Skippy71’s BodyBlog

Hey gang.  It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to complete one of these things. Generally when I’ve been on I prefer to just update my tracker, respond to messages send a few new ones out and get on with my evening but I think today I’m gonna take a bit more time and provide an overall update on where I’m at.

Been at my self-improvement program now for about 7 months and I can’t thank you all enough for all the kind words, the encouragement and the compliments as I’ve been slowly getting my old bod back into shape.  I was sick at the beginning of February and it laid me out pretty good for a couple of weeks. Barely went to the gym at all and right after I changed up my routine and added a heap of new exercises and started to look a little more into free weight and cable work instead of strictly keeping my resistance to the Smith-type plate and pully machines. 

My diet’s had its up and downs.  I’ve almost totally elimated excess sugar from my diet (coffee’s pretty much the only source now), I’ve become a huge salad addict and I’m constantly finding new ways to prepare fish and chicken. Sure, I still like my beef and small cheats like the odd bag of ranch flavored Doritos but for the most part I’m keeping my diet pretty consistent.  I have granola / yogurt bars (2-3 ) through the day while I work, a quick protein shake before I hit the gym and a protein heavy dinner shortly after I get home with another snack (peanut butter on toast, or a salad with low-cal dressing) just before bed.

When I started I was about 210 lbs and as of my last weigh-in day before yesterday I’m down to just over 185.  My body fat % was at about 22 and now I’m down to 12 and change and where my workouts were about 8 exercises plus cardio for about an hour 5 days a week, I’ve upped that to about 18 exercises each trip, cardio and an average workout time of 2.5 hours 3-4 days per week.  Key multi-joint exercises such as my bench press and row I’d started at around 140 lbs per rep and now I’m doing 200+ on average which is more than my current body weight. Other smaller group exercises such as my preacher curl and lat raise I’d started around the 80 lb weight and now on these i’m doing about 130 (aprox 2/3 my body weight). 

Granted, between the strain on my joints and the added exercises I’ve had to drop some weight from a few exercises to avoid overstrain but I think what I’m lacking in sheer weight, I’m making up for some in terms of technique and variety.

I’m very happy with my progress so far.  The progress shots I’ve taken of myself the last couple of months are really starting to show up the definition and shape I’m starting to get in my chest, shoulders and arms.  I still have a bit of work to do as far as my abs, legs and glutes but these are the toughest areas to define and drop excess off of.  The veins down my biceps have become clearer but what I’m most happy about right now is my waist size.  When I started in August I was a 42 waist.  This week I’m at exactly 36 inches.  I have not been a 36 inch waist since I was about 25. 

I just got a new job at the call center I work for as a trainer and my wardrobe is going to be very important to me.  I went out today and spent a heap of money I can’t really afford on new slacks, jeans and shirts so that I can meet the image requirements of my new responsibilities.  I can’t begin to express how good it feels to have hit this mark for myself. 

So.  Time to set some new goals.  I’m almost fully back on track since my flu and with this newest motivator I’m feeling really pumped.  My birthday is April 21st.  About 2 months from now and just as I’m about to start my 9th month.  So between now and then, these are my newest goals I want to acheive:

- Get my weight up slightly (muscle mass) to about the 195 mark.

- Get my waist down one more pant size (to a 34).

- Be pushing at least 220 lbs consistently on the bench and curling 150 on the preacher curl

- Get my chest size up to a 44", my arms to a 19" and my legs down to a 20"

I’m almost 37 and already in better shape than I’ve been in a very long time. I’m really hoping by the time I hit my 1-year anniversary I’ll be in better shape that I’ve ever been and with all your encouragement and inspiration I have no doubt I’ll hit every mark I set for myself over the next 5 months or so leading up to that point.

Cheers all and again….thank you *hugs*

Well.  Looks like I’ve hit something of a wall in regards to my heavy weights.  The last couple of workouts I attempted were really tough on my joints especially my wrists and shoulders.  My muscles are apparently able to handle the load fine, because my increases have been quite steady since I started, but my joints are having a bit more trouble keeping up.

So, I think before I do some damage that forces me to step back completely from the gym for a while, I better make some more refinements.  That’s okay though.  I was starting to get a bit bored with the routine I had going.  It really hasn’t changed much in the last couple of months except the weight.

While I look into some new variety and experiment a bit with things like band resistence machines and free weights, I’m going to take about 20 lbs or so off each of  my current massing exercises and focus on a more concentrated pump for each rep.  There have been a few exercises where I think I’ve been more throwing the weight lately than lifting it anyway.

I’ll keep my curren tracker going while I play around a bit over the next week or so with things like cable fly’s and standing concentration curls and will set up a new workout template once I’ve decided on a new overall routine for the next month.  I’m also considering stepping up my cardio a bit and doing at least one day per week that’s pure fat burn and light-weight cutting.

As for the whole quit-smoking thing…well, let’s just say my intentions are still very sincere but the initiation is still pending.  I’ll let you all know when its time to get the raw meat ready lol.

Cheers.

