Challenge dates: July 1, 2004-October 31, 2004

Categories:
1. Best improvement in overall athletic appearance.
2. Best transformation relative to starting point.
3. Best physique in the end

Poses:
1. Front, full body, unflexed
2. Front double biceps
3. Side, full body, unflexed
4. Back, full body, unflexed
5. Back double biceps

Judging will be based on votes from forum members through surveys conducted after 10/31/04. Judging should be on the basis of muscle mass, definition, symmetry, and overall asthetics. Hopefully John Stone will provide his unique insight in helping to judge the challenge. Forum members should feel free to post constructive comments and/or predictions during and after the challenge. Updated photos should be submitted on August 1 and September 1. May the best man win. :db:

Sounds good to me. I'll take some new pics tomorrow morning and post them sometime tomorrow. August 1st is a day after I get back from a 1 week trip to canada, so I might go early on those pics. I'm excited though! :D Let's kick some ass!

sweet! good job on putting this together nico. cant wait to get started :spaz:

sweet! good job on putting this together nico. cant wait to get started :spaz:
Josh, can you set up a page on your fitness site to host our photos? Then we can show a few photos on JSF but have the majority on your site so we can use larger file sizes. There's no reason not to make the images as large as possible, within reason.

I think I want my full body pic's to be at least 800 pixels in height. On JSF, 400-500 is about as tall as an image should be posted to a forum, except if it's a hot chick.

Josh, can you set up a page on your fitness site to host our photos?

Yep, Ill try to have that done tonight sometime :db:

daDude: still with us?


Yep, Ill try to have that done tonight sometime :db:

Here are my July 1 starting pics-- Challenge on. I had to wear the white boxer briefs cuz I had no clean black ones. My junk was showing a little so I had to do some rudimentary photoshopping.


http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.1.jpghttp://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.2.jpghttp://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.3.jpg
http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.4.jpg http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.5.jpg

Here are my July 1 starting pics-- Challenge on. I had to wear the white boxer briefs cuz I had no clean black ones. My junk was showing a little so I had to do some rudimentary photoshopping.


http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.1.jpghttp://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.2.jpghttp://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.3.jpg
http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.4.jpg http://sportsmachines.net/Stone/070104.5.jpg


MAN!, when you are gonna be done with the cutting phase, YOU ARE SO GONNA BE FREAKIN SUPER SHREDDED.... your lean mass is real significant in chest and biceps.

ya honestly. you are going to be enormous by the end of this. I took some pics today but need to photoshop them later tonight and post them - however, i might make the pic of my back black and white cause i seem to be having a horrible allergic reaction to some strawberries. I have a huge, raised rash covering my entire back which has been there all day.

Nico: you should send the originals of those to jk0 if you modified them at all because he will post them in their original/enormous size so we get lots of detail. at least i thought that was the plan. i'll have some newer pics up here even though i dont want to. damned gut.

So I took some pics, but my photoshop has gone insane. I'll get them posted and emailed to jk0 as soon as possible

MAN!, when you are gonna be done with the cutting phase, YOU ARE SO GONNA BE FREAKIN SUPER SHREDDED.... your lean mass is real significant in chest and biceps.

Hey thanks man...that's funny you should mention biceps because I consider mine to be extremely small. But hey I'll take the compliment.

I just worked legs with my wife but unfortunately we had to eat Little Caesar's afterwards while doing laundry. I only had 2 and a half pieces though which showed restraint. In my former days I would've eaten 7 or 8 pieces, then washed it down with several cokes or beers. I just drank 8 oz of juice and a shitload of water to make me feel full instead.

Here are my pictures:

i get the digital camera tommarow then i post :-) srry for my inconvience.

apart from my photoshop being broken, my father is not a very good photographer. Here's what I got. p.s. the pic i took of my back unflex is not usable due to an insane rash i got from eating too many strawberries :o Hopefully we can live without that one

and here is how i WISHED i looked

and here is how i WISHED i looked
That just shows how much bad lighting can change an image. Your contest photos look to have been shot under the worst possible conditions, and the result is harsh whiteness.

The other pics had some softer overhead lighting that made you look much more tan. Or maybe at the time you were much more tan.

For your next set you need to get the photographer to get your whole body in the shot and pose in front of a solid background.

heh im doing my best. Hopefully, I'll be in much better shape in a month and the lighting wont matter as much. So far, things are looking good, with my meatball sub that I had for lunch. I'm so weak :o



That just shows how much bad lighting can change an image. Your contest photos look to have been shot under the worst possible conditions, and the result is harsh whiteness.

The other pics had some softer overhead lighting that made you look much more tan. Or maybe at the time you were much more tan.

For your next set you need to get the photographer to get your whole body in the shot and pose in front of a solid background.

What do you do for back exercises? Your upper back is pretty well developed.

originally in my initial major cutting stage, 3 times a week i was doing 3 sets of far grip pulldowns to my chest, 3 sets behind my neck.

these days i've been doing once a week warmup + 3 sets of pulldowns to my chest, 2 or 3 sets of closegrip pulldowns, 2 sets of cable rows and 1 set of dumbell rows

this week im going to switch up my workout. for back, i'm going to switch to 2 sets of bent over barbell rows, 2 sets of closegrip pulldowns, 2 sets of lightly weighted pullups (10lbs is probably all i can do for a while), 1 set of cable rows, and 2 sets of deadlifts. I was doing deadlifts a while ago but stopped due to a lack of a weightbelt. I'm definitely getting back into them now since I have my weightbelt and was seeing great gains with them. I do everything MAX-OT style with warm up sets of 12, 8, 6, 3 reps of my first exercise and 4-6 reps of heavy sets for the actual exercise.

how come you aren't ever on aim? we should compare notes :p me and jk0 have been a little bit.

heh, every pic i've posted all over these forums were taken within a few days of each other. The pics where i look really good were taken with some soft overhead light with me posing and flexing to look how i wanted to.

The contest pics i took were in a different room with no overhead light, and im not sucking in or flexing anything which is why there's no definition anywhere. Also, i think bad posture in my side shot is making it look worse than it is, but you can see my gut pretty well there.

I'm going to start making a tuna, turkey, or roast beef sandwich every day to take to work and try to start eating better. I keep eating such horrible things which is what is holding me back the most. My workout schedule is awesome. Food is my weakness :mad: I've also gained a few pounds between the good shots and the bad ones :o


That just shows how much bad lighting can change an image. Your contest photos look to have been shot under the worst possible conditions, and the result is harsh whiteness.

The other pics had some softer overhead lighting that made you look much more tan. Or maybe at the time you were much more tan.

For your next set you need to get the photographer to get your whole body in the shot and pose in front of a solid background.

how come you aren't ever on aim? we should compare notes :p me and jk0 have been a little bit.
I'll be on for a little while today. I can't AIM too much at work because it would look real bad if a message popped up while the boss was in my office. Is there a way to not be signed off but to not have messages pop up?

ya, turn on an away message and have it set to hide messages or go into invisible mode


I'll be on for a little while today. I can't AIM too much at work because it would look real bad if a message popped up while the boss was in my office. Is there a way to not be signed off but to not have messages pop up?

daDude-where you at?

I've been eating like absolute ass recently, and yesterday was my 21st birthday so I'm a few pounds heavier than I should be. on top of that, I'm at my 8th week of training, so im taking the week off. Argh

Anyways, i started taking SAN Tight today so we'll see how much that helps....Im taking another week off at the end of july so I dont think my next set of pictures will be very exciting :(

I've been eating like absolute ass recently, and yesterday was my 21st birthday so I'm a few pounds heavier than I should be. on top of that, I'm at my 8th week of training, so im taking the week off. Argh

Anyways, i started taking SAN Tight today so we'll see how much that helps....Im taking another week off at the end of july so I dont think my next set of pictures will be very exciting :(
I've been eating like shit too but I've been consistently hitting the weights. Cardio has been okay.

What's SAN tight? Is it a thermogenic?

