Soooo, I guess I veered off track for long enough. I made good newbie progress last year for a solid three months... then kind of let myself get absorbed in another world... a world of warcraft.. ugh. I'm done with massively multiplayer online roleplaying games forever... what a waste of time. These aren't the kind of games you can pick up for 10 minutes at a time to play. Often you need to play several hours at a time in order to contribute to your character's in-game "growth". Furthermore, these breed of video games are the very few that seem to log your time spent in game by days rather than by hours. In just under a year I racked up nearly 80 days worth. :mad:

Sitting for extended periods behind the computer screen, not exercising and not eating healthy have robbed me of any progress that I made last year. Which means I need to work my way through the gears starting from neutral all over again. So, my first step is to set a few goals for myself and intentions over the next several months.


IMMEDIATE GOALS:

plan meals and meal schedule
create shopping list
plan lifting routine
start and stick to the plansSHORT TERM GOALS:

cut until i'm lean enough to start a bulk -- hopefully before my 25th birthday at the end of august (estimated 50+ lbs in 8.5 months)
be more active and productive in every day lifeLONG TERM GOALS:

ability to do chin-ups/pull-ups
ability to do 1x bodyweight in the big three compounds
look good nekkidI hope that my goals aren't all that unreasonable. I know that putting a timeframe on fatloss can be a dangerous avenue, but I'm not saying "omgz beach p4rty next mnth, need to l0ose 50 lbs HALP!!!11!11!!".

Anyway, I hope that keeping my vision of myself as a fit 25 year old will make me push that extra mile. But I won't beat myself up if it takes me a tiny bit longer to shed off all that fat. After all, it's taken 24 years to accumulate. Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

WoW? Yikes! A close friend of mine ditched me (and everyone else he knows) for that stupid computer game. I'm glad you were able to realize what it does to you.

A word of advice - don't look at "cutting/bulking" right now. Aim for "eating healthy and lifting weights". As a beginner, you'll be able to both build muscle and burn fat effectively if you do it right. You'll undoubtedly reach your goals if you can make a lifestyle change ;)

I'd been haphazardly lifting and eating somewhat healthy for 6 months before getting strict on my diet and starting an official program (starting strength) and I'm seeing rapid gains (and good losses!) to this day.

Alright, so I had wanted to get back on track back in December. No such luck, I'm afraid. All that ranting and raving about how evil WoW was, yet I continued to play and ignore my health. :(

Let's see, since April of last year, I've packed on roughly 35 pounds of fat! :eek::eek::eek:


I started training and eating healthier today -- first time since last summer. As soon as I'm done with this post, I'll work on getting a real meal plan and schedule figured out. But I needed to take action today, so I did some light weight training and a tiny touch of cardio. Man, am I out of shape or what? I kept it very light to say the least, and it still kicked my ass. Here's what it looked like:

Squats: 45x12, 45x12, 45x12, 45x12 (BB only)
Deadlifts: 65x10, 65x10, 65x10, 65x10
DB Bench Press: 15x12, 15x12, 15x12, 15x12 (15lb db's, was too easy but left it anyways)
DB Military Press: 10x12, 10x12, 10x12, 10x12

Sadly, it's my legs that are feeling it the most. I think I need to work on my squat form, though. Near the end, I felt I was descending way too fast and that I wasn't in control of the descent. Could just be that I've been so inactive for so long, I pushed them beyond their limitations for the first day back in the gym. I do need to be more strict with my form nonetheless.

Food so far today has been ok, but like I said I'm not really following a plan at the moment, but that's going to change hopefully by tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Every Sunday I'm planning on taking body measurements and scale weight readings to monitor my progress. Also I'll try to take photo's along the way, and maybe when I'm feeling braver (read: made some progress) I'll post a few.

So, here's the tale of the tape with my starting stats:

Age: 24
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 242 lbs
Chest: 44"
Waist: 49.5"
Hips: 47.5"
Thighs: 30"
Biceps: 14.5"

Alright. For the first week getting back into things in nearly a year, it hasn't been bad. On Tuesday, I pushed through some DOMS with 45 minutes of LISS (130-140 BPM) which left my legs even more devastated from the squats i performed the day before. The next day I could barely walk, so I took it easy. Thursday I felt better and did another full-body routine much like I posted last time, with added weight in most lifts. That's pretty much all I did this week, but I think it's an alright start. I'm still feeling it today.

