I quit my $6.50 an hour job today. This is how dead serious I am, distractions aside, I need to become a fitness monster again. I finally chose my health over finances, the pay made it a lot easier to decide. I'm only 20, and my rent's paid for- so luckily I can still make this decision and not lose everything I have. Everyone I know has been against this, simply because working a job is everything in our Western culture... I don't see how they do it, they work 8+ hours a day, and that leaves them with basically no time to even care how downhill their health is going. It's gotten to the point where I've fallen apart emotionally and physically, I'm a wreck. So I thought I would start over this 'real world' thing again, before I end up beyond repair (which is never-- but I've found people who are older, with kids, and a must-have every day job it is almost impossible to care about your appearance anymore). Before I started my job I was in the peak condition of my life; I wanna go even beyond that now. And maybe when I get back to my motivated self, I can take on the world and my jobs better. I just wanna start over before it's too late.

I'm not even sure where I'm going to start, all I know is I wanna run forever tonight until I get that runner's high that I've so long missed... I will conquer the night. Then maybe sometime in the day after, I can sort out this whole mess and figure what exactly I need to do, I need to dust off my old fitness and nutrition references for sure, and I need to learn more than I ever did last time so that this never-ever happens again.

So this may turn out to be much more than just a fitness journal, it's going to be about every living every breathing, waking and sleeping moment better. And finding a career I would truly love and that would take care of my financial needs. Time to get it going again... :db:

Here's to filling up the glass past half-full :gl:

I quit my $6.50 an hour job today. This is how dead serious I am, distractions aside, I need to become a fitness monster again. I finally chose my health over finances, the pay made it a lot easier to decide. I'm only 20, and my rent's paid for- so luckily I can still make this decision and not lose everything I have. Everyone I know has been against this, simply because working a job is everything in our Western culture... I don't see how they do it, they work 8+ hours a day, and that leaves them with basically no time to even care how downhill their health is going. It's gotten to the point where I've fallen apart emotionally and physically, I'm a wreck. So I thought I would start over this 'real world' thing again, before I end up beyond repair (which is never-- but I've found people who are older, with kids, and a must-have every day job it is almost impossible to care about your appearance anymore). Before I started my job I was in the peak condition of my life; I wanna go even beyond that now. And maybe when I get back to my motivated self, I can take on the world and my jobs better. I just wanna start over before it's too late.

I'm not even sure where I'm going to start, all I know is I wanna run forever tonight until I get that runner's high that I've so long missed... I will conquer the night. Then maybe sometime in the day after, I can sort out this whole mess and figure what exactly I need to do, I need to dust off my old fitness and nutrition references for sure, and I need to learn more than I ever did last time so that this never-ever happens again.

So this may turn out to be much more than just a fitness journal, it's going to be about every living every breathing, waking and sleeping moment better. And finding a career I would truly love and that would take care of my financial needs. Time to get it going again... :db:

Here's to filling up the glass past half-full :gl:


Good luck getting back to it! Running is one of my favorite past times now. Minnesota here too. Not snowy (yet).

Good luck getting back to it! Running is one of my favorite past times now. Minnesota here too. Not snowy (yet).

Yea! I need to get the old treadmill fixed before the white stuff comes...Fall is the best time of the year for running I think! I fell in love with it when I took a fitness class in high school out of curiosity, and the teacher absolutely hated me and called me lazy because I wasn't a jock at the time [and this was a class full of jocks as you can imagine], but we ran a mile every day and I found out I was faster than all those 'athletes'. I consider myself an athlete now, but back in the day I didn't have much going for me-- I guess that's why I enjoy it and for other people it's worse than the dentist :d_rolleye

Thanks for the encouragement

Well that was great... reminder: do not use the 'Create List' button on this thing, it erases your whole writing that you've done. :(

Update: September 28, 2005

In a nutshell I noted that:

Current weight: 203 lbs. (@ 6'ft - 1-3/4"in)

-Didn't get my lazy butt up yet to exercise
-Cleaned up diet some, but need to make more drastic changes
-Starting to do freelance web design again
-Will get some kind of body measurements up soon

-And goals for tomorrow:
1) 7-8 hours of sleep [break habit of sleeping 10+ hours nightly!]
2) Begin to chart diet and eating habits
3) Do some sort of exercise, even if it's something very small

Easy goals, that will get the ball rolling for me that will build into much bigger and better things.