I've been taking Ripped Fuel for about 9 months and I think it's great. It gives me energy and motivation for the workout-although I don't think it burns much fat. It enables me to do my cardio so it's worth the money. No jitters/shakes like hydroxycut had, though I never actually tried it my friends just told me about their experiences.

san tight is like ripped fuel. I tried ripped fuel for 2 weeks and liked it a lot, but i heard tight was more bang for your buck. so far i dont think im liking it very much - definitely jittery, increased heart rate and overall weirdfeelingness. on the plus side, i have almost no desire to eat, which is a positive change. hopefully these side effects will go away soon :mad:

san tight is like ripped fuel. I tried ripped fuel for 2 weeks and liked it a lot, but i heard tight was more bang for your buck. so far i dont think im liking it very much - definitely jittery, increased heart rate and overall weirdfeelingness. on the plus side, i have almost no desire to eat, which is a positive change. hopefully these side effects will go away soon :mad:

With Ripped Fuel, my appetite goes away pretty well. It does help with food cravings. One time I took 4 on accident (within about 5 minutes of each other) and I felt kind of freaked out-probably the same way that ephedra made people feel. Ripped Fuel is really just guarana seed+St John's Wort+Green Tea Leaf. Some people buy all that stuff separately but for me this is the way to go. I don't have to drink coffee in the morning either.

dont forget caffeine. the first time i took ripped fuel, i failed to read the bottle closely enough and took 2 of them at about midnight. needless to say, i didnt sleep much that night. i think i was up until 7:30am actually.

i remember similar side effects when i first went on ripped fuel so hopefully they will go away soon. i hate this jittery/dizziness that is consuming me. i also should have waited a few days for the copious amount of alcohol in my system to fully flush out since i did have a pretty ridiculous 21st birthday a few nights ago. *sigh* :d_redface:


With Ripped Fuel, my appetite goes away pretty well. It does help with food cravings. One time I took 4 on accident (within about 5 minutes of each other) and I felt kind of freaked out-probably the same way that ephedra made people feel. Ripped Fuel is really just guarana seed+St John's Wort+Green Tea Leaf. Some people buy all that stuff separately but for me this is the way to go. I don't have to drink coffee in the morning either.

dont forget caffeine. the first time i took ripped fuel, i failed to read the bottle closely enough and took 2 of them at about midnight. needless to say, i didnt sleep much that night. i think i was up until 7:30am actually.

i remember similar side effects when i first went on ripped fuel so hopefully they will go away soon. i hate this jittery/dizziness that is consuming me. i also should have waited a few days for the copious amount of alcohol in my system to fully flush out since i did have a pretty ridiculous 21st birthday a few nights ago. *sigh* :d_redface:
yeah i know -the guarana seed is where the caffeine comes from.

so i think the side effects are calming down. I am definitely not hungry pretty much ever, but that fact is not stopping me from eating like a pig. in fact, i have eaten out like 50% of the past week, maybe more

on top of that, last week was my 1 week off after 8 weeks of training, and next week i wont be able to train either. So July will have 2 weeks of training for me if i get back on track and at least go this week.

August should be a little better for me, but September will be the best when i get back to school and get on a much better schedule where i can control everything i eat and separate out my cardio and weights sessions. I cant wait for the summer to be over so I can seriously devote my time to the transformation.

Needless to say, my next set of pics are going to show almost no change :( just wait until september baby :)

How long should we give daDude before he's not in the contest anymore?

heh, i think it's too late already. oh well. do we have any prizes since with 3 people almost everyone will possibly win something?



How long should we give daDude before he's not in the contest anymore?

**edit**

I was going to see about joining you guys, but you have enough people in this one. I'll just hook up with someone else.

**edit**

OK. I turned 21 in July. after going to the gym twice in three weeks, my eating and gym schedule are back on track as of today. Ill get pics sometime this week but dont expect to see much of any change in me. August is going to be huge for me tho. I can feel it :)

Anyways, ill post some pics sometime this week. Looking forward to seeing the progress that you guys have made

you guys mind if I jump in on this?

i dont mind - got any pics so we can see what we're up against before we agree to let you in? ;)

I'll hopefully be getting my 30 day pics taken tonight. I've put in a lot of work this month so I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

you guys mind if I jump in on this?

You'll be at a disadvantage-you only have 2 months to improve and we've got a month head start for our before/after.

Look at the 5 pic's that we've each submitted and have those taken for your 'before's' which will be 8/1. We'll post again on or around 9/1 and then the finishing photos around 9/30.

good luck

heh, i dont know if he'll be at that big of a disadvantage, at least from me - i only worked out 1 week in july pretty much. However, we'll see what august holds for me and my laziness ;)

heh, i dont know if he'll be at that big of a disadvantage, at least from me - i only worked out 1 week in july pretty much. However, we'll see what august holds for me and my laziness ;)
I think that puts me in the driver seat becuase I kicked my own ass in the gym just about every week this month-especially today when I hit legs. I finished it off with a 100-rep set of machine squats. Try it sometime if you want to look like you have Parkinson's of the lower body. Walking down steps proved difficult if not impossible because of the violent trembling. I needed Forest Gump-esque leg braces to get back to work after that one. my magic legs

Wow. Sounds good to me! Keep it up! I got my ass kicked seriously at the gym yesterday and today, which i definitely enjoyed. In my weeks off, i managed to eat HORRIBLY, which really took some effort. I started taking SAN Tight which destroyed my appetite, but not my will to eat, which is my biggest adversary. I love eating. Always will. Just need to figure out some way to be constantly eating good food, but not over do it.

anyways, I managed to not gain ANY weight, i think, if thats possible, and i might have even lost a few pounds (prolly from lbm)

So my new regiment is going to be the same on the weights, switched up a little bit, and 60 minutes of cardio 6-7 days a week, split up on 2 or 3 machines. At least that's the plan. We'll see how I do when i get some pics taken :D

Good job on your dedication Nico. I hope August and September hold the same motivation for me. Any word from Jk0? His website hasnt been updated in a while...

So my new regiment is going to be the same on the weights, switched up a little bit, and 60 minutes of cardio 6-7 days a week, split up on 2 or 3 machines. At least that's the plan. We'll see how I do when i get some pics taken :D

Good job on your dedication Nico. I hope August and September hold the same motivation for me. Any word from Jk0? His website hasnt been updated in a while...

That's a lot of cardio. Good luck sticking to that-I'd do it if I had the time. Do you work?

jk0-where you at?

ya, but its looking to be more and more part time since there doesnt seem to be enough business....destroyed my shoulder yesterday at the gym, guess i overworked it since its been a while. Its fine today tho

I wish i was eating less with my increased cardio since i would be seeing amazing results but alas...my will power is weak.

Yesterday i went insane at my friends house with all of the yummy snacks he had at around 11pm. I wont go into details, but damnit, food is just too attractive for me.

today is better tho. Need to get a few hours of work in, which is good, but all i've eaten today was a large bowl of kashi go lean and a chicken caesar salad and some bread. not ideal, i know, but its keeping me pretty full which is the biggest challenge. After work, gym time, back, abs, and an hour of cardio :D

let's see those pics Nico - i'll get mine taken this weekend after *hopefully* dropped a pound or two, but not likely

Yesterday i went insane at my friends house with all of the yummy snacks he had at around 11pm. I wont go into details, but damnit, food is just too attractive for me.


Sounds like a hippie lettuce issue. I always eat apples and peanut butter when the bud strikes.

let's see those pics

Hopefully we'll have time to get them taken tonight. We'll be going out though so it may not be till tomorrow. I really want to get them done soon otherwise my August progress will be showing up in my end of July pics. Alas I have to depend on my photographer being in a patient mood and willing to put in the 2 minutes it takes to get the shots.

I can't tell her about this site because she'd definitely want to see it, then read my posts, then ask me why I spend so much time on this forum. I would have no appropriate response to that question and it would end with me being obsessed with exercise and my physical appearance. So I avoid it by just making her take the photos without comments from the peanut gallery.

Come on Nico! Hippie Lettuce hah! Havent heard it called that before. I dont do drugs like that anymore, since it would always lead to me binge eating like nothing you have ever seen before.

