Jumbo Rider’s BodyBlog

The 2008 Transformation contest is over and I am fairly certain I did not ‘win’.  The result is that I am now in the 330’s and fitter than I was at Christmas time, but I still have a long way to go.  At the end of the contest I ate pizza and ice cream.  Then Saturday 3/29/2008 I began my next 12 week block.  Thank God I no longer need to put up videos, but I will continue to post progress pictures.

At the end of this next 12 weeks it is my goal to be below 300 pounds.  That will be a drop of 37 pounds or 10 pounds more than in the contest.  Why do I think I will lose more pounds than when I was in the contest?  Believe it or not the contest put a bit of pressure on me.  Some of the pressure was very positive in influencing my goals, but other pressure slowed me down.   The bad pressure came in the form of the videos and comparison of my body to those who were much closer to their goal weight than I am.  This is not to say that I am upset that I did the contest.  I am glad that I did the contest.  It is just that there is a little less pressure now.

My exercise will still revolve around the bands, swimming, and walking.  As the weather clears up I will commute by bicycle to work and back every day.  This will add 70 miles of hilly riding to my workout every week.  I love riding my bike.

I have been encouraged by many people telling me that I am progressing very well and that I should be proud of my progress.  That support is appreciated because, frankly, I don’t see the progress, feel the progress, and find it hard to accept the progress.  Let the mind games begin.

I weighed in at 345 today which is down 33 pounds from November and 21 pounds down since Dec. 26.   Now, 33 pounds is not a small amount of weight taken by itself but it is only 18.5% of the 178 pounds I  wanted to lose.  It is only 8% of my original total body weight.  Depending on your frame of mind those are not very impressive numbers.  The sheer amount of weight to lose overwhelms the weight lost.

When you take the numbers and couple them with the physical feelings encountered in the body and you can get rather depressed.  What do I mean by ‘physical feelings’?  My body started out feeling fairly firm.  Yes it was fat, but it was dense.  As I lose weight I actually feel fatter as my fat breaks down and becomes looser.   My skin is looser and saggier.  This combination makes me feel less fit than when I started.  This combination of numbers and physical feelings is what I believe to be the greatest reason those needing to lose a lot of weight quit.  You put in all this effort and what do you have to show for it?  This is also why lifting heavy is so very important.  Not only does muscle help the MBR but it firms up that sagging skin and compensates for the loosening fat.

I am feeling stronger and the absence of 33 pounds has helped my endurance.  This helps counteract the feelings I have as listed above but if my mind is not right it does little to overcome the enormity of the task ahead.  Again, it is simply a mind game.

So have I done well?  Yes, but I don’t dwell on the accomplishments.  I accept the fact that 33 pounds down is good, that 345 is better than 378.  Then I focus on the moment, the now again.  If I focus on the past, even the good news of the past, I will stall or fail.  If I focus on the future too much I will stall or fail as well.  There is only today, this meal, this workout.  This is why support is so important.

I am in a marathon race or a long road march, not a sprint.  The focus is on putting one foot in front of the other and not the finish line and by all means not the starting line.  The cheers from the supporters on the sidelines of my race keep me motivated to put that one foot in front of the other and not to think of the aches and pains.  Hearing the advice from those around me that have run this race is invaluable.  They constantly remind me to pickup one foot, put it forward, and set it down.

Again, it is all a mind game.  Losing this weight is doable.  Heck, anything you put your mind to is doable.  The trick is keeping your mind on the task at hand.  The trick is ‘Keeping your MIND RIGHT.’

A few posts back I wrote about the 350 barrier and that I felt my body stalling.  How can I describe that or explain how I ‘felt’ my body resisting weight loss?  I really can’t, but I know it is true.

My nutrition plan has been solidly in place since November 2007.  Prior to November I had been simply watching caloric intake.  Things that I now have a handle on that was foreign to me just a year ago:

1. I know when my body is thirsty.
2. I know when my body is in need of specific nutrients
3. I know when my body is fatigued and needs rest
4. I know when I have pushed too far during exercise
5. I know when I need to get activity in or backslide

Each of points above deals with physiological>unconscious>conscious communication.  I can honestly say a couple of months ago this communication was completely broken.  Worse, the communication was giving wrong messages.

The wrong messages came from a bunch of causes.  My blood glucose was severely out of whack.  High blood glucose would make me tired and weak, and low blood glucose would make me crabby, hungry, and weak.  I would rarely be at a good blood glucose level. The blood glucose roller coaster was a wild ride that left me literally sick, tired, weak, and ever getting fatter.

