Well hell, let's do this!!

Hello all! I'm a 21-year old professional musician. Last year, I used this website as inspiration to cut 20 lbs off my frame. I went from a 175 to a 155. Other measurements I didn't know how to take. That cutting period was close to 3 months long, and ended in December. Also, I did some weight-lifting then, but nothing extreme and mostly tone-geared Pyramid scheme lifting. Coming back from winter I got lazy about my cardio, and got even lazier about watching what I intake... Booo.... I blossomed up past my original weight in fact.. It was during the summer that I become painfully aware of my weight-gain. I just felt uncomfortable in my own waistline, not a fun feeling. Sadly during the summer I was isolated in this festival with not the best eating arrangements, nor any gym access. I tried to watch what I ate and played sports a lot, and that tapered the weight gain.

This time, I'm coming at it from a different light. I have begun writing down everything that I eat in a day, and setting my own workout schedule. Thankfully, this time I have so much more support to do this. My girlfriend is an incredible source of support and motivation. She and I go running regularly. Also, I have a lifting buddy. He and I push each other in a MAX-OT surrogate program. It's good stuff. Between those two supporting/pushing me, I find a good amount of motivation to do this.

I've been watching what I eat for the last month off-and-on trying to figure out the best way to eat where I live. During that last month I have lost 1-2 lbs through just that. I started this after vacation and during vacation I was up to 181-2. Now I'm 178. My lifting buddy has a scale that I'll weigh myself on, or I might just purchase my own Tanita from Bed Bath and Beyond. He has a Thinner and absolutely hates it for its inconsistency.

My Short-Term goal is to cut my stomach to 34-5". Cut body fat down to 15%. Cut weight down to 160.

My Long-Term goal is to cut my stomach to 32-3". Cut body fat down to 10-12%. Cut weight down to 150 (I don't think it will get this low). This will be in preparation for a bulking period. Once I hit a 32" waist or 10-12% BF, I'll start thinking more strongly about bulk. My weight will be off with the lifting schedule I'm doing.


Today's weigh-in and measurement profile:
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 178
BF (Scale): 22.3
BF (Army): 21.7
Neck: 15"
Chest: 39"
Waist: 36"
Stomach: 37"
Hips: 41"
Arms: 13.5"
Thighs: 23"
Calves: 14.5"

Thank you for reading this! Hope to help you in your journey as this website and your support will undoubtedly help mine!

Feel free to leave any messages for me. I will definitely be leaving many questions throughout this site.

Let's do this!

hornguy

Day 1: Today was a good day. The food intake today was pretty good. I have it all written down at home, but I'm at my girlfriend's now. Trust me, the beer (light) I'm having right now is well deserved.

This afternoon I ran 3 miles at 75-85% of my target heart rate. That was the longest consistent run to date. I'm going to build up to 45 minutes in a session like this, then begin the HIIT training. Tomorrow morning, my girlfriend and I are going to join my lifting buddy for a session. We're lifting legs, so I think I'll run my warm-up mile and then lift with him.

After the workout this evening, my girlfriend and I went for a fairly long drive, got lost, and got tired in the process. It was good though, good alone time.

Ahh, I'm tired. Hitting the sack soon.

hornguy

Does anyone have a good way of checking caloric value for generic foods? I'm going to put up a request in other sections too, but if anyone has a good one I'd love to hear it. I'm eating food at a dormitory, so I will have to find some way of checking out the usual stuff. Just to be safe, I usually stick with vegetables and the leaner meats. All of the stuff reeks of being over-processed.

At any rate, work is leading me out of town tonight so I won't be able to write later. I just however completed a morning workout with my girlfriend. I ran a warm-up mile and then lifted my legs. The leg lifting was lighter than I usually do, but I'm going to be on my feet travelling the next couple of days and don't want to be immobilized by soreness.

Working out in the morning feels fantastic! It's amazing what doing cardio and lifting the first thing in the morning does for overall endorphin levels and bloodflow. Feels sooo good.

Also, I learned something interesting about my workout last year. Last year I was doing 20-25 minutes of cardio on an elliptical with my heartrate at 95-100% of my maximum heart rate. See, I misjudged my max heart rate last year by 20 clicks a minute (I subtracted my age from 240, not 220), and I was pushing everyday from 196-202 bpm. I'm no longer that surprised at how burnt out I got. Bah... oh well.

I'll write more tomorrow!

hornguy

I got back exhausted from stressful work and now I'm still up. My girlfriend called me from a local pizza place and so I stopped there before going home as it was on the way.