I dont think taking my pictures a little bit into august will hurt any, infact, i think it will only help, since it will get me back into the routine rather than taking pics after 3 weeks off, which would be painful to see. Look out for my pics this weekend. Looks like its getting down to just you and I Nico ;)

Thinks should get interesting come september.

What can I say? I didn't exhale...


Remember that leg workout I told you about on Monday-with the 100 rep set at the end? My ass is so sore today I feel like I spent a week high on ecstasy living on Castro Street.

My legs feel like I took a bunch of injections from a really thick needle-if I touch them in certain parts of the upper quad it kills. I probably overdid it especially since I've done 20 minutes on the stepmill after that workout and yesterday's back day.

This last 5 weeks has represented the longest I've stuck to a weight training regimen since college back in about '94-the contest must have something to do with it. I'm a very competitive person and I don't planning on losing this thing. I had a few trips that had me missing 2 or sometimes 3 days of training in a row, but on all the other days that I was able I worked out good and proper.

Now my only fear is injury or boredom. Photos TONIGHT

By the way, I noticed in another contest thread that they copied verbatim my intial post showing what the rules are and the poses.

I guess they think I got if from somewhere on this site or that it's just standardized at this point, but I would have appreciated some kind of acknowledgement or credit rather than just have it copied/pasted with a little Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V.

I guess that's the internet-better get used to it. Plagiarists are everywhere.

I'm big into creative rights-I even sided with Lars on the whole Napster controversy.

hah you dork. Copywritten contest rules? ;)

Im doing physical therapy for my busted knee/quad from years ago so I'm not doing 1 leg day like i used to at the gym, but 2 or 3 (if they'll let me) days at physical therapy which is pretty exhausting too. I dont think i could handle a 100 rep set. I've been doing very heavy low rep sets on everything pretty much which I dont think I like too much. But then I cant do as much weight. Maybe I'll switch things up when i get back to school and have more gyming time with less hassle.

I too would like to win this thing and was doing very well up until july. I had consistently been working out and eating pretty well from February-the end of June. As soon as I turned 21 it all went to hell in July tho, but now im back on track and dont plan on stopping until Thanksgiving if all goes according to plan.

My biggest problem is still my tendency to eat (way too much) when im not hungry.

for example, today I had a big bowl of kashi go lean for breakfast at like 7:30am before physical therapy. Then, around noon, someone from my work busts out this peanut butter/honey creation spread out on wax paper from the fridge. I made sure that it was healthy peanut butter before endulging, but it was so damned tasty. I didnt have that much at all, probably more than 2 tb of peanut butter tho, but i felt so weird - like heart burn but not really. I was really full and weird feeling. So before my appointment, i went home at like 2:45, still feeling full/weird, I had a turkey sandwich on wheat bread with a pickle on the side and a handful of go lean. After that, i was super full, not stuffed tho, so I guess that's good. And i know I shouldnt skip lunch, so its good i ate, especially with the intervals between food intake, but even now, at 4pm, pretty soon before i go to hit up some cardio (since i had physical therapy today - no weights), im still really full.

But the problem, is on most days, even when im feeling like this, I'll still snack on random shit. Most of the time its healthy random shit, but I could definitely do without it in between meals

For example, I've had cottage cheese and toast as a snack, or just a couple of handfuls of sliced meat, or lots of fruit. And I'll be really full, but will always eat. That's my problem, no self control and no willpower

Im thinking of doing swolegenix come september, just to get on a proper regiment for eating/working out and hopefully drop the 10lbs of fat I have that is well maintained from all this damned eating even with my hardcore hour of cardio every day and weight training.

OK, my carpel tunnel hurts. not like anyone read this far. typing is fun

Sounds like snacking is your big problem. Maybe you should carry a water bottle at all times or chew gum so at least you think you're eating/drinking something. It may be an oral fixation-the need to stuff your face whenever possible regardless of appetite.

snacking is definitely my biggest problem. I dont think water would help since i drink a ton of water anyways, but gum is definitely a good idea. I dont think I have an oral fixation since i was never a real big smoker and have never smoked cigarettes, but i definitely enjoy stuffing my face. I need to stop eating for pleasure and eat when my body needs it.

if you dont eat for pleasure, what's the point of living!? damnit.....i need a girlfriend

OK here they are-I worked hard on back and legs during July, and in August I'm putting extra focus on my calves and cardio.

http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/080104.1.jpg http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/080104.2.jpg
http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/080104.4.jpg http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/080104.5.jpghttp://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/080104.3.jpg

Here are two comparison photos for the first month of the contest-any comments would be helpful. What's my biggest weakness at this point? I would say abs and a general excess of bodyfat, but I'm curious what other people think. Bear in mind I'm standing flat footed so it makes the calves look a lot worse than when I'm in shoes or pointing me toes.

http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/Comparison1.1.jpg

http://www.sportsmachines.net/Stone/Challenge_1.2/Comparison1.2.jpg

The back progress is really good. At the risk of sounding homo, your ass has tightened up too.

For balance, I would still be working on the legs. Your upper body (past the waist) looks more developed. It is hard to judge with photos where all you're doing is flexing your arms. I'm sure with a bit more fat loss, the trunk would look better too. Good progress for a month. Congrats.

The back progress is really good. At the risk of sounding homo, your ass has tightened up too.

For balance, I would still be working on the legs. Your upper body (past the waist) looks more developed. It is hard to judge with photos where all you're doing is flexing your arms. I'm sure with a bit more fat loss, the trunk would look better too. Good progress for a month. Congrats.
Hey thanks for noticing-I've put in a lot of work the past month.

Yeah the glutes look a lot better, from what's visible. I attribute that mainly to the workout I did Monday where I finished with a 100-rep set of machine squats. I'm still incredibly sore in my ass from those and it's been four days.

My legs may never be 'big' though, I have narrow hips and long let bones and so it's hard to say how much muscle can be packed on.

Can't squat at this point because it kills my back no matter how light the weight, but I'm doing leg presses with about 500 lbs and lots of hack squats, machine squats, lunges, and hamstring curls.

your shoulders look more developed too. i would say your traps and spinal muscle type thing that runs down the center of your back are looking great too!! congrats on your progress!

i think me and you have a bit of the same problem, where we are getting pretty well developed, but there is still a layer of fat that covers everything pretty much. if i exhale all the way and flex my stomach, you can barely see my top 4 abs and my lats begin to stick out with my ribs. but just standing idle I still have a pretty large gut. I think the excess fat is also covering things like my arms and legs keeping them from being really defined with all of the work i've put into them

ill try and take 2 sets of pics this weekend - super flexed and just standing in good light so we can compare and get some opinions. im not expecting to see any difference at all from my first set of pics, except maybe in the abs a TINY bit since i've been hitting abs kinda hard this week. Pics should be up Saturday or Sunday

Until then - we should get votes on who is ahead to keep you in the competetive spirit :) what are your stats again nico?


also, might just be the camera, or how y ou stand crooked, but its kinda weird to me how in both pics you are standing the exact same crooked way with your head tilted at the same angle. Do you have one leg longer than the other? My left leg is about .5" longer from an accident i had a while back which is why it is much weaker than my right, along with over compensation in strength.

Also, most of my body is uneven from left to right - ill try and take pics of that too. really frustrating

I'm standing twisted from bad posture which I've developed over years of bad habits. I'm working hard to fix it but based on the photos not much has changed. I always seem to have my lower body twisted to the left, so my upperbody ends of twisted and tilted to the right to compensate. I guess that's why my right arm is always way away from my side.

My stats are:

Weight: 206 (unchanged from 7/1/04)
Height: 6'2"
Bodyfat: I'm guessing 15% but I'm not sure. It's definitely in the 13-17 percent range.
Waist: 37.5 inches-I want this down to 35 by the end of the contest so that gives me 8 weeks from today. I lost a half inch from the first pic but the pics from last night included a huge dinner and 4 Pacifico's(w/lime) which bloated me up a lot.

