm almost down 50lbs is really a milestone. It's such a relief to have all that weight out of my way & finally feel attractive for once in my life. I didn't really think I would go this far- really, I expected my motivation to wear off once I was around 180 or 175. Now, focusing on health & trying to constantly improve my body has become part of my normal train of thought. Steve said something once about how for him its a never ending process. I think it might be like that for me as well.

I'm seeing an old friend this weekend that hasn't seen me since I was 210+ (I really don't know what my highest weight was), so I'm looking forward to his reaction. Actually, I was going through some pictures that I have and there is not one photograph of me from Nov2007-March2008. It's kind of weird that that time of my life is totally blacked out and only exists in my memory. I wish I had a full body picture of me at my highest weight to make a comparison.
 
As expected, my weight bumped up a pound on Friday so I went ahead and adjusted the ticker.

This weekend was one of the most fun of my life. I danced for about 3 hours straight at the show. I even had someone come up to me and ask if I had any more ecstasy. I kind of laughed and realized she asked me because I was probably dancing harder than anyone there and looked like I was rolling. However, I was completely sober & am positive I had more fun than anyone on drugs there. I don't think I've ever sweat that much in one stretch of time before. My diet was kind of shitty over the weekend because we had to eat out for every meal & I didn't do that great with portion control. I'm not going to beat myself up; I could have done a lot worse. I was pretty irritated to the see the scale had jumped about 4lbs on Sunday when I got back, but that's probably due to weighing at night and some dehydration mostly [and hopefully].

I also got a great workout rafting yesterday (as well as horrible sunburns). That was my first time whitewater rafting and it was really exhilarating. I will definitely go back.

I found the apartment I'm going to move into & I didn't really want to even come back here after the weekend was over. Only about 2.5 months to go...

Workout today was pretty good- resistance went ok despite coping with sunburns the whole time. Steady state was awesome and I bumped up the intensity a lot this time. My apartment is a complete mess and I need to go grocery shopping. I have a considerable amount of work to do this week to finish up school that I'm not looking forward to.

There's another big dj coming into a neighboring city tomorrow night that rarely hosts parties in the US. I really wish I could go, but I know it's not a good idea. Maybe next time..
 
A lot of times after a "binge" like that you will get a lot more sodium in your system then you are used to. That sodium soaks up water so the scale is higher. I can't imagine that with a weekend of rafting and dancing for hours on end that any food that you took in decided to stay.

Glad you had a good time.
 
Hey Trops, thanks for the knowledge. I think you are dead on. Thinking about sheer calories-in, calories-out over that weekend, I think I probably should have lost weight, but the foods I was eating all were high sodium (and I was probably not drinking enough water, so my body was really holding on to every last drop). I've never really kept track of sodium, but actually eat a pretty low sodium diet when looking at some older fitday entries. Eating out is what gets me [and those damn complimentary hotel breakfasts].

So, as my body has adjusted back to normal this week, I think I probably did lose weight over the weekend instead of gain. Scale fluctuations are crazy. I've seen a 5.5 pound range over about 4 days.

Weight this morning: 160lbs.
Weight lost this week: 1.5lbs.

I haven't weighed this much since middle school. Seriously. 2lbs until single digit body fat% by my calculations. Sitting at 10.6% right now if I've been able to preserve all lean mass since April.

I decided to take some measurements today also:
Gut (at belly button): 31.25" Change from 5-20: -1.75"
Gut (at widest part): 32.5" Change from 5-20: -1.5"
Where my pants sit: 33" Change from 4-27: -1.5"

This a really good sign. The "widest part" is actually no longer the widest part.
 
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Very nice, brother. So good to see you getting down to your "middle school" weight. :D

I don't track sodium, either, but I have noticed that processed foods have just tons of sodium. You can't put that much salt on something and have it taste right, but when it's processed with it you can't really taste it. That's why they say to not add salt while cooking, but to add it after.
 
Awesome work, man. I'm so f'n jealous! I can't wait to be posting those kinds of measurements and body fat numbers. Though, you've earned it. I am beginning to have difficulty now in the low 180's... I can't imagine how tough it must be to get down where you are at. Much respect for that. Keep it up.
 
Thanks for all the kind words guys.

The past week has been pretty shitty as far as diet and exercise go. I made it to the gym I guess 3 times and totally gave up on lifting halfway through the last workout because I was so tired. Between studying for my final exams and then celebrating the end of graduate school, I basically started smoking again over the past two weeks. I started the nicotine patch today (for the 4th time). There has been a lot of boozing and lot of eating out going on. A lot of snacking on trash food, also. I somehow skipped going to the grocery store for an entire week & so I've been surviving off take out. I think I've made some decent choices, but still, it's not optimal. I did go to the grocery today.

Seeing the 160 number gave me a bit of complacency about my diet and working out. I start back working tomorrow, so maybe the structure will help me get back on the right track for this week.
 