I ended up getting suckered into helping her finish her slice and having a beer. Kinda fucked up my day. grr. I was doing awesome otherwise. I had a good 40/40/20 spread with just under 1600 calories. This kicked me up to just under 2000, still managable, but now as good as otherwise. It's my fault of course for not having willpower, but I will try to explain to her that this is important for me too. I will be more steady in my resolve in the future. I know that I still burned this off, but I wanted to have a really good day today. Boo... here's the spreadsheet from FitDay.com (an awesome site that I found on a forum here). The pizza and fried whole eggs in the morning account for the unusually large amount of fat. shucks...

Total: 1985
Fat: 53 480 25%
Sat: 13 115 6%
Poly: 12 109 6%
Mono: 15 138 7%
Carbs: 236 800 42%
Fiber: 36 0 0%
Protein: 134 535 28%
Alcohol: 13 92 5%

Sorry about the lateness of this posting. I've been ridiculously busy and stressed with out-of-town concerts. My orchestra was playing the Lord of the Rings symphony, which is pretty cool, but ridiculously long and a huge blow. My face is sooo tired. Between that and the traveling anywhere from 1.5-3 hours each way to the concert hall, the last several of my days have been hard. Oh, and did I mention my car almost broke down... And I got a speeding ticket. Grrr.... It's been a touch couple of days.

I did however want to update this with the information for the last two days. Both of these caloric outputs are not the best. I'm was pretty upset by my eating habits, but little could be done because I was on the road and failed to plan ahead adequately...

Today was great for exercise though! I ran 4 miles today while focusing on maintaining my target heart rates. I was aiming at keeping it between 75-90% of my max. The first mile was at 75-80, while the second was a strong 90. At the end of the second mile I caught my heart sneak up to 95-97. I cooled that down pretty quickly. The last two miles were 80-90. It was awesome! I loved it.

At any rate, my caloric intake and exercise bio:

Day 3: No exercise/Rest day (also on the road all day).
Add 600 calories from California Mix to this and that's my intake. I didn't have the information to input it into Fitday.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 1154
Fat: 18 165 15%
Sat: 6 58 5%
Poly: 3 28 2%
Mono: 7 61 5%
Carbs: 193 723 64%
Fiber: 12 0 0%
Protein: 40 159 14%
Alcohol: 12 81 7%

Day 4: 4 mi run at heart rate.
Add another 300 for Cali Mix again.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 2022
Fat: 32 289 14%
Sat: 9 84 4%
Poly: 7 65 3%
Mono: 12 105 5%
Carbs: 315 1168 58%
Fiber: 23 0 0%
Protein: 138 552 27%

Ahh, I'm coming back down to regular life here. Yesterday, day 5 was my 6-month anniversary with my girlfriend, so I had a cheat meal and celebrated with her that night. It was a very nice evening.

I'm having trouble eating enough good food here. My cafeteria has only so many healthy items and they are of course the most expensive things they offer so i can only get so many. That's more annoyance than anything because I'm not beyond stealing from them. They have ripped me off many a time before. Beyond that though, they just don't offer enough protein. I'm having so much trouble getting a 40/40/20 balance. All the really good protein sources come in small amounts. They have several others, but they would also raise my fat quotient. Quite frustrating. I'm going to invest in some whey to help this... grr...

At any rate:

Day 5: 3 mi run at 75-90%. Calories include cheating.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 2526
Fat: 58 525 22%
Sat: 21 185 8%
Poly: 8 76 3%
Mono: 21 192 8%
Carbs: 274 965 40%
Fiber: 33 0 0%
Protein: 158 632 26%
Alcohol: 44 313 13%

Day 6: lift chest and tri's.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 1755
Fat: 29 263 16%
Sat: 6 52 3%
Poly: 6 50 3%
Mono: 8 69 4%
Carbs: 271 934 56%
Fiber: 38 0 0%
Protein: 119 476 28%

Day 7 was ok. I was incredibly busy throughout the day and was kept from doing things that I needed to do. To compound these problems, I woke up early to run, then wasn't able to make up that sleep later in the day like I had planned. It led to sleeping through part of this three-hour lecture... Not a good thing. At any rate, stress from life was really building that day. By the night, I was hairy mess. I had to get food quickly, and it was terrible for me. I was so upset.

Day 8 the stress boiled over. I took the afternoon off from a class, took a nap, read my Tom Clancy and put stuff to the side. I did not chart my food exactly today, nor did I exercise. My mind just needs some time to clear.

Day 7: Should be a weigh in day, but I didn't have time. 2mi run.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 2249
Fat: 92 831 38%
Sat: 18 161 7%
Poly: 38 342 16%
Mono: 30 266 12%
Carbs: 188 637 29%
Fiber: 29 0 0%
Protein: 177 707 33%

Day 8: Recoup day. Taken off.