Well, that’s it. It’s over. *waves to 2007* Bye bye ya bastard, don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. Hello 2008. You better treat me a damn sight better than the last one did. LOL.

Howdy everyone. 

Just two days away until Santa arrives so to everyone on BodySpace…

And this goes double for all the amazing friends I’ve made here and those of you who have been so helpful with your advise as I’ve worked these past 5 months to improve myself.

Lots of love and all the best for 2008

*hugs*

Well…time’s moving fast I have to admit.  Christmas is just 2 days away and then 2008 is only a week past that.  I can’t believe how fast this month has ripped past.

That having been said, that means I have just 9 days remaining before I (knock on my bald-ass head) join the ranks of the non-smoker. I’ve faced a lot of challenges in my life and have overcome most of them (I’m still alive aren’t I?) but I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about this one.  Part of me is looking forward to being able to conquer this, and experience the financial and health gains that will certainly result.  The other part of me is asking myself "How the bloody hell am I gonna pull this one off?" and is already furiously chomping away on my finger nails in…well, let’s call a horse a giraffe…outright panic.

I’ve tried most of the gimics before.  Pills (they made me horribly ill), the patch (worked one day and then something about the adhesive caused the worst allergic reaction on my skin I’d ever experienced in my life - bleeding welts under the site and my whole arm felt like it was on fire).  Hell, I’ve even tried laser therapy and hypnosis (both were good for about a week each and cost more for the sessions than 3 cartons of coffin nails).

So here I am…a little over a week away…wondering what I’m gonna do to keep myself busy and my mind off it. I’m taking the first week of January off of work so I can seclude myself at home, but I can’t spend the whole week in the gym (as much as I might like to).  My wife and kids have to take the chance on being around me at some point. LOL.

So…I’ll be going cold turkey on this one and I’m wondering if any of you have given up this dreadfully disgusting and expensive habit?  I’d love to hear your stories on this one, find out what - if anything - you used to cope with the first few days of withdrawl.  From what I hear, those first 4-5 days are the most crucial, as the nicotine is filtered from your system.  You get through that first week and your half-way there, then it just becomes a matter of willpower.  So I’ve heard.

I’m gonna use this section as a lead up to my quitting smoking, and beyond.  Been working on my transformation plan for almost 5 months now and I think its finally time to give up my worst habit.

Been a smoker for more than half my life (started when I was 16 and I’m now 36) but I really want to be in the best shape of my life, this seems to be the next logical - and a necessary - step. 

So over the next few weeks, this will be the area I use specifically to - at first - psyche myself up for what will be one of the biggest challenges of my life, and then - after the 1st - to vent my spleen and take my shit out on whatever as the withdrawl takes hold.

Consider yourselves forewarned lol.

Motivations.  We all have them.  That’s why we hit the gym 5 times a week, why we pedal our butts off on those LifeCycle’s until our legs feel like they are on fire.  It’s all about meeting that next goal, testing the next limit.  Perhaps you just want to be healthier.  Maybe you’ve been eyeballing a new bikini and know you need to drop just 5 more pounds to be able to show it and yourself off at your very best next summer at the beach.  What ever the reason, its never an easy thing and as we get well and truly into the Christmas season some of us are probably finding it harder and harder to keep things moving along.

When the thermometer drops, when the kids have been tailing you bugging you for this, that and the other as you fight through lines during Midnight Madness at the mall, when you see the credit card balance dwindle away to near nothing, when you catch that all too tempting whiff of apple strudle and cranberry stuffing its easy to allow yourself to slip a little and think "Nah.  I really don’t feel like doing my 5 miles on the treadmill today.  I’ll make it up tomorrow…or the next day…or next week."

That was the trap I fell into a year ago when I first tried to improve myself and better my health.  It got colder and I just didn’t feel like going out in it if I didn’t have to.  Work would wear me down and all I wanted to do was dump my butt infront of the TV with a hot cup of coffee instead of dragging it to the gym.  I’d get home from a trip to the mall for pictures with Santa and just couldn’t see myself going back out and dealing with the line-ups at the leg press.  So in the end, I ended up not going at all…all winter..and the next thing I knew it was July and all that time I’d be paying for a membership I wasn’t using.

Not this time.

It’s not easy to stay motivated under any circumstances, especially when you are looking at the rolls in the mirror and thinking "How long am I gonna have to do this before I see my shoes again, before I can move the entertainment unit without needing a chiropractor afterwards?"  But as we’ve all heard time and time again…physical transformation takes committment, its about building good habits and most importantly having some patience.  The results may not come for weeks or months, but if you stick with it, keep telling yourself you can do this — you WILL do this — they will come.

So what’s different this year for me as opposed to last year?  Well…not the weather that’s for sure.  If anything, its gotten colder, earlier than it had 12 months ago.  It was easily -35C when I went to the gym yesterday. If I remember correctly, it was more like -10C at this time last year.

Honestly, I think my big kick in the A$$ this year has been work.  I hate my job.  I’m a customer service rep in a call center, which means I get paid to listen to people complain all day.  Not so bad, in that many complaints are justifiable and I get