BigDutch’s BodyBlog

After 7 months of struggling with a shoulder injury, a gym that closed (sold and moved) and harassed us about payments we didn’t owe them, family visits and personal issues, I’m finally back in the groove. I started cleaning up my diet which had deteriorated badly. As a result I had regained a bunch of fat. It was a good reminder of how easy it is to let go and how bad it feels once you do! With my diet on the way, time to get back to working out. I started doing cardio at home for several weeks before I finally found the right gym again. It’s located more conveniently which will make it easier to fit more workouts in my schedule. I lost most of my re-found fat before I hit the gym about two weeks ago. I’ve been  working the muscles again and it feels so good to feel the tightness again and to watch more of the fat come off. I still have a ways to go before I hit my goals but I’m happy fighting for it again. This feeling reminds me even more of how bad it feels to get fat and out of shape again.

Well, for the longest time I was unable again to write another post so I gave up. Until now that is since it seems to work somehow. I’ll see how long it lasts.

I’m still working on loosening up my shoulder though I finished my physical therapy today. I’ll keep stretching it and strenthening it as I have been since it really made a big difference (duh…).

Meanwhile I’m in my third week of a carefully planned workout / diet schedule. I’ve decided that I need to get rid of all the happy fat while trying to maintain whatever muscle mass I have as much as possible. I’m on a 2100 to 2200 Cal diet where I focus on getting enough Protein first. From there I make sure the get enough  complex Carbs and healthy fat to keep increasing my lifting and to have enough energy to do my cardio. After a strong first week (with a loss of about 5 pounds) it first slowed down some in week two but today (halfway week three) I reached my 8 Lbs. mark. I work from Monday to Monday though in an effort to keep myself honest over the weekend. Lots of activities like chores around the house and archery tournaments though so plenty calories to burn. Motivation and focus are strong so I’m hoping to go from about 22% BF down to 15 or 12 by summer. Lower is better…

Well, after I wrote my first post I was unable to get back until just now. I still haven’t seen comments that were left but maybe I’ll be able to see them after finishing this update. I’ll have to see when I can get in again later.

Thank goodness my Pneumonia is gone completely which gives me enough air to exercise again. I’ve started physical therapy for my shoulders and I’m doing weight exercises to strengthen my rotator cuff in hopes to keep the problem from coming back ones it goes away. I’m slowly progressing on my weights and my own weight is starting to come down. I seem to have found the magic formula for now…

After some struggles to get my blog to work I can now keep a blog on my progress…

A little update first for the records. After I started working out early May of this year, I made some amazing progress thanks to my trainer Jimmy Simmons. While I was recovering from chemo and a major surgery he managed to give me my strength back and get me excited about working out and living healthy. It was during those months that I decided to see where I can take my body after all the damage that had been done to it.

In September after spending a week with my folks in the Netherlands, I came home with a cough. After trying to push through it, it got so bad that I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything. I also had pain in both my shoulders so it was time to see the doc. The cough turned out to be Pneumonia which was treated with antibiotics. X-Rays were taken of the shoulders. The X-Rays were abnormal so two MRI’s were done to find out what was wrong… MRI’s were normal… go figure. Nobody knows what’s wrong so I’ll need physical therapy to see if we can solve the issue. Meanwhile I’m getting more and more frustrated because I can’t exercise the way I want to and progress has come to a halt. I’m trying to find the right balance in my diet and do as much in the gym as I can without hurting the shoulders too much. Where’s wisdom when you need it? At least I can do my cardio and my legs are getting their fair share of work. My motivation is kept up by watching other people make progress here on BB.com and reading the forums.