I'm updating yesterday this morning because yesterday was nuts. Lots of stuff happened that I could not have foreseen and were big emotional drains on myself. Through that though, I was able to keep an eye on what I was eating, and I came out on top at the end of the day as it turns out, even despite drinking with some friends at the end of the day. Those vodka tonics do add up, so I was glad I planned for them earlier in the day.

As you can see, I haven't gotten the protein supplement that I need yet... I'll do that today, so I should have adequate protein from now on.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 1833
Fat: 28 252 15%
Sat: 6 53 3%
Poly: 6 58 3%
Mono: 13 117 7%
Carbs: 223 756 44%
Fiber: 34 0 0%
Protein: 105 421 24%
Alcohol: 42 298 17%

I am really stressed out from my work these days. It's sucking all of my energy. Too much rehearsal and work crap.

I'm getting back on the wagon though. I didn't have time or energy reserves to workout today, and tomorrow I can gaurantee that I will not. I have 7 hours of rehearsal, 2 of class, and 3 of work, all spaced just so that I will have hardly any time to eat or sit down all day. Grr...

Here's today:

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 1702
Fat: 46 411 25%
Sat: 17 151 9%
Poly: 9 77 5%
Mono: 16 144 9%
Carbs: 211 759 46%
Fiber: 21 0 0%
Protein: 122 489 29%

I'm still working over here, despite the lack of updates. I'm finding it harder to set a consistent time to do this update every day. My schedule varies so wildly from day to day. Bah, but stuff has been by and large good. I'm dealing with my excess stress level a day at a time.

I'm down 6 lbs too... :D This has to have contributed to my stress level somewhat. Losing close to 4 pounds in a week couldn't have been good. I weighed myself a couple days ago.

The more I use it, the more I'm enjoying fitday.com. It's such an excellent tool. I'm so grateful that it is helping me track my nutritional progression. bah. Don't think I'll add the last couple of days here just now. I think I'll add today tonight after the orchestra concert.

Have a good one all!

Hehehe, yes! This vacation has been awesome. I was invited to come down for a week to play with this orchestra based out of Miami and it has been awesome. The place where I'm put up is two blocks from South Beach. Awesome stuff... beautiful weather. I'm enjoying myself very much. It's been great being able to cook for myself and watch what I eat. I've continued dropping pounds, and I think I've dropped some space off my stomach a little bit. Some pants are fitting more like they used to.

At any rate, I have to run to rehearsal. I'll write more and keep this up more when I get back home.

This job here has got me at wits end. I'm working so much that I'm not able to practice. I have a couple of auditions coming up... couple biggerish concerts.... Grr.. And this weekend is looking like a big ol' mess. Concerts out of town every night all week.. Boo. Beyond that, I'm getting some wisdom teeth in right now. My upper left has broken through and is causing consistent pain especially when I play my instrument. So, painkillers have become my new best friend.

And my weight hasn't dropped as much as it used to. I'm down to 170 right now, which is good, but it could be more with consistent exercise. Right now I don't have the mental reserves for exercise...

I have kept up on the food log and that's been really good for me. I'm enjoying that very much. Any success I'm having is because of that.

I'll try to keep this up, but I really hope things settle down.

Well, I decided something had to go and I chose. I am no longer an RA in the dorm here... It's sooo nice to have time now. damn, I can't believe how nice it feels. This is a transitional period, but in two weeks the change will be permanent. I will have finished my tenure as a dorm-dad here. Nothing's certain as to where I will be living after this. I'd like to stay in the dorm, but I don't know if that's an option. I would also love getting out and finding my own place but that could be a major headache half way through the year... bah.. we'll see.

All in all I feel much better. Gotta go grab the remainder of my laundry now. I'll write more later!

Since I left that job that was stressing me out so much, I'm doing a whole heck of a lot better. I've worked out int he last three days twice, running two miles each time. I'm gearing back into it slowly, taking my time and making sure that I don't hurt anything or overextend myself. Either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to lift chest and tri's and then do back and bi's the next day. Should be good.

Gotta run, have a busy day this afternoon with practice and some class work. Should be good that I have time to do this and exercise... hehe, good stuff.

I'll continue to write more later.

hornguy

Hey all,

I'm still chugging over here. The cutting is going well. I'm keeping up with the diet though this week I'm being more generous. I have an audition this weekend and I don't want to put too much stress on my system. For that reason, I'm aiming more at the 2000 calorie mark than the 1700 mark. I'll weigh in today or tomorrow and see if it has affected my progress.

Kinda sad about the election results... How could this happen? grr... we'll see what happens.

hornguy