I'll be using my this "journal" more for my ramblings than an in-depth daily analysis of my nutrition levels and body fat percentage, but you're welcome to commment all the same.

I may or may not update regularly, it really depends if I remember :D

The first thing I noticed yesterday was slight fatty bulge just under my belly button, this worried me a bit until I rationalised it would be like the last time, where I'd simply lost the fat below it, so I'd lost fat rather than gained it.

I checked this out in the mirror, I think the underside of my abs on the 3rd row down are starting to come through.

Weighted up at the gym, 77.2kg down from 77.8kg the last time I weighed just under a week ago, it might be water weight, but we'll see.

Had a good heavy tri/back session (I know this is a pretty absurd combination, I may be changing this up soon, or I may leave it until I'm bulking) but I was unhappy for a short while when I could hardly manage 4 chin-ups, I then remembered I'd started the session with 3 sets of cable rows, so my biceps had had a bit of work put into them.

I think I've set myself a size target, I want my unflexed arms to be the same size as when I've just finished a weight session, because they looked fantastic even if I do say so myself; shame they shrunk back to normal within 10 mins of leaving the gym :p

So today, thanks to the toilet trip I made around dinner time, and mostly down to the stacks of work I've been putting in since last September when I decided I needed to shape up, I finally broke the 12 stone barrier, I weighed in at 66.3KG.

Some of that might be down to a lack of water, but I'm fairly confident that I'd remain below 77KG nonetheless.

At last, time to quit exercise and start eating crap again........

...........yeah right!

Edit: Was an hour-long sesh on the treadmill today, not going too fast but at about 80% of my max HR; I've moved upto 75-80% (150-160bpm) lately because I found I wasn't getting any appreciable results either stamina-wise or fat-loss-wise when running at 65-70% (130-145 bpm or so).

In the spirit of getting into a habit of updating regularly, I didn't go to the gym yesterday, but felt a compulsion to weigh myself after passing one of those scales that you put money in... said I was 11st 12lb (166lb).

I think it was wrong.

Edit: Just to confirm the post blow is actually me, and this is the last time I'll post with this account unless I lose the details to my new one and somehow remember this login :p

Oh yeah, I'lll be using this username from now on too... not sure how many people are going to read this, but I didn't want to start a thread about it anywhere.

So today I had an hour on the treadmill, weighed up before I went on there, I must have been full up in my bowels or something because having spent a bit of time on the toilet again today, but making sure I was fully hydrated before I want (so water loss couldn't account for my weight), I came in at 75.6kg (166.7lb). Quite good as my sort of target weight is 75kg, but I may cut a bit more to get a little more definition before i take the plunge with bulking.

But in all honesty today it was a real battle to make myself go to the gym, I feel so down today about certain events last night that it was so tough to keep to any routine whatsoever.

I feel like crap, you can look as good as you like, but it pales into significance sometimes.

I didn't feel like going to the gym today, and was 50% on deciding not to bother, but logic told me that I shouldn't let things start to slip now because things (that mess you up a bit in the head) pass, and if I started to wind things down a little bit then it would hinder me and I'd have to pick up momentum again.

I had a good session, and the endorphin rush I'm still feeling now has made it worth it, because my mood's picked up a lot.

My only slight annoyance today was that my progress at doing shrugs is slowed because I've not got the physical strength to hold sufficient weight dumbells for two long, so I have to do my reps quickly; I'm going to have to look into remedying this.

Edit: After a day of eating nothing much of any real nutritional value i.e. white bread, soupe and not too much else, jsut the same thing several times (note the lack of protein) I weighed in at 75.6kg again, so I'm hoping this isn't a false weight, I may check that out tonight before I hit the treadmill, making sure I'm fully hydrated.

No idea what I weighed in at today sadly, I left myself in too much of a rush, my eating went totally to hell today too, not because I ate too much (though I had some biscuits, about 200 cals worth), but because I now haven't eaten since 4pm.
It's now 10.23pm, and I kept stalling because I said I'd go at 7, then 8, and eventually got to the gym at 8.50.

