disappointed (can't workout)

Something strange is going on. On one workout day I made some HUGE gains in the amount of weight I could lift. I took a rest day and got right to work on my next workout. As mentioned before earlier on this workout I could not lift my regular weight. I didn't feel sore at all, so I don't know why this was. Maybe I was after all and my body obviously had not fully recovered.

On my rest day after that workout I was really sore. Today I'm in some really bad pain. My entire upper body is extremely sore and it aches so bad. My entire upper body. Every single area. The most pain is in my neck and shoulder. It hurts really bad when I look right or left and even move my head. It's not extreme pain, but just enough to know that it'd be extremely stupid for me to workout. I woke up and something was all wrong. I couldn't be in THAT much pain.

I workout every other day without taking off more then one day. It's 4 days a week for about an hour. Sometimes I can get done in 30-40 minutes. Maybe I need to make some changes and split the workout up so i'm only do my upper body on one workout and the lower the next. Maybe 3 days a week is required instead of four.

Luckily in 45 days this is the only the second time i've been in so much pain that i've had to skip a workout. I'd like to force myself to do it, but that will be just plain stupid and asking for major trouble.

do the workout FIRST, not later

I'm so mad at myself tonight. I had the night off and made the mistake of sitting at my computer forever and ignoring my workout. First 10pm, came and then 11 and then 12. At 12:30am I said to myself "How am I ever going to get through this". As if THAT was any major challenge. It's just that I was tired and my energy from my previous meal wore off.

I ate a little food and went to workout. I was shocked to find out that I could only do 4 reps of the weight I could do a whole 12 on for my last workout. I was thinking to myself..is it that my body is still sore and that my muscles still need time to recover? I don't know. It's not due to lack of energy. I was just in disbelief. I tried again and couldn't even do another 4. I lowered it by 10lbs and couldn't even manage a set of 12. Something was going on and I don't know what.

I did the french press and had problems even getting that to 12 reps as well. Same with the military press. This has NEVER EVER happened before and my body didn't feel sore really.

Strangely after my first exercise my arms were burning and felt like jello. Maybe I need more recovery time. I did make huge gains on my last workout day.

For about 5 seconds I had the urge to skip squats. I did not and would not, but the idea came up. I started higher then usual and manage to do 12 full reps! 10 more lbs then I could previously lift. It was tough, but I did a whole 12 reps. Whenever I do squats I immediately need to sit down and catch my breath. Those and Military Presses are the exercises I find the hardest. I tried a second set of the same weight and couldn't even do 6 reps. I felt my muscles about ready to go and I just barely got the weight back up before falling.

I did not do bicep curls though. Most likely I wouldn't be able to lift a single 25lb barbell I was so weak from the previous exercises!

Later on I had a side salad from Burger King. You know what doesn't make sense to me is how a fast food place can offer healthy items like Garden Burgers, Apples and Salad and then for dressing NOT even offer low calorie or FAT FREE dressing! The dressing they gave me had 25g of FAT!! No thanks! This was something "Lite". Lite how?

I mentioned this earlier but the new pants I got a week ago are getting loose already. I need to buy one more lower pant size I guess! I got on the scale today and I was down a half a pound. It said my body fat percentage was down also.

Slow weight loss

I've been a bit frustrated lately about my slow weight loss on the SCALE. In two weeks I haven't seen anything change on the scale. Maybe I need a new scale or maybe i'm gaining muscle so fat. I know for sure that i'm eating well. As I mentioned in my previous post I will use a measuring tape in addition to checking the scale. This will keep me going. My goal is to gain muscle AND lost fat.

I did get on the scale today in the morning and lost 1.5LBS since last week after all. I probably gained some muscle as well, so i'm not sure what's going on. 1.5LBS is low, but better then nothing. I can actually SEE my muscle gains, so that alone is good enough. I'm putting in a huge effort when I workout and each and every day i'm getting stronger and can lift more.

