GTORACR’s BodyBlog

Ok well - this week I’ve decided to quit lifting for one week due to several injuries that I’ve incurred and have been trying to work around but just won’t go away.  My back is still bothering me but not nearly as bad as it once was - until I decided to try deadlifts - lol.  I’ve gotten some sort of forearm/elbow tendinitis from preacher curls and it also affects me when I do tricep exercises or bench presses of course.  I have an extremely inflamed finger joint at the base of my ringfinger and think it is due to the 365 lb. barbell shrugs but it seems to be healing Ok.  So this combination of injury is the reason I’m going to stop for one week - the tendinitis is the most debilitating issue.  I’ve decided to up my cardio to 1 hour on the bike, 30 min on the treadmill, and a hike for 2-4 hours afterwards.  I’ve lost at least 3 lbs this week alone and it’s only Wednesday!  Unfortunately I believe it’s probably 50/50 fat and muscle and probably not maintainable.  I had plateaued and wasn’t eating religiously like I had been but I’ve gotten back into the groove for the past 2 weeks.  I blame Thanksgiving for that too - lol.  It’s OK - I’m seeing a pattern here after 4 months of doing this seriously I’m losing about 1% bodyfat a month and the weight is at about 4-5 lbs a month.  That’s an acceptable rate - I just have to keep it going.  Hopefully the cardio addition will help increase the weight loss to 8-10 lbs a month of bodyfat although I doubt it since my body seems to adapt rather quickly.  I’ve noticed that sudden and extreme changes in my routine do elicit change when I plateau so I might actually incorporate that into my regular routine somehow.  I’ll keep looking for patterns.  Oh an Merry Christmas peeps!

Not much has changed for the past two months - weight has dropped from around 200 to 195 but steady progress is OK.  I’ve plateaued so after this week of lifting I’m going to start running again.  I’ve got to stay focused on my eating because I’ve slipped up here and there and the holidays are approaching.  I’m loving it so far though because people are really starting to notice the difference in my appearance.  When I look at the progress photos though I don’t see a lot of change from the past 2 months but the measurements don’t lie.  I’ve started swimming and running to supplement the bicycling I’ve been doing from cardio.  I hate cardio.  I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until I hit 180 lbs.  Bodyfat % be damned I’m ready to develop some muscles so I don’t really care about cutting like I used to.  Hopefully the next 2 months will bring some drastic change because I’m really going to start hitting this thing at 150%.

It is 9/9/07 and I have been making good progress so far.  I figure with the creatine water weight taken out of the picture my actual weigh loss is about 15 lbs. in 5 weeks almost 3 lbs per week.  New pictures definately show improvement.  I’ve lost alot of BF and just bought a Tanika Ironman scale because my old BF% scale wasn’t working correctly.  The Ironman rocks - it is giving me repeatable measurements and they seem to make sense finally.  It also displays water weight and lean body mass measurements.  Also got an Omron BF meter - it is fairly accurate but seems to vary more than I’d like when it comes to measuring - I think it is better than the Ironman though.  Anyways I have gone up considerably in strength although I injured my lower back and it has been 2 weeks since I could do any real sit-ups or ab work or lower back stuff and squats, etc.  It feels alot better but I’m going to continue taking it easy this week on exercises that employ my lower back.  Again I’m getting much stronger and feel alot better than I did last month.  Productivity at work has gone up tremendously!  I have started taking Omega extract, L-Glutamine, BSN No-explode (that stuff REALLY pumps up my arms on arm day) and am in a 20/40/40 diet although I always try to go heavier on the protien when in doubt.  Starting to get comments from people like, "Are you losing weight?"  That always feels good when people who haven’t seen you for awhile say that    Should hit 180 lbs in about 2 months and am considering bulking up again at that point despite what my BF percentage is.  Don’t really know - I’ll figure it out by then though.

Well three weeks into it and I’ve lost some weight but more importantly it would seem that I’ve gone from 30% BF to 23.8% BF which seems like alot in such short order.  I also started using creatine and finished loading at the end of week two. This gained me approximately 4 lbs. of water so really I’m down 6 lbs. bodyfat in 3 weeks.  That’s exactly where I want to be at about 2 lbs. per week.  I’m going to add L-Glutamine and Omega 3 supplements soon.  I am already consuming whey protien and continue to plan on using these products.  I’ve changed my lifting program from 5 days a week to 3 to avoid overtraining and have adjusted exercises to avoid overlapping secondary muscles.  Chest/Back Monday,  Legs Tuesday or Wednesday, and Bi Tri Shoulders on Friday.  I’m going to start swimming for days when I lift upper body and will continue recumbent biking or running on leg days.  Switched from cardio before to cardio after lifting so that I can better utilize glycogen stores.  Well that’s all the notes for August.