I'm going to eat a bit now before I start wasting!

Tuesday: Horrible session, the gym was unusually packed, the contingent mainly made up of people who might attend 3 or 4 more times before they give up forever, or at least until about this time next year (a year being enough time for them to forget why the stopped going, it's too much like hard work). The main result of the place being so full was that I was unable to get at any of the equipment I wanted to use.
I did persevere and eventually made it through my full range of exercises with the exception of my crunches, as I was so fed up by this time that I just wanted to go home, and it's not that big a loss as my primary ab exercise is the hanging leg raise; I'll endeavour to finish all of my crunchess tonight though.

Last night (wednesday): I couldn't help but feel slightly guilty that I was reducing my cardio time so significantly in order to bulk, I've dropped from an hour-long sesion to last nights session of 20 minutes. To alleviate the guilt I really ramped up the pace for the last few minutes, but I was still racked with worry that I could gain too much fat from doing too little endurance work.
I now realise that it took me about 2 years to get to the weight I started at, and that was because I didn't exercise, so I shouldn't be that worried after all. I hope :D

Tonight is leg night, I'm hoping to add some squats to the routine and make it a really worthwhile session rather than be in the mind set that I'm winding down for the week, especially since I'm concentrating on putting on lean mass now and I don't want my legs to lag behind me.

For the first time today I attempted squats... 3 sets of 10 reps, the only problem at my gym is that it's not equiped with a barbell that has any padding, and this was the one day of the week that I was without a towel thanks to some laundry issues i.e. not doing any.
The long and short of it is that I had to squat a lower weight than I was capable of in order to save my vertebrae from being cracked, next time I'm taking a towel to wrap around the back of my neck, because this morning I'm more annoyed by the feeling of bruising on the back of my neck than by the muscle pain in my quads and glutes.

Damn though, with a bit of padding for my neck I could see myself really sticking at this exercise.

Whole routine:

3x10 Squats
15, 16, 18 hanging leg raises
3x10 leg abductions
3x10 leg adductions
3x10 calf extensions
3x10 leg curls

Because of lack of time (I got there late) I decided to not do my back hyperextensions and crunches (both 3 sets of 15, 16 then 18-20 reps), then I became really guilty and finished them off at home :D

So today I did my first total back workout, less exercises, but a fair few sets where I varied my grip and generally tried to make sure I hit the muscles all pretty hard:

3 x 10 bent over rows (wide grip, heavier weight)
3 x 10 bent over rows (narrower grip, lighter weight)
3 x 10 cable low rows
3 x 10 calf extensions (to give my arms a rest for the next couple of sets)
4 x 10 dumbell shrugs
1 set of low weight EZ-Curl shrugs (held behind my back) to failure

I feel I worked a similar level to how I worked on Sunday, when I did a proper chest workout fo the first time, using no machines, and my pecs still have a bit of an ache, which I've never had before, a positive sign my friend was giving me the right advice :)

Just a standard 20 mins on the treadmill today, tomorrow is either going to be a modified leg day (more free weight stuff and less machine work) or if the gym isn't that busy, a bicep and tricep day. If it's busy then I'll move it to Friday when there's practically no-one around.

The main thing I wanted to mention was that today I took delivery of a different flavour of my protein supplement "Designer Whey". After being a bit fed up with boring old chocolate, I opted for the "French Vanilla" flavour, and didn't hold my hopes out for it in all honesty... Wow, this stuff is delicious! It's actually like a vanilla milkshake, and I'll be sticking with it from now on. I've not tried it with water but it can't taste much worse than the chocolate stuff, which had a nasty aftertaste to it.

Another thing I tried today for the first time was cheese (I kid you not, I've never eaten a small chunk of cheese by itself before, if you knew me I'd be the fussiest eater you'd know)... I went for the low-fat white cheese from my local supermarket - I figure if I liked this then I'd not be tempted by full-fat - I was not too impressed, it's possibly I have a tendency towards being a bit of a supertaster, and it was a bit strong for my liking, but as there's now a block of the stuff sitting in my fridge I've decided I'm going to chip away at it slowly until I've finished it. I might get to like it... or I could end up giving it away, we'll see :p

So, Thursday ended up being an arm workout day, probably he last Thursday that I use to work my arms too, as the weight area was so crowded that I couldn't get near enough done, the lesson's been learned though.