September 29, 2005

Wow, coming back after just a day of posting I'm starting to realize how many people actually have journals here, and are actually doing real good. My journal thread was somewhere lost in the 3rd or 4th page back already, lost with all the others ones people have started. For some; goals and dreams were never realized, so they just sit there, as reminders to how you have to work at this every single day; the ones who didn't make it, their journals just get pushed further and further back. I can tell who's doing well, it's the people with their fitness logs on the first page of topics every single day. This is probably the only motivating factor for me right now, I just need to... rediscover what drives me. I know for 1000% sure that competition does, but that's only temporary, I need a real driving force that's there always. A lot of people, have family or kids, and that makes them want this bad enough. Some do it because they're now middle-aged and want to live a longer life. Neither applies for me... some people, just get so sick of it, and so sick of the doubters, that they hit the brick wall at the end and they get up and they start fighting back. I think that's my case, revenge, proving people wrong, saying I told you so to their faces; it's a powerful thing. The real problem is, I'm 'comfortable', I like (even though I don't admit it consciously) where I am, I like doing just about nothing. And that is a scary thought. But, I can't sit around waiting for miracles to come -- sometimes you need to be the miracle. I've decided I'm going to do the thing I swore I would never do because of hatred of these places, but, I'm going to get a gym membership. !!! My experiences with gyms have been going there and surrounded by meatheads who wont help you one bit. I hate the grunting, I hate the smell, and I hate the spandex... but luckily I live in a smaller town, and I found a nice new place that you can go 24/7, so it'll be all for my taking most of the time. Almost like my own personal gym, until I really get my own personal gym.

Okay, recap from yesterday:


7-8 hours of sleep
:tu: [B]DONE! Slept 7 1/2 w/o alarm clock!

Begin to chart diet and eating habits
FAILED I've started making a php script that will log all of this for me (including different foods and their nutrition values)

Do some sort of exercise, even if it's something very small
FAILED



Today's itinerary:

#'s 2 and 3 again, until success. + fix the treadmill!

I think that's my case, revenge, proving people wrong, saying I told you so to their faces; it's a powerful thing. The real problem is, I'm 'comfortable', I like (even though I don't admit it consciously) where I am, I like doing just about nothing. And that is a scary thought.
You're going to have a very hard time staying on target with such negative motivation. Honestly, the initial motivation is a novelty that wears off a few weeks into the process. The people who are successful here are the ones who continue to eat well and exercise when they have no motivation to do it. They suck it up and get the job done. And if they slip, they dust themselves off quickly and get back to it. Long term motivation won't come from a gym membership or proving someone wrong. Now stop journaling your losses and go do something!

October 4, 2005

I finally did it. I ran, and it was heavenly, and I broke through that barrier that prevents 99% of people from ever adapting a life of fitness: the first time. I kept putting it off and putting it off, and I was having a pretty bad day today; so I just shuffled on my old running shoes, my busted up Adidas classics, and said 'going for a run' and my Husky (Shakira) came sprinting to the door like she was totally rejuvenated. I haven't ran for -- maybe 3 or 4 months now (over a year since I did it regularly!), and her being a sled dog, it's her livelyhood. So I blame myself for that, she's been moping around the house ever since I stopped. Anyway, I just got back from the jog 20 minutes ago, I went out at 2 AM if you can believe it, I didn't care what I was wearing... It's unbelievable to describe, I established a pretty nice 'track' circuit that I figure is somewhere between 2-3 miles easily... I ran the entire way, and I was so energized I could have gone all night, but I wanted to savor the feeling so I anticipate the next time, and don't burn out from overdoing it... I can't believe how much energy I had! I wanna go again already. The atmosphere was so perfect- upper 60's clear starry sky, off in the distance there were beautiful lightning storms that lit up the darkness, but no noisy thunder... it was absolute quiet and I did not see a single car.

