Inspiration, and defining my approach

I think there are a few good reasons to blog here. Some of the best reasons are for simple venting and support, or bragging and cheering, or friendships! I like these aspects of the site and the blogging community here. I think, for me, the reason I blog is to sort out my thoughts and opinions for myself. When you are forced to put something into writing for other people to read, you need to make sure that your thoughts and feelings are organized and consistent, and that the approaches that you’re taking make sense not only to you, but might even apply to other people. Blogging here gives me a way to express my thoughts and feelings not only to other people on the same path that I am, but most importantly, to myself.

I always wait until the end of the week to weigh myself. I like to do it on Friday at 9:30 am. As time went on, weighing myself became a few things to me :

1. Something to look forward to! It is exciting, and I’ll wait all week in anticipation to see where I land. I make educated guesses based on my diet and exercise that week as to where I’d be. It is pretty fun.

2. A ritual to keep me honest. Knowing that I’ll be standing on the scale at the end of the week is something that will cause me to re-think some bad decisions, sometimes. I have a lot of internal struggles that are essentially resolved by simply thinking about the scale, and those numbers. I want to feel good at the end of the week, not bad.

3. A reliable indicator of my current relationship to my diet and exercise. When I gain weight (and I often do!) I know that I’ve either got to stop what I’m doing, or start something else. I know that when I gain a pound or two this week, I will make a change, and see that weight come off next week. Sometimes, I have had a bad day, or two, or three. This week I gained 2 lbs eating a CRAZY DELICIOUS 1/2 bucket of hot chicken fingers with ranch, a slice of cheese pizza, and about 1.5 liters of Dr. Pepper. Next week, I’ll take an extra day at the gym, and maybe decide to skip the potato with dinner and have some “cauliflower mashed potatoes” instead.

I remember weighing in daily, and seeing water weight fluctuations that made me neurotic for many months. You begin to feel as if you’ve lost control of your weight, and while the long term trend was clear, the day to day changes were too much for me to bear psychologically. Weighing in once a week, at the same time on the same day every week, has been a real blessing for my sanity.

Another thing I really like to do is check on my body fat percentage. I have a scale that uses electrical resistances and a glass top plate to measure BMI, body fat percentage, etc. A high tech scale is actually a pretty cool way to track your true goal, losing fat!

How do you track your weight?

Hell yes! This is the way I’ve lost my weight, and you know what? I’ve never felt like I was “on a diet” and I’ve never yo-yo’d. Every pound I’ve lost has stayed off effortlessly. Its been 2 years to lose 120 lbs, and I’ve got another 80-100 to go, but I never EVER worry about putting it back on. Take it slow and I am sure that you will succeed!

Don’t stress too much over the lack of motivation when it hits. Its not a race to the goal weight, its a lifestyle change that will be with you for the rest of your life. If you don’t go 100% all the time, its OK! Just come back to your weight loss when you’re ready, and be careful not to gain any weight while you’re in that place.

My advice to anyone is to make small modifications like …no more sandwiches with white bread, use low cal fiber bread instead, no more soda, no more fast food…stuff like that is ALL I’ve done so far, just small modifications, and after a few weeks you get used to the one small modification and you can move on to another. Eventually, you’ve got a healthy lifestyle and you didn’t really have to work for it.

Take it slow, make small changes, and allow the weight to come off naturally as a result of your lifestyle, literally the way you live, instead of a diet. If you do this, when you reach your goal weight, there will be no way that you can return to your original weight because your lifestyle, your internal YOUness, will not allow it to happen. There will be no return to eating badly that causes your weight to creep back up, only the maintenance of your healthy lifestyle that you’ve cultivated over the years or months. No change necessary, the diet doesn’t end because it never began. You will not return to your old ways because you will have no desire to return to them, since you never denied yourself those things you truly wanted in the first place.

I do not miss fast food and soda, because when I really want it, I get some. What I do not do, however, is get fast food and soda when I don’t REALLY want it. It is the easiest “diet” you can be on.

Do any of you have the same approach? How do you diet?

One nice thing about losing the weight is that once its off, its much easier to maintain provided you’re reasonable and avoid overindulgence.

