Remember - muscle weighs more than fat. You’ll often gain muscle weight from training at the very beginning of a weight loss program. This is good because the new muscle will boost your metabolic rate and cause you to burn more fat
Keep going buddy! Your motivation is carrying you through, and not to mention the results your seeing.
Pain is something you can gauge…is it enough to kill me or is just enough to inconvience me and make me quit? Meaning, are you hurt or are you injured. Minute after minute on the treadmill or rep after rep can suck and be hard on you, but its not gonna kill/severly injure you. That is the point in your mind you have to drive on past the desire to ease up or quit.
Your doing great…keep at it and keep posting. Your goal should be a committment to your health and your continued healthy existence with your family.
Joe
July 26th–
Yesterday was my Birthday. I now have 364 days to go to meet my goal of being in the best shape of my life when I turn 40.
364 days.
I took July 24th off from the gym. I had actually meant to go but my life sort of got in the way. I had a 6am meeting at work and ended up not getting home until close to 9pm. By the time I got home, played a little with the kids and had supper, it was after 11pm.
Yesterday, my birthday, I was back in the gym. I am still working through trying to find my 10RM weights with the goal of starting Charles Staley’s EDT program as lined out in Muscle Logic next week.
So far I have gotten a few of the lifts lined out. Here they are:
BB Bench Press: 155
Hammer V-squat: 240
Hammer Hack Squat: 240
Hammer Leg Press: 530
DB Bench Press: 45
Push Press: 95
Lat pulldown: 100
I actually tried a 15 minute PR zone yesterday doing Push Press and DB Bench Press. It was pretty brutal but I made it through. I’m a little sore today but I’m actually getting used to being a little sore and am taking comfort in the knowledge that I’m getting stronger.
My diet the last 2 days has SUCKED!!! I’ve been in birthday mode and have basically allowed myself to eat whatever I want. Tomorrow is back to the diet. I really feel it in my body the last two days of not eating right. i basically feel like crap and am tired. I can’t believe I lived on junk food for so long.
I’ll be back in the gym tonight to try and finish up my lifts and start getting my initial 8 week workouts planned out.
Thanks to everyone for the continued encouragement, it really means a lot to me.
July 27
I got back on my eating plan and felt great all day. It was amazing to me how ggod I felt after simply getting back on plan.
My workout was a tryout of the new EDT system I have been learning about all week. I believe I have the basics down and am going to go ahead and start them now, even thought I’m a couple of days ahead of schedule. My body is starting to feel strong again. Stronger than it has felt in long time.
Here was my EDT workout today.
PR 1:
A1) Barbell Bench Press: 155 pound load–Total Volume=5425
A2) Barbell Dead Lift: 185 pound load–Total Volume=5540
I was only able to get the first 4 sets of deadlift at 185. Then I felt a sharp pain in my lower back so I decreased the weight and finished the last few sets at 135.
PR 2:
A1) Dumbell Snatch(right arm):17.5lb load–Total Volume=875
A2) Dumbell Snatch(left arm):17.5lb load–Total Volume=875
The snatches really got my heart rate up. Overall I felt completely spent at the end of the second PR. This morning (Saturday) I am feeling a little sore across my back but nothing out of the ordinary these days and, like I said before, I kind of like being a little sore.
I have planned a 4 day split going forward. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday so I will be back in the gym today for round 2.
Working 55 hours a week, that will kill you. How do you have time to be close to your kids? What type of work do you do, is it phyical or desk work. I do desk work banging a computer and talking to people about things they don’t want to hear.
Sometimes when I walk around the office, it twinkee land,that sugar is real tempting, lately Ive been losing, instead of passing it by. But 55 hours a week, you could be like that picture of an atomic bomb, inside! the Gym to me is a reprieve, When I leave I feel relaxed, not stressed out.
Again the most phyiscal thing I do all day is walk past the they sugar poisons in the office. Good luck, but that 55 hours a week, gotta be tough.
[quote]Heavyweight wrote:
Working 55 hours a week, that will kill you. How do you have time to be close to your kids? What type of work do you do, is it phyical or desk work. I do desk work banging a computer and talking to people about things they don’t want to hear.