This was so unexpected as I didn't set a 'goal' for doing this, in fact it was turning out to be another frustrating day... but now I feel like myself again, the athlete who could run 5 minute and under miles, the football player that could still be something, the flab-to-fab miracle story. I did it once, and I'll do it better this time around.

I just got up and took care of business, what was I afraid of? I'm a freak at this stuff!!! I was born to do it. 10 miles, 20 miles - no problem. Someday, I'll be back there again :db:


This was what got me up again: If I create a positive environment around me, positive things are going to start to happen; it works on the other end of the spectrum too (in a negative way). How obvious is that? But I think I just finally took it literally.

You're going to have a very hard time staying on target with such negative motivation. Honestly, the initial motivation is a novelty that wears off a few weeks into the process. The people who are successful here are the ones who continue to eat well and exercise when they have no motivation to do it. They suck it up and get the job done. And if they slip, they dust themselves off quickly and get back to it. Long term motivation won't come from a gym membership or proving someone wrong. Now stop journaling your losses and go do something!

Thanks for challenging me :nod:

October 4, 2005

I'm down 5 lbs already :tucool:, just from cleaning up my diet and starting to work out. I'm at 6'2" 197 now, down from 202 lbs just a couple days ago. I've always had a blazing metabolism, so it's what I expected to lose. Otherwise, I'd for sure be upwards of 250 pounds from all the food stuffing. Good news!

October 9, 2005

Just sat down from another late-night run. Went 50 minutes this time, getting stronger and stronger every time it seems, because when I got done with the 'circuit' and got home I went in and got a drink, dog got a drink, and neither of us were ready to call it a night. So we went, AGAIN. :db: It totaled up to about 5-6 miles I would estimate.

I didn't even wanna run, but Shakira got the best of me again, she's so sad when she's not pulling something (me). So I went out, and :spaz: it's 20 freaking degrees out! I thought hell no I'm not gonna be able to do this tonight, but I pressed on and got a good rhythm going and it was hard to stop. One good thing about freezing cold nights is, the sky, where my house is in town there's a big gap between the city, and there's only a couple houses around, hardly any lights. I couldn't count how many stars there were, it always amazes me, which is why I opt for night jogging. The whole world is sleeping while you're out there working hard. I love it because it takes away all the fear I have, which has filled my days for quite some time now. But not when I'm out there, it's an unstoppable feeling.

It's official, I've got that swagger back, I'm doing things that are good for me, positive things... and it's already paying off. I've stopped impulse eating, I'm strengthening daily, I'm doing cardio daily.

I bought a new digi camera for progress pics, so that'll give me some leverage to keep at it too. I already see massive differences just by how much firmer my body is. I feel almost like the top of the world again, it's going to take some work getting there. I'll make it this time.

yeow I better stretch before I tighten up!

October 11, 2005

Well this sucks. My allergies/sinuses are acting up extremely, I can't breathe out of my nose at all, much less run. I guess that means I'm getting in extra lifting until further notice. It can't stop me!

I just realized the logo contest voting ends in 4 days, I've pretty much given up on it, I have an idea which one will win, and it's a pretty good one so I'm psyched too. I just was inexperienced with Illustrator and rusty with my Graphic Design, it was a great learning experience and it got me back into dreaming about one day doing it as a real-world job, not just a waste of time. I enjoy it immensely.

October 13, 2005

It turns out what I thought was allergies was actually that and a cold piled on top. I know why my allergies acted up, we have a horse next door and I stupidly went over there to pet him. :D Nevertheless, I rubbed some vicks on and went for a nice cardio run, sniffling and all. This one was a different way and was much longer, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It seriously doesn't seem that long whenever I'm outside, on a treadmill it's a different story. I'll sleep good tonight, ..or today, I've got some nocturnal sleeping habits. Studies say that's not good for my metabolism, but in fact, sleeping nights is worse for me, I was raised being awake nights, and so this is what my bodies used to. It's only when I try to sleep normally do I feel exhausted and notice I don't work off calories as well. Weird huh..

I've decided to focus on BF loss now, and do just minimal strength training. I'm fine with getting down to a stick figure, and then beefing up. I thought you could do both, but now I'm not sure, I've heard that you can't lose weight and gain mass at the same time. Does anyone know about this? I really wanna do some research before I start lifting regularly again, last time I didn't have a system in place.

