D.Alan’s BodyBlog

I came so close to my 10% BF goal by June 27th… I made it to 10.7%.  Close enough, I guess, considering how far I have come just since October… though I still get the occasional commenter to some of my earlier progress pix telling me I am not making fast enough progress.  I am over 40 so I can’t be like the 20-yr-olds and burn off 5% of BF in three workouts.  I am making steady, though admittedly slow, progress.  I have now set a new goal for 9% by the end of the summer, say Sept. 1st, or maybe Sept. 15th. 

I am hoping to maintain my progress thus far.  I am now on summer break and most importantly my eating schedule will be very different.  I am trying hard to stick with eating decently every three hours.  Also my lifting schedule will be thrown to bits as well as I travel a bit in the summer and don’t always have lifting equipment nearby.  We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Spent some time with some friends this evening whose oldest son just graduated from high school.  A nice honor to be invited to share this time with them.  But, I was sad seeing their son.  He’s of course 18, and is terribly out of shape.  He’s a tall kid, probably about 6-3, but looks to me like he’s at about a 30% BF, or worse.  No muscle tone at all on him any where.  His younger brother is 16 and has a pretty good belly as well, and is probably around 20% BF.  Damned video games.  While I was never at a decent BF% most of my life, I was never that big when I was in high school.  Well, maybe I was around 20% in high school.  Makes me wonder what’s ahead for these guys, and hope it doesn’t take until they’re over 40 like I was to get into a decent shape.

This week was measurements for the month and modest progress was noted.  Arms were up a quarter inch, and waist and hips were down a bit more.  Everything else was relatively unchanged, though the thighs were up a bit, too.  My weight also hit an all time recent low this week, 172, on two separate days.  Might be related to water gain and loss due to some really summer-like weather (read: hot and muggy) we’ve been having, but heck, I’ll take it.  Always nice to see lower numbers on the scale.  Made a new front double bi progress comparison pic from the week I started back in October to yesterday.  Quite a nice comparison IMHO and a couple of BodySpacers have already left some positive comments, so I think others agree, too.  Gotta keep liftin’, though, I’d like some more mass on my arms and delts, and keep working on the lats.  I just hope I can continue the progress through the summer with the erratic lifting schedule I will be facing.

Getting ever so close to the BF% goal!  BF% pinch this week comes out to 10.7%, down about a % over the last couple of weeks.  My goal was to be at 10% by the end of June.  Looks like I’ll make it, or get pretty darn close.  Still can’t quite believe it entirely with the flab I still have around my middle and on my pecs, but that’s what the chart says, and my pants, too… they are rather loose lately.  Haven’t measured my waist lately, next week is the monthly all-over measurement night.

Ultimately I’d like to lean up enough to see my abs, but in my case that may mean 5%, which may be a bit too low.  Just have to take it as it comes… and keep liftin’.

I got looking at my stats progress and came to the conclusion that I really have put on some muscle weight.  Around March 8th is when I first hit 175 lbs and I was at 15% BF.  That works out to 148.75 lbs lean weight.  I have stayed around 174-175 lbs ever since, but the BF% has been ever-so-slowly dropping.  Tonight it was at the 11.6% point I first hit two weeks ago, which works out to a lean weight of 154.7 lbs.  That means I have added 5.95, or nearly six pounds of muscle, just since March.  Figuring from my starting point of 191 pounds and 23% BF, that was a lean weight of 146.3, so my total muscle gain since October is 8.4 pounds!  Am I psyched!  I started out carrying nearly 44 lbs of fat, and now it’s down to 20.3 lbs, for a total fat loss of 23.6 lbs so far! 

Here I have been obsessing over the recent weight plateau, when it really isn’t a plateau at all.  This is cool news, and it has been sitting right here in front of me all along, I just wasn’t interpreting the information correctly!  I have to keep telling myself to look at all the numbers, I know that weight alone isn’t the final answer.

So, to keep the good results coming, I’ll keep lifting!

Another holding pattern week, no change in BF% or weight.

Got to experience my sig line again this week.  I was at a different work site one day and was downtown and was able to go out for a walk at lunch time.  Observing the folks out for their lunch breaks I got to thinking that I need to revise my sig line to "… I look a whole lot better than 95% of the general population," not the 90% is now reads.  Geez, did I see an overwhelming number of too-big bellies, and a trim person was hard to find.  Next time I am in a place like that, I should take a tally of what I see, just for grins.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to keep at the lifting, trying to bump up the weight where I can in the various routines.  My pullups are slowly, ever so slowly, getting better.  I can do a few more at a crack than I could at first.  Hopefully it’s doing something for my lats.  I’ll know when I take pix around the end of the month.

Until then, I’ll keep liftin’.

According to the pinch total, I am down another % in the BF%!  The method and chart I am following says my total puts me at 11.6%!  I still don’t quite believe it what with the rubber I still have around my middle and on my pecs. but what the heck, it’s motivating!  Pinch total is down to 33 mm.  My first BF pinch total last fall was over 70 mm.

Had another compliment this week on my new look.  This from the guy who a few weeks back made the "being thin isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be" comment to me.  Yesterday he says to me "Hey, you’re looking trim and fit.  You been working out?"  Always like getting those comments!

Well, we are into June now and my short term goal is to be at 10% BF by the end of June.  We’ll see how it goes.  Still have another almost 2% to go, and I have been on a pretty good plateau for a while now.  It’s going to be a rather stressful month at work, so maybe I’ll burn it off in stress!  I just have to not fall into the stuff-myself-with-chocolate mode when it gets crazy, which was my former method of dealing with that.

Meanwhile I’ll keep liftin’.