Sometimes when I walk around the office, it twinkee land,that sugar is real tempting, lately Ive been losing, instead of passing it by. But 55 hours a week, you could be like that picture of an atomic bomb, inside! the Gym to me is a reprieve, When I leave I feel relaxed, not stressed out.
Again the most phyiscal thing I do all day is walk past the they sugar poisons in the office. Good luck, but that 55 hours a week, gotta be tough.[/quote]
Heavyweight,
I hear ya with the long hours. I am in a job where we get forced overtime whether we want it or not, its just part of the job. The worst I have had this year is an 82 hour week, and it completely sapped me. Some people I work with love OT so much that they volunteer for as much as they can get. They are the ones carrying the 24oz cans of those sugar energy drinks around all day long.
When I want some sugar or get the urge, I allow myself something in moderation everynow and then. I also bring the food to work and avoid ordering out or hitting the junk machines.
[quote]Heavyweight wrote:
Working 55 hours a week, that will kill you. How do you have time to be close to your kids? What type of work do you do, is it phyical or desk work. I do desk work banging a computer and talking to people about things they don’t want to hear.
Sometimes when I walk around the office, it twinkee land,that sugar is real tempting, lately Ive been losing, instead of passing it by. But 55 hours a week, you could be like that picture of an atomic bomb, inside! the Gym to me is a reprieve, When I leave I feel relaxed, not stressed out.
Again the most phyiscal thing I do all day is walk past the they sugar poisons in the office. Good luck, but that 55 hours a week, gotta be tough.[/quote]
I am the Root Cause Analysis Coordinator for Callaway Nuclear Power Plant. Basically my job is to work with teams to find the causes and solutions to problems at our station. Lately I have been more involved in project work to try to find and implement a solution to an issue we have with our procedures. It is a high stress job and I find that my time at the gym helps me greatly reduce the amount of stress I bring home.
The rest is time management combined with sleep deprevation. I try to sleep 6 hours a night and make sure I schedule EVERYTHING so I can be there when my family needs me. I don’t watch tv (except for the daily show, which I watch everyday at 10pm our time) and live my life according to priorities. I am not afraid to say no to things I don’t feel are important but try to say yes, schedule permitting, to everything I feel is important. It works for me. That’s all I can say.
I have started bringing all my food to work. Going out to eat is not an option for me because the plant is out in the boonies. The cafeteria food sucks so if it doesn’t coem in my lunchbox, it doesn’t go into my mouth at work.
Yesterday’s EDT workout looked like this:
PR1
A1) Barbell Push Press: 95lb loading – Total Volume = 3325
A2) Back Barbell Squat: 185lb loading – Total Volume = 6475
PR2
I’m not sure what this is called. It’s basically a cable step-up. I wrapped a belt around my waist and hooked both ends of our cable rack to either side. Then I used a utility bench placed between the two cables to do step-ups. It was a great workout and had me sweating buckets with my heart rate way up there.
From now on I will call the exercise Cable Step-up
Cable Step-up: 20lb each side. 150 total reps. Volume = 6000
I finished up with 10 min on the elliptical and was basically spent.
Today, Sunday is a day off. I’ll be abck in the gym Monday.
July 30th.
Here’s my workout from Monday, July 30th.
5 min elliptical warm-up.
The new gym does not have jump ropes. I need to start bringing my own becasue I really enjoyed jumping rope.
EDT Workout
PR1
A1) Hammer Strenght Hack Squat: 150lb loading. Volume = 7500
A2) Lat Pulldown: 120lb loading. Volume = 6000
PR2
A1) Smith Machine Dead Lift: 100lb for set 1 and then 150lb for the other sets. Volume = 5000
A2) DB Bench Press: 50lb in each hand. Volume = 3500
15 min on the elliptical after the weights.
August 4th
I’ve been slacking on my posting so I have a couple of workouts to get cauht up with.