Early

Today I did my workout early instead of waiting around all day and perhaps running out of energy and not wanting to do it later. I think it takes me about 40 minutes to do the workout, but I think it might take as long as an hour. I've made a lot of gains in the amount of weight I can lift now.

I'm worried about FAT loss though. I'm dropping pant sizes but not much is changing on the scale. I'm not eating a ton of food, but enough to gain muscle and maybe lose some FAT.

I think what I need to do is stop drinking Diet Pop and drink a ton of water. That should help a lot.

Starting tomorrow I will keep a notebook and take measurements of the following with a fabric measuring tape:

2" above navel
at navel
2" below
Left and Right Thigh
Left and Right Bicep
Chest

I did this before in the past and it really helps me keep going when i've not lost anything on the scale but lost something off the tape measure.

I think everything is going fine. I'm 100% positive i'm gaining muscle, so that will eventually help me burn off fat. I can't think of a ton of things I can improve on. Perhaps drink more water and be absolute sure to not eat too much fat. A couple of the meals i've had this week had 16g of FAT in them. Nothing too terrible, but I just need to check every single label if I use any boxed food. I mostly like to eat plainly as possible when I can.

Mistakes

Yesterday my whole body was sore due to a workout from 2 days before. I decided to wait awhile and let myself rest before starting up again. Well this was a mistake because I got too involved with what I was doing and didn't get finished with it until 11pm. At about that time I decided to get back on the computer "really quick" and it took until midnight. I didn't want to work out but I knew I would do it no matter what.

Started my workout at midnight and yet again it felt like the hardest workout I did yet. Each and every exercise except for one I added more weight. I did not add any more plates to the French Press. I tried, but failed it even do one rep!!

I read yesterday somewhere that Chocolate Milk was one of the best cheap after workout drinks. I think i'll stick with my Protein Powder and some Milk. Unfortunately I can't stomache drinking Protein Power with water. I may try it with some water and heavy cream (for the fat).

I didn't have enough to eat last night, so in the morning I felt like I was completely drained of all energy. I ran out of pretty much all my regular foods and had to go grocery shopping.

November is getting closer and closer. I don't know if my goal is possible, but I don't even care. I'm going to lose as much fat as I can by November 2nd. If i'm only halfway to my goal, that's still pretty good. My goal was set way to high to be honest.

My new size of pants are getting loose already. That's very good news. I got on the scale after having no weight loss on sunday after a week (on the scale) and it showed that I had lost 2lbs. I don't care about weight loss on the scale. Sometimes it lies.

So far i've had no missed days still. Strangely it seems that each new workout is tougher then the previous. My last workout on Tuesday was the hardest one yet. I'm increasing my weight on each set by a lot. I've finally accidently dropped the bar for the first time ever. It was when doing squats and luckily it was behind me and the smith machine caught it so it didn't come crashing down on something.

The biggest gain i've made is on the military press. I've been able to increase the weight a lot. Not so much on the biceps curl though. I feel that the hardest exercises are by far the military press and squats. The squats make me want to pass out and after each set i'm out of breath and need to sit down immediately.

So far it's been 1 month and five days since I started eating better and working out. I can keep this up for sure.

no loss on scale today

Did not lose any weight on the scale today after a week. I'm NOT at all worried and have seen this before. Back when I lost a ton of weight years ago i've seen a lot of days like this. I'd lose no weight on the scale, but on the fabric measuring tape I would notice a loss. I always figured I was gaining muscle, but it's hard to know for sure sometimes.

I was thinking for a second if there was something bad this week I ate. Not really. Nothing I feel really guilty about. I did have a pretzel at the theater last night and once this week I had a veggie burrito at Pancheros. Those things are probably 600 calories but I didn't eat it all. It's basically veggies, rice and beans. I've had a few microwavable dinners this week that had around 16g of fat in them, but that's about it. I've also eaten a bit more wheat bread then I normally do.