Sore as murder from deadlifts. I got some old school dude at the gym to give me some pointers. Definitely was a good idea. Played an hour and a half of tennis yesterday, too. Tennis is so damn fun, I wish I was good at it. One day I will start taking lessons. For now, I just have to play with people who suck as bad as I do to make it fun. Did some HIIT today & managed to stay at 1500cal with 135g of protein. I tried to do 1500 yesterday, but at 1200, I went out and had a few beers and ate some nachos. I think I probably needed some extra calories after all the tennis and weight lifting. Not necessarily beer calories though...I didn't go overboard at least. I was proud of myself for managing to drink reasonably for once.

I saw two people last night that I haven't seen since I was hefty. The one girl totally flipped out, "when did you get abs??" I gotta say that was flattering as I don't think I really have abs yet (but am close) and was also wearing a shirt (go figure, she was drunk). She also said a lot of other things that I didn't think the opposite sex would ever think about me. However, I won't repeat those things. The other guy I saw was working as a bartender and just looked at me weird and said "have you lost weight?" It's really encouraging getting those kind of comments.

If I stayed this weight forever I would be happy.

However, the plan is going to be to try (maybe?) to get down to that 155 (or maybe lower...for kicks?), then maintain until around mid august or so and then start bulking. I think I would like to be around 170-175 at this same body fat % for long run maintenance. Maybe more because I could definitely stand to add muscle in my legs. That will probably take forever. This gives me plenty of time to figure out how to go about bulking and work out my exercise regime. I think I've read others have written about worrying they will gain too much fat during a bulk. I definitely feel the same. I will probably do something like gain weight up until I reach 170-175 or so then start cutting again and repeat the process. I don't want to be a muscle monster- just lean and symmetrical. It's going to be weird when I reach those long term goals. How long does it take to gain 20lbs of muscle? One year, two years? Six months? I have no clue. After that, I guess I will work on flexibility or something. Who knows...
 
Weight this morning: 159lbs
Weight lost over the past 2 weeks: 1lb

Slow goings, but I'll take it. Starting to feel a little worn down. It may be bulking time, but I can't decide. I don't want to have to give up cardio. And I don't want to have to buy more expensive food.
 
My 2 cents: Get on a steady diet, whatever calorie intake that may be, for a couple weeks... see if you gain, lose, stay the same.

If you're about at the point where you want to start adding muscle then just start slowly adding calories. You don't have to add fat to bulk up. It's just faster because you eat way more than necessary to be sure your muscles are being fed... leftover calories turning to fat. If you add slowly then you can do it without putting on excessive fat.

As lean as you are now you'll see when you start adding more fat back on and you can drop back to whatever your last intake level was and maintain that a while... grow some more muscle, try adding more cals later, rinse, repeat.

That's how I plan to tackle it when I get there.

Good luck with it. I'll be watching as I'll be doing much the same thing as you, I feel.
 
Not much to report. I'm basically doing maintenance calories just out of boredom. I did one HIIT workout last week and have done none this week. I think it was wearing me down pretty badly after doing 2/week for about 8 weeks. I've seen my resistance workouts improve significantly over the past week now that I'm not getting worn down with HIIT. I guess Steve was right when he said in some post you eventually have to choose between HIIT and weight lifting.

Every single exercise I do has increased in weight/reps over the past week, so I know I was getting worn out before. Final set of squats was at 185, deadlifts at 175, dumbbell bench press I went to 3 sets with 70lb dumbbells instead of 2 with 65, 1 with 70. Overhead press is still lingering around 85 for the final set, but its getting easier. I've added doing some chin ups into the mix which are pretty hard, but satisfying. I hate people watching me do chin ups for some reason. My weight has been fluctuating between 159-164. I think it was 160 yesterday morning, but no big deal. I'm happy with my weight for once. I have not really been counting calories lately, but still have been sensible- trying to experiment with long term healthy food intake choices.

Although I've stopped doing HIIT, I'm still doing steady state cardio or playing tennis 5 days a week at least. I'm actually getting pretty good at tennis.

I'm gearing up to figure out how to move and where I'm going to be living in Atlanta, it's a huge pain in the ass to figure out all this stuff, but it has to be done. Ah, I wish I wasn't so sluggish today.
 
This, what you are doing right now, is the key to making this a life long change. You aren't obsessing about calories, or bf% but you are eating right, working out, getting stronger, living your life. Keep with it, man. This is what you have been working towards. Way to go.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again... I'm so jealous!! Trops is so right. You're where we all want to be. Just living a healthier life. No longer obsessing to undo all the damage we've done. Congrats, man.
 
Weight this morning: 158.5lbs
Weight lost in the past week: 0.5lbs

Not exactly intentional and probably just scale fluctuation, but whatever. By my rough calculation, I should be dipping into around 9.8% body fat. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't show a slightly higher weight on my historic low day because I've been eating more and had some shitty foods this week. But really, when I think back on this week's food, sure I ate some stuff that wasn't healthy, but I ate a lot of healthy foods also and in alright proportions. Working into this maintenance thing is harder than I thought. I feel like I should be doing something instead of taking it easy- but I guess I'm not taking it easy. I pay attention to calories still and don't eat things that I feel are unnecessarily high in calories. I kind of use the cost/benefit mindset- "is this food worth 500 calories to me?"

