Guess I better start with the intro.

Been overweight my whole life and have always been deeply upset about it, causing depression, anxiety, and general unhappiness in many areas of my life. Just found the site a few days ago and am QUITE impressed. I have done a lot of research on all things fitness and know and have known more than enough to get myself in shape for a few years now. To make things better, I truly enjoy both lifting AND cardio. To take the cake, I love vegetables, chicken, and all other tenements of a healthy diet.

However, I'm a complete headcase, and that seems to make all those positive things irrelevent. I succumb to cravings, eat foolishly, knowing damn well what it will do to me and how it will make me feel, convince myself that I'm tired and won't need to go to the gym, all the typical crap that people go through, I got all of that - even with the things I enjoy.

But I haven't given up. I just can't shake the feeling that this is going to end up like all the other times I thought I had it for sure. And that sucks.

I have been in Phoenix from Boston since late January, and have secured myself a good job that is very adaptable to a healthy lifestyle in diet and workout respects. I have also left behind the college life of drinking heavily 3-4 times a week and eating Dominos constantly. I am going back to Boston at the end of July and need to make the biggest change in that time period, not only in weight, but also in lifestyle so that I can continue to be healthy and lose weight through August and into the school year in the fall.

40 pounds by July 31st, thats about 4.5 months. Certainly doable. Lifting 4 times a week in the afternoon and cardio 5 times a week in the morning. 1900 calories (according to BMI calc's and amount being burned) daily in the 40/40/20 ratio, spread over about 6 meals.

I have never aggressively charted my diet, so that's a huge factor I'm leaning on for success. The last thing I want to do is put myself all out here to the public as well, but it seems to be working for lots of people so I'm gonna make that step as well. Those are the two things I'm really doing differently.

Well I'll leave it at that and start with the updates tomorrow. Wish me luck.

3/10
My first day on the diet. No plans for exercise today. The diet went well at first, got my meals in on time, although I was WAY undercutting on calories (1200) so I did some calculating at work and came up with better numbers (1900) that I'll use tomorrow. A trip to the mall for work clothes turned semi disastrous, as I decided to catch a movie, and ended up tagging on most of a medium popcorn and drink, followed by a junior whopper on my way out. "Stinkin thinkin" as my Mom would call it. Well thats just about enough of my personal life out for the day haha. I'm confident things will get better so don't count me out now. Peace.

3/11
Another entirely unimpressive day. Got my calories figured out and had my stuff all planned, and then my boss told me we were going into the field for most of the day, which meant lunch at Chile's, and I ended up with a bigass fried chicken sandwich and french fries. Then, I went and played some basketball with friends for an hour, which was a good workout, but that was followed by a couple beers with them, a chicken quesadilla and a burrito from this bangin Mexican place down the street. So basically a failed day. Implementing these changes into the diet hasnt been so hard to do, just hard to follow. But I'm more determined than ever and things will look up, no question about it. Doing some more formal cardio in the next few days and then starting with my lifting on Sunday. I'll check back then.

Finally getting good at this. Double update.

3/12
Plans to get cardio in before work fell through as I was up late last night and couldnt get enough sleep. However, I stuck with the diet 100% and felt great, certainly felt satisfied and not tempted by anything.

3/13
Did 45 minutes on the bike first thing in the morning, and stuck to my diet all day. My best day so far haha. Need to get more info about varying my diet though, I basically only eat chicken breast, tuna fish, grain bread, and vegetables. If it works I'll stick with it but maybe some more variation is in order.

3/14
Another good day. Sunday is my day to take it easy so no exercise, but the diet was in full effect. I'm all Irish so I cooked up a huge feed of corned beef, hoping to be able to make it work in the diet. The nutrition stats are pretty reasonable except for sodium, with about 100% rda in a 4 oz serving. Which is terrible. But this is St Pattys Day and corned beef and cabbage IS my favorite thing around, so a little extra salt and water retention arent gonna be the end of me. I'll offset it by not drinking 15 beers on St Patricks Day...hopefully.

Hey want to hear a joke I made up at work two weeks ago? Cool man.

The setting is a radio station. DJ Johnny Ballz is doing his daily syndicate show about the world of adult entertainment.
"And we are back here with our friend Peter Peckerwood, today's honored guest and recent recipient of an Adult Video Award for longest ejaculation on film. Peter, we are so glad you made it out today." says Johnny.

"Thanks," says Peter. "I came a long way to be here."

3/15
Great day to be alive. Diet stayed on track all day, got up at 6 to get in some cardio before work and went back after work for my lifting. I'm officially running on all cylinders now and it feels great. Really great.

3/16
Kind of a messed up day. I woke up at 6 for cardio, wasn't feeling too hot, slept more and woke up around 7:30 for work, was feeling even worse, and ended up calling in sick and sleeping till about 1:30. A little strange considering I was asleep by like 11:30. But after all that I woke up feeling pretty good actually, and got my weight training in. My diet was off not in what I was eating but in amounts because I was only on my feet for about 9 hours the whole day, so I didn't get a full days worth in. I did however get body tested at the gym, and my results are pretty good considering I haven't been going too hard for the past month.

February 12 - 242 29.2%
March 16 - 234 26.1%

That's 9 pounds of fat off and 1 added of lean muscle, so that's definitely a great boost at the start of my program. However, the official work has begun now so I'm hoping for even better results in the months to come.

3/17
Another day another diet. Got my cardio in at 6, went to work, diet went well, and life goes on. Had 2 beers for St Pattys day, not too shabby at all, although they were a little later in the night than I would have liked. My legs hurt like hell from squatting but I'm gonna try and get basketball in tomorrow as well as lifting. Should be titillating. My triceps are starting to show through again, which isn't a huge gain by any means but it certainly means I'm making progress.

Just thinking. I guess it's been a little over a week since I first found this site. I started the diet last Wednesday, and here I am a week later. Not a lot of time for results by any means, but it's interesting to note how different I feel. Eating is what I do now to live, not live to do. I still enjoy it but I just don't find temptations to eat more than what I weigh out, or eat some crap and ruin my track. I still have a hard time believing this could really work, which sounds like the worst outlook one could possibly have, but it doesnt stop me from trying. I guess I just want to take it one day at a time but at the same time make the days fly by. Can't have everything I guess.

3/18
Damndest day ever. I guess it's the tail end of whatever bug I had, but I got home after work at like 5, laid down and passed out until 10:30. There was no point in fighting it after I woke up, just rolled around for two hours and then fell asleep again. It's amazing that two of my days this week have actually resulted in me not being able to eat as much as I should, let alone eating TOO much. So I missed the tail end of my food, think I'll eat a little more today to try and compensate for it, it is Friday afterall.

Also missed my lifting because I was sleeping which blows but isn't the end of the world as I can do it today. Gonna have to buy a scale too, even though I was resisting and wanted to only get checked out at the gym every 2-4 weeks, I think I'm gonna need the more daily type of motivation, at least so I know the numbers are going down in accordance to all this effort. Super.

3/19
Same old same old. Got my lift in this afternoon and bought a scale so
i can at least get a picture of where my weights going. Diet goes well.

3/20 229 lbs
Lifting and cardio today. My cardio is 45 minutes of stationary bike, might try some of this HIIT nonsense in a few weeks. Definitely planning on giving everything a good shake up every 4 weeks or so, gotta keep comin at it from different angles, I'm not even trying to hit any plateaus. Used the scale for my first weight this morning, 229. That's a good start. We'll see where we go from there

3/21 227.5
Just cardio today. I have started using both olive oil & vinaigrette dressing and natural peanut butter to get the fats in my diet and it couldnt be any easier. I put the dressing over baby spinach (pre-packagec and washed at the store) and its delicious, and the peanut butter goes great on the 5-6 pieces of toast I usually eat in a day. I was having problems getting the fats in there without these two items, they are definitely key to getting your ratios right. Definitely losing fat around my stomach, there's a good bit less when I pinch it.

3/22 230 lbs
Yo. A good start to the week. Got cardio on an empty stomach in the AM and weights after work. I've been eating a lot of bread and I had concerns that, although not white, my bread was overprocessed and not really wholesome. I asked about it on the forums and I was right, my Sara Lee Six Grain was enriched!! Bastards. So the rule I learned is, if the first ingredient says enriched, that's bad. Picked up some 100% wheat bread and will be eating this from now on, its not nearly as good but hopefully it will make a decent difference in my diet seeing how much I have eaten of it. Until tomorrow.

Do you have any specific goals in mind, either for your weight or some type of fitness aspiration?

Good luck in resisting temptation. The hardest part of all of this is changing your mindset and how you relate to food. I used to love to eat fast food and frozen pizzas. I still think the stuff tastes good but I've eliminated the craving for it by realizing that it doesn't really offer much in benefits. I don't even go near fast food anymore except with friends, and then I always avoid fries.

Yea I'm definitely making weight loss the priority, I do expect to add some LBM because I have a fairly easy time adding muscle adn I am lifting regularly and eating plenty of protein, I just can't imagine that I wouldn't add at least some muscle. I will really be impressed with myself I think once I get below 220 lbs, but my main goal is to be somewhere closer to 200 lbs by late July, just about 4 months. I'm weighing in at about 229 right now. So as of now my goal is officially 29 pounds of fat in the next four months, thats about 13.5 %BF, I was 26.1 last week. The biggest surprise so far for me has been how easy it has been to stay on the diet. My first two days I had some cheating as you can see above but I really haven't fell to any other temptations since (about two weeks). I'm not tempted, like you said, I know it's not gonna do any good to my goal, and it means the world to me. Thinking I might get a small cheat in this weekend when some family friends come to visit but just to throw my body the curveball. I used to drink a ton of soda and have really cut it out of my life.

3/23 229.5 lbs
Another good day on the diet, no cardio in the morning (Tues and Thurs) because it's my legs/back lifting day. Squats were really great, I have very weak legs, but I managed to bump the weight about 20 pounds and still bang out 3 sets with really good form. I once had a football coach tell me that you should only squat once a week, and I think this is definitely true. There's simply no need to, as long as you go all out that one time. It's really a great exercise. I'm going to start doing Deadlifts on Thursdays in place of squats, another great one, really gets the back of the legs and lower back. I have also learned that the bread I was eating so much of was not 100% good stuff, had some enriched product in it, so I've started eating 100% whole wheat bread. I really hate wheat bread so it's unfortunate but it still goes down when I'm hungry and I know it's the right choice to be making.

3/24 229.5 lbs
Continues to go well. Had AM cardio, dropped the heartrate down from 160 to 155, I might lean more towards 150 for my future workouts. No lifting today. Fell asleep from like 5-8:30, got up for an hour or so to prep some food and then went back to bed. I crashed this time last week as well. I know that some nights I'm certainly not getting enough sleep, like 6.5 hours or so, as I have a lot of trouble faling asleep at night. However on the weekends I easily get like 10-11 a night and when I don't have AM cardio I get closer to 8. So I don't think I'm entirely sleep deprived, but I am making a conscious effort to get to sleep earlier.

3/25 228.5 lbs
Did cardio in the AM and played basketball in the afternoon, had a good day with the diet UNTIL I went to my friends house after basketball, had a few beers, and ended the night with pizza and wings. And some soda. This was my first official cheat meal in the two weeks that I've been in the game. I had planned to use it this weekend as I know I'm going out to eat with some friends, so I'll just have to watch myself there.

I do regret having the cheat meal. It was good but it was nothing spectacular, especially compared to being ahead of my gameplan. That was the first real soda I'd had in a long time, a good sign for me who drank coke by the gallon. I certainly don't feel further tempted, or ready to jump off the bandwagon. So I guess the damage done is not too severe, and I know anyone on the board here will tell you it's definitely not worth dwelling on. I'm gonna get body tested again on Tuesday so I'd like to be real good until then and hopefully see a decrease in BF% because I have not been making much headway in losing lbs. I put on muscle pretty easily so hopefully I've been making some LBM gains and that's what's doing it, but that could be wishful thinking.

Only time will tell. I'm going back to my friends' place tonight but I shall avoid the urge to drink and just make an appearance.

Alright I've been going over a bunch of different things and I am going to make some changes to my program in 2 areas that I was not happy with.

First I'm gonna change from a 40/40/20 diet to a 50/30/20 (P/C/F). I eat my veggies and all but like I've said typically find myself eating slice after slice of bread to get those serious carb numbers I need. I think it's wasted eating as the bread is prettymuch just filler, so I figure I will use those empty calories as extra protein instead. I have always had the best success with my weight training, and adding muscle is not too hard for me, so I think this increase will greatly improve my weight training results and be a better contribution to my goal as a whole (which IS fat loss.)

The second thing I'm going to do is change my lifting routine. I had originally planned to do this at the 4 week mark but I'm just not happy with it and figure I will get the switch in to help keep me going. I was specifically unhappy with the dumbbell bench routine I was using. I have been using it on and off for awhile and it was a nice change of pace but I find it pretty ineffective now, and I think I'm gonna try something new. I was also unhappy with the range of different lifts. I wasn't hitting enough of the muscles well enough and so I'm going to need to extend my workouts by a bit. Here's what I'm going for now.
Day 1 / Day 3
Bench Press (Rotates in weeks, 3x3, 5x5, 5-4-3-2-1, 10-8-6)
Dips 3 sets (new addition, probly assissted)
Military Press 3 sets (switch from dumbbells to bar)
Lateral Raise 3 sets
Dumbbell Fly 3 sets (new addittion, no chest isolating lifts before)
Skullcrushers 3 sets
Abs

Day 2 / Day 4
Lat Pulldown 4 sets
Bent Over Row 4 sets
Upright Row 3 sets (new addition)
Curls 3 sets (probly ez bar)
Shrugs 3 sets (new addition)
Squat (Day 2) / Straight Leg Dead Lift (Day 4) 3 sets
Calf Raise 2 sets

I think this is a much bettter workout than the one I had before. Hopefully along with the upped protein this will really serve to get my muscles working overtime.

3/28 230 lbs
Sorry, it was a crazy weekend and I kinda lost track of things. Well I basically had a fair bit of cheating this weekend. Had some beers Friday night and ate out Saturday lunch and Sunday dinner. What's done is done, time to get back on track.

My workouts for Friday and Saturday were awesome. The changes in my lifting program are really exactly what I was looking for. I've got soreness in my back in places I had never really felt before, really through the lats and the middle.

I've got my body testing tomorrow, see what kind of progress I've made in the two weeks. Hopefully the bad weekend won't hurt me too much, I'm really hoping to have dropped some fat. However it's always important not to get too caught up in it, just gotta keep going on teh day to day.

3/29
Some cardio in the morning, lifting in the afternoon. I got body tested and I am down to 230 but the guy had my bodyfat at like 28%?? It was his first day and I think he had no idea what he was doing. I would've had to lose 7 pounds of muscle AND gain 5 of fat for that to happen. Maybe I'll have someone else take it in a few days. But I said I wouldn't get caught up in it so I'm just gonna let it slide for now. I'm down 4 pounds in two weeks, thats just about where I want to be.

It's really great that we all take this fitness stuff so seriously, and we have formulas and indexes to chart everything that goes in and estimates at whats gonna come off, and we will weigh ourselves every day, check bodyfat every week. However, I was thinking back this morning about getting into weight lifting at the urge (or demand) of football coaches in high school. There wasn't a whole lot of support, or diet, or method to the madness. Just get in there and lift, and you will be bigger at the end of the summer. You followed blindly but sure enough, the results were there at the end of the summer. I guess I just wanna emphasize that in this age of predictions and measurements and statistics, the trends will sometimes show strange results. It never hurts to just follow a little blindly and really believe that if you just be consistent, the results will be there.

Sorry for missing the journal yesterady, double today

3/30 230
Another good day, cardio in the AM followed by my sick new back workout in the afternoon. Cooked up some salmon to try and get some good fat in the next few days. Tried some oatmeal in the morning, found out that I hate oatmeal. Good to know I guess, gonna have to work it in somehow though to get all those good carbs, Maybe in ze shakes?

3/31 228.5 lbs
Just AM cardio today. Did the elliptical instead of my usual bike as a nod towards beginning to get some variety in my cardio. It was good but I think I need to use more resistance. Also gonna have to get the HIIT going once a week or so soon. Had a nice shake afterwards, with the oatmeal. I put 1 cup oatmeal in the blender by itself, run the blender to crush it up closer to like a powder, then just add the rest of the ingredients (as of now, 2 scoops protein, 2 cups milk, and 2 tbsp pb, my new recipe.) That is tasty and a big ass meal to start your day off right. A week ago I was at this same weight. I did some decent cheating this past weekend but I have been very loyal to my exercise and my diet otherwise. I'm hoping to see those numbers start moving at a better pace. I definitely am getting into better shape though, my belly is reducing in size, and I've started to notice more definition in my lower neck, collarbone area, which is cool. Keep on keepin on I guess.

Oh a quick note on my nutrition change. I have decided against upping the protein and lowering carbs. I am going to keep those ratios the same. However I have upped my daily calories from 1900 for 2200. I don't think 1900 was necessarily TOO low, but I think I can get good results at 2200 and still have room to decrease that number as I lose more fat. If I was at 1900 now I wouldn't have anywhere to go when I started to plateau.

4/1 229
Didn't do cardio this morning cus I was planning on playing basketball in the afternoon but I showed up and noone was there, so that fell through. Otherwise all went well, I'm starting to feel real good about the work I'm doing. Gonna get tested at the gym again next Tuesday, see if i can get something a little mor realistic for my BF. Today I was actuallly pretty hungry, feeling some pangs during the middle of the day and especially towards the end. Not cravings for junk or anything, just regular hunger. I'm hoping this has to do with my calorie increase and my body burning it up and looking for more. We shall see...


oh, and its FRIDAY. AND I'M HALFWAY THROUGH WORK FOR TODAY. AND THAT MAKES ME RIDICULOUSLY RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY.

And I'm gonna try not to drink at all this weekend. Cheating is out the door.

4/2-4/4 227
Another weekend down, things went pretty well. No big cheats, some Jack Daniels on Sunday but that's it. Still feeling really good, the workouts are coming together quite well, and I'm definitely starting to notice improvement. Like I've said before the amount of gut I can pinch has gone way down. My calves are starting to show a lot more, although thats never been much of a problem for me. My current goal is to break 220 by 5/3, 2 lbs lost per week. Pretty standard but that would certainly be a big accomplishment, I haven't been below that in quite a few years. Sorry that the weekend updates always get squished together but I don't really have internet at the house, gotta do all this from work. I am still getting some hunger although it's not really bothersome, I think it's related to the increase in daily calories and I think it's a good sign.

I'm going to get tested at the gym today, hopefully last weeks fluked BF test can be rectified today.

4/5 224
4/6 227
Good ol Jack helped me pee out three pounds. Lots of water will fix that. This isn't a double update, I'm actually gonna switch when I post these updates. Usually I post from work for the day before, but now I'm just gonna try and check in once a day and keep a current tab of where things are at. So my life progresses as usual, lifting and cardio. I did elliptical again today, gonna keep up with some variation in my cardio. Having a big ass shake on my way out the door has been great in terms of content and convenience.

I went back and got bodyfat tested at the gym again. 229, 29%. Can't be right. Like not diet denial or anything, that physically can't be right. I would have to be losing POUNDS of muscle as well as gaining POUNDS of fat to make those numbers work, all while doing cardio, lifting, eating clean, and looking noticeably better. So I'm thinking that I'm gonna stick to my own scale (thats what I use for the daily weights) and be content with my pretty zig zag graph. It's a shame because I was really interested in my bodyfat but I just can't deal with 4 different people using 2 different methods and giving me 4 different results. I know about the other options too, but I can promise you FatTrack calipers will be useless in my hands. No matter. I'm looking better, feeling good, and continuing to make gains and improve. cool man.

4/7 226.5
Cardio this morning but no weights this afternoon, thank God cus I have lots to do. My excuse for no pictures until this point has been not one of embarassment but actually taking and getting the pictures online (no camera, no scanner, no accessible facilities...) but I've decided it's too important to let go, so I'm gonna try and borrow a camera from one of my roommates and have the photos developed directly onto a CD. Might set me back a few bucks but should be worth it, look for those popping up in the pictures forum within a week (I'll hopefully take them tonight but with developing it might be awhile). I am definitely still pretty fat but I think I look much better than I did 2 months ago so there will be less overall improvement to be seen, but I will still have a good 3 month spread when I am done with my current phase. I will also include some close ups of the bitching stretch marks I have, maybe I can document their reduction with my weight loss. The ones on my biceps were looking lighter. although they have darkened again, but now some of the ones on my chest and shoulders appear to be lightening up. So progress continues, no complaints from me.

4/8 228
Scales, gotta hate em. Yesterday was my worst diet day in awhile, not in that I cheated, but my timing was all messed up. Due to meetings I got me 1 o clock meal in at 3, then I didn't have the vegetables ready for my 4:30 meal (ended up just being 2 pieces of bread) and then I didn't get anything else till about 9. Tried to get the water in, I think I did alright with that in the end. I believe Saturday is my one month mark, unfortunately no pictures to show with it, but I can still see some great improvements. Glad to see I haven't embarassed myself by creating a journal and the never updating.

Also I found out that my cousin has a digital camera (amazing what you can learn when you actually ask...) so I think I will be taking pictures tomorrow and hopefully have them up here by Saturday. Assuming I can get everything figured out, I'll have a thread over in the pictures forum. No lifting or official cardio today but I'm gonna play some basketball, can't wait, I really enjoy it. Also I have 3 hours left at work and its almost Friday and as you've probly read by now that makes me RIDICULOUSLY RIDICULOUSLY happy.

4/9 228lb
More scale fun. I've tweaked my diet in hopes of finding something a little better and I think that I definitely have. Cut half the whey out of my morning shake and moved the pb from shake to 10:00, split up my meat intake so that I get lean protein at every meal, got cottage cheese in the mix pre workout and before bed. I think overall it's a much more balanced diet, should work out pretty well. I don't mean to jinx myself but if I go anywhere back over 228 I'm gonna be PISSED.

Did my first HIIT session this morning, I think it went pretty well but I gotta push a little harder though, I was only at like 175 bpm and I think I need more like 180. Man I really want these pounds to start shedding again, this is killing me. My one month anniversary is Saturday and I might have only lost like 4 pounds or so this whole month. Nothing to cry about but I just wish things had gone better. I am committed to having no alcohol this weekend and definitely making it much less frequent than the 1x a week cheat I planned.

Since my HIIT was 20 minutes shorter than my usual cardio I got into work real early today and I'll be outta here in an hour. Hallelujah. Get a solid lift in and go home to pass the hell out. Hopefully pictures are coming sometime tonight/Saturday. There are lots of journals popping up the past few days, so many to choose from, I wonder if anyone even reads this one? How do I compete with all that haha.

4/12 ???
A hellish weekend and a brutal start to the week. Had to take a friend like an hour out of town to pick up his car, got to work late so now I'll be here well into tonight, and drank on both Saturday and Sunday night. Definitely a weak weekend, not a lot to say at the moment except that I am just gonna let the anger build up and get it out in tomorrows lift. Im gonna have to approach the weekends with a lot more than "I won't drink/cheat" in the future, definitely make a point of that for next weekend.

4/13 228.5
I am definitely down and out on the whole weight loss thing. I am still doing my workouts with the same consistency and gusto. During the week I am extremely meticulous and successful in charting what I eat and making sure it's appropriate. During the weekends I get in like 1.5 nights of drinking, making room in my diet for the extra calories, not eating crap after getting drunk, and it seems to completely negate all the work I do. I have been at this weight since I bought my scale, 3-4 weeks ago. I know that drinking is bad, and I have probably underestimated how bad, but I can't imagine that it's holding me back this much. I just don't know what to do. I have made revisions and improvement on my diet and its on point, not worth changing again before I have any idea of how well it settles. I am just furious that these weeks have been in vain. I desperately want to lose this weight, as bad as anyone else here, and I have made so many of the major changes in my lifestyle successfully. I see people succeeding all around me and I'm happy for them but deeply jealous. I have been making good improvements in my lifting and think I can see better definition, but that's nothing new for me, and that's never been difficult - hence it's not entirely rewarding. I am coming to terms with the fact that this is going to be a much longer than 3 month process. I am planning on how I can incorporate all these good habits once I move back home and then once I'm at school. But in the next three months, I plan on moving back in mid July, I NEED to see results. Not for this journal, not for the pictures thread, but for myself. I have tried and failed too many times. I need some serious and tangible results in order to keep my head in the game and my heart on the right track. I want this, bad.

I guess that's that. Still here, still trying. Gonna have to get the drinking out of there for sure but still feeling like this stuff is just not getting it done.

4/15 225.5
Well, that last post was interesting. Suffice to say I'm feeling much better. I think that was a combination of a number of different personal and work related things, in addition to my alcohol cheating. So onward and upward I go. I've gotta lose 2 pounds a week to hit the goals I set out for myself perfect. I haven't been losing that much so far and even though I'm going to try and get better, I'm not gonna beat myself up over those goals if I don't get there. I guess I'm just gonna kick back, enjoy my restfully sober weekends, and let this thang happen.

I'm also gonna switch my lifting to once per week per muscle group starting next week. I was very much against this type of training when I arrived here but I've looked into it a bit and am excited to try something new as I've used the same general split for quite some time now. Hopefully it will be das good.

I also can't promise that I'll be updating the journal daily. I am making a conscious effort to cut back on how often I use the scale, I'm gonna try just hopping on when I feel like it and not stressing on other days. My thought is that if I have a cheat day or something, why bother going on the scale just to see that number rise? You know you were bad, and you know it's there, but I don;t think thers a need to attach a number specifically to your actions. Just resume the good life and check on it a few days later. I won't necessarily avoid updating this daily, or even weighing a few days in a row, but I am just not gonna force myself to from now on. We shall see how it leads me.

4/19 224
Stayed away from the scale all weekend and got a nice treat for when I hopped back on. Feels good to be going at this from a more relaxed, though equally dilligent, standpoint. I didn't do much working out last week, only a couple cardios, so I'm gonna count that as my week break from lifting and start today going hard working each muscle once per week for the next 8 weeks. I think I'm in a good position to hit my current goal of 220 by 5/3, won't stress if I'm a little off though. My calculations put me at somewhere around 16% BF for my (relatively) final goal of 205. That will be interesting, I don't know if I've been that skinny in my entire life, at least not for any extended period of time. It would be nice to move back home looking like that. But there's still a solid three months between now and then - looks like it's back to the grindstone.

4/26 221.5 (on 4/23)
Well I knew I'd be posting less but I didn't think I would get this far off. Things have been quite interesting on the fitness front. I haven't hit the cardio or weights for the past two weeks. The first week was my rest week, I did like one formal cardio session and played basketball like I normally do for about 1.5 hours on Thursday, kept the diet going. But last week I was out due to my car breaking down, needs a whole new engine, and that severly limited my ability to get to the gym and get to the grocery store. And since I've had to take the bus to work, my commute has jumped from about 20 minutes to about 2 hours. So thats like 3 hours of my free time taken away in commuting alone. Yes, these are excuses, but that's life. The miracle of the situation is - I'm still doing wonderful. Even after a bunch of cheat meals, and a relative lack of exercise, I'm still losing the pounds. My water intake hasn't changed so I think it's not a big fluctuation. I really broke that plateau I was freaking out about, and I am reallly starting to look good. Getting under 220 is going to really be a big accomplishment, it's been awhile. 220 was always were I quoted myself at for weight, even when I closer to 230. So I am really happy to be making the progress, and it looks like I'll reach my target date. Once I start moving through the 210's, I will just be ecstatic. I am getting everything back together, thanking my lucky stars that falling off didn't hurt me, but revamping and coming back serious again. If I get to my major goal there will be no stopping me. And I can. And I will. Peace.

4/29 221.5
I was so sure I was gonna get my car back today. Called them up and they said they just got the engine today, not Monday. WHA????? Seems that an engine came in, but the guy decided he didn't like it. So he sent it back and told them to send another one. It's slightly flattering to know that they are trying to do the best job possible but they said it would be DONE today, not starting, and they never called me or anything to let me know otherwise. This is seriously hurting my fitness conquests...

But I digress. I have been eating pretty well, made a bunch of burritos with brown rice, beans, chicken, and whole wheat tortillas. Extremely tasty. I haven't tracked my calories in awhile, I'm gonna have to get that going again to see specifically where I'm at, although I have been measuring my portions and continuing to pretty much eat what I did before. I gotta be dedicated if I want to make a good showing for my goal weigh in on Monday. I will not be disappointed at all if I get within a pound but still I would looove to really hit it on the head. It feels like I've been in this a lot longer than 6-7 weeks (officially), and its reassuring to see the results I've had in that time, knowing I have another 10 weeks before I move back home.

5/5 220 (4/30) 221 (5/4)
Well I got down to my goal, even if I am a little bit up, and it feels awesome. Looking in the mirror this morning I could really see a big difference, it's been a long LONG time since I've gotten down to this low of a weight. It's really great to finally reap the rewards of the work I've been doing, and I look forward to staying strong and continuing to make solid progress. Peace.