Goal reached. Kind of.

On July 15th 2009 I gave up eating junk food and started lifting weights with a smith machine and free weights every other day. I did no cardio on my off days. My goal was to get down to my old weight by November when the NBA season started up. To celebrate this I would go to my first ever Detroit Pistons game.

I did not reach my goal of my old weight, but it would have been virtually impossible. Let's just say that to do that i'd have to live on like egg whites, tuna fish and water for 3 months. No thanks. To say the least, I was more overweight then I thought. So much so that I don't even want to mention it.

In total i've lost 3 pant sizes. From a 46 down to a 40. I can get into a size 38 now, but I can't breath. They're loose in the all areas mostly, except for the waist. I should be able to fit into them well in a few weeks. I think I think that two weeks ago. I'm trying!

Up until my goal things went well. There were a few times where I had to skip some days. HAD to because of severe pain. Up to november I don't think I ever skipped more then two days in a row. In total my guess is that I skipped about 3 workouts from July to November. It's not good, but once or twice this was due to severe muscle pain and not recovery fast enough.

90% of the time to start back up I did 3 sets. I've found this obviously isn't enough. I went to failure on each set and wonder why i'm not extremely sore the next day. When I switched to four I noticed a huge difference. With four sets i'm almost always sore the next day now.

I've learned a few things and now I know what needs to change with my routine. I need to now split up upper body and lower body, do crunches and do 4 sets minimum on each exercise.

I've also found the weight i've been able to lift hasn't went up that much. It's really disappointing. On some exercises it has. My bench press definitely has NOT. A little, but not enough. The hugest increase has been in how much I can lift for the Military Press.

I think the problem is that one day isn't enough for ME for proper recovery. That's why I need to split it up more. Sometimes on my day of working out I feel like i've healed properly and am not sore, but I'm still not able to increase the weight I lift. Maybe I need to eat more calories and protein. I'm pretty much set at the correct amount of calories, but maybe I should try going for more protein.

I'm sticking with plain Protein powder now. No more wasting my money on Myoplex. I don't think there is really any huge difference. Another thing I need to do is drink much more water.


In total my guess is that i've lost about 40-45 pounds. I can look in the mirror now and I actually LOOK different. I can see areas where i've gained muscle. I still have a very long way to go. A VERY long way to go. What's strange is that i've lost a lot of fat, but I think I also gained a lot of muscle. However that worked out. My face looks skinnier and even my stomach is smaller. I think when I'm at my final weight i'll be like 230-240 at 8-12 or whatever body fat percentage. In the past I got down to 196 and looked WAY too skinny, but had I still had some fat on me. I don't like how that was.

The Bowflex I used in the past was a good piece of equipment, but free weights are WAY better in almost any way. I definitely don't regret using my Bowflex when I still had one five years ago. It was just not good for gaining muscle.


So my goal came and sadly, I screwed up and things well apart for an entire week. I tried to figure out why and I definitely know why, but will not use stupid excuses and just need to get back on track.

Things just got so extremely busy all of a sudden right around when I finished my goal. Again, not an excuse, but I should have tried harder to get in my workouts. I also started doing 4 sets and putting in an extra effort at each workout. This caused me to be sore on my next workout. Then what did I do? I somehow skipped that day and the next.

When my goal day came I was supposed to workout before I went to my first live NBA game in Detroit. Did I do that? Lazy me did not. So stupid! Not even on the actual day! I screwed up so bad and feel guilty. It felt like all the work was going to waste.

Then on Tuesday I took my free day early and went out for Pizza. I only had a few pieces, but on the way to the game we were extremely late. I ate my second BAD item. Only the second bad food item since July 15th isn't too bad, but it is to me. I hate some French Fries at McDonalds. I was just frustrated at how lost we got on the way and had to cram down some food real fast. Big mistake. Luckily nothing else bad that day.

I came home after the game and in the morning I was the same weight as the week before. No change.

