My Progress (fitness)

i mentioned a while ago i was getting back into shape.......

just wondering if anyone out there has been trying to better themselves body wise. ive been working alot and working even harder at the gym, taking all the advice i got from members here to hit alot of cardio.

ive mixed it up with a 10 week weight training program given to me by a personal trainer, cut out all the pop, chips, fast food, sugar, etc etc, now im eating lots of greens, rice, whole wheat pasta, high protein, protein supp., Fish Oil, Triflex, multi vitamins, 3000mL of water a day, etc. etc

i changed my diet on approx. July 30th, 2007 eating 6 small meals a day, and hit the weights and cardio religiously on August 9th, 2007.

these are my current weights:

August 9th - 256 pounds

Sept 24th - 234 pounds

still cant believe i figured i never had time to do it. still going hard, the weight is still coming off, and i'm forcing myself to go to the gym even on the days i just want to go home from work and crawl into bed.

My steps have turned into strides.


anyone else on the same track as me?



.

[Rackmastr]

Congrats man.....way to go!!

[gramps73]

wish I had your drive. great job

[lilsundance]

way to go NDN. keep it up.

[altaberg]

keep it up,

exercising gets addictive after a while, probably the best addiction you can have (except hunting of course).

It's always amazing how you feel tired and burnt out and don't feel like excersizing at all but once you do it you feel much better.

[Jamie]

Congrats NDN.
I also have jumped back on the wieght loss program. I took a year off and it cost me a gain of 30 pounds. I think I am getting close to takeing off that 30 after approx 1 month. I find out on Oct 6 just how much I have lost, but I know I am getting close. If I am down that 30, I want to be down another 100 in about a year. I just have to keep my nose to the grindstone, ass off the couch and head out of the fridge.
But I need to put more exercise into my regime...
Sounds like you are working very hard at it

Jamie

[TreeGuy]

Congrats NDN! After 2 amazing kids, my even more amazing wife wanted to get into shape again. She got on the Jenny Craig program and the results were unbelievable. Essentially the premise is to burn more in day than you consume. There is a points schedual, and the diet within the entire household has to change (I never really noticed). The downfall is that there is a bit of a jump in your grocery bill, and instead of watching a movie to popcorn (although tastey low-fat brands exist), you watch it to pea pods or carrot sticks. After a few weeks its easy. PM me if you want some further details.

Tree

[Don Meredith]

Way to go, -NDN-! That sounds like a great program. There's nothing like the way you feel when you are in shape and aren't carrying around extra weight. Everything just works better. Keep it up. As I'm sure you are aware, it is way too easy to find excuses not to look after yourself. As you have done, you have to make it a top prirority. When you do, everything else just falls into place. Congrats!

[Duk Dog]

Congrats, keep up the good work. I too am losing weight, but it has more to do with a cold/flu bug I can't shake - I'd prefer your method any day!

[Stinky Coyote]

Congrats man...glad your taking it that serious. I hit 184 monday morning and started about beginning of march at 207...normally i'm a pretty fit guy and wouldn't creep above 190 but started to let it go the past couple years and i didn't have to make too many drastic changes...i like to work out because it feels good (added benefit is you drop fat and build muscle) but cleaned up the diet alot and watched the portion sizes too...pretty sure i'm done with the 'letting myself go' thing. Can't wait to see where my body wants to stay with how i'm living as right now i'm not forcing myself to do any of it...could very easily live this way for rest of my days and the weight is still dropping off slowly.

170's....here i come. Look out GSP, John Fitch and the gang....

Keep up the good work man...you will be able to slow it down and keep it a lifestyle thing at some point and it won't be like your 'on a diet/program' or anything.

thanks Trev, Don, Jamie, everybody...... its been one hell of a hard time in the ((((first)))) 4 weeks, had to dig up the drive somewhere. the next weeks after that it got better. Your right though, every time i didn't want to go, and really almost kept driving by the gym and going home, when i was done my workout, i was so pleased and felt good about it. Grocery Bills have gone up a bit, but if you think about it, i quit smoking cold turkey(saves lots of money), i drink tonnes of water and no more pop and soft drinks(saves a lot of money), i eat a lot of tuna, salmon, chicken, lean meats, cottage cheese, veggies (greener the better) so really the food cost went up a bit but the quiting smoking balances it out and still saves. Plus bottles water is like $5.00 per 24 pak, compared to like $3 a 2Ltr of pop. I know i'm no where close to where i want to be. I set a realistic goal of getting down to 215 pounds by August/2008. It seems as though im gonna hit it easily at the rate i'm going. and might have to set some new goals once i achieve 215 pounds.

One thing that has me baffled, is i'm 5 foot 11.5 inches tall, have always had a bit of a husky build, so when does the weight loss end, and weight gain from muscle mass start? am i gonna hit 215 lbs? or will i hit 220lbs and start to go back up slowly from increased muscle mass. I am doing a intense weight training routine and high protein diet. Minimum 1 hour of cardio daily, sometimes 2 hours. Alot of the workouts are a total body workout for now but intense medium weight/high rep, and then after the 10 week program it goes into "Split" workouts, where it works specific muscle groups on a particular day of the week. I also do a bit cardio to get the heart rate up before i hit the weights, as i found a warm up keeps me sweating and feeling a burn so to speak through out the whole weight session. then after the weights its cardio until i "Have" to go home..................love that Elliptical machine. and the wife loves the "Bumps" on my arms again

by the way, fitting into old clothes, and being able to buy a tighter fit, is an incredible feeling, almost overwhelming

[JohninAB]

Mike,

Good for you. Maybe now my boat won't plow so much water upfront! LOL

[altaberg]

hey NDN,

there is no way to predict how your progress is going to continue.
Depends on your program and your genetics.

One piece of advice, while weight loss is a good goal for you right now at some point you have to be less worried about weight and measure your progress differently.
One way is to get tested, in particular your aerobic capacity, fancy speak for endurance, strength and body composition.
Canada's official health guide defines fitness as a combination of endurance, strengths, flexibility and body composition (may be missing one ).
All os those can be tested. The endurance and strengths you can test yourself to soem degree. Just see how long you can do a certain speed on the treadmill or a certain Wattage on the bike.
Body composition is tested by various ways (pinching, or more accurately a dunk tank) but gives a better target than just calculating your BMI based on weight and height.

With those things you can modify your goals for your fitness plans better.

It helps some people (me) to motivate with some sort of sport competition:
cross country ski race, running event or triathlon or so.
This can be fairly addictive too.

Good luck

[TreeGuy]

Infomercial Voice-over Guy...ON: "BEFORE I climbed trees for a living, I weighed a stocky 315lbs! AFTER I climbed trees for a living, I am now down to a svelt, Paris Hiltonish 97lbs! Come climb trees for me, and for a mere $15/hr you will lose weight and suddenly need to eat less than my dog......a sheltie.....a SMALL sheltie!"

Good for you NDN! Stick with it. As Altaberg said, genetics play a huge role, but in seriousness having a job like you do is also not helpful, and tough to overcome. You can do it!

Tree

[thumper]

Well done NDN!

I'm one of those 'on-again, off-again' exercisers, with weight and tone going up and down like a yo-yo. You're an inspiration to stick with it.

Well done,it sounds like you have great willpower.I am normally in the gym five to seven days a week,but after my surgeries,I was off for two to three months each time.I found it more and more difficult to get back to normal after each surgery,something I attribute to getting older.I am still not in my normal shape from the last surgery,but I am not about to give up either.I even invested in my own elliptical this time around and it has helped to lean out and improve my cardio.Keep at it,and you will reap the rewards.