Not worried at all. I just need to stay on track. I also noticed a lot more muscle then normal. It just feels weird seeing so much new muscle. I'm not one that has always gained a lot of muscle. It'd be nice though. In the long run this muscle should help me burn off fat.

My pants are getting more loose, so that's good. I've lost 1 1/2 -2 pant sizes this week so that's perfectly good enough for me! Who can complain about that?

I'm still going to take my free reward day today. I didn't skip a workout at all this week. Not once since July 15th (ok I lied, one but I was injured and used the treadmill instead).

Down 2 pant sizes!

Wow, this is good news. On Monday I think it was I finally decided to get some new pants. I picked up some that were one pant size lower. I also figured id get some that were two sizes lower! I went home and tried the pants that were two sizes lower and they actually fit!! They were a bit tight, so I cant really wear them, but I just couldnt believe I could actually get them on!

Two pant sizes in one month. To me thats pretty impressive! I will keep it up since my scale still hurts to look at. I have such a looooong way to go.

This week has gone so fast. Pretty much worked every single day for long hours and just yesterday I got a small break.

Can't believe how long I slept last night. I went to bed at about 3-4am and woke up at 10am. I turned on my fan since it was like 80+ in my house and went back to bed. I ended up waking up at 1pm somehow and got invited out to IHOP. Luckily they had some healthy meals. I had the "Grain & Nut Healthy Combo" or whatever it goes by. It's two pancakes (multi-grain? Doubt it) and egg substitute with some fruit. I ended up having it with sugar-free syrup. The fat content was a bit high, but that's alright. 20G isn't anything too terrible.

Came home and worked for awhile and what felt like an hour later it was already 8:21pm! Somehow I forgot to eat dinner and didn't even realize it!

Downstairs I was finally getting sleepy and that's what told me I had to eat something. Ate some food and did a workout. I was really not looking forward to working out. I knew i'd do it no matter what, but it's just that I wanted to focus on my work instead.

I did my workout and it took a long time to really get into it. I ended up getting some back pain after I did the Lat pulldowns. I did squats a few minutes later and could not finish them. I felt it would be incredibly stupid to finish them and that was like asking for problems. I'm worried how my back will feel tomorrow.

I'm going to do a few more hours of work and call it a day. I need to get up as early as possible to get a head start on my day.

6lbs DOWN from last week!. I don't understand this. They say you can't lose more then 2lbs per week. I'm eating just fine and not starving myself. Probably at least 2000 calories a day. It might not just be fat. I don't think i'm losing muscle because I noticed i've gained a bit and get stronger each week.

Today is my free day. The only thing I did wrong recently is that last night before going to bed I had too much fruit and should have added some protein with it.

I think since July 15th ive lost about 15-20lbs. Still zero skipped days. Only one "bad" food on my non free day and that was a bag of M&Ms at the movie theater.

I think I can keep this up. My goal is 225 by October 27th or November 2nd. Can I do it?

Wow, it's been since wednesday that I posted last? I can't remember all that went on. I remember that on Thursday I was so busy that I somehow didn't start to do my workout until 10:40pm at night. Not good! Luckily I got it over with and went out for some healthy food after that since I was starving.

Saturday got here so far and it felt like I had worked out on Friday. Today I just could not believe it was already my day to do a workout! Doing it earlier in the day is so much better.

Today I did a workout before I sat down to take some time off to play video games. It was one of the hardest workouts i've done yet. I really put in a huge effort today. After that I played the new expansion of Fallout 3 called "Mothership Zeta".

Probably my least favorite Fallout 3 Expansion, but it's not that bad. Just really annoying for me to play it and I couldn't get into the story. My favorite by far was Point Lookout.

On Sunday I plan on taking a free day and eating my free day food. Pizza! Just a few pieces and that's all.

