D.Alan’s BodyBlog

Blog visitor counter is STILL broken, and now the total blog post counter is showing a dash… I am expecting the whole blog site to self-destruct any moment now… So, still don’t know if I am talking to myself here.

But, I digress.  It was measurement night for the month and I can report zero change in just about everything.  Oh well, at least I haven’t packed on the fat this month…  Actually, I think the BF% is down a bit more, but the pinches aren’t saying so.  It seems like there’s a bit more definition around my obliques and the center of my chest.  Probably just wishful thinking again.  Though, I did cinch my belt down another notch this week and it wasn’t uncomfortable!  But my waist and hips don’t measure any differently than last month.  Strange.

In the weight dept. I touched on 169 for two days… another reason to think the BF% is down a bit more.  I was really psyched about that.  As someone who at one time weighed almost 220 lbs — abt 20 yrs ago after I dropped out of the adult league hockey and was working full time and doing masters classes at night — I find it completely awesome to have shed all that fat.  The hater comments to my progress pix, of course, have something different to say about it.  Thankfully most of my true BodySpacer friends — among them Ryan__K [esp. Ryan, what a mature attitude from a 15 yr old!], Maritimer, JackedinMI, TurningPoint, ArmourPLated, JohnThor and sspalsbury – recognize and appreciate my progress.  No, after 11 months I am not ripped to the bone and hyooge.  Um, did I say I wanted to be?  My stated goals are to drop the body fat and to add some lean muscle mass… something I have been doing slowly but surely since I started this seriously back in October 2007.

I still want to add some more mass (note: not hyooge mass), so I keep liftin’.

Blog visitor counter is still broken so don’t know if I am talking to myself or not here…   Another decent week of lifting and eating.  Getting the weight stabilized and the muscles back into a regular workout routine and it feels good.  There was an office party thing last night at the home of one of my coworkers and the wife of one of my colleagues, whom I have not seen in a while, had a few compliments for me on how I look, which was great to hear.  Then there was the other colleague who I do not see on a regular basis who took a good look at me and asked if I had had a new hair style "or something."  Yeah, "or something."  Some people can be pretty oblivious.

Posted a progress pic today comparing two years difference.  The comparison isn’t as striking as I had hoped but you can see that I have at least dropped some body fat.  So then I get a hater comment telling me that I’ve had no progress in two years.  Gotta love the haters.  I had in the caption that I didn’t start lifting until over a year after the first pic was taken and that my weight was down almost 30 lbs between the pix.  I guess the haters don’t read.  Or post current pix.  This one today only has a couple of pix from over a year ago on his BodySpace.  Gotta love it.

Yeah, I still need to drop some body fat, I should probably have a little more mass built up in the time I have been lifting, but I have made some progress, which should count for something.  I do have a life outside of BBing and commit the time and energy I am able to spare on it.

Which I why I keep liftin’.

Getting back into the normal workout and diet routine now that the summer is sadly over.  This past week was the first normal workout week I’ve had since late June.  Also I am back to work and my eating schedule will be more regulated.

But I can’t complain about the upheaval of the summer on my workouts and eating.  I came through the summer no worse than I went into it, and may actually have dropped just a bit more in the BF%.  It’s very small, if any, but the mirror seems to be telling me that either the body fat is down or the muscle mass is up just a bit.  The definition in my chest and arms seems to be better than it was.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking.  Overall my BF% still needs to go down.  I still have that stubborn "rubber" around my middle, as well as on my pecs.  Gotta keep plugging along.

A colleague I worked with many years ago (something like 12-15 yrs ago) is now working at my work site again.  We haven’t seen each other in probably eight years or more.  He flipped out when he saw me the first time this week.  "Man, you look great!  You been working out or something?  Damn, you’re looking athletic!"  And on he went, and asked all about what I have been doing to look like this.  That was an ego booster for sure.  This guy is about ten years older than I am and is doing some modest working out himself, but he is working out to stay in the shape he now is rather than trying to add size.  When I said that I just had a bench and dumbbells, he asked what DBs I had.  When I mentioned the heaviest is 50 lbs his jaw dropped… I guess the heaviest he uses is a 20…  I didn’t tell him I am thinking of getting some more plates so I can go heavier than the 50. 

So, now that I am back on the regular schedule, I can hopefully get this rubbery middle reduced some more and add some mass on the muscles.  To do that I gotta keep liftin’.