Another wrong message bearer was chemically induced by what I was drinking.  It was normal to pound down 2-3 2 liters of diet Pepsi in a day.  The Pepsi had a double whammy of caffeine and Aspartame. The caffeine made me edgy and placed me in a foggy state of non-sleep.  The Aspartame messed with my blood glucose and there are multiple studies showing that Aspartame inhibits weight loss and affects mood.  Drinking all day long you would think that I wouldn’t be thirsty, but I was in a state of waterlogged dehydration.  The caffeine and salt in Pepsi stole any hydration from the drink that may have been available.  That dehydration was mistaken for hunger.  That hunger was never satisfied by eating because I really wasn’t hungry but thirsty.  This led to binge sessions, which led to more weight, which led to more depression, which screwed with my blood chemistry making the whole matter even worse.

Chemicals in the form of anti-depressants mess with the bodies communication system in a big way.  The fatter you get the more your dopamine receptors are reduced.  Dopamine of course is the ‘feel good’ chemical your brain makes when stimulated by certain activities like feeling full.  Dopamine receptors are the things that take in the dopamine to give you that good feel.  Scientists are not sure why the receptors die but they postulate that it is caused by an overabundance of dopamine being released with all of the dopamine in the system the body tries to gain equilibrium by reducing the receptors.  The exact same effect is seen in drug addicts.  The lack of receptors of course means that the body seeks an ever increasing amount of dopamine creating stimulants, more food, increasing the cycle.  The same thing may be happening with serotonin and the common anti-depressants are SRI’s which increase serotonin levels.  Normally serotonin leads to a decrease in appetite but  people taking SRI’s  are shown to have a huge problem with weight  gain and  trouble with weight loss.

Every item I have mentioned leads to increase weight and a decrease in energy.  This makes exercise very difficult.  It is like a 5 pack a day smoker trying to run wind sprints.  A lack of exercise makes it harder for the body to lose weight but also creates a messaging problem in the brain.  Remember those dopamine receptors?  Guess what?  Those receptors are rebuilt by exercise!  Rebuilding those receptors in a big key to getting the body chemistry in line, but if you have no energy and weight too much to exercise at a level sufficient to create change you will never replace the dead receptors.

The lack of solid nutrition also sends wrong messages in your body/brain.  If the body does not get the nutrients it needs it craves more.  With my body out of whack that craving is seen as simply being hungry.  The problem is that if my body needs vitamins from a vegetable carbohydrate source but I give it a tub of Rocky Road that body will scream that it is not satisfied and wants more.  This is true even when you feel full to the point of sickness because of the volume eaten.

Another problem we find is that we through a ton of chemicals in our body trying to "figure" out a way to break the cycle.  This can be quality fat burners or protein powders that work well when all things are equal but only increase  the miscommunication going on in the system.  Think of a traffic light that is working properly.  A fat burner may be like making the green light stay on a bit longer to allow more traffic through.  If that light was flashing red and that same fat burner was used you would have a flashing red light and a solid green light on at the same time.  What a mess right?

All of this messed up chemistry produces a body that is quick to get sick.  The immune system is confused at best and failed at worst.  I can not tell you how often I was sick or how bad my allergies were prior to eating a sound, nutritional diet.  Being sick led to me taking more chemicals, drugs, which further confused my body’s chemistry.

In my next post I will begin to tell you how and why I was able to correct my body’s communication and why I think people who lose a great deal of weight wind up in the same predicament in a few years in my next post.

I hope you are all following the bb.com 2008 Transformation contest.  Five fine competitors, including myself, are working for weight loss and overall transformation.  You can read about us here.

Today I am asking unabashedly for your comments.  Your words of encouragement go a long way to strengthen my resolve.  So, if you are following the contest and have not posted a comment  I ask that you do post.  It means a great deal to me and to the other competitors as we put it all out there for your review.

Well, I need to post another exercise video tomorrow for the transformation competition.  Compared to the other studs in the contest I have a fairly boring workout set.  Complying with the video portion of the contest is my least favorite part.  So I will be spending my my evening trying to think up something fairly clever to do that will cover for my face made for blogging.

if the number of bodyblog posts are counted.  I would need to write three blogs to her one to catch up.  Another mark of her great dedication.

Another stupid party at work today.  I am making an excuse to sit out of this one.  It isn’t that I am afraid I would break down and eat the junk but that I hate hearing, "You sure didn’t eat much." over and over again.  It is worse than a crack house.   Then you add in the fact that it messes with my meal timing and my impetus is to duck the party.

Do you guys and gals get tired of going to functions that have enough food to feed Zimbabwe for a year and have nothing to eat?  At the very best there will be the old raw vegetable tray with baby carrots, celery, and cherry tomatoes.  Nope, I will sit here and eat a magnificent spinach salad with Mexican beef, salsa, and a bit of sour cream.   Compare that to 2 cookies.   The choice is easy.

