EleqTrizi'T

Ok, I've posted about the progress I've personally made in the past. Some of you might remember that post, some don't... For those that didn't see it, here's a short recap...


It's been a little over a year now. March 1st, 2003 I started "the plan".... lose weight, gain strength, eat right, stop drinking.

The starting stats...

Weight: 295lbs.
Fat %: 45.7
Bodyweight (w/o fat): 135
Fat weight: 160
Waist: 44"

As of today, June 1st, 2004....

Weight: 245lbs
Fat %: 25.5
Bodyweight: (w/o fat): 182.5
Fat weight: 62.5
Waist: 34"


The update as of Feb 14th:
weight: 266
fat %: 25.1
bodyweight w/o fat: 199.2
fat weight: 66.7 lbs
waist: 34"

I'm actually down to 258 at this moment, but I have no other measurements. But I'm still a big guy, but I've packed on 17 lbs of muscle in just over half a year. Not too shabby, especially since I took a few months off due to injury.

You know, I'm no expert, but here are *my* simple truths if you want to be succesful....

Losing weight -------
1) Count your calories. It's THE ONLY WAY to understand why your diet sucks. Every fad diet that works does so because the food you intake basically boils down to lower calorie intake, including Atkins and South Beach. When you count your calories, you quickly discover that flour, sugar, and fructose foods are incredibly calorie dense and hardly satisfying. When you start counting your calories, you realize you can still be satisfied and full if you simply eat better.

2) Figure out your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). Your RMR is the amount of calories you would burn doing NOTHING but watch TV all day long. It's good to know, because you'll have a more realistic target. My RMR is 2230 calories per day. I can eat a LOT of good stuff, and even more good stuff when I factor in calories burnt by aerobics and weights.

Your RMR can be figured out by a lot of personal trainers, but if that's not a real option for you, there are some websites with an RMR calculator that are probably within 10% of a good number.

Gaining Muscle -----
1) Use free weights whenever possible. Period. It won't matter one iota if you can curl 90lbs on a machine curl bar, if you can't pick up a 50 lb box. It won't help you to bench 220 on a machine if you can't get that cabinet that just fell on you off of you.

This includes leg exercises. Instead of using a machine to leg press, squat, or grab some light weights and lunge.

2) Push!!! I had a friend who'd been going to the gym faithfully for 5 years. But he gained little and just thought he was a hard gainer. But he just wasn't giving it all he got. Now this needs clarification.... he honestly thought he WAS giving it all he had. Truth was, he just didn't know what true grunt was.

Here's my simple recommendation: Make a goal, then make a deal with yourself. If you did 6 reps of 30 lb curls yesterday, tell yourself that if you can't get up 8 reps today, you'll go spend an extra 15 on the treadmill. Use your own laziness as a motivator.

One more thing... don't hurt yourself. My rule of thumb is don't spend more than 5 seconds trying to move a weight.

3) Keep a log. Seriously, just like calories, keep a log of the reps and weights.

4) Setup a plan. This requires reading. For me, I do chest/tris, back/bis, legs. I don't stick to a schedule. I simply wait for a muscle to stop being sore, and the NEXT day hit it again. It's more important to allow for proper recovery, or you're cheating yourself. Tearing down an already torn up muscle is silly.

In between recovery, I do more aerobic.

5) Yank! Some of you may of heard of this before, but you really need to explode out of gate when you lift. The initial yank should have some serious torque behind it, and the rest of the movement is just keping the momentum going until the rep is finished. THIS DOESNT MEAN CHEATING.

Some people you see will just do these really slow, controlled movements. I don't agree with this. We can fight about this in replies if you like, but it's really hard to grunt when you're moving like a slow dance.

If you can't quite wrap your head around yanking, get a really low weight, like 5 lbs, and curl it to your chest as fast as you can. POW! Now try that with your normal weight.


Supplements -------

I use protein shakes. I have used creatine and glutamine in the past as well. Anything other than these three is suspect, and your own personal use of them may not be necessary, period. This requires reading, get yourself educated, before making the decision to use anything.

Me -------
I'm currently in the last stage of my overall plan. I hope to slim down to 220 by June or July. I'm thinking of starting a blog, complete with before pics and after. I know I can do this, cause I've already lost massive amounts of weights in the past, and I'm already doing it again. Does anyone think there would be readership for such a thing?

NCB

Wow!!! Congrats on your weight loss!!

My take on weight loss is to find the diet that works for you and that you can stay on. We're all not robots, and some diets work better for some than others. Whatever diet you're on, allow yourself an "off" day every now and then. It won't kill your diet, and after a while, you'll find that you don't really miss all the junk you ate before the diet.

Again, congrats and keep up the good work!!!!

__________________

gh0ti

I've been stuck at ~250 for the last year or so. I guess I follow most of what you said above, minus the diet part. I like to eat. I love to eat. My body has definably changed over the last year of working out. I can tell the difference.

I guess what I figured out was that I shouldn’t judge my appearance solely on what the scale says. If I look in the mirror and see a difference and my clothing feels looser I'm happy.

__________________
I ain't often right but I've never been wrong
It seldom turns out the way it does in the song
Once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right

EleqTrizi'T

In reality, that's all that really matters. Being comfortable with yourself. And the scale means nothing on it's own, that's why I post waist size and fat %'s.

Yakk

Not quite. If you go into keytosis, Atkins makes you worse at metabolising the food you eat. Keytosis is your body kicking into emergency starvation mode, which is one reason I'm leery of Atkins.

Waist size matters more to appearance and to health than weight. Body fat % is harder to get than waist size.

Get a belt. Watch the notches fall away. Get a new belt!

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

frogza

First of all congrats on the progress.

The problem I have with the "yank" idea is that you are robbing yourself of the chance to work some of the supportive muscles. The reason you go slow is so all of your muscles get a chance to strain. For example, when doing curls if you were to do a more explosive technique your biceps would get worked well. But you would miss the benefits that curls can also have on shoulders and forearms.

Part of the reason to lift is to gain usable strength. In day to day life you don't really use only explosive strength, by the same token, training your muscles to go really slow won't help much either. Go at a comfortable pace, not too fast and not too slow, go at about the same pace you would lift things in day to day life.

I'm not big on the supplement thing. As someone said in this forum before, it's great for expensive piss but not much else. A balanced diet will provide all the vitamins and minerals needed to see good progress in most fitness goals.

braisler

Hey, phenomenal work on the weight loss and muscle gains.

I too would take issue with your explosive "yank" idea. I don't think that all of your training should be at the max possible speed. And the temptation to use the momentum instead of effort (cheating) to move the weight it too great. As frogza said, you are missing out on some of your training potential. I recommend a 1 second up phase (concentric) and a 2-4 second down phase (eccentric). This one recommendation can make substantial gains in your weight training. I HATE to see people at the gym throwing the weight up and down. They are losing so much of the work they could get out of lifting.

Obviously, you have had great gains using the system that you have. I would just add the bit about eccentric phase being longer than concentric.

__________________
---
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
---

EleqTrizi'T

Yeah, I understand you're saying, but I wonder since my release back down is slow, I still get that?

braisler

Yeah, if your eccentric phase is still slow (2-4 count), then you are probably getting as much work out of the set as you can. I just cringe when I hear of someone "jerking" the weight around. That just screams injury to me. Like I said before, I can't argue with your technique too much since it obviously works for you.

__________________
---
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
---

EleqTrizi'T

Well I don't mean to sound like I'm out of control. I suppose I should of added that to my "take" on training.... technique is everything, weight matters little.