I'd like to be 200 lbs even with about 12% bodyfat by the end of September, with a 35 inch waist and no loss of muscle from the pic's last night. I doubt I'll add any mass over the next two months because I'm going to be stepping up my cardio in the gym and I'm training to run the mile at around Christmastime and I'm gunning for 5:30. Right now I can only do one in about 6:45, but in high school I ran one in 5:10 so I know I'm capable, although I only weighed 160 at the time.

ri·dic·u·lous Listen: [ r-dky-ls ]
adj.

Deserving or inspiring ridicule; absurd, preposterous, or silly. See Synonyms at foolish.

nevermind - i suck at spelling

So weird. I'm taller than you, weigh less, and have a smaller waist (i think im like 33 or 34 right now), yet to me, my gut looks much bigger and fatter than yours - what can that be attributed to? lack of ab muscle/definition or genetics? i'll show you what i mean with my new pics hopefully but thats weird to me.

is a 35" waist going to be your end goal or just a temp one?


I'm standing twisted from bad posture which I've developed over years of bad habits. I'm working hard to fix it but based on the photos not much has changed. I always seem to have my lower body twisted to the left, so my upperbody ends of twisted and tilted to the right to compensate. I guess that's why my right arm is always way away from my side.

My stats are:

Weight: 206 (unchanged from 7/1/04)
Height: 6'2"
Bodyfat: I'm guessing 15% but I'm not sure. It's definitely in the 13-17 percent range.
Waist: 37.5 inches-I want this down to 35 by the end of the contest so that gives me 8 weeks from today. I lost a half inch from the first pic but the pics from last night included a huge dinner and 4 Pacifico's(w/lime) which bloated me up a lot.

I'd like to be 200 lbs even with about 12% bodyfat by the end of September, with a 35 inch waist and no loss of muscle from the pic's last night. I doubt I'll add any mass over the next two months because I'm going to be stepping up my cardio in the gym and I'm training to run the mile at around Christmastime and I'm gunning for 5:30. Right now I can only do one in about 6:45, but in high school I ran one in 5:10 so I know I'm capable, although I only weighed 160 at the time.

The whole waist measurement difference could be because of where I measure it-I do it at my fattest point.

My waist has been measuring 37.5 for a few weeks but my pants, which are 36's, are all getting too loose.

Also, I think my tape measure could be off, which my wife laughs at.

One more thing-some people tell me I'm 6'3" but at the doctor's it's always 6'2", so maybe if I stood up straighter I could be your height.

ya, im in the same boat - my waist at the belly button measures in at 36", but my 34" shorts are sliding off enough that i need a belt with em

so we are a better match for each other than we first though - sounds good to me.

BTW, my weight hasnt change since May I think, so dont let it worry you. I can definitely see changes in my appearance without my weight changing. I just did a self measure today barefoot and i was exactly at 6'3"

something encouraging tho - all my 36" shorts fall off of me now, whereas last summer at this time, i could barely button a few of them. my gut actually broke the snap on one of my shorts cause i was too fat for the shorts. kind of exciting :)

I originally posted your rules as an example so that I could get other peoples input on what the rules should be for our challenge. I didn't specifically state that they were going to be our rules.

My post started out by asking some questions that need to be answered before we start. Then I wrote, "Here is a primer:", which meant that I just wanted the rules to be an example of what others have done, but I guess I should have been more clear as to where I got the rules.

Personally I think its rediculous that you would call someone a plagiarist for copying a set of your challenge rules and poses. Thats like getting mad because someone wants to do the same workout routine or diet plan as you. Rediculous!

As a courtesy, I have now edited my post to give you credit for the rules and poses.

Thanks for the credit. I wasn't actually pissed or anything, and the contest rules took about 5 seconds to think of and type so it's of course very trivial-but it's not the same as doing the same workout or diet plan as someone else, or even recommending them. What bugs me is that now that everyone is communicating with computers, it's so easy for someone to copy/paste something that someone wrote without attributing the words to them. Even if it's something totally lame like the rules of our contest of greatness.

I bet someone like Jeremy or Swolecat wouldn't be too thrilled if people were copying their programs, even small sections of them-even just individual sentences, word for word without acknoledgement. Musicians sue other musicians for the theft of a single verse or chord progression, although I'm sure they wouldn't have objected had their creativity been acknowledged initially.

<joke>I had a deep-seeded hope that the contest rules I created that fateful day would end up being the industry standard for online message-board-based physique transformation contests, and that I would receive massive royalty checks that would allow me to live comfortably for the rest of my life without having to work another day. I was also planning to parlay the fame that my contest rules were generating for me into a career in film and/or television.</joke>

I hope your contest goes well-I plan to win mine.(you heard me Marcman)

ya, im in the same boat - my waist at the belly button measures in at 36", but my 34" shorts are sliding off enough that i need a belt with em

so we are a better match for each other than we first though - sounds good to me.

BTW, my weight hasnt change since May I think, so dont let it worry you. I can definitely see changes in my appearance without my weight changing. I just did a self measure today barefoot and i was exactly at 6'3"

something encouraging tho - all my 36" shorts fall off of me now, whereas last summer at this time, i could barely button a few of them. my gut actually broke the snap on one of my shorts cause i was too fat for the shorts. kind of exciting :)

I never got up to 220 like you-I think the heaviest I got was 216 in January of this year. January 22nd is when I found this website and committed to getting back into shape. When I was 19 I was doing pretty well-I weighed about 200 and was probably around 10% bodyfat. I would run, swim, lift, and play all kinds of other sports because I was in college and had almost no time restrictions, plus I had a fast metabolism.

I'm hoping to be back to my peak fitness level in another 5 months. After this contest I'll probably take a mini-break from weight training for a few weeks, then maybe I'll look to do a four month contest. I'm a tax accountant so even though I'm busy from Feb1-April15 that's actually the best time for me to train because I'm out of the house really early and come home very late so I can feel free to take a 2 and a half hour lunch break and work out hard.

I hope your contest goes well-I plan to win mine.(you heard me Marcman)

Them sounds like fightin' words to me boss

I guess it's going to be a showdown between me and you

Let's do ittt

Them sounds like fightin' words to me boss

I guess it's going to be a showdown between me and you

Let's do ittt
just talked to josh on aim and he says he's still in the contest, just busy.

Glad to hear it - havent seen him on aim for a while and he hasnt updated his website in a long while

My mom just took me to this terrible chinese food restaurant cause my grandma likes it and since i was eating pretty well today

(7:30am big bowl of kashi go lean/skim milk
11:30am slice of wheat bread
1pm tuna salad sandwhich on 2 slices of wheat bread/mustard and a pickle
3pm a little more tuna and 3 slices of sliced chicken breast)

i decided why not. Im going to hit up my chest/forearms pretty hard in a little bit

infact, i think i'll eat a little more chinese. This will be one of my cheat meals for the week (one of them since i know i'll have more - hopefully more healthy) and this is the first time ive had chinese food in months and hopefully the last, so i might as well enjoy it. i love how i have to justify myself. i like eating too much


just talked to josh on aim and he says he's still in the contest, just busy.

I don't even try to track my eating or be super strict in any way. I just set up some simple rules that seem to be working:

1. No soda ever
2. Only one dessert per day, and make it small.
3. Instead of drinking juice I tend to drink water.
4. Eat in the morning, don't eat three hours before bed.
5. Avoid empty carbs.
6. Eat some protein for every meal.
7. Don't eat till I'm full, just till I'm not as hungry.
8. Make sure I never let 4 hours pass without some protein.
9. Limit my alcohol consumption.
10.Watch less tv-it tends to make me eat.

My diet has been essentially very similar. I'm going to focus on it a bit more than I did in the recent past as I feel my metabolism needs prompting to get it where I want it to be. My changes would be:

1. Only 2 diet sodas per day (since I don't drink coffee, diet pepsi has been my morning drink since I was 16)
10. Cut down on the computer gaming - it tends to make me want to eat and drink lots and lots of diet sodas

:D

I don't even try to track my eating or be super strict in any way. I just set up some simple rules that seem to be working:

1. No soda ever
2. Only one dessert per day, and make it small.
3. Instead of drinking juice I tend to drink water.
4. Eat in the morning, don't eat three hours before bed.
5. Avoid empty carbs.
6. Eat some protein for every meal.
7. Don't eat till I'm full, just till I'm not as hungry.
8. Make sure I never let 4 hours pass without some protein.
9. Limit my alcohol consumption.
10.Watch less tv-it tends to make me eat.