This morning I made a 4 egg omelet with carrots, celery and spinach on the side.  My normal morning feeding is a cup of cottage cheese with half a cup of blueberries and 1 oz of walnuts.  I simply love that mix, but I am out of cottage cheese so I had to ’suffer’.

I am going on 6 weeks without eating any grains.  No wheat, corn, oats, rice, or any other grain.  I have not had corn syrup, corn oil, corn meal, or corn starch.  After all this time without grains I feel super.  I don’t miss any of the grains except maybe popcorn and I am not tempted to eat them because I feel so good without them.  Try it, you might like it.

Coming from a binge life of junk food, pasta, pizza and lots of it all I find my nutritional change was only hard in two ways.

1. Convenience - You simply can not eat a healthy nutritional meal in America without putting some thought and effort into it.  Actually it is the thought part that is the hardest on me.  In my previous life I could eat anything that I saw on the way into work or home from work.  Nothing I saw was good for me.
2. Cost - Junk food is so very abundant and cheep in comparison to real whole food.  The cost is deceiving though.  First, the junk food never satisfied me and I would tend to binge.  When I eat a good amount of veggies I am full.  Second, my weight has directly led to taking a bunch of medications.  Even with good insurance the copays are enough to double my grocery buying of nothing but organic food.  Add to that the cost of buying clothes from specialty stores and you can see that junk food is not really cheap.  But those are all ‘hidden’ costs and when you look at a burrito el grande for $1 and a pound of organic beef at $5 the cost seems to favor the junk food.

My first office party has just ended.  I stayed with fresh veggies and a couple of pieces of pineapple.  Unfortunately we played gift bingo using M&M’s.  I just couldn’t put the candy back and felt guilty about dumping it so I ate about 9 M&M’s.   Not bad really for a Christmas party.

I see many of my competition are getting their plan of attack together for the 2008 Transformation.  Here is my basic plan.

Until December 26th I will simply continue doing what I have been doing.  I won’t change anything up until then.  The Blood Type Diet lists foods by blood type as either ‘avoid’, ‘neutral’, ‘Beneficial’, and ‘Superbeneficial’ for diabetes or cancer.  My diet today consists of neutral and beneficial foods with protein and vegetable every 3 hours.  I have not had any grains for 5 weeks and do not plan to eat grains until after I have lost all my weight.  Even after losing all of my weight i will eat grains rarely.  The reason?  I just feel so much better without the grains.

Beginning the 26th I will eat the majority of my foods from the beneficial list. I do not know how much of a difference it will make in my weight loss, but it can not hurt.  I will also begin a new supplementation protocol that I will list on the 26th.  I am not hiding what I will be doing, but I need to leave some mystery.

My current training is swimming 3x a week for 30 minutes and actively working around the house.  Starting the 26th I will be incorporating many bodyweight exercises and band training.  I will also walk a few steps more every day.  Yes, I will be using a simple pedometer and if it does not beat the day before at the end of a day I will walk.

I look at the work Stonecoldtruth and Daretosoar are writing up and I feel far outclassed. The simple truth is that I am competing to achieve a transformation and need to do what is best for my body, not theirs.

Age is a funny thing.  You never notice that you are ‘old’ unless you are comparing yourself to someone younger.  I am the old man of the transformation group.  I am 6 years older than the next oldest competitor.  It will be interesting to see how my body handles the stress compared to my fellow contestants.

Music

Please send me the titles of your best workout music and why you like it.  I have a few songs that I like, but I need some more.

I do not know how many even know about bodybuilding.com’s 2008 Transformation contest, but it begins December 26, 2007.  Over the past few weeks several people fulfilled requirements set by  bodybuilding.com to be one of the 5 contestants chosen.  They chose the  contestants  Saturday  the 15th.  This particular transformation focused on weight loss.
Many people were anxiously waiting online watching the 2008 Transformation sign-up thread and hitting the refresh button on their browser every few seconds.  In the end 5 were chosen.  It was an online version of American Idol but instead of selected contestants screaming, "I’m going to Hollywood.", they typed, "I’m going to the weight room".  It was a rather exhausting night.

I was lucky and selected as a contestant with only 2 slots left to fill.  My fellow official contestants are:

• Daretosoar
• Stonecoldtruth
• Maddi
• Fussioncom

There are many more unofficial contestants that will be giving the official 5 a  run for their money.  It must have been tough selecting 5 because there were so many with great stories as to why they should be selected.  Read the 2008 sign-up thread to read the many great entries.

There will be an official 2008 Transformation blog where the official contestants will be posting and we are required to post a weekly workout video of ourselves as well.  I hope you all will stop by and give encouragement to the official 5 and the unofficial many.