I also started a hiatus from drinking about a week ago, so I will probably lose a few pounds due to that.

I think I'm going to have to start doing a 4 day split thing instead 3 full body workouts a week. I'm finding that as I've eliminated HIIT and started focusing more on weight training that I require more rest time (at least to stop being sore) in between workouts. I've also found that with doing higher weight/volume I can't really do a full body workout without getting too tired by the end of it and skimping on my last exercises. I'm not too sure I know how I'm going to split things up yet, but I'm experimenting right now. I'm going to the gym today and will probably just do squats, deadlifts, bench press, and some cardio. Yesterday, I did pullups, curls, lat machine, and cardio. Today I have kind of a crick in my neck. It feels like my left trap muscle is slightly pulled or sore or something. Irritating. I haven't gotten to the tennis court this week due to all the annoying rain- I'll shoot for this weekend.

Reading an interesting book called "The Art of Happiness" by the Dalai Lama. Pretty easy read and full of good ideas for the (un)practicing agnostic. The premise is basically that we can train our minds to focus on positive emotions that will create long-term happiness. Lately, I've found myself analyzing the things that I do and taking time to consider if all my actions are working towards making me happy. That's why I picked up this book because I thought it might be on the topic- and it is. I believe the purpose of life is to be happy and finding happiness is often elusive and requires some less-than-haphazard direction in getting there. Enough rambling, I'm off to the gym.
 
Weight this morning: 158lbs
Weight lost this week: 0.5lbs

I think my weight got as high as 163.5 on Sunday over the past 7 days since last weigh in. The reason is probably due to eating out more on the weekend- more foods that contain for sodium- so hopefully I'm not just gaining actual fat and then losing it over the week- that's probably impossible anyway.

Workouts have been going well. Final sets of big exercises on Tuesday were 195 and 185 for squats and deadlifts, respectively. My ass cheeks are crazy sore and my abs are as well. Do deadlifts work out the abs? Maybe the pullups I've started doing do? I'm not sure, but it's good to get such a good core workout.

Morons at the gym make me feel bad about humanity. It always just bothers me so much seeing people doing exercises completely wrong with way too much weight. Then the 12 maniacs that only do curls and kiss their biceps in front of the mirror. Or the guy doing 400lb deadlifts on a smith machine (with horrible form) and yelling at the top of his lungs making a ridiculous spectacle. Or the guys that only wear shirts that have bodybuilding/ workout slogans on them. Or the guy that smirks at me squatting lower weight, then puts 300lbs on the bar and only bends his legs to a 160 degree angle. Ugh. What are some people thinking? It's absolutely sad.
 
Well, maintenance has been a bust. My shitty plan was basically to try to not worry too much with my diet and increase strength training. That was pretty stupid and haphazard as I ended up just eating a lot of shitty food and drinking a lot.

To my horror, I got on the scale on 8/21 and weighed a whopping 168.5. Somehow I managed to gain 10.5lbs in 3 weeks. Yes, I did make a lot of strength gains in the gym, but I'm 100% positive that 10.5lbs is not all muscle. I would be lucky if 1lb was muscle. Anyway, at that point, I decided I've got to get my shit together and find a new (real) approach. Number one change: stop drinking [so often and so much at least]. Haven't had a drop in 8 days and I weighed in this morning at 163.5. I've also been hitting the gym every day since then and keeping my calories between 1500-2000 with 130-150g of protein. I think some of the huge gain was probably water weight retained from eating high sodium foods that has since dropped now that I've got my diet back under control. I started getting into this cycle of drinking and then eating junk food...and it was quite stupid.

I'm in a transitional point in my life right now and don't have a lot of structure so I attribute some of my failure to that. I'm only working part time and I'm about to move in 2 weeks and start a new job and I'm now finished with college. So, it's just hard to get into a routine since I have a lot of free time...free time that I could be doing much more productive things with rather than drinking and eating shitty food. Also, I'm leaving all my friends, so I've been trying to make it a point to see them as much as possible, thus going out too often. I've really gotten a lot of things done in the past 8 days and feel way less fuzzy-headed than when I was drinking so much.

I feel like I'm back in control right now and I'm happy that I've been able to realize my errors before it really went too far. When I was losing the majority of my weight, I would drink one night a week, usually a lot- maybe 1000-1500+ calories worth of alcohol and I was still managing to lose 2lbs a week. Clearly, when I started consuming 1000-1500 calories of alcohol 4-5x a week, that was the main source of my weight gain, coupled with drunken fast food excursions.

I know this isn't an alcohol dependence forum, but I feel like its a very important part of weight loss for people that drink. My plan is first to take a few weeks to clear up my head and not drink at all, then try to approach drinking differently- not as an event in itself, but as a supplement to an actual event and ensure it's under 500 calories once a week at most. If I can't do that, then I probably need to quit drinking completely because that will be evidence that I really don't have control over my alcohol consumption. Hopefully, boredom has just been the cause of my out of control drinking lately and not some true alcoholic tendency that I haven't noticed before. I'll check in again soon.
 
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