For example :

If you’re losing weight, you have to avoid almost ALL brownies.

If you’re maintaining, you can have a few once in a while. You can even have two if you really want them!

It doesn’t sound like much, but seriously it is. Losing is WAY tougher than maintaining. Just know that once you’ve got your goal weight you can go back to enjoying things more often…this, I think, will give you the strength to, for now, avoid those things most of the time.

Good luck.

I was doing my Hulk Hogan routine at home, all hopped up on low cal/low sugar banana bread, and my wife snapped this sweet shot of me practicing to become a pro wrestler.

I think I look pretty skinny, compared to my “before” picture. it is probably the first time I’ve looked at a picture of myself and thought, ‘Wow, this IS making a difference!”

I’m pretty proud of myself.

I found it.

Click on My Blog at the top, and then within the wordpress area, click Comments. Pretty easy! The only downside is that you’ll see both your own comments, and other people’s comments on your blog mixed in together.

Anyone know of any? My wife is going full vegetarian, and I’m going to spend a few days a week rolling with her on her quest. I need protein in large amounts, and I get kind of sick on a pure veggie diet, but it can’t hurt to do it 1/2 of the week. Hopefully, I can get lots of my protein from sushi, which I love.

My favorites are

1. white tuna
2. unagi
3. cajun/peppered albacore
4. hirame
5. amaebi

What kinds of sushi do you guys like? Does anyone make it at home?

OK so, I like going to the gym 3 times per week, and getting my cardio in the park or on the tennis court, instead of an elliptical machine or treadmill. I think you get better results through the greater range of motion and more varied exertion of real life training, and its more fun too! Doing exercises using only your body weight, and no machines or other workout aides leads to a more natural build, and in my opinion natural builds are more beautiful than exaggerated builds. Bodybuilders are gross!!

That being said, I kind of like going to the gym. You can do lots of workouts there that won’t bulk you up, but you can be safe in air conditioned bliss, never having to worry about skin cancer, and listening to some really strange inspirational pop tunes.

I usually don’t train with weights more than 3 times per week, but this routine can give you the rest you need for your major muscle groups to keep yourself from getting injured. You should never work out the same muscle group/types on consecutive days, and ideally you need 48 hours for your body to recuperate after a workout.

For all of these, work with the heaviest weight you can stand for 3 sets of 15-20, and your goal should be to feel your pulse increase around the middle of the set, and being slightly out of breath by the end. I don’t like taking a break longer than 30-60 seconds between sets, so that my heart rate stays up. This also has the added benefit of making your workouts short, since 30 minutes in the gym is a lot easier to commit to than an hour or two. I do almost all of these with dumbbells(the smaller ones), some people prefer the barbell, but I think that the greater range of motion with dumbbells gives your muscles a better workout since they not only have to handle the weight, but also keep it balanced. This balance type stuff is the philosophy behind all kinds of training methods, core training being the most recent example.

Start your workout with 10 minutes of light cardio on an elliptical, treadmill, or bike, then go into a 10-15 minute stretching routine, working ALL of your muscle groups. Then, end your workout with the same stretching routine. Many people only stretch before, but the real key to avoiding injury is stretching afterward! Do not stretch without warming up (the 10 mins cardio) as you can hurt your muscles and do more damage than good if you’re not properly warmed up. A light sweat is good.

Note that I work on the ab roller (doing crunches) and do some leg raises every time I go to the gym.

If you’re not sure how to do some of these, you might be served to workout with a trainer for a few days, or to check out some instructions on youtube, or just by googling!

Make sure that you do nice, even movements and go as slow as you can on the “down” movement. For example, when you’re doing bench press, push slowly up so the dumbbells are in the air above you, then bring them down about twice as slowly as you pushed them up. I like to count, like one up, and two down.

Make sure that you never, ever, hold your breath. Breath out on the push, and breathe in on the way down. You don’t have to follow this exact example, but make sure you’re never holding your breath. You can really hurt yourself holding your breath.

