4XLT

Today’s Weigh-In: 374.8 pounds
23 Days Until Goal Two
4.8 Pounds To Go
65.2 Pounds Lost Total

So, standing in my kitchen, eating my microwave breakfast/lunch (work till 3AM, wake up at 11AM, and that’s what you get! But healthy, 500 calories total is right on track, so no cause for alarm.), I had a bit of an epiphany.

In less than fifteen pounds from now, I will be twenty pounds away from loosing a hundred. That struck me as awesome for no particular reason. And, from another perspective, I’m now under seventy-five pounds away from the 300 mark, which is great.

It just serves as more fuel to keep me pumped to continue eating right, doing cardio, lifting intelligently / correctly / powerfully, and getting enough sleep. Let’s see how far under 370 I can get for my best friend’s wedding at the beginning of June!

Today’s Weigh-In: 377.6 pounds
24 Days Until Goal Two
7.6 Pounds To Go
62.4 Pounds Lost Total

I was going to write about the challenge of eating correctly put together meals as compared to just counting calories. I was going to write about constantly tweaking and changing your weight training to avoid plateauing. Instead, I’m writing now just to check in, and then finish work as quickly as possible to enjoy the nice weather.

Quick post here today. I’m posting my my general lifting program of the past few months. It’s been treating me pretty well (when I stick to it, which was about a 50/50 proposition last month). However, just to stay ahead of the curve and stave off any plateauing, I’ve been cruising through T Nation and some other bodybuilding and strength training websites looking for how to improve.

The Plan

I’m using a full body workouts every other day. Most of the reading I’ve done indicates that for the majority of people (and especially overweight schmucks like myself), it’s the way to go. I’ve got about eight or nine exercises I have planned on when I go to the gym. While I’m there, I try and strictly follow a policy of Big Sucky Lifts (deadlifts, compound moves, etc) before Guilty Pleasure Lifts (biceps, shoulder shrugs, etc). If I’m pressed for time or just in a foul mood, I make myself knock out the big four (Romanian deadlift, incline leg press, chest press, row) before allowing myself to go home.

Whenever possible given the available machines and stations, I try and superset two lifts together. The supersets as below on a single line:

Big Suky Lifts:
Romanian Deadlift / Incline Leg Press
Chest Press / Shoulder Press
Row / Lat Pull Down

Guilty Pleasure Lifts:
Biceps / Hang Clean
Tripcep Pushdown / Lateral Raise

Now, the fun comes in finding how I can tweak and best adapt the lifts. But, I’ll talk about that later.

Today’s Weigh-In: 383.2 pounds
30 Days Until Goal Three
13.2 Pounds To Go

Got back to Portland a few days ago, and Wednesday morning I stepped on the scales to survey the damage done. 385.6 Wow, a bit more than I was expecting – by several pounds.

Frankly, I just visited the under-380 mark ever so briefly. I imagine I was back around 382 or so when I arrived in Tulsa (given the topsy-turvey nature of last month’s weight loss). Granted, three pounds seems to be a lot, but I did end up eating a lot. But to be truthful, I don’t regret it at all. The food habits weren’t something I want to continue, but I figure a couple days of my mom’s cooking and the resulting three pounds is something I’ll happily deal with.

However, vacation’s over, and it’s time to look to the future.

Redefining Goal Three

I had originally planned on Goal Three being the Fourth of July, but life has caused my to change that up. While I was back in Oklahoma, My best friend Nate proposed to his girlfriend, Jenny. I was fortunate enough to be there, playing the guitar and singing a son to Jenny that Nate and I were up until three in the morning the night before writing. Most of the lyrics of the song were worked from poetry Nate had written throughout the years to his future wife, so it was a really special moment.

Nate and Jenny both have a very large heart and call from God for the continent of Africa (Nate just spent a few years there). As they plan on returning this fall, they want to get a few months of marriage under their belts. As such, they are planning a very quick engagement.

So, I’ll be returning to Tulsa for the first weekend in June to be in my best bud’s wedding. Goal Three, now, is to be 370 pounds or less by the wedding on Sunday, June 8th.

Getting There From Here

Now that I’m back in the wonderful Pacific Northwest, I have been taking some time this week to look at how to better improve my health progress. For at, at this point, it’s really a return to basics. Last month (April) was a brutal see-saw battle for me, and I think I know one of the major reasons why: I failed to record much of anything. Being a couple months in to the workout / gym gig, I had my lifting down pat. I went to the gym and pushed through my lifts like a good little robot, but the downside? I didn’t increase my lifted weights at all, with the exception of my shoulder presses.

It’s time for me to become diligent like a laboratory scientist in recording all the data I can. In addition to looking at how I can tweak my lifting program (I’ll post my exact program tomorrow), I am also going to try and get very focused with my nutritional intake. Accordingly, I took some time last in the midst of watching Scrubs to work on a spreadsheet that details my daily caloric and subsequent macronutritional intake. You can download a copy of my Meal Composition spreadsheet in Pdf format here.

The next step in the plan at this point is to research caloric totals in various food items, and then build easy, sample meals based on the nutritional guidelines found in the meal composition sheet. At the same time, I need to keep to my cardio as well as tweak and adapt my lifting program so I avoid the inevitable plateau.

Here we go!

This is going to be a very, very, very short post. Get ready.

Vacation: good
Seeing family: awesome
Being sixty pounds lighter than I saw them last: rad
Eating: okay, but not great
Lifting: making due at the local Y
Cardio: hey, it’s a vacation!

I fly back to Portland this Tuesday where I will hit the ground running on both the health front and the broader theme of life change. Time to set my eyes on 360. And then, 340 – which will be 100 pounds! Got to plow throw the next twenty, first.