Smart. I follow similar principles. I think it's fine for the "everyday living" kind of fitness/exercise. I can see breaking down the macronutrient percentages and counting calories if you're competing, or just especially interested in doing that, but I think finding principles like these and living with them day to day is the best thing for most of us.

Smart. I follow similar principles. I think it's fine for the "everyday living" kind of fitness/exercise. I can see breaking down the macronutrient percentages and counting calories if you're competing, or just especially interested in doing that, but I think finding principles like these and living with them day to day is the best thing for most of us.This way you can eat with your family and no one has to accomodate your special diet. You don't have to obsess over individual meals but just have a guiding principle.

But yes if you are competing or really giving your nutrition 100% attention than you would act like a bodybuilder and live and breathe diet/training/cardio/rest/drugs?

let's see how i compare with you

1. No soda ever

yup - well, VERY rarely, maybe once in a few months and it didnt really do anything for me - only because it was the only thing available to drink

2. Only one dessert per day, and make it small.

nope. i'll eat some ice cream every once in a while but definitely not every night

3. Instead of drinking juice I tend to drink water.

definitely. i dont really like juice, and i actually LOVE water, so i tend to drink a lot of it when i have the opportunity. If i dont have some around or its not convenient, i'll go a while without it which is no good. If i have it around, i'll drink waaaay too much. mmmm so thirsty

4. Eat in the morning, don't eat three hours before bed.

ya, this summer i started having a bowl of kashi go lean/crunch (although, not so much crunch anymore since its not as healthy, even though it tastes tons better). I know it's healthier for me, but im never hungry in the morning and it doesnt change how much i eat for the rest of the day, so i wonder if i can do without breakfast...

5. Avoid empty carbs.

yup. they suck

6. Eat some protein for every meal.

i try to as well, or i try to snack on cottage cheese/sliced meat whenever i get a chance

7. Don't eat till I'm full, just till I'm not as hungry.

I WISH! I love eating till im stuffed - its just force of habit combined with my affinity for food. This is still my biggest problem. I think getting on a really strict eating regiment will help, which i will be able to do in september when i will be preparing my own meals every day. Im just too lazy to do the research really...

8. Make sure I never let 4 hours pass without some protein.

hmmm....i dont really pay attention to this, although i should i guess

9. Limit my alcohol consumption.

during the summer im cool, but the school year is going to be a killer on this end since im a senior and just turned 21 ;)

10.Watch less tv-it tends to make me eat.

no time for tv. too much work.

that chinese double dinner really did me in. I woke up 5lbs heavier than I usually do in the morning, which i know is mostly water, but discouraging nonetheless. Makes me feel good that im having a turkey sandwich for lunch and hopefully can control myself during the day. We'll see

Marcman when will we see your 8/1 photos? You don't want to wait too long or you won't have enough time between this one and 9/1.

By the way, since spelling is a pet peeve of yours--you've been referring to your eating regiment and I thought I'd correct you.

----------------------------------
reg·i·men (rj-mn, -mn)
n.

A regulated system, as of diet, therapy, or exercise, intended to promote health or achieve another beneficial effect.
A course of intense physical training.
----------------------------------

REGIMENT is either a noun referring to a group of ground troops or it's a verb.

regiment

n : army unit smaller than a division v 1: subject to rigid discipline, order, and systematization; "regiment one's children" 2: form (military personnel) into a regiment 3: assign to a regiment; "regiment soldiers"


So you're either trying to regiment your diet, or you're on a regimen, but you cannot be on a regiment, only IN a regiment, assuming you're in the army.

thanks for the correction. now i know and knowing is half the battle. GI JOE!

i had this whole post written out, but i hit the wrong button and it disappeared, so i'll post a better one later. Pics will be up tomorrow

right, so for most of this week, i've been doing 60-70 mins of cardio after my workout.

For example, today i did 30 mins on the precor - 400cals burned, 20 mins incline walking WHICH I HATE - 225cals burned, and 20 mins on the elliptical with the swinging arms deal - around 300cals burned i think, dont remember.

What i've noticed is that i start getting sharp pains in my tummy after a while. I think this is probably caused by hunger and not eating the right things at the right time, or that i can actually feel the fat being burned from my tummy, my problem area. BTW, i do 129-139 heart rate for all this. Im sure that the pain is more likely the former and not the later, but we can hope cant we?

Anyways, thursday I had an awesome chest day. usually i start with incline dumbells, but this time i started with flat so that i wouldnt be fatigued when I did it. Here's how it went for me

12 reps 45lbs
8reps 50lbs
6reps 55lbs
3 reps 65lbs

3 sets of 6 reps 70lbs.

That's a huge increase from what i was doing before (50lbs i think) and i am definitely feeling it today. I'm exciting to work my chest pretty hard since that is one of my problem areas. Ive also started doing my ab workout more routinely so that I might be able to see some gains there. Anyways, we'll do some comparing when i do my pics tomorrow - sorry not today, didnt have access to a digicam

some pics. the lighting wasnt as good as in the last pics, but you can see my improvement or lack of pretty well i think

2 more

Marcman,

Glad to see you posted your pics. I think your b/f is definitely under 16%-it's probably 2 or 3 points lower than mine. but it's hard to say how much a difference it makes that you have no hair on your chest/stomach whereas I have copius amounts even after trimming it down.

Some critiques to improve your photos:

1. Try to stand in front of a solid background, preferably white. It's what I've been doing so it would make comparisons easier. Otherwise I have to go buy that artwork framed behind you in your bedroom.

2. Also, we can't see the full body so we can't compare legs or the overall appearance.

I think your starting pic's look better than mine. I think that leaves me more room for improvement-since you can't really see any abs or even ribs in my photos. I think if you worked on widening your lats you would end up looking a lot bigger-you've got the mid back well developed but just lack width.

heres a comparison with the two similar pics

bad lighting in the first shot really hinders any real comparison, but here's what i know

i think i dropped 1-2lbs last week by increasing my cardio from 30-40mins/day 5-6 days a week to 60-70mins/day 7 days a week.

looking at my first set of pics, i think my pecs are better developed, but not great. also, everything on the right side of my body is much more developed than the left. ill try and get some leg shots in pretty soon, but my left leg has been injured for a while so my right leg is about 2x stronger in the quad and calf. Im right handed, so my bicep, forearm and tricep are all much stronger than my left arm. I think as a result of that unevenness, my lats and back on the left are much more under developed than the other side.

anyways, looking at the pics side to side, im pretty happy. again, it's probably the light, but my pecs and abs look much much better now than they did before. traps also look better, even though i dont work them too much. and shaving your chest, while its a bitch, makes getting shadows and seeing definition a lot easier, Nico. Having really short hair even makes a noticeable difference on me.

tonight i have shoulders and triceps which usually owns me, as well as 70mins of cardio. i'm also doing 1.5 hours of leg rehab 3 days a week, so hopefully that will counteract some of my overeating. the weight i lost from last week is the first weightloss ive seen in about 3 months, so im pretty stoked. cant wait to see if keeping up the cardio keeps the weight off. jk0 - got any pics coming?

pic on left is about 8 or 9 weeks newer than pic on right

so my shoulder grinding is actually scapulary lesions, the result of poor form on shoulder/back/chest exersizes, so i guess im going to have to switch up my routine a bit

on top of that, i ate like absolute shit today, all day, and didnt go to the gym...

wish i had some self control :(

so my shoulder grinding is actually scapulary lesions, the result of poor form on shoulder/back/chest exersizes, so i guess im going to have to switch up my routine a bit


So did the doc tell you that? I've always noticed that tall people like us invariably have bad shoulders which are often aggravated by the following excersises in particular:

Behind-the-neck press
Behind-the-neck pulldown
Bench press
Upright rows
Lateral raises

I've had arthroscopic surgery on my right shoulder already and haven't been able to throw a ball of any kind for 10 years. I'm trying to work through it with therapy but the problem seems to be rooted in bad posture, which puts the shoulder in an unnatural position and makes it vulnerable to injury.