Day 1 - pushing muscles : chest, shoulders, triceps.

bench press - 1 set each of flat, incline, and decline
machine flys
shoulder press
dumbbell raises and raises with a twist
military press
lateral raises
crossovers
tricep curl
tricep pushdowns
barbell shrugs

Day 2 - pulling muscles : back, biceps

standing barbell curls
sitting dumbbell curls
sitting dumbbell hammer curls
reverse curls (these work your forearms)
close grip lat pulldown
wide grip lat pulldown
seated row

Day 3 - legs

Leg press
calf raise
calf press
leg curl
reverse leg curl

The important thing to remember is to keep the weights low, the reps high, and focus more on the cardio side than the “burning muscles” side. When your muscles are burning they are slightly injured. Your body responds by making your muscles bigger, so they can better handle the load, this, and scar tissue from the injuries are what bulks your muscles. Don’t be afraid to work out with just the bars, or 2-5 lb weights. No one will think you’re a wuss, I promise. As long as you’re feeling minor fatigue in your muscles and are slightly out of breath, you’re doing great.

Also note that you CAN reverse overbulking by ignoring those muscles for a while. You can keep tone by not working out with weighs at all, and using only the resistance of your body to train with. Pushups, situps, pullups, running, etc. will keep you fit and rarely bulk you up. Tyson Beckford, a male model with an amazing physique, never worked with weights, but did thousands of reps per day of pushups, situps, etc. So, if you find your body going places you don’t like, just don’t use weights, and find a plan using only your body weight. A trainer can help you with this kind of stuff, and routines like Yoga are awesome for this. I used to take a Yoga class, with a bunch of skinny old ladies, and beleive me it is one of the most challenging workouts you can do, even though it doesn’t look that hard.

The most important thing you can do is pay attention to your body, and how it looks and feels. The first few days working with weights can cause some pretty bad soreness, but it should feel a little good. If you feel stinging pain, you’ve hurt yourself and you need to take a few days off, then come back with MUCH lower weights.

I hope this helps a little, but I would 100% recommend working with a trainer for a few weeks. It will cost you a little, but they can help you put together a routine custom made for you and your goals, and they can make sure that your form is correct, which is very important for not only achieving your goals, but avoiding injury.

Working out is FUN! Talk to the people in the gym and get tips, guys absolutely LOVE to help women work out, and women like to talk about what they like too. Get social, have fun, and most of all get fit. I’m rooting for you.

Its kind of hard to track your comments on other people’s blogs, so if I write anything lengthy I’m going to stick it here, and send them a personal note. I like to have some kind of history of what I’ve written, does anyone know an easy way to track comments on blogs?

On to the response…

Mandy, a lovely young lady, was a little worried about going to the gym and strength training, because she felt the guys in the gym were staring.

Here is my opinion on that feeling :

As someone who has spent some time in a gym, probably 1000s of hours especially in high school/college, if the guys are checking you out in the gym for any longer than one second, they probably just think you’re nice to look at. Don’t believe me? My opinion is that you shouldn’t be embarrassed, because here are the only possibilities going through people’s minds (especially guys) in the gym :

1. She’s cute.
2. She’s a little heavy… but as many people as there are in the world that are fat and lazy, she’s getting off her ass and doing something about it. Good for her.

Its all positive. Either you’re hot, or you’re gonna be!

Heavy people in the gym are trying, and working, and believe me no one is faulting you or judging you for doing what everyone knows is the right thing to do, and the more difficult personal journey.

Note that all of this can be ruined by doing something like wearing super tight spandex and no bra with daisy dukes to the gym, if you can’t pull of the look! It is definitely sensible to be wearing tight-ISH clothes to the gym, so you don’t get anything caught in the machines, since loose clothes can get caught in the machine and get you seriously injured. In the immortal words of Emmanual Goldstein “Spandex, its a privilege, not a right.”

Next time, go into the gym with confidence and remember that you’re doing the right thing and everyone there recognizes it.

Now, strength training is really GREAT for weight loss. Muscle burns calories, and leads to a higher metabolism. People look better with some tone to their muscles, just don’t overdo it! High reps, low weight, is good for women, I think. I actually do the same thing in my workouts, because I don’t want to bulk up, i just want to increase my endurance and metabolism.

If you’re interested in workout routines, I will post mine here tomorrow. Its all about losing weight, and not likely to bulk you up or give you huge ropey muscles like Madonna!