D.Alan’s BodyBlog

Measurement week for the month.  The progress continues for the most part, but my arms continue to be a disappointment in the measuring.  This month they’re down a quarter inch from last month when they were up a little from the month before, and I thought that this month was the best month I’ve had so far with my arms.  I’ve gone up a bit on the weight for some of the sets and thought it was making a difference.  It sure looks like it in the mirror.  Frustrating.

Other measurements are looking OK.  Hips are down another half inch, waist is around the same, maybe down a bit; I was getting a couple of different measurements for my waist.  Most everything else has stayed where it was.  No gain, no loss.  Again, frustrating.  I thought I was having a good month.  I guess I am just not going heavy enough, but I am going as heavy as I can manage at the moment.  It looks like I am in a plateau, which is certainly proved by my weight, which has remained about the same all month, give or take a pound or two.

Took some progress pix and my back is looking better, I think.  I made myself a home-grown chin-up bar last week and have been using that.  Before that I was chinning myself on a beam in the basement.  That worked, sort of, and I have been doing that only the last month or so.  The homemade bar is a 3-ft length of half inch black iron pipe that I mounted to some floor joists in the basement.  Simple, yet effective.  And I also suck at them…  It’s been years since I did any kind of pullups and it shows.  I am embarrassed to say how few I can manage in one go.  Like the other lifting, just have to keep at it. 

Week 26.  Wow, a full half year of sticking with the serious BBing.  BF% pinches are down a bit more this week, chart says I am solidly around 13%.  Not sure I believe that to the decimal point, as it seems like I still have too much flab around my middle to be getting close to 10%, but the pinch total is down overall a bit from two weeks ago.  Last week I was up 2 mm from the week before, this week I am down 3mm from last week, so I am down a mm from two weeks ago.  Whatever, it’s progress in the right direction.

Had a pleasant discovery of another benefit of BBing this week… I am actually stronger for the regular activities of life.  I had to pull the middle seat of my minivan out yesterday so I could get some large stuff in the car — the first time I have had to do this in many months – and it was a breeze to handle that (formerly) miserable middle seat that always seemed like it weighed ton.  I yanked that out and got it in the garage with nary a grunt or gasp.  Cool!  I used to hate having to handle that thing.

Then today I was doing some roof work with an organization that I belong to on a small building that they own.  We had to reshingle one side of the roof of a small out building that had sustained some winter damage.  I ended up on the roof doing a lot of the shingling and I was barely winded by the task.  I was standing on the 2×4 we were using as a cleat that we had nailed on the roof to keep us from sliding off and before my serious BBing I think my legs would have given out, but I hardly noticed that I was up there for three hours straight.  I was with guys who all had the middle age beer guts and they were really straining getting stuff up and down the ladders and/or working on the roof with me.  I worked straight through and they were all taking breaks because they were winded.  One of the guys is only a couple of years older than me, the rest were 10 or more years older.  Made me feel pretty good about busting my butt all winter with the iron.  I did all that and then went home and unloaded the car and put the seat back in and then did a lot of yard work around the house… I don’t think I could have done all that previously, at least not without being rather fatigued somewhere along the way.

My weight came down somewhat this week and got back down to my all-time-recent-low of 174 for a day and has crept back up to 176 again.  I think it’s water weight coming and going, especially today since it was very warm and I was drinking lots.  The BF% pinches tell me I am down in the BF dept. so maybe, just maybe, I am gaining some muscle weight??

Here’s hoping and liftin’…

Stayed rather even this week.  No significant weight loss or gain, no change in BF%, pinch total was only 2 mm different from last week.  The weight is creeping up this weekend, but not sure if it’s my usual weekend water weight gain or what.  Have to see what happens during the week.  Maybe I am finally getting some muscle weight gain? 

I think, though, that my arms are gaining well… I think.  Seems like they are bigger, haven’t measured them lately and won’t until about the 25th.  I was able to go up a bit on the curls w/o aggravating my right elbow too badly, so perhaps it’s working.  I also have been doing Zottman curls for a few weeks now instead of the plain old alternating DB curls and I think that’s been having a positive effect.  This was also the second week of going heavier on squats and dead lifts, so that should help the legs.  I have posted no pix of my legs… they’re nothing to brag about.  I also have few pix of them.  I took some back in January, I think.  I should take some again.

Came up with a forum sig this week: "I may not be as big/buff/ripped/awesome as many BodySpacers, but I look a whole lot better than 90% of the general population."  That came to me earlier in the week when we had some really good weather and lots of folks were outside with not much on for jackets and such for the first time in many months.  On my way home from work that day I was noticing the people out and about and was suddenly aware of the multitude of not-so-great body types out there: the beer bellies, the ultra-skinny, the arms with no definition, the immense.  I guess having been into the BBing for more than five months now has made me more aware of that.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, perhaps for the first time.  It was to the point that most anyone I happened to see it was, "I look better than him, and I look better than him, and oh wow, I sure look better than him," etc.  I think I saw one guy with a decent build that afternoon, and even he wasn’t a "10."  That night I added the sig line.  I guess it doesn’t say much about the general public that me with my still-too-chubby midsection looks better than most anyone else on the street…

I’d like to look even better, so I am still at it!

Got messed up in my record keeping, this was Week #24 of my BB adventure, not last week.  And it is going fairly well, I think.  BF% claims to be down another % this week; at least the pinch total is down a few more mm from last week.  Still don’t know what’s what with the BF % (see my last blog post), but at least the pinches tell me that something is down!

Anyway, wow, 24 weeks into this, almost a half year.  This is the longest I have ever stuck to any kind of serious BBing and I think it is showing.  No, I’m not yet ripped and buff like the guys who go through the 12-week body challenges, but I don’t do the really serious BB diet, either, so it’s taking longer but I’m not complaining.

Had a week of rather polar opposite compliments on my progress.  Saw someone earlier in the week whom I had not seen in a couple of months and that person just didn’t stop with the compliments and asking what I was doing and "oh you look great" and on it went.  This person couldn’t believe that I was just doing this for me and not for something like a class reunion or similar event.  Then there was another friend I saw later in the week who made an off-hand comment to me when this person was making a comment about someone else’s appearance, "oh this being slim thing isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be."  I took it as being directed toward my progress.  I let it slide and didn’t comment back.  Sheeesh.  In all, I guess it proves that the changes are noticeable!

Went a bit heavier with the squats and dead lifts this week and my back didn’t thank me for it…  It didn’t go completely out on me again like it did a few weeks back, but it sure let me know the next day that it wasn’t happy about it.  Can’t win.  Try to go heavier with arm stuff and my right elbow screams at me and try to go heavier with leg and back stuff and my back screams… shoulda gotten into this seriously when I was 23, not 43!

Keep liftin’.