How will you modify your lifting? I've found that the best way to protect my shoulders while lifting is to minimize my number of sets on chest and shoulders while working harder on safe back exercises with strict form. On lateral and front raises, I only use 10 pound dumbells and go really slow with total control. I see people weaker than me using 20 pounders and I think it would rip my shoulder from the socket.

Looking at your side pictures, you do seem to show some lordosis-kyphosis, basically an overarch of the mid back caused by tight hamstrings and giving you the slouched appearance. I've been fighting this for years with limited success. I think I may try pilates to strengthen the core and yoga for my flexibility but not until this challenge is over.

i dont really know how i am going to modify my routine yet, or what exercises are specifically screwing me up. I've been plagued my injury and problems for the past 10 years, so this isnt anything exciting for me, just something to add to the list. and im only 21, that's the worst part.

today i do shoulders and triceps. I think instead of seated dumbell presses (i guess that's what they are called) and instead of the seated military barbell press, which i think are essentially the same thing, im going to try and do 3 different dumbell exercises (lifting dumbells straight out infront of me, to the side, one more?)

i think my tricep routine is alright, but what im worried about is back and chest day. Ive recently shifted my chest day to heavier flat bench dumbells instead of starting with heavy incline dumbells, but i was feeling kinda weird in my shoulder just doing bicep curls, so i dont know what that's about. I know correct form is definitely a problem, so i might consider shifting to less weight, more reps for a while - i dunno.

on another note, i didnt do such a good workout last week, on account of just being flat out exhausted. I think physical therapy + intense workout + 70minutes of cardio is too much. I was fine the first 8 days on it, but then it all went to hell, I cant help just feeling pooped no matter how much sleep i get or how much i work out. *sigh* :(

im holding off on the gym for a few days, maybe all of this week, while i give my shoulder some time to heal and recover myself. im still so exhausted from not getting enough sleep, waking up early, physical therapy 3x a week and too much gym. plus stupid computer job on top of that

and im leaving for school pretty soon too so it looks like august is slowly turning into july. im excited for september though...

*sigh*

Hope the shoulder gets better-I've been real careful with mine this year. I even bought some 2 and 3 pound dumbells to do rotator cuff work.

i dont know what the story with my shoulder is - heading back to school tomorrow so ill be on the road for a while. i dont think august pics will be of any benefit either

happy birthday nico

Thanks for the bday wishes. It's been busy so I haven't worked out much the last week either. Hopefully I'll be back on track monday.

I've been working out pretty solidly throughout this challenge and I'm going to be spending the last three weeks cutting to see if I can get a little definition.

jk0-where you at?

marcman-how's the shoulder? Have you been in the gym in September?

shoulder is the same. i need to start on some rotator cuff rehab and more knee rehab. doing an all around workout 3x week and 60 mins/800-900 cals burned cardio hopefully 5-6 times a week, trying to work off this excess weight. I was 205, 10lbs higher than my lowest weight of 195 and since i stopped working out for so long, although i didnt gain THAT much weight, i think i lost a lot of definition and muscle mass.

However, along with my super cardio, i've completely changed my eating habits. I feel like im eating way too much, but its all completely healthy, and im eating 5-6 times a day instead of twice so i think that should help a lot. We shall see.

shoulder is the same. i need to start on some rotator cuff rehab and more knee rehab. doing an all around workout 3x week and 60 mins/800-900 cals burned cardio hopefully 5-6 times a week, trying to work off this excess weight. I was 205, 10lbs higher than my lowest weight of 195 and since i stopped working out for so long, although i didnt gain THAT much weight, i think i lost a lot of definition and muscle mass.

However, along with my super cardio, i've completely changed my eating habits. I feel like im eating way too much, but its all completely healthy, and im eating 5-6 times a day instead of twice so i think that should help a lot. We shall see.
Well the contest is drawing to a close and it looks like it's just me and you. Do you feel like you made progress during the 90 days?

I feel like I've sort of plateaued on all my lifts-and I end up missing weight training 4 or 5 days in a row at some point every month so I haven't been able to really stick to a routine. I think out of 80 days so far I've put in 40 weight workouts and only about 15 cardio sessions. I need to probably keep the weight training the same and bump up the cardio to 50 sessions.

What do you do for your 60 minutes of cardio? I know you have knee problems, so I assume you either walk, row or use the elliptical.

i think may and june were HUGE months for me, as i was lifting the most and at my lowest weight. However, july i only got 1 or 2 weeks of workouts in on account of my 21st bday and vacation, and August i was eating horribly and barely working out again.

Since getting back to school, with a few setbacks, im on a really good track and am excited - im preparing all of my own meals, the gym is a 2 minute walk away and free, and i DEFINITELY have the motivation. im seeing the doctor on monday to see if there is anything i can do about my shoulder. i dont think its from working out, although bad form on some shoulder/back exercises definitely didnt help, but i think its more from scoliosis among other problems. hopefully i wont need surgery! it doesnt hurt at all, just pops and whatnot so hopefully im cool.

my roommate just got a digital camera for his bday so if i really wanted to, i could take end of september pics to post, but i dont think they would be THAT different than the other ones i posted, maybe worse.

im going to still go pretty hard, cause while i can just barely see my abs if i suck in and flex pretty hard, as you can see in the pics, i still have a pretty big gut when not sucking in or flexing. i've ALWAYS had this gut and i hate it so im not going to stop until i get rid of it. My eating is the only thing that is holding me back at this point, as i eat really clean, but either too much, or i'll go on a bad drunk binge.

got down to 195 over the summer, back up to 205 at the beginning of school, now down to 202 with increases in most of my lifts over two weeks. Also trying a completely different workout routine - instead of isolating 2 or 3 muscle groups 3x a week, im doing a 3x full body workout, doing sets in the 8-12 range instead of 4-6. I think making gains at that range will be better than doing the smaller sets.

anyways, i think we should keep on doing what we are doing, maybe focus on cutting a little more. might be interesting to see where we both are in say a month if we can keep it up. sorry for the long post.

and as far as cardio, i started out running 30mins at ~5.6mph and then doing 30 mins on the elliptical (15 mins higher instensity 15 mins a little lower)

i really hate running tho. its hard on my whole body and screws up my back im sure.

so the past few days i've been doing 40 mins high intensity elliptical (MHR around 155-165) the machine says i burn 16-17 calories a minute at this rate. After that i'll do 20-30mins lower intensity elliptical or incline walking. Do you think doing high intensity and then lower intensity for fat burning right after has a beneficial effect? I burn 800-1000 cals doing this depending on how long i go for. And i've been meaning to do it in the mornings before food, but ive been so tired ive been doing it late afternoon/evening time mostly, which i dont really like.

Nico: also, you any good at knowing when during the day you should eat and what kind of stuff? all i really know is right after weights to eat carbs and protein, and never mix protein and fat. what do you think? thanks

I say we extend the contest to October 31-I need an extra month because i've been going on so many weekend trips i haven't kept my workout schedule too well not to mention eating like crap.

As far as your cardio, I think you're bound to lose fat if you're doing that much. But how do you have time to get your weight training in?

Eating protein and carbs-I would say from what I've read over the years the consensus is that the only time to eat high GI foods is in the morning, before a workout, or after a workout. I think the new fad diet will be GI based, where you gradually reduce your GI intake throughout the day. So the ice cream I ate at 11 p.m. was the worst thing possible.

I don't really believe in doing cardio in the morning on an empty stomach, just from experience. I know lots of people on these boards seem to have had success but I've read several explanations for why it actually is counterproductive if you're at all trying to build muscle.

I would eat something very small before the morning cardio-whenever I do it on an empty stomach I feel like I'm eating away at my muscle and my body is already in starvation mode but with the cardio it's like desert starvation marathon mode.

