Some Pictures

Here are some pictures of how I look at the moment.. as you can see I hide pretty well but you can tell where the weight is if you look carefully.

Notice the bulge near the right side... wearing black is great for hiding your 'weight'.

Not too proud of this pic either... if only the waist was narrower (my stomach looks like it's on its way to popping out of that vest).

Work It!

Hey guys! This is my personal workout blog. I built it to motivate myself to workout and track my progress. My goals are to work out on a routine basis and get as fit as possible!

Since this is my first post, I'll share with you a little bit about myself...

I'm not as fit as everyone probably thinks I am in my peer group. I weigh about 185lbs right now and am 5'11". I do have a gut and lovehandles which I've been trying to get rid of forever. Luckily I can hide it well by wearing loose shirts and baggy pants. So the effect I give off is I'm 'skinny'.

But.... I can't go to the beach and show off. I can't wear cool fitted shirts or jeans and look good at the club because I'm afraid of people noticing my actual body tone. And I don't really have as good stamina as guy my age should have... my competition in this area kills me.. when I want to sweep a girl off her feet, I almost lose my balance!

My diet isn't anything great either. I try to eat six times a day but fail a lot :).

Want to know what I eat? Here's a quick snapshot..

I usually either have a glass of Muscle Milk (20g protein) or skip breakfast altogether. But usually I'll have that glass.. I'd say at least 90% of the time. 10% I skip.

For lunch, I either eat a chicken burger and tater tots from the cafeteria downstairs, Taco Bell's 89 cent chicken tacos, or make a chicken sandwich for myself - which consists of wheat bread, mayo & chicken slices from Costco (25g protein).

I'll drink another Muscle Milk around 4PM, try to eat an apple (40% of the time I will) or eat oatmeal (20% of the time).

Dinner is usually at 7 and consists of another chicken sandwich that I make with chips and a cheese stick. I have no idea what the protein count is in that. Basically just trying to eat a lot of protein with wheat bread so I have a good balance of fiber and protein.

Occassionally, on Thursdays, Fridays or the weekend, I'll eat out like 2-3 times. I'll eat with friends at some food court, usually eating whatever... pizza slices, burgers, sushi, Indian curry, whatever... it's always different, 'cause I like going out and eating different food. Usually though, when I eat out, I eat chicken based food. I rarely eat beef and will only eat it if there's nothing else to eat; I love fish, but am too poor to buy it and cook it. Well maybe not too poor but just lazy.

I don't really cook. I love cooking but it takes so much time in the kitchen which I never seem to have time for. So I just make a ton of sandwiches - they are easy and take like a couple minutes to prepare - vs spending 20 min in the kitchen to make spaghetti or a fish curry.

For the most part, my diet doesn't make me 'fat'. For the most part I've kept around the same weight for a year. If anything I dropped from being 200lbs to 185lbs using this diet... my diet before sucked. I was eating fast food all the time and drinking a ton of soda. I lived off Carl's Jr. Now I rarely if never eat there. I also changed soda consumption to purely diet sodas. At first I hated diet soda but now I prefer it to real soda... real soda has wayyy too sugary of a taste.

Now that you know about my diet.. what about my workout?

I'm really inconsistent... Some weeks I'll hardcore go to the gym and work out for 2 hours, 3-4 days a week. Other weeks, I'll do nothing... not even cardio. When I'm working out consistently, I love going to the gym.. I can motivate myself to go as often as I can. But when I miss the gym more than 2 times, I start getting lazy. Especially if I have a girlfriend. My last girlfriend took up a lot of my time and I stopped going to the gym. That sucked.

I need to figure out how to balance that.

I am pretty good at running and swimming - those are two of my favorite activities. I just need better running shoes, cause my current ones are not really made for running. I'm also okay at lifting weights but lately have kicked back HARD. I used to bench 220lbs, that was my peak. Now I can barely do 180lbs. I'm good at pushups, can do about 40-50 with breaks in between. Situps are super easy but I feel like I don't get anything accomplished. Squats are hard for me.. used to do a lot around 300lbs in my top days, but now am like down to 220lbs. Again, sometimes I go to the gym and get really awesome, but when I stop.. I just lose everything and my muscles deteriorate. In fact, my roommate told me I'm one of those guys who can bulk up super fast but also lose it super fast - there's some term for it..starts with an 'e'..ecto-something...

----------------

So now that you know some stuff about me, I'm sure the next questions you have are 'where do you want to be in a couple months?', 'what are your goals?', and 'what are you doing with this blog?'

My goal is to lose the gut by 90 days. I want to do cardio 5-6x a week, where I run 3x a week, swim 3x a week - at least for 20-30 min. I want to lift weights for another half hour - but this is usually where I fall apart. I follow a very loose routine and usually don't keep to time. In fact my routine almost always goes over an hour. I feel sore the next day and look 'bigger' but I don't think I get great results with it long term.

My current workout routine looks like this:

Run or swim 20 min.

Stop. Then do the following for another 20 min.

- Bicep Curls @ 30-40lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets

- Tricep Extensions @ 20lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets

- Back Extension @ 135lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets

- Dips @ Body Weight, 10 reps, 2 sets

- Pullups @ Body Weight, 5 reps, 3 sets

- Pushups @ Body Weight, 15 reps, 3 sets

- Ab Crunches @ Body Weight + 5lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets

Usually I get tired by this time and go home...

I want to do my workout plan all over... most of these existing routines came from 'Men's Health' and the book 'A Six Pack in 6 Weeks' by David Zinczenko. The routines are good, but I think I think the plan altogether is extremely messy. I feel like I burn out and don't work all the muscles I want with it. Especially by the time I'm doing pushups, I want to quit and go home. I don't really focus on abs or midsection - which is what I want to work on the most.

So now I'm researching. I want to create a better plan for starters this week. Then fix my diet. And scheduling. I heard some good stuff about P90x, so I'm checking that out as well. I'll be updating again later to put some pictures up, and what ideas I have for changing my plans around.

Hope you enjoy this blog.. my hope is that you are inspired by my progress and that you too are motivated to acheive your workout goals. Feel free to comment at any time and give advice you think will help me to lose weight and stay fit. Hopefully we can help each other meet our goals and feel better about our weight!

- Mister U.