Anyway, I'm really kicking ass now, I'm glad I have all the time in the world to get this right. Look at me when I first started this journal not too long ago, I was afraid to take two steps and do a pushup. My whole mentality has changed. I measured the waist a couple days ago, and I was already down over 1".

October 13, 2005
I've decided to focus on BF loss now, and do just minimal strength training. I'm fine with getting down to a stick figure, and then beefing up. I thought you could do both, but now I'm not sure, I've heard that you can't lose weight and gain mass at the same time. Does anyone know about this?

Howdy,
to answer your question it depends on your goals. If you are fairly new to lifting then adding muscle mass will come easier then when you are trying to bulk. Bulking requires more calories which makes fat loss difficult. But the initial addition of mass should increase your metabolism so that you burn more calories / day.

Over time, if you maintain your current diet (or slightly more calories to account for your new activities), the muscle will feed off of your fat to sustain itself. Since the body is highly adaptable, it will continue to do so as long as it feels it is necessary.

You might want to consider adding weights and getting a certain strength increase and then only lifting to maintain that strength level. That added mass will slowly eat fat while you proceed with cardio. If you neglect the weights completely in favor of only cardio, you will find yourself losing both fat and muscle. As the muscle comes off, your BMR (metabolism) will actually go down.

When people say its not possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, they are generally talking about the bulking/cutting cycle. When trying to add substantive amounts of muscle mass, it is necessary to eat enough calories to provide the raw materials for building blocks of muscle. It is damn near impossible to make all of these extra calories convert 100% to muscle. So you eat in bulk to add bulk muscle, but some fat comes along as well. So begins the bulking/cutting cycle. Once you have bulked muscle in order to show it off so to speak you have to rid yourself of the excess fat generated as part of the mass increasing process. Doing so with cardio will rid the fat, but you will sacrfice some of the muscle gains in the process. However, in the end you will have added substantially more muscle than you will lose.

So if you weigh 150 lbs and bulk up to 170, say maybe 15 lbs of that increase is muscle. When you are in the cutting phase you burn off the 5lbs of fat you added, but in the process end up losing 4-5 lbs of muscle. So at the end you are weigh 160 instead of 170, but have added 10 lbs of solid muscle and are at the same low bodyfat as before the cycle.

If your goal isn't bulking, then still lift and maintain your strength gains and they will help contribute to a higher metabolism. This increase will create a greater deficit between your calories consumed and calories requried, then if you werent maintaining strength. Over time, this will shed pounds. Plus, it gives you the benefit of not being "skinny fat"

Hope that helped,

Ed

November 28, 2005

It's been a while! Just to let anyone know who's come across this, I have not given up.. I will never do that. I've started my own personal, personal journalism of my health. I keep it in MS Word, I write about everything, not just fitness, finances, relationships, goals, plans, and the likes of the future. I also post pictures. Someday, when I get to a level I can be proud of, I may put it out for public use. I know that letting the public see your journal is one way to leverage yourself, but for me it's different, I like to challenge myself without distractions. It's like artwork, it'll look like a mess when it's a work in progress, people will see it, they will criticize, but when it's done it's a real beaut. I'm a person that can get it done independantly, and I think I push myself further than saying 'oh this person did this and that, I'll meet that standard.' Nah, without any comparisons I've really been reaching higher for myself. So, this should be the last 'journal' entry, I just wanted to write to let you all know, I'm still doing it, rain sleet or snow I'm out there running at nights. I've got some great Creatine CEE from AllTheWhey, and I'm going to be gaining some muscle mass along with shredding that fat.

Ever since doing this logo for John, my web design career has taken off, I've since done a full-fledged site and am now working on multiple sites for Real Estate. I'd like to thank everyone who voted for the logo once again, it's something that has had a big impact on my career thus far. Before hand I was on the verge of finding something new, I had been web designing for 10+ years and it's brought nothing, but all of a sudden, it's blossoming into a home business, and I love it. I've always wanted to be my own boss. Who would have thought this place would bring a lot of things together for me?

Just to think when I first registered here I was on one of those depression pity moods. Been soldiering up ever since, this attitude is infectious. :claphigh: