ScottBenson
April 18th, 2007, 03:19 PM
Hello all you fine people!
I'm new to the forum and being serious about fitness is new to me as well. I've been reading through many of the posts here, particularly Gravityhomer's fat loss guide and Marcus's guide to nutrition for weight loss. Amazing posts and very informative. So far I've found that many of my questions have been addressed in various posts and I've learned a lot by reading many of the other threads here. Overall I'm very impressed with the quality of the information here and the friendly and supportive atmosphere.
I made a resolution to get into better shape this year and I'm still sticking with it. At the start of the year I weighed around 195 or so and I'm down to 189 now. I'm 6'1" and 40 years old. When I started the year I began with a focus on cardio and was doing 3 - 5 days a week burning 300 calories or so a session. Around the middle of February I started with the Power of 10 program which focuses on resistance training using machines to the point of muscle failure and then resting. I was doing a twice a week program and switched over to once a week in April. I started to feel like I was missing out on the great feelings post work out so I started to work yoga into the schedule along with cardio on a couple of days as well. Since the start of April I've been doing weights 1 day a week, yoga 3 days a week and 1 or 2 days of cardio.
I've also started tracking my diet on the fitday site. This was really useful for me as I had no idea I was consuming so few carbs and so much fat. Protein was also low for me but I started using protein shakes around the middle of March. I'm shooting for a mix of 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat based on the recomendations here. So far that seems to be going well. I think my overall calorie consumption might be a bit low but not too far off, currently around 2480 per day according to fitday and the percentages of the macronutrients are within 2 - 3 % of my goal.
My goals are
1) Be in shape and healthy, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally
2) Cut fat to the point of visible abs
3) Build more muscle mass
I feel great pretty much every day and feel really good about goal number 1. Goal number 2 is a stretch. I've lost some notches on my belt and can see improvement in my legs, arms, back, etc but those love handles are very persistant. From the reading I've done here it sounds like that's fairly normal and that I just need to keep working at it. I've got another two weeks of the once a week power of 10 weights program then I'm going to switch to twice a week split sets I think to work my muscles more. I've avoided free weights for a couple of reasons, I'm not experienced with them, I work out alone, I'm concerned about hurting myself, others or generally looking stupid. I know these are lousy excuses and I'm planning to move up to free weights at the end of my next 6 week program at the latest. I've started talking with a few of the trainers at my gym and I will probably wind up springing for a few sessions with the focus of developing a free weight program that I can feel comfortable with.
So that's pretty much my introduction. I feel very fortunate to have found this community. I'm learning a lot here and I'm very open to any comments or suggestions. For now I'm researching most of my questions with the search feature but will probably start in with some more specific questions before too long.
Best wishes to you all.
Scott
I'm new to the forum and being serious about fitness is new to me as well. I've been reading through many of the posts here, particularly Gravityhomer's fat loss guide and Marcus's guide to nutrition for weight loss. Amazing posts and very informative. So far I've found that many of my questions have been addressed in various posts and I've learned a lot by reading many of the other threads here. Overall I'm very impressed with the quality of the information here and the friendly and supportive atmosphere.
I made a resolution to get into better shape this year and I'm still sticking with it. At the start of the year I weighed around 195 or so and I'm down to 189 now. I'm 6'1" and 40 years old. When I started the year I began with a focus on cardio and was doing 3 - 5 days a week burning 300 calories or so a session. Around the middle of February I started with the Power of 10 program which focuses on resistance training using machines to the point of muscle failure and then resting. I was doing a twice a week program and switched over to once a week in April. I started to feel like I was missing out on the great feelings post work out so I started to work yoga into the schedule along with cardio on a couple of days as well. Since the start of April I've been doing weights 1 day a week, yoga 3 days a week and 1 or 2 days of cardio.
I've also started tracking my diet on the fitday site. This was really useful for me as I had no idea I was consuming so few carbs and so much fat. Protein was also low for me but I started using protein shakes around the middle of March. I'm shooting for a mix of 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat based on the recomendations here. So far that seems to be going well. I think my overall calorie consumption might be a bit low but not too far off, currently around 2480 per day according to fitday and the percentages of the macronutrients are within 2 - 3 % of my goal.
My goals are
1) Be in shape and healthy, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally
2) Cut fat to the point of visible abs
3) Build more muscle mass
I feel great pretty much every day and feel really good about goal number 1. Goal number 2 is a stretch. I've lost some notches on my belt and can see improvement in my legs, arms, back, etc but those love handles are very persistant. From the reading I've done here it sounds like that's fairly normal and that I just need to keep working at it. I've got another two weeks of the once a week power of 10 weights program then I'm going to switch to twice a week split sets I think to work my muscles more. I've avoided free weights for a couple of reasons, I'm not experienced with them, I work out alone, I'm concerned about hurting myself, others or generally looking stupid. I know these are lousy excuses and I'm planning to move up to free weights at the end of my next 6 week program at the latest. I've started talking with a few of the trainers at my gym and I will probably wind up springing for a few sessions with the focus of developing a free weight program that I can feel comfortable with.
So that's pretty much my introduction. I feel very fortunate to have found this community. I'm learning a lot here and I'm very open to any comments or suggestions. For now I'm researching most of my questions with the search feature but will probably start in with some more specific questions before too long.
Best wishes to you all.
Scott