Here is my workout for Tuesday 7/31
5 min warm-up on the elliptical
PR1
Plate Raise: 45lb loading, switched to 25 lb after 4 sets: Total Volume = 1700
Straight Arm Pushdown: 50 lb loading: Volume = 2500
PR2
Hammer Leg Press: 440lb loading: Volume = 17600
Dual Pulley Row: 42.5lb loading: Volume = 1700
This was the end of my first week of EDT. Overall I am satisfied with the workout. I get a lot done in a short period of time.
I am less than satisfied with my 2 midweek workouts, especially when I compare them to my end of week workouts.
I would like my two midweek workouts to have exercises that are more physically demanding so I am going to try to find a combination to get that switched.
Essentially my program looks like this:
Monday: PR1: Hack Squat and Lat Pulldown
PR2: Stiff Leg Deadlift and DB Bench Press
Tuesday: PR1: Plate Raise and Straight Arm Pushdown
PR2: Hammer Leg Press and Dual Pulley Row
Wed. Off
Thurs. Off
Friday: PR1: Bench Press and Deadlift
PR2: DB Snatch
Saturday: PR1: Push PRess and Back Squat
PR2: Cable Step-ups
Sun. Off
I would like to make my Mon and Tues workouts more demanding.
Here is my workout for yesterday, Friday 8/3. This was the beginning of my 2nd week of EDT workouts
5 min warn-up on elliptical
PR1
Bench Press: 165lb loading. Volume = 6600
Deadlift: 155lb loading. Volume = 6200
PR2
DB Snatch: 20lb loading. Volume = 2400
I did better this week than last. Volume went up an all exercises and I believe I felt in better shape than last week.
I continue to struggle with my diet. Basically Wed and Thurs are hard for me to stick to my plan and I need to commit to stacking to my diet better. My weight has remained steady at 248 for a couple of weeks now and while I think I learned to not obsess over it too much, as long as my measurements are going down, I still am obsessing over it.
I recommend you ditch the smith machine for the deadlift right away and use a barbell. You are getting no benefit from the smith machine and risk learning bad technique.
Great job. I look forward to your posts/
Stu
In an earlier post you mentioned doing dumbell snatches and getting a big boost from it. Any time your moving a weight from the floor to over your head you will use virtually your entire body to get it there. This could be a clean and press, turkish get up, windmill, snatch, DB or BB, etc.
Do as much volume as you can in as short a time as possible to maximize power production and drive your metabolic conditioning through the roof. Where you are trying to loose weight and get stronger this may work better for you than a lot of cardio. It will certainly add variety and make your workouts more interesting.
Stu
8/7
I’ve had to take a couple of days in a row off from the gym.
I was working wround the house (removing some old carpeting from the stairs) and COMPLETELY screwed up my back.
I worked out on Friday and did bench press and deadlifts for my first PR and dumbell snatches for the second.
My volume on both went up from the previous week and I was pretty stoked by that.
I then went home and started getting the carpeting up and by Saturday morning was not really functioning all that well due to some SEVERE pain in my lower back.
I spent all day Saturday and Sunday in bed popping muscle relaxers and trying ot get over it.
Yesterday, Monday, the pain was less and today I feel almost 100%. Still some tweaking pain in my back so I will give it one more day and head back to the gym tomorrow.
While I’ve been off, I’ve been really trying to watch my diet and have managed not to gain any weight. The scale this morning still read 248 which is basically where I’ve been for a couple of weeks now.
I am starting to wonder whether PN is really for me. I’m going to go ahead and order the Metabolic Advantage and see if I can’t get some more weight loss that way.
I am REALLY missing the gym but I think that allowing my body to recover from whatever I did to it last week is going to be better than trying to push on while injured and ending up havign to take a longer break whe I completley break down.
As a side note, I was able to move my belt buckle in another notch this morning (although it wasn’t totally comfortable to wear it that way yet). That was encouraging and further eveidence that, although I seem unnaturally obsessed by my scale, that weight doesn’t mean all that much.
Like I said, I will be back in the gym tomorrow.
G’day Mad Thad,
I’m a newcomer here, but I’d like to start by saying this thread is a great read and your success fills me with motivation. Good onyer for losing that much so far.
I’m a fellow sufferer(!) who needs to build muscle/lose weight and I’m on day one of a new diet and exercise program. Fun if not painful but seems over-indulgent on the food.