Oh yeah. On Friday night I went to a Birthday party. I passed on the Pizza, the birthday cake and beer. I ended up getting some take out food when I left. They had these veggie burgers made some local company called "Opes" or something like that. They were ok and that's about it.

need a break

I really need to find some variety in what I eat. It's basically lots of cottage cheese, veggies, whole grain bread, fruit, tofu and veggie meat-less products such as garden burgers etc.

I'm not sure how on earth I stay full. Must be all the fiber I eat.

Woke up today and felt like all my energy was gone. My whole body was sore, but nothing too bad, just enough to know that I had worked out. I was so out of energy that I was almost too lazy to go make myself breakfast. I actually sat down for like a half hour after getting up. Maybe I need to eat a bit more before going to bed.

I got on the scale and lost 6lbs since I last checked!! Not bad! I don't want to make a big deal out of it since I have a long, long way to go. My pants also feel a lot more lose. I might need to drop a pant size by next week. I hope so! It takes some effort to keep my pants up with a belt! That's a good sign I need a different size. I hope it's just not my imagination.

My guess is that so far i've lost about 15-20lbs. I hope so. Every single day it feels as if my body is changing. All my muscles are just feeling strange. The goal of getting to my original weight seems too hard, but maybe it will work out today. I want to try and look again and imagine what that would be like. I only have until November 2nd. If I don't reach it, I will keep going.

I made another mistake recently. I bought some individual string cheese that was 3.5g of fat per serving. Well after my main course I ate like 3 of them that night. Not all at once. That was an extra 10.5g of fat I did NOT need. I ended up throwing them all out.

I also have been eating a lot of boxes of raisins. One per day. I think there are better options. For one box it's over 33g of carbs, pretty much all sugar. 30g of Sugar. Maybe I should just eat some other type of fruit. I need to find out how much sugar is in a bannana. Probably not much.

I'm so glad I don't eat that Subway Pizza now. It's 630 calories, but 100G of carbs!! I think that's too much for one meal. It's all white flour too I think. I guess 2 pieces would be ok on a free day.

I think from now on my free day is going to be 3 pieces of somewhat healthy pizza every weekend. Last week we got a multigrain veggie pizza at Pizza Hut. I really liked that and I could do much, much worse for a free meal as a reward. That will be something to look forward to.

I've been working non-stop all this week without a break. Like working and then going to bed. I NEED a break so bad. I'm looking forward to a day off to just sit around and play videos for several hours or watch some movies. Time away to do nothing. I haven't even gotten a chance to sit in my nice new recliner that I bought for more then a half hour.

Got up monday morning and started working right away. Nothing special about monday, just work. Same thing as Tuesday pretty much.

On Tuesday I worked until 6:15pm and went out to get some food and came back and did a workout. It was the hardest workout ive done yet. I have a feeling im going to really sore tomorrow.

Have not eaten anything bad today.

I must confess

I forgot to mention that on Friday I had something BAD. I did not care and I felt like it was ok. Once a week is ok and I can reward myself just a little, but I just need to stay on track.

At the movie theater I was in a hurry and went to the snack counter. What did I want? In a hurry I asked for some M&Ms. I ate an entire bag. In the car I was trying to decide what I wanted in there for a snack. I'm sure there was some low fat food I could have had. My plan was to get some tortilla chips without the nacho cheese. $4 for just chips? No thanks. I should not have gotten M&Ms. I wonder if a small popcorn without extra butter would have been better. Doubt it. I think "Twizzlers" would have been way better then M&Ms. I think they are low fat or close. Of course sometimes some fat is good to have in a carb.

I don't even crave junk food though so I can control what I eat. Maybe I needed something like this after doing well all week.

Luckily this is the only mistake i've made this week. I did not consider that my "reward" food I guess, but I cheated somewhat. On Sunday my "reward" was 3 small pieces of veggie pizza on multigrain bread. I even threw out the remaining pizza! To be honest, my body REALLY, REALLY needed this. I don't know why.