Today is Thursday and i'm now back on track and did my workout yesterday. I need to set a NEW goal to stay back on track. Here's what i'm going to do from now on:

I will alternate between upper body and lower body workouts. I will also add in some crunches. I need to focus on parts that are falling behind and are rarely sore. I need to do four sets each and every day or until I can't possibly lift another pound.

For each routine I will add in new exercises so i'm working out for 40-60 minutes.

I woke up today and somehow I had lost 4lbs. Pretty amazing considering I skipped an entire week thanks to being stupid. I'd like to say "I just needed a week long vacation", but that's dumb.

I'm also going to be making better charts of my progress. If i'm not making any gains in the amount I can lift, something is seriously wrong.

Anyway. I went to my first ever Pistons Game. We left at 3:30pm and the game was at 7:30pm. We got so extremely lost thanks to worthless Google Maps directions. We ended up getting there into the second quarter! It was all worth it though because of the win. We say the Magic vs Pistons game.

Coming home took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Not too bad, but it was really bad due to how tired we were. Luckily we made no wrong turns coming home.

BTW here's some notes of what I like to eat and don't eat. Just a note to myself. I'm also a vegetarian so it's even harder to get enough protein.

Lots of whole grains, but I rarely eat and buy bread.
For cereal it's usually shredded wheat, 1% milk or any kind of low sugar cereal such as Cheerios.
I actually eat out a LOT, but I stick to only 3 basic items. I'm a huge fan of the veggie patties at Subway. I get them without oil or Mayo. Just a 6".

I also eat a lot of veggies and whole wheat pasta.
For snacks I eat fruit such as Apples or those packages of food already cut up. That's one thing i've decided not to give up. My absolute favorite snack is any kind of melon. Sure, it's not the best fruit item to eat. I stopped eating raisins because they just make me feel strange.
I love any kind of veggie burger. Even Burger King has them and you can get them plain, but I don't like white bread much.
I drink a lot of milk. Usually 1% organic. Organic milk seems to taste better, but it's probably just my imagination. I'm usually too cheap to buy all organic food. Sorry!
I take two vitamins a day. GNC Mega Men. The kind that turns your pee neon yellow!
I like to make a burrito with rice, black beans, grilled veggies and Salsa. It has a lot of calories though. I'll admit that I add about a teaspoon of cheese.
I'm a Diet Pepsi addict, but I try to limit myself to not buying them for drinking at home.
94% fat free popcorn I will sometimes eat, but there is better snack choices I think.

I avoid:
Regular Mayo
Nuts (sure a handful can be healthy, but I can never eat a handful, so I avoid them)
Yogurt (it's too tempting to eat more then one for me. My favorite kind nobody sells. It's plain "Greek" style. Whatever that means)
white bread, whenever I can. I'm ok with a white flour burrito.
The thing I avoid the most out of anything other then fat is highly processed carbs such as crackers.
I usually shop on the outside lanes at a grocery store, almost always.
I don't buy canned foods. Fresh or Frozen is best.
I don't eat soup. It just doesn't do anything for me and i'm hungry an hour later.
No peanut butter. Making a sandwich with only 1 tsp is impossible for me.
Candy, Sugary junk food of course. Sugar is the #1 reason I got fat I think. And lack of exercise.
Fried foods. I will sometimes eat Eggplant that's fried, but that's about it.
Any cereal with added sugar. The more plain the better for me.
I try to avoid overdoing the salt, but I don't monitor my salt as well as I should.
No ice cream AT ALL. I miss Ben and Jerry.
No fish or meat for me (I'm a vegetarian but drink milk and my Vitamins have fish oil in them I think)
I don't eat baked potatoes because they make me sleepy.

When I eat food I try to monitor how certain foods make me feel. If they make me feel like crap and just want to put me to sleep, i'll avoid them. Potatoes and pasta does this to me. Wheat Pasta never does. White bread has the worst effect on me for some reason. Same with Raisins, I don't know why.

Overall I just try to eat as simple as possible. The less processed the foot item is, the better in most cases.