Yesterday was leg day, a very frustrating leg day, but also one where I learned, so not a big loss. I learned that I was squatting too low, I did full (deep) squats instead of just going low enough for my thighs to be parallel to the ground; this was a result of not getting a side-view of myself in the mirror until I was on my third set and so I opted to go too low rather than not low enough, the result being that I couldn't complete my heavier sets.
Basically, my legs aren't that strong and ned a lot of work, but my bad form meant I thought they were weaker than they were, not much though :p

Sunday was a fairly uneventful chest day:
a few sets of dumbell presses, in which I'm hoping my form will improve as the stabilisers strengthen
sets of incline preses on the Smith machine
sets of shoulder raises on the Smith (for Serratus Anterior)
sets of hanging leg raises (abs)

I'm still very much feeling like I worked my pecs hard enough to stimulate a bit of growth, they're one of the things I'm concentrating on the most, along with my traps and my arms.

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Yesterday I worked my back (and as a result, also my biceps), and I started off seeing how many complete of overhand grip chin-ups I could manage while I was completely fresh. I hit 6-7 in the first set, 5 in the second and 3 in the third before moving to the narrow grip to try and finish the set off, right after that I moved to the lat pulldowns to try and get the last bit of work out of them.

The rest of the workout comprised of sets of bent over barbell rows, sets of dumbell shrugs alternating with mini sets of barbell curls, followed by sets of barbell shrugs; I finally rounded it off with some sets of cable rows.

One thing that concerned me at the en of the workout was the tightness in my biceps (one in particular), it reminded me of the first and only time I strained both of them and left myself out of commission for a week when I was unable to straighten my arms properly... thankfully this morning they're a little bit tight but effectively have their full range of motion, so I should be able to train my biceps and triceps properly come Friday, I may well be going light if they still feel a bit tender though.

Leg day last night, nothing out of the ordinary really, I did my squats (mostly) correctly, as a result I think I can up the weight a few KG next week.

Not posted in here for a good while.

I've been carrying on the whole bulking thing since I last posted, I've also almost completely let my cardion drop off to virtually nothing so that I could gain as fast a possible; the upshot of not doing any cardio has made me feel sluggish lately, and also pretty bloated at times, so I'm reintroducing that, which started two days ago when I did my first run on the treadmill for 2 weeks. Tonight I'm doing another cardio session in place of my usual bicep/tricep workout (which accompanies the compound stuff I do on other days) because I've had a strained muscle in my forearm for 3 or 4 weeks now, and while it's not getting any worse, it's not getting a chance to recover, so I've found myself reinjuring it in te last few weeks.

Last night was my leg workout as per usual, though since I've been feeling so unenergetic this week I only managed to arrive at the gym less than an hour before closing, though I still did the majority or what I wanted to do, saving myself a good few minutes by supersetting my leg adductions and abductions.
I upped my squat by a few more KG this week and managed to complete 4 sets (1 warmup, 1 at 85%, 1 at my new weight and a final set back at 85%) without feeling any twinges of pain in my lower abdomen that were caused by bad technique, hopefully I'll keep this up and thus avoid giving myself a hernia.

Oh yeah, I've also recently switched from doing shrugs with dumbells to doing it with an Olympic bar, aside from having to drag the thing over my nuts I much prefer it to dumbbells. I think my traps are coming along slowly but surely, I'll no doubt move back to dumbbells at some point to vary things a bit, but in general I'm very content with how varied my workouts are.
In each session I place slightly more emphasis on one part of the area of my body I'm working on in that session e.g. in a chest workout I might concentrate more on the calvicular (upper) part of my pecs than the lower, I vary where I place the emphasis so as a result I don't feel like my workouts are getting stale.