I think I'm really going to try and take my time for my body to get adjusted to lifting again and perfect my form, because I know I have a pretty weak lower back and have injured it last year. It was pretty much the reason why I stopped all exercise last summer. I felt a soreness in my lower back after doing squats/deadlifts for a few weeks, but I didn't think it was injured. I blamed it on the pressure from excess weight around my waist causing my problems. Who knows, maybe that's true. Or maybe I rounded my back doing a deadlift and never let my back recover. I wasn't sure. But the soreness wasn't debilitating or even a deterrent to my ignorance. I continued. Then one day at my previous job, after doing a hard days work of manual labour, went home and woke up in agonizing pain the next day that persisted for many weeks therafter. I never could figure out if it was just a coincidence. Maybe I just twisted a funny way while lifting something at work, or was there an underlying problem from my weight training also? *Shrugs* I'll be sure to pay more attention this time around. I can feel tenderness in that area a tiny bit already, so I'm already concerned. Mind you, I get a sore lower back just from doing things like standing over a sink or running.

As far as nutrition is concerned, I have not yet made any serious attempts in creating a plan or meal schedule. It will come very soon.

This week started good food wise. Made healthier choices until the weekend hit and had a couple of fast food meals.

I forgot to do a morning measurement yesterday, so I did it this morning instead. Looks like I've lost a bit since starting already, which really surprised me. I know my meals could be a lot cleaner.

Weight: 238.5 lbs
Chest: 44"
Waist: 48"
Hips: 47"
Thighs: 29.5"
Biceps: 14.5"

I admit, It feels good to be exercising again. Minus a sore right knee and lower back due to improper technique on a couple of aforementioned compound lifts, things are going well.

Yesterday I did a full body work out, and today I did my first real HIIT workout on my exercise bike. It was pretty tough, even though it was pretty short. I was still sweating half an hour after it was over and my lungs were on fire. 3 minute warm up, then 4 minutes of 30 second hard/moderate intervals, and a 3 minute cooldown. My goal is to ramp it up every week by a minute.

Tomorrow I'm going to let my body take a rest from the compounds in the gym until friday since I'm doing a full-body routine. Instead I'm going to focus on isolated lifts -- bis, tris, calves.. hmm and maybe I'll throw in some upper back work too.

While I still havent really worked out a strict meal plan, I find myself eating a lot less junk around the house. I'm eating more vegetables and more protein while eliminating a lot of the starchy/processed carbs I used to turn to.

Last Wednesday I tried to take exercising a little light, but I had no idea what I was in store for. Worked upper back, arms and calves. Started with dumbell rows, moved onto curls, bench dips and then standing calf raises (did these to complete burn out). Felt good and tired from the workout, felt accomplished, felt awesome. Next day, a little tenderness in my upper body, also felt good. I end up working outside with my dad doing some electrical work at my grandfather's house and spend several hours outside on my feet. 4 hours later, I start feeling my calves and I begin hobbling around. Next 2 days I have DOMS like you wouldn't believe. Christ, I didn't even want to get out of bed so I could spare myself from the torture of having to walk around. :lol:

Needless to say, I didnt get another workout in until today. I tried doing some goblet squats with a dumbell, but I started to feel it in my lower back. I wonder if it's possible to over-arch your back, and maybe sucking in my gut while I puff out my chest isn't helping? :confused: No one probably reads this anyways, so I may have to post the question in the forums elsewhere, but should I be forcing my abdominal muscles outward and keeping them tight while I raise my chest, sucking them in, or just emphasize more on chest up?

I decided to throw on some 45lb plates for a deadlift today, and surprisingly found it a breeze to lift. I think my form was a little better than last time because of (a) the increased height of the bar allowing a straighter up-down path around my knees (b) stopped me from using my arms to do more work than they should have (as in with a lighter weight). I found myself getting into position, then taking a breath in and kind of holding it while forcing my abdominals outward while ascending in the lift, and then exhaling as I descended down to the floor. Hope that's right.