I just wanted to say to Slamdog that I, and I think a lot of people here, are really pulling for you. You have a great, great attitude and I absolutely look forward to seeing those after pics of you with ripped abs. Then readind that you will be starting your first (controlled) bulk.
I also wanted to say that Tampa-Terry is like the Mother Theresa of the fitness world. You are a really generous guy, who is an enormous help to people on this site, and it is because of people like you that I think that the operators of this site should realize that it is not just their paid authors that make this place so terrific. I know that bodybuilding.com does not have anywhere near the calibre of contributors that testosterone does.
As this is the first week of my disrupted sleep pattern I think I’m going to give it a fortnight to see if things stabilize before embarking on another routine/diet change.
Goes back to my electronics days… logical fault finding… Only change one thing at a time to find the broken bit. Change more than that at once and you still don’t know what actually fixed it, even though it works now…
S-Dog, your logic is spot on!!! I agree 100%. (grin)
shawninjapan, thanks for the kind words. T-Nation rocks!!! We really do have some incredible (and incredibly smart!) members. And the information we’re provided for free just blows me away sometimes.
Again, gains on arms… up by 1cm (3/8ths inch) on upper arms, Thigh up by a whole inch, calf almost an inch. To also balance it, bodyweight is down 2lbs, waist down by another 2 inches and an inch of the chest. Butt has shrunk by almost 2 inches as well.
I hope this can naysay those who think you can’t grow and cut at the same time. The losses must be bodyfat reduction, the gains, increase in lbm. My scales are crap… they say my bf% is still 30%…unless I use them straight out of the bath with damp feet where it shows 29%.
I will get someone to take proper measurements with calipers soon…
S-Dog, you’ve got some body comp changes going on, but not as much as you deserve for the effort you’re putting out. It won’t take a lot, but you need to create a bit more of a caloric deficit.
I thought the formatting came out pretty good, all things considered. It’s just the nature of the forum. Tabs and other formatting symbols are stripped when you post your message.
Lack of sleep, lack of gym time. Because of the elections yesterday my kids were at home (they use their school as a polling station). No gym time… I am going today but that is the first time since last friday. I will have to stabilise the non important things such as work, family etc and concentrate on the weights…
I’ll have a count up and do a small calorie drop starting sunday night… my first shift back at work…
I’m surprised that I’m having trouble adjusting to night shifts. I used to work permanent nights for 10 years, its only the last 2 years that I have been on rotating day/night shifts. Saying that, it’s only the first week back as a night worker.
I’m attaching a pic of my cardio machine at work… all 10 tons of it… there are 4 steps up/down ground to top step height is 5 feet. I go up and down that thing anywhere between 300 and 400 times a shift. I also have to pull the curtains on trailers as well which on old trailers is like doing one handed rows with a heavy weight because the runners are rusted and seized.
S-Dog, have you ever tried melatonin for regulating sleep cycles? It’s used by people who fly across a bunch of time zones.
The only thing about melatonin is finding YOUR effective dose. Start off with 1mg one hour before you want to be asleep. If you’re not asleep one hour later, take another milligram. Keep taking more on the hour until you fall asleep. The next day start off at a higher dosage and repeat the process. Your effective dose is the amount you need to fall asleep in 1/2 hour.
You’re juggling a lot. Sometimes all you can do is hold on for dear life.
If you get the chance, why don’t you do a search on body weight exercises. There are some great articles here on the site.
And whether you get to the gym or not, remember that diet is going to give you 80% of your results!!!
Melatonin is a prescription drug over here… You can’t buy it over the counter.
I can buy herbal remedies like Kalms or I can grab a few of my wifes nitrazepam tabs…
Sleeping isn’t the problem… the length of sleep possible is the problem. On a weekday when I’m working I can actually only get 5 hours sleep before having to rise to get the kids from school. This week its sunday, monday, tuesday and wednesday… next week it will be monday through thursday… my best work shifts will be friday through to monday because I only get limited sleep on the monday daytime. Not long till school holidays too… so things will get better…
I think it is just a case of adjusting to the routine again, it has been 4 years since i was a permanent night worker…
I do have weights at home and a multi angle bench… not got as much weight here as at the gym but something is better than nothing.
I have both barbel and dumbells so I can do pretty much the same stuff as at the gym at a reduced weight. I tend to double the reps to get the same volume…
Like the gym, I try and concentrate on compounds rather than isolation moves…
With lighter weights focus on squeezing and contracting the muscle your targetting and hold for 1 sec at the peak. You can make lower weights feel much tougher!
Good job so far, great to hear the progress reports! Just keep in mind nutrition and caloric intake and giving your body enough protein to grow is key, rest then exercise follow!
Just approach your workouts with the mindset not to hurt yourself and also almost as important to walk away feeling like you had the best workout of your life.
Also a quote from this site : ( I’ll have to horribly butcher it and paraphrase. )
Lift and exercise to prepare for your next workout. What you do today will be the key determinant of what you will be able to do the next time around. Thus fueling the desire to push yourself, to add a extra rep, to bump the weight up a tad everytime if possible, or to find an alternate such as more volume, switching up your rest time, applying more power adding to velocity making those reps a little faster. Squeezing at the peak and holding it. Static holds where you stop at a specific part of the lift and hold for 1-2 seconds then continue and variating when you perform the static holds ( probably best done toward the end of your workout or at the end, or on the last set for whatever bodypart you are working out ).
Keep it up and know you have the support of an entire nation.
So, its been a while now… nearly a month so some visuals and an update…
I realised how close I was to the velocity diet… so I went all out and did it… I have 5 days to go and i will have done the 28 days…
It has got to the stage where I would not worry about eating solid food again… No cravings, no urges, no real problem at all…
So far I have dropped 14lbs, the final tally will happen at the end of the week.
I will be looking at transitioning back to real food and getting a kickstart of my metabolism. My calorie intake on the v-diet was 1500 non workout, 1800 workout days. I havent done as much exercise as is suggested due to work and family commitments but I have done what I can.
For the last couple of weeks I have been wearing a 40lb vest to work every other day and doing the first 5-6 hours of my 12 hour shift wearing it. both the walking round, the climbing up and down and the general moving about. Boy do those steps hurt after 5 hours carrying that weight!
Funny enough, when I first decided to get into shape it was roughly 40lbs of fat that I was carrying around surplus to requirements… still carrying too much but boy do you feel a difference when you add 40lbs in one go…
so some visuals… these were taken at the gym on my phone
It just doesn’t feel impressive at the moment… I maybe was expecting too much too soon from the v-diet… Then I curse myself for not walking every day like I should have… then I get to feeling that hey… a stone in a month ain’t so bad…
My emotions (if men actually have them, I’ll ask the wife…) seem to be up and down more than a whores panties at the moment… bet that’s the really low carbs though…
Now my bodyweight has dropped by 14lbs, hopefully fat… I am a week back onto food from the velocity diet and things are leaner for sure. Forearms bigger…but bi’s/tri’s smaller? Must be the fat loss because my strength hasn’t reduced, same with my thighs. Squatting more and have certainly have more definition.
My waist size is down and also my belly measurement is down although I only measured that on the v-diet. Belly size is down by 2 inches.
So where from here? Certainly more weight work, sort out nutrition properly and hopefully lose some more fat. My electronic scales say I’m 28%bf from 30% before the diet. Only another 18% to go!
I’m hoping to get to somewhere between 10 and 15% bf with an increase in strength, ending up at a bm in the 180lb mark. That leaves about 20lb fat loss still to achieve.
The biggest problem with this is the cost… My damn clothes are so big now that I’m having to buy new kit… On the flip side, I can’t get slim trousers or jeans that fit my thighs properly! Looks like I will have to end up wearing sweats for ever now…
Nice work,mate!
As a transplant Scot now living in Canada one learns adaptability in whatever one takes on.
I won’t go on about the programme nor the caloric intake business.
I will however give you a link that I believe will work magic on the weed:
Brilliant site,and not what you may expect.
I’ve known this to work for many,first hand…
All the Best!
Let me know how you make out with it…
[quote]webjamin2 wrote:
Nice work,mate!
As a transplant Scot now living in Canada one learns adaptability in whatever one takes on.
I won’t go on about the programme nor the caloric intake business.
I will however give you a link that I believe will work magic on the weed:
Brilliant site,and not what you may expect.
I’ve known this to work for many,first hand…
All the Best!
Let me know how you make out with it…
cheers.
wil
Kingston,Ontario,Canada (The Limestone City)[/quote]
Been off the weed since valentines day… I don’t miss it. In a month the UK is going totally Smoke Free in public places so it will mean a lot of people will now be unable to smoke at work.
My biggest struggle now is eating properly again. I’m cooking more chicken, turkey and vegetables, have started eating more beans (of various types, this week its mung beans and black eyed beans)
No doubt it will all come together, my squats have improved as well as my bench but I’m still in pain with what I suspect is tendonitis in my left arm. I’ll make an appointment with the doc next time I’m not working and see what he says. He’ll probably try and give me more NSAIDs, but they haven’t worksed so far… We shall see…