Sunday did NOT go well. I woke up at 10:30am and went out to lunch at around 11:30am with my mom. Did some shopping and I came home and took a half hour nap. Got up and sat around for like a whole entire hour and a half!! What a waste of time.

I tried to get myself going. It was one of those days where I had very little motivation to workout. This is rare. I didn't once think "I don't want to workout!". It was nothing like that and I can usually avoid thinking that now.

I finally got into the weight room and did my routine but avoided working my triceps since they were still sore.

During some exercises I felt like I ran out of energy and my heart was beating so fast and I could feel it. I didn't put in a 110% effort, but I tried. Today I had a bit of a lack of energy yet I ate enough.

Something strange was going on with me today. I felt drained a bit. I drove to my mom's house and we went to Pizza Hut. I needed to reward myself again with something. Once a week. We ordered a medium veggie lover's pizza with multigrain crust. Stupid me forget to ask for light cheese. I did well and only ate 3 small pieces. When I got home I had soooooooo much energy. A TON. This is just what I needed to get myself going.

Know what I did after I came home? Cleaned my entire house upstairs!! I even slept the floor, organized all my shelves and even mopped with hard wood floors. About 90% of the way through mopping the floor I was sweating and just had to take a break since just about everything was done.

Took a break and checked Xbox live to see if the new expansion for Fallout 3 was released yet. I probably need to wait until tomorrow. Thanks a lot. Now I have to wait a week before I can play it. They should just automatically add them at midnight and not morning. Oh well.

I think my progress is going well. I FEEL like i'm gaining muscle and I sure hope so. I know for sure i'm getting stronger because I can now lift a bit more. I need to really keep track of my progress on the scale and use a measuring tape to check fat loss. A fabric measuring tape (and maybe fat calibers) is the only good way of telling if you've lost fat.

Forgot Saturday

Where did Saturday go? Saturday was ok, but could have went a bit better...if only I had gotten a better night's sleep.

I went to bed at 4am(!) and forgot to set my alarm clock. The furniture delivery people were going to call in the morning when they were on the way? Guess what? My doorbell goes off at 8:45am. No call, no nothing. Luckily I got up and got the door in time.

This chair is really nice. I couldn't possibly ask for a chair more comfortable. It's an extra large La-Z-Boy "Reese" leather swivel, gliding Recliner. I went to the La-Z-Boy and they were able to price match Art Van, but they actually make you wait an entire week for delivery unlike Art-Van.

I must have sat in my new chair for several hours. Eventually I got up and went over to my mom's for lunch. I tried to buy lunch on my credit card, but I was declined. What makes me angry is that my bank will decline transactions if I don't verify large ones sometimes. It makes it difficult because they NEVER called me to verify anything. So i'm out shopping and get declined twice. Luckily I was able to take care of it. It's sometimes a good thing that they want to verify large transactions, but once they put a temporary hold on my account to verify.....US postal service transactions and $5 items at a grocery store. Give me a break. At one point they were blocking my card once per month. Chase is probably one of the worst banks there is when it comes to annoying customers. I can't even go to get money out of an ATM without an employee asking me about my card and then wanting me to upgrade. I had a card replaced and I actually had sales people calling me after that. I may switch to National City, but I have a ton of automated withdrawls for house payment etc.

Anyway, after lunch I saw "Spiderman 3". Pretty much did not like it at all and i'd give it a 2/4.

Came home, sat in my recliner and then took a nap. I usually never take naps, but I needed it after only getting a few hours of sleep. After that I woke up and went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Then stupid me ended up staying up until 4am again.

Ok, off to do a workout.

I'm still sore today from my workout on Friday! I have to workout while still sore I guess. I sure wish I knew why i'm not recovering as fast as I should be. I usually workout for 30-45 minutes every other day. Last night I was thinking that maybe I need to eat a bit more during the day in order to gain more muscle. At the same time I want to lose fat, so this may be a bit difficult.

I seriously forget when I last worked out. Pretty sure it was Friday! I really need to keep a log.