I'd rather take four months to get rid of 5 pounds of fat than to lose 10 pounds of mass which is half fat and half muscle. Then you've got to put the muscle back without adding more fat and the cycle is tough. I think the extremes of bulking and cutting just aren't for me.

That being said October will be a semi-cutting month where I focus on the following:

1. Get in at least 30 hours of cardio during the month, including riding my bike, running on the track, running in my neighborhood, and the gym cardio sessions.
2. Eat as little sugar and bread as possible after 2 p.m.
3. Get up earlier to do some of that running in the 'hood.

Like you, I hate running and i think it's bad for my back, but I'm trying to ease back into it because once you're in running shape it can be really enjoyable.

i've been doin pretty well, except these last two days, ive really binged at the worst time, right before i go to bed. but its mostly clean food, except last night i had a peanut butter sandwich, and i know carbs + fat are baaaaaad but its so hard to avoid!!

ive been doing 40mins fatloss/cardio level elliptical and then 20-30mins of incline walking every day. i think im only going to do this 5x a week since it takes so much out of me waking up so early, plus getting the weight training in

3x a week, ill go BACK to the gym in the afternoon/night time to do my weights. its so close that it isnt a big deal.

sounds good to me - my friend has a digi cam so i can take mirror pics whenever. my temporary goal is to get down to 195 like i was over the summer so i can shave my chest and actually see some abs if i flex hard enough, like i did in those pics above. however, long term goal, and im freakin determined to do this, is to get rid of the spare tire. as much progress and im seeing in all parts of my body, i can still grab a good HUNK of fat all around my stomach. sucking in has become second nature because i hate it so much. im thinking around 190 i should start to be where id like to be

tuesday of this week i was at 199.5lbs, down from 202 the week before. wednesday night i ate like shit and thursday ended up waiting 17 hours before eating again, AND did super cardio right before i weighed myself - 197. hah

today i weighed myself after eating 1 meal and doing my weights and i was at 201. so i guess its still less than last week. tuesday is my real weigh in day though, so this is all just for fun.

OH and i saw a university doctor about my shoulder and he said my range of motion seemed great and all my ligaments and stuff were strong. the grinding and poping he said was some word that i forgot (cretions?) but basically its my scapula rubbing against my rib cage or something and its nothing to be worried about, so im pretty happy. granted im still kind of sketched out by it, but i think its doing a little better so im happy.

also doing a completely different 3x a week workout with my friend - not max OT style, but a little bit less weight and more reps, which i think is better for me. max ot really heavy weights and so many sets really takes its toll on you.

im all about extending the contest. i think my long term goal will probably be around the end of november if i can stay on the wagon and keep losing weight, but i'd be interested to keep comparing pics of us. glad you are still active :)

I still weigh between 204-208 on any given day. I think since this contest started on July 1 I've probably added 4 pounds of muscle and lost about a pound of fat.

I would post October 1 pictures to go with 7/1 and 8/1 but I'm so pale now that it would be an unfair comparison to the pic's back when I had a tiny bit of skin color, plus the hair on my chest and back have really grown so it makes a white guy look a lot fatter.

As far as your shoulder, I would recommend doing the exercises that Jeremy Likness mentioned in a thread a few months back. Really light weights-like 2 or 3 pounds or 5 at the most. Do you do any of these exercises?:

behind the neck press
upright rows
behind the neck pulldowns

I find them to be the worst for my shoulder.

behind the neck pulldowns definitely do some funky business with my shoulder. right now once a week ill do 2 sets of 3 different kinds of plate raises for my shoulders and upright rows, which i dont think bother me tooooo much. behind the neck press also made me feel kinda weird.

ive been doing exclusively dumbells for chest work so next week we are going to start alternating between the bench and dumbells for chest work, since we're not seeing any gains pretty much doing dumbell bench work.

im pretty pasty year round so it makes no matter to me, but i would definitely rather do end of october pics to see if i can do some hardcore cutting, cause right now i'll look exactly the same as my last pics or maybe a little less lean which i dont really want pics of.

nico: still with me? how ya doin? last weigh in for me was 197.5. need to start keeping track of weight on all my exercises, but im kind of enjoying higher rep sets with less weight rather than max-ot style lots of weight with fewer reps. i think gains will be more important this way, although they'll definitely come slower

my triceps are really taking some shape which is exciting. chest and traps definitely still lacking and i still got the roundness of the lovehandles all the way around the spare tire but its ever so slowly shrinking :D

I'm still with you, but for some reason my metabolism is acting really slow. I guess I need to focus more on my diet, but it seems like even though I've been getting in decent amounts of cardio my gut continues to stay the same size or actually grow. My ass is definitely growing too, so that may be contributing to shorts and pants fitting tighter. Can't really tell if it's muscle or fat on my effing fat ass.

I still weigh around 205. I'd really like to cut out 5 pounds of fat in the next three weeks. I'm trying to truly cut for the first time starting.........................right now.

ya, my gut is definitely persistant as well - im still planning on taking pics at the end of october to compare with our last serious (beginning of august?)

i think ive put on muscle in my arms, lost tons of muscle in my legs (barely working them right now) and stayed the same in chest and tummy

argh. we'll see how i weigh in this week. weekend wasnt so bad besides friday night's pizza binge. bought $100 worth of GOOD food so we'll see how long that lasts. hah. start posting more often! we need to stay motivated! this is going to be a GOOD WEEK!

that, and i dont have class a week from monday or tuesday! woo

This'll be a busy week for me because it's the last tax deadline of the year for individuals (10/15).

I may get to workout late tonight-not sure.

i decided to sleep in today due to not being able to sleep very well recently, so im planning on doing my cardio around 2pm and getting my workout in around 4:30. i know this isnt ideal but i figure once is alright. tomorrow i weigh in ahhhhh

i decided to sleep in today due to not being able to sleep very well recently, so im planning on doing my cardio around 2pm and getting my workout in around 4:30. i know this isnt ideal but i figure once is alright. tomorrow i weigh in ahhhhh
So how'd it turn out?

I got to work out last night for the first time since last Friday-5 days off and it felt like I hadn't been inside the gym in months. I guess when you're used to going almost every day it's weird to be off for almost a week.

ya i know how that feeling is

my weigh in - thursday i was 197.5 and tuesday i was 198 :mad:

i guess i didnt do cardio at all last week so i really had no reason to lose weight since im not eating SUPER strict, but i am definitely trying to eat all clean food and eat in moderation.

i know im putting on muscle because my lifts are going up/getting easier slowly but surely. everything is a little different than last time because im not doing intense max-ot 3x a week. my workouts are usually about 45 mins as opposed to 60+ mins. Still not working my legs at all tho which is going to be problematic. Tough to start from such a low place tho since my left leg is still needing more rehab

just getting frustrated at my slow rate of fat loss. I did notice, however, the other day, my biceps pumped are like 16" and unpumped 15", which i think is a pretty big increase, even though i dont know what they were before. My arms are big, but not defined at all besides the shoulder-bicep rounding, which i guess is because of too much bf%

i am excited to take some pics at the end of october - i still think that i can get some more improvements in and hopefully look better than i did in my last set of pics, but i dont know. This weekend is going to be rough - going to chicago so eating out every meal probably, but thats only for 2 days. ill be back to the gym monday, but still eating out monday and tuesday probably since i dont have school.

hows everything going with you? i've been posting a lot in the college challenge, you should check it out

still with us nico? hows it goin?

Had major issues last week. Here is a summary for anyone interested. If you own a PC you may experience this at some point if you haven't already. As for my fitness, I'm doing OK but don't think I've cut more than a pound of fat this month. I'll take my PIC on 11/1 to end the contest, then I'm going to focus on some other aspects of my life besides working out because I'm just too busy. I'll start up again on 1/1, maybe with a cutting contest going to 4/15(tax day). I'm tired of having this gut so I'm going to be scaling back the weight training significantly to focus on cardio, yoga, and sports.
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On Saturday, May 16th, I felt that my world had come to an end. I had decided to run the Windows Service Pack 2.0 upgrade on my XP home edition. After installing it and then running Norton, I rebooted. This is when all hell broke loose. When attempting to start, the C:/WINNT/WIN32/SYSTEM/CONFIG file was corrupt or missing and it recommended manually attempting to recover the file off the original disk, which did not work. The bitch crashed and I could not access windows at all. By the way, Gateway help center people suck my ass and I encourage anyone reading this to never purchase anything from this pile of shit company. Anyways, I thought I had lost everything which would include about 30 GB of innumerous and undescribably valuable (to me) files. In fact the Gateway asshole predicted it would cost me $20,000 if I wanted someone to extract the data from my hard drive without being able to access the operating system. This did not encourage me at the time, but I assumed that he was an idiot so I held on to a shrivel of hope. The fact all the reps kept telling me how it's smart to back up my data didn't ease the pain in any way.

As it turns out I took the machine it to this place in Oakland where they copied my data, then reinstalled Windows XP after getting rid of one tiny virus. Apparently Service Pack 2.0 is fucking up a lot of people's shit. They were really confident that they could repair windows, which they couldn't. They were 100% sure that they could at least copy my data, which they were wrong about. They told me that the only reason they were able to save it was because I don't use a password with my login. So they were idiots too but they got lucky because I'm too lazy to have a password.

The lesson of all this for me is to buy an external hard drive and have backups, and also backup my really important shit on zip disks which I already have plenty of but they were all blank because I was in the process of 'organizing' everything on my hard drive at the time with the plan of copying it all. Take nothing for granted. You are never secure. And eff Bill Gates.

Nico:

couple of things i can say here, but it probably doesnt matter. im glad you got your files back, but there are some questionable things about what you said that you might want to look into

i've seen people that only install SP2, and come to a copy of windows that will not boot, not normally, not safemode. no error, just wont boot. a clean reinstall of windows is probably the easiest way around this

second, even if you did have a virus, there is absolutely no reason that they could not recover your files. i assume they thought they couldnt if you had a password because they were trying to boot into your OS to backup that stuff? First, there is an administrator account which is passwordless by default, although i guess gateway might have disabled this

but more oviously, they could have put your hard drive into another computer and taken the files that you wanted off of it, put a clean copy of windows on it and put your files back on.

seems to me they either didnt have a clue what they were doing or took advantage of you. same thing just happened to my room mate recently.

they also could have pulled your hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer. i dont really think that the virus was causing your computer to not work, rather sp2.

anyways, sorry it had to happen and that you are so stressed. let me know if you have any questions about this stuff. and im just curious, if you dont mind saying, how much did they charge you to recover your data?

hope all is well

Marcman-Thanks for your response. I never knew you were that into Windows. The service was actually pretty cheap. They charged me 3 hours of labor @ $65/hour so basically $200.

There was an extreme language barrier since I don't speak Chinese but what I gathered is that they used one of their hard drives in my machine and used some other software from another machine to copy the files from my hard drive to theirs-does this make sense? i.e. Is that possible?

They claimed that if I had partitioned my hard drive and kept my data on a drive other than C:/ then they would've been able to save it regardless of whether I use a password. And yes Gateway for some reason has the admin user setup so you have the option of a password. Luckily I've always been wary of this so I just left it blank. Had they told me they couldn't have saved it I would've probably posted on this board for help, but I went to them right when it happened because I was hoping they would be able to fix it quickly and I could get to the task of reinstalling all of my programs.

I don't have the ability to cleanly reinstall windows without deleting everything. What's funny is the Gateway help a@#holes told me to just delete my files because there was really no hope of saving them. I think my files are worth about 3 times as much as the computer so there was no way I was going to just delete them without trying several other options.

Marcman-Thanks for your response. I never knew you were that into Windows. The service was actually pretty cheap. They charged me 3 hours of labor @ $65/hour so basically $200.

There was an extreme language barrier since I don't speak Chinese but what I gathered is that they used one of their hard drives in my machine and used some other software from another machine to copy the files from my hard drive to theirs-does this make sense? i.e. Is that possible?

They claimed that if I had partitioned my hard drive and kept my data on a drive other than C:/ then they would've been able to save it regardless of whether I use a password. And yes Gateway for some reason has the admin user setup so you have the option of a password. Luckily I've always been wary of this so I just left it blank. Had they told me they couldn't have saved it I would've probably posted on this board for help, but I went to them right when it happened because I was hoping they would be able to fix it quickly and I could get to the task of reinstalling all of my programs.

I don't have the ability to cleanly reinstall windows without deleting everything. What's funny is the Gateway help a@#holes told me to just delete my files because there was really no hope of saving them. I think my files are worth about 3 times as much as the computer so there was no way I was going to just delete them without trying several other options.


ya, my summer job would have me doing stuff like that, but we charged $80-$100/hour :D i guess if they put their hard drive in your machine they could have used any kind of software to recover files - its important to know that as long as you dont have a mechanical problem on your hard drive, you can recover any/all of the files off of it by putting it into another computer, or i guess in your case, putting another hard drive into your computer to recover them..

where you keep the data or if it was partioned has nothing to do with the ability to recover data. nor does a password in windows - unless there is some kind of crazy encryption or something (and ive never encountered this) all of your files are free for the taking as long as you boot to a different copy of windows. I would say that all they REALLY had to do was reinstall windows/your applications, and move some of your files around (from old my documents to new my documents) for example

like i said, this exact same thing happened to my room mate (SP2 installation caused her windows to not boot normally or to safe mode with no error, just a reboot)

all we did was reinstalled windows into a new directory, and moved all of her personal files over and reinstalled some stuff. glad you didnt get too screwed money wise tho


I don't have the ability to cleanly reinstall windows without deleting everything. Sure you do! unless the entire partion got corrupted, XP will give you the option to leave it intact during windows installation

oh well, the important thing is that everything is recovered and you have invested in some kind of backup device! speaking of which, i should probably back up my stuff one of these days :lol:

I've had a few more mishaps with Windows since last week that has led me to repair it with the original disk and revert back to pre-Service Pack 1.0. It takes much longer to start up now for some reason, but I've had no crashes and software seems to install easier.

I feel ready for my 'after' photos but my photographer (the wife) is out of town until Monday and I'll be gone all weekend anyway, plus I can't find the cord that attaches the camera to the computer. Do you know if those cords are uniform in any way or is each manufacturer using a different connection to the camera? (The connection to the computer is USB)

i dont really think digicams use too many different kinds of usb cables, so you should be able to pick up a generic one. im down to 196 but still dont really feel like taking pics, plus i need to shave my chest ;) ill try and do them soon too

and to speed up windows, get a program called bootviis and run it in optimize mode

i dont really think digicams use too many different kinds of usb cables, so you should be able to pick up a generic one. im down to 196 but still dont really feel like taking pics, plus i need to shave my chest ;) ill try and do them soon too

and to speed up windows, get a program called bootviis and run it in optimize mode

Do you think you're pics will show any improvement? Do you think we should kill this thread?

Originally the challenge was four of us but it's really been just you and me. If you want to we could just forget about it-

It's getting cold up here in the bay area and I've not been 'cutting' or anything remotely like that for the last several weeks. When it's cold I like to eat and sleep. I probably won't be working out that much in the next 7 weeks with Thanksgiving, Ski Trips, Christmas, New Year's, etc.

So I figure I'll come into the new year at about 208 and then decide to make a real go at cutting for several months to see whether I can get my weight to 190 and bodyfat down to 10% (I think I'm around 13 right now)

ya, i also dont think ill show any real progress. when i took my initial pics, i was in a much better state, weighed about 195. since then ive gone up to 205 or 210 and now im back down around 196, so i think ill be the same. i think im going to have to drop to at least 190 before i see any real improvement. Im still planning on taking pics just to document my progress, but im just really lazy having to shave my chest and actually borrow the camera to do the pics - hopefully soon. Oh well, twas fun while it lasted. Ill post my new pics here and in the college challenge me thinks