D.Alan’s BodyBlog

Monthly measurement night and once again no progress to note.  Chest is up a quarter inch, so not a complete loss overall, but everything else is exactly the same, and the forearms are down an eighth of an inch.  Sheesh.  Might be some more fat loss, I suppose.  I nudged on the all-time low of 169 again this week, so that probably explains the size situation.  I would hope that I am slowly replacing the fat with muscle.  I still have a bit to lose, esp. around my middle.  Oh, that’s right, the waist is down another quarter inch.  Total change in my waist over the last year is now officially down five full inches… incredible.  Also means I have to replace all my pants!

Speaking of clothes, got looking at dress shirts the other night as I need to replace a few that are a bit worn.  I was looking at the measurement specs for the various fits and find that I can now wear athletic cut shirts.  I was really psyched to discover that!  I remember my mom having to buy "husky" clothes (Geez, dating myself again with that term) for me when I was a kid… now I can buy clothes in athletic cut!  Too cool.

I want to keep being able to buy athletic cut clothes so I will keep liftin’.

I did it: I stuck to a workout and diet plan for 52 weeks… one year!  No, I am not ripped and awesome after that year, so don’t give me hater rates for that… I know it.  My diet isn’t perfect and my "home gym" is a motley assortment of dumbbells and a $40 bench from Wal-Mart.  But, in that year I have dropped 21 pounds (down 11%) and my body fat pinch total has gone from 73 mm to 31 mm (down 42%) … if that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is. 

I have had some modest gains in the other body stats.  My arms are where I started so it looks like there is no progress there, but they got smaller at first as the fat left and got built back up with muscle.  Shoulders did the same thing: got smaller and then went back to where I started..  My chest is up an inch and a quarter, my thighs are up nearly an inch, forearms are up 3/8" and my waist has had the most dramatic change, starting at 39" and it’s now down to nearly 34".  Not bad overall for cutting and trying to gain at the same time.

Here’s to the coming year… hopefully I can get the diet dialed in a bit better and start making some better gains.  Thanks to all for their support and encouragement over the previous year, you know who you are!

Meanwhile I’m gonna keep liftin’.

Wow, nearing the one-year mark…  Can’t believe I have finally gone this length of time with a serious diet and exercise routine.

Found an interesting item this week, a card of body stats I made when must’ve been around 17-18.  It was back when I bought myself one of those dumb Bullworker exercisers (geez, dating myself on this one!).  It promised to make you buff and ripped in no time at all in just minutes a day… yeah right.  Not unlike the various gadgets pushed on the Infomercials these days.  But, I did take a set of starting stats.  No date on this, but as I recall I was somewhere around 18 at the time, so it would’ve been 1982-ish:

Shoulders 48"     (Now 51")
Forearms 12.25" (Now 12.6")
Arms 14"            (Now 15.25")
Neck 17"            (Now 16")
Chest 43"           (Now 45.25")
Waist 36"           (Now 34.25")
Thigh 20.25"       (Now 20.5")
Calves 15.5"        (Now 14.5")
Weight 197          (Now 170)

An interesting time capsule for comparison.  My legs are the most disappointing, it looks like.  Hardly any change in the thighs in 20+ yrs and the calves are actually smaller!  Oh well.  I thought it would be of interest to share.

Back to concentrating on the present.  Weekly BF% check tonight was up 2mm.  Arrgh.  But it does bounce around somewhat, so I am not going to get too upset just yet, I will just try to eat a little cleaner this week.  I will admit to a couple of doughnuts this week… guess it shows in the BF pinches.

So, I’ll keep liftin’.

Another week of keeping at it.  Weight hit 169 again for a day or two, so I am hoping that means there’s a little more fat gone… and not taking too much muscle with it.  Pinches still say there’s no change, though.  Net weight loss since I started 50 weeks ago is 22 pounds, but the actual fat loss is higher since the BF% has dropped.

What is it about heavier people who have to make cracks at those of us who have managed to drop some weight?  I saw a friend this week who is on the chunkier side and throughout the evening at the gathering we were at she threw vaious shots my way about how I am "going to blow away," because I am so much smaller than I was, and later as we were carrying things out she threw another shot about how the person handing me things to carry should "be careful, or he’ll tip over" or something like that.  Geez, lady, if anything I am a lot stronger than I was when my BF% was a lot higher than it is now.  Sheesh.  I’d rather not be back where I was so I keep liftin’.