But I’m not here to talk about me. You mentioned skipping. Bitch of a thing to start off with, agreed. Great for aerobic workout.
My point? It gets easier to do but harder to take! I skipped like an complete mong until my daughter (!!!) taught me the basics. Not sure if you’ve been advised already but I recommend you try to stay light by bouncing on the balls of your feet, don’t let your heels touch the ground, jump low etc…
Sounds lazy but this way you can go for longer without stopping for a breath. The heart-rate soon starts to burn!
Other tips are concentrate on spinning your wrists pretty quick and ensure the rope is slapping the ground in front of you before you hop. Gives you an added audible cue to hop if you tend to ignore looking at the floor like I do.
Some say don’t skip on a hard surface due to high impact on your legs. Each to their own. Personally I prefer it on grass - goes easier on your bones.
At the risk of you already seeing this, here’s a video showing some flash b*****d doing all the fancy stuff with a rope. As someone says on the comments, he’s going so quick the audio can’t keep up. At the end he’s finished but you can still hear the rope rotating! This guy has other films of him skipping, take a look.
He’s something to aspire to (in our dreams!) but at least by watching him you get a feel of how he does it. You’ll be going longer and harder in no time.
Oh, and if you think he’s a bit flash, check out these nutters.
Keep up the great work at the gym and on this forum.
Cheers.
NF
Thad, what’s happening? How about an update?
OK so I’ve been on vacation for a couple of weeks but am back.
Just before I left, I was doing deadlifts and basically screwed my back up but good.
I’ve been resting my back, got some massage work done and have gone back to the gym over the past couple of days.
My weight is still sitting at 248.
My body is back to feeling good again and, after a few days of working back into my lifting routine, I think I am back in form.
The biggest obstacle for me right now is my diet.
As I’ve said before, I like to eat. I really don’t know how to stick to a diet and need to really motivate myself on a daily basis to stay on task as far as my diet goes.
Anyway, I’m back in the gym tonight and will post my workout later on or tomorrow.
Sorry, but it has to be said. 4 pounds in 6 weeks? Thad, your not doing the job. Do you really want to drop weight, or is this an ego trip?
Diet:
Diet is incredibly important at this stage. Vacations will always mess you up because you get out of a routine. Get back on it and stick with it.
You need to break the carb addiction cycle. Start with cutting all grains for 2 weeks. That means, no sugar, baked items, rice, oatmeal, bread, potatoes, corn, pop, deep fried foods, etc. Keep fruit to 1 piece after your workout. Watch out for hidden sugar and grains in processed foods. It’s best to avoid them right now.
Start filling up on green and colorful vegetables.
Eat 6 times a day. Plan every meal including your snacks. Prepare them the night before. Make sure you get a variety of veg, nuts, meat, eggs, herbs, spices, and oils. Make sure your oils are high in monounsaturated and/or Omega 3. You will get enough saturated and Omega 6 from the rest of your diet.
In 2 weeks you can gradually add in some grains in limited qty’s.
Training:
Make sure you use correct form on exercises at all times, even with warmup sets. Make the right form automatic. Deadlifts should not hurt your back unless you did them wrong. Start strengthening your back and add them back in starting at a low weight and slowly progressing paying strict attention to form.
[quote]stuward wrote:
Diet:
Diet is incredibly important at this stage. Vacations will always mess you up because you get out of a routine. Get back on it and stick with it.
You need to break the carb addiction cycle. Start with cutting all grains for 2 weeks. That means, no sugar, baked items, rice, oatmeal, bread, potatoes, corn, pop, deep fried foods, etc. Keep fruit to 1 piece after your workout. Watch out for hidden sugar and grains in processed foods. It’s best to avoid them right now.
Start filling up on green and colorful vegetables.
Eat 6 times a day. Plan every meal including your snacks. Prepare them the night before. Make sure you get a variety of veg, nuts, meat, eggs, herbs, spices, and oils. Make sure your oils are high in monounsaturated and/or Omega 3. You will get enough saturated and Omega 6 from the rest of your diet.
In 2 weeks you can gradually add in some grains in limited qty’s.
Training:
Make sure you use correct form on exercises at all times, even with warmup sets. Make the right form automatic. Deadlifts should not hurt your back unless you did them wrong. Start strengthening your back and add them back in starting at a low weight and slowly progressing paying strict attention to form.[/quote]
Lots of good advice here. Diet, not to be confused with dieting, is critical when losing weight. A few tips;
-
load up early in the day. Have a big breakfast. Being too strict with your caloric intake early in the day leads to being overly hungry at night so you eat too much when you shouldn’t.
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keep good snacks handy (nuts, cottage cheese (mix it with some flavored yogourt), fruit, …) and rid the house of carbohydrate crap. Being hungry between meals and not having a good snack handy when you need it is a killer.
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don’t be afraid to have a small low carb snack before bed.
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expect to be a little bit hungry some or most of the time. Learn to think of it as a sign of progress.
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as much vegetables as you can stomach.
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don’t drink any juice or other beverage with sugar in it. It is useless calories.
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if you are at a restaurant, don’t ever have fries. Consider them to be toxic just like soda.
Also, as I mentioned before, big compound movements are the key to raising metabolism. At this point I would recommend eliminating any isolated arm or shoulder work so that all your time and energy is spent on variations of deadlifts, squats, clean and press movements, bench and rows ideally with reduced rest intervals or done as a complex.
There was a good article on complexes for fat loss.
Also, read the T-Nation articles on proper deadlift technique. When you start the lift your hips and shoulders rise together, the bar touches your body as it travels upward, you keep a strong and stable core, your spine is in a natural arch and you don’t hyperextend at the end, you will not hurt your back and see the benefit of an awesome exercise.
Stick with it. It will work.
Yesterday was my first day back lifting heavy after the back problems.
Over the past week I’ve been just going to the gym to try to get loosened up and make sure my back issues were over.
Finally, yesterday I went back to real work.
Here is my workout.
A1) Bent Barbell Rows (underhand grip): 135lb loading
A2) DB Overhead Press: 40lb dumbells.
I did this for 20 minutes taking short breaks between each set. I did 8 rotations.
B1) Back Barbell Squats: 185lb loading
B2) DB Benchpress: 55lb loading.
same as superset A above.
I finished up with 15 miutes on the elliptical.
I’ve been reading the diet information you guys are putting out. By and large I agree with you. My diet is not exactly what I would call optimal. I said at the start of all this that I really don’t know what I’m doing and that this is a learning process.
I am proud of the fact that I’ve managed to lose a few pounds while learning and even more proud of the fact that my measurements have gone down and that my clothes are fitting MUCH MUCH better than before.
I looked at myself in the mirror this morning while shaving and for the first time realized how my body is changing. I am getting some definition in my shoulders, arms, and legs. My biceps are starting to look like something other than fat (not that their defined by any stretch of the imaginiation).
Between vacation and my back injury I did take a hit but I feel like I have given myself time to heal and am on track.
Also note that I do not consider this a race but a lifestyle change. I have a goal of getting in shape in time for my 40th birthday and even if I only lose 1 pund a week, I will attain my goal.
No doubt that I am on my way to being a big bad motherf*&er. Nothing can stop me from attaining my goal.
That is not say I haven’t taken some of your advice. I got a small fridge in my office now and have stocked it with lots of protein bars and vitamin water (I love that stuff). when I want a snack, I reach for a protein bar instead of heading to the snack machine.
I have allowed my myself to eat large at breakfast (which for me happens around 6:30) and have noticed that I am much better at atsying on plan throughout the day.
I am FAR from perfect but everyday I feel like I get another small piece of the puzzle locked in. All I can say is don’t give up on me yet. Also, PLEASE PLEASE keep the coaching coming. I really really need it and I am incorporating as much into my life as I can.
I am super sore from my workout yesterday so am heading out for a long walk on the trail with my wife, son and the dog this afternoon. Life is good!!!
Every little change helps and making a series of small changes will allow you to build new habits. It sounds like you’re on the right track. Enjoy life and keep us posted.