Paul's Diary

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free2ball_19

New member
Hello all, My name is Paul and I am a 19 yr old male. I live in the dorms at the University of California San Diego. I have been looking through this site for a while and I decided that started a diary may help me stay focused and not go off track so often. Here are my detailes:

Starting weight: 256 lbs (all time high)
Current weight: 245 lbs
Goal weight: 200 lbs
Goal time: August 2007 (but I'm not dwelling on it, this is a lifestyle change, not one time thing)

I have starting eating healthy and am getting back to excercising more. I eat about 5 times a day and try to get in at least 1500 to 1800 caliories in, not more and not less. I have done this before but I am sick of being tired during the day EVERYDAY. I run about 1-2 miles every morning and play basketball every night for about 1-2 hours (my joy in life) I played four years of High School basketball so I am in shape, its just that college life and food made me gain a fast 25 lbs since I started living on campus. O and I also take multi-vitamins, fish oil, and whey protein everyday.

I had a few quick questions for those with advice (namely "steve" who I noticed has some great advice on weight training):

- I want to lose weight but also tone up with muscle at the same time. I have weight trained on and off for the past 2 years however i have been off it since i moved to college in sept. of 2006. So i have lost A LOT of muscle and it turned to fat. Do you suggest i weight train now along with cardio? Maybe just 3 days a weeks, or should I just lose the fat first and then turn to weight lifting. I know weight lifting aids drastically in weight loss so should i weight train now? Thanks!

Ok sorry so long guys but this diary I am hoping is my turning point that will push me up the mountain. I love the support around here and I wish everybody the greatest success. Thanks everyone, I'll post tomorrow!!
 
Hi Paul. Nice to have a fellow San Diegan here! I'm in Encinitas, about 20 miles north of you.

You and I are pretty close in weight as well as final goals. The big difference is our age -- I'm 3 times as old as you are! So take it from me, this is a great time to do something about your weight. You sure don't want to get my age and have to take it off then. Believe me, it's a much more difficult process.

Yes, absolutely, do the weight training. But do it intelligently. Read through Steve's journal here. There's a lot of small talk from Steve's fan club (he's quite popular with the ladies), but there's a wealth of information there. Since we're so close in weight, you might read through my journal as well, since Steve has given me a lot of good advice there, too. The weight lifting program I'm on was basically designed by him.

Welcome to WLF!
 
Thanks a lot guys. Tom I definately agree and yes it is nice! I took a look at your work out plan and it looks good. I know a thing or two about weight training, its just that I have never had my body fat percentage this high. When I played high school basketball i was 220 lbs and only 14% body fat, however I seem to have lost it ALL. I think im at least 25% now if not more and its bugging me. I will definately talk to steve, thanks a lot and keep me updated with advice !!
 
You can get a cheap pair of plastic calipers from bodybuilding.com for about $17 including shipping. Short of immersion, this is the most accurate way I know of to measure body fat percentage. The DOD also has a formula based on your height, neck size, and waist (at the belly button) size. For me, it comes out about the same as the caliper method, but it may not be as accurate for others.

In high school and college, I was very lean and fit, but I'm afraid it all went downhill after that! Look forward to reading about your progress.
 
Hey Paul! Welcome aboard and best of luck to ya. :)

I think you answered the question yourself when you said, you know weight training really aids in the weight loss process. And Tom only brought the fact home.

College is the perfect time to start weight training. That is when I hit the gym the hardest in my life. Had the most free time on my hands, and made the biggest changes in my physique during this time. Boy, do I miss those days.... enjoy them while you can!!!!

I think you said some days you are cranking out 2 hours of cardio per day. Is that right? If so, stop. At most, you should be doing an hour per day, and I would like to see at least one day of rest thrown in there.

You should certainly throw resistance training into the mix. I have made a metric-ton of posts in here regarding the topic of resistance training while dieting, so take a look around. If you search for some of my recent posts as in from today, you will find some goods ones. I think I made two today. One in my journal as well as one in another thread.

Remember, resistance training serves 2 functions while in a caloric deficit. 1) Muscle maintenance 2) Increased energy burn.

It doesn't take much to get the job done in the weight room while dieting. You can get away with 45-60 minutes per session, 2-3 times per week.

I could go on for ions about how to go about setting it up, but I would rather you find my 2 posts from today and read up. They were informational and my mind was a lot more awake than it is right now.... I think they would better serve you. Once you read them, if you still have questions, no doubt I will try my best to help ya.

Talk soon man.
 
Nice to hear from you Steve.

Sorry I should have explained more. I don't do two hours of cardio, I would not be able to lol, I actually meant in total. I do about 30 min cardio followed by 45 min of weight training and then about an hour of full court basketball. I only do the weight training on mon wed fri. Tuesday and Thursday I have adopted the HIIT training after reading through some of Tom's and your posts. We will see how that goes. I do want to focus on getting my body fat percentage down, that's the main thing. I have not looked into resistence training, maybe a link or something you could give me on the basics would help.

Does it help to workout in the mornings on a fast? That way I can get to burning the fat a little quicker then if I had been eating all day?

And lastly, I have been doing lower weights with more reps to get my heart rate going, is that what I should focus on for now until I get some of the fat off?

Thanks ttys!
 
Ok sounds good! Thanks a lot. I'm gonna give it about two weeks then I will re-evaluate my routine and how things are working for me.

Ok so for today I had a long and busy day but it went well.

I had classes all morning until about 2 in the afternoon. I went to the gym for about 1.5 hours. I did a little cardio and played basketball. I then worked out my lower body pretty darn good. And it felt good. My legs are a little tired now but it makes me feel like I did something productive.

My nutrition for the day.

Breakfast - veggie omelete
snack - Protein Shake
lunch - turkey on wheat with lettuce and bell peppers...small cup of fruit.
snack - Yogurt
dinner - Im thinking salad with grilled chicken breast.

I think I got enough calories in, at least I hope so. I aim for 1800.

So far a good day hope it continues. I got a lot of studying to do. Finals next week!! Ok hope u are all having a good day and ttys!
 
I would throw a whey shake along with some carbs, something like dextrose, malto, or even some gatorade.
 
Steve ok will do. As you can see, I had a whey protein shake. I take a shake at least everyday I weight lift (mon wed fri) adn sometimes on other days like HIIT days. Do you think I should take a shake on all days? And I usually take about 75 grams in those shakes because I live on college campus and it is hard for me to find good protein sources in the food. Thanks!
 
free2ball_19 said:
Steve ok will do. As you can see, I had a whey protein shake. I take a shake at least everyday I weight lift (mon wed fri) adn sometimes on other days like HIIT days. Do you think I should take a shake on all days? And I usually take about 75 grams in those shakes because I live on college campus and it is hard for me to find good protein sources in the food. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Well you have to do what you have to do. I take 2 shakes a day, but you have to remember, I am eating around 4000 calories per day, so I am getting a huge chunk of my cals from whole, natural foods.

Shakes are food, nothing more, nothing less. If anything, whole natural foods are best. When I was in college, I went grocery shopping every week to stock the house's freezer with healthy choices. However, I also had 4 roommates who were all into fitness as well, so the bills were split nicely.

The only time I would say shakes are optimal, relative to food, is the time during and after your workouts (reistance training).
 
Ok definately sounds good. On days that I don't weight lift, I will still get a shake in if I feel I can not get adequate protein through food.

I also have a question regarding timing. I know its good to workout whenever, but is it better to keep some sort of consistency in the time I work out each day? Like mornings, afternoons, etc?

Well I'm off to do my HIIT training. Hopefully it goes well. My legs are a little tired from lower body weight lifting yesterday, I think I need to switch that up so I dotn have consecutive days of HIIT and lower body weight training. Ok talk to you all soon. Thanks Steve.
 
free2ball_19 said:
Well I'm off to do my HIIT training. Hopefully it goes well. My legs are a little tired from lower body weight lifting yesterday, I think I need to switch that up so I dotn have consecutive days of HIIT and lower body weight training. Ok talk to you all soon. Thanks Steve.
Click to expand...

I had to change back to steady state cardio after weights day for that very reason.
 
Great to have another guy on board.. Even better to have another guy in the same weight range to compare/share with. Im 30 and currently 239 with a goal of about 185.... I'll be keeping an eye on your journal.
 
First off I just want to say that this place is great and so is everyone in it.

Tom I am right with you on that one. I think I need to make that change. Like you said, steady cardio is so boring. I just got back from my HIIT training. I did it on the eliptical since I didnt think the treadmill would suit me well after my workout yesterday. It was pretty good. I made it as intense as possible and my legs didnt hurt too bad. So today was good. I actually stayed an extra 45 min and played a couple of full court basketball games.

Dave thanks. I have looked at your diary and noticed our similarities. I'll keep checking on you as well. We are about the same weight range, so we can check in on each other to see what type of things seem to be working for each of us, and we could steal ideas.

Alright so today was a good workout, ill come back with nutrition intake for the day after dinner.
 
Today was a good day like I said. My HIIT training went well and I managed to get in almost exactly 2000 calories.

Breakfast: Breakfast burrito - wheat tortilla, eggs, beef, salsa
snack: fresh pineapple
lunch: bowl of cereal
snack: protein shake
Dinner: spinach salad, chicken thigh, cup of vegetable beef soup

All in all it was a good day. I am tired and have an incredible amount of studying to do. I hate finals! This has been a bad quarter for me. Grades are not where they should be and it makes me feel like I didn't give my all to it. Along with giving my all to becoming healthy, I am going to give my all to my school work as well. Hope that works out for me!!

Alright talk to you all soon
 
Wow what a long day!! Today was a "decent" day for me. At least the Lakers finally won a game :/...haha ok so today I had a couple quizes and I did ok, now its a weekend full of studying for finals, which means I will be sitting on my butt all day.

I went to the gym and did my weight training. I don't know if I was fatigued or what but everything seemed HEAVY today. I don't know why hopefully that gets better. I don't feel like I gave 100% to my workout today and maybe because its the end of the week and I am tired.

Well my food intake today was good again. I got in exactly 2000 calories with some good protein.

Breakfast: Veggie omelet
snack: half protein shake
lunch: bowl of cereal
snack: half protein shake
dinner: Chicken burritto with extra lettuce and tomoatoes.

So tomorrow is Saturday and I still plan on doing some cardio. Maybe even HIIT. It is just more fun than steady state cardio! I hope everyone has a great weekend and talk to you all tomorrow!!
 
hola everybody!

Today has been a boooooring day! I have been studying and watching march madness all day. School is really hard and this is my last week of finals before I get a week off for spring break. So I will be going back home and being able to see my family for the first time in a month!! I also get to be home in my comfortable bed and eat good homecooked meals!

So no excercise today but at ten we (me and my roomates) are going to play ultimate frisbee...It is a very intense (football like) game that gets me as good an excercise as possible. When we played last night, there wasnt a spot on my shirt or in my hair that was not SOAKED! We play for about two hours and it is awesome so I am excited. I have a chemistry final on monday and I need to do good on it so tomorrow is an important day of studying.

Today I had a bad eating day because I woke up late from studying last night after ultimate frisbee.

lunch: grilled chicken breast on wheat bun with lettuce and ketchup.
snack: small single serving of fruity pebbles cereal with 2% milk
dinner: grilled chicken breast with small piece of tri-tip steak and beef vegetable soup.

I got a lot of natural protien in today so I am excited about that. I feel pretty good and I am not going to have a weigh in until friday when I get home. I have not weighed myself in three weeks, so hopefully I get good news. I do feel better though so that is the most important thing.

I have a quick question for Steve. I enjoy weight lifting three days a week. Would it hurt to do my HIIT training on some of those weight lifting days? Like before I lift? I actually enjoy it and it gets me in a good sweat before I work out.

Ok well im off to study before ultimate frisbee starts!!!
 
Hello everyone! I haven't really been hearing from anyone lately so I hope everyone is doing well.

Its sunday night and I have a chemistry final tomorrow morning. I dont know why but I am soooo tired. I can barely keep my eyes open and it is only 8pm. I think I am going to crash around 10. Today was a decent day and I look forward to weight lifting tomorrow and doing some HIIT maybe. Well I hope everyone had a great weekend and hope this week is great!

Lunch: Turkey on wheat
snack: cereal
snack:banana
dinner: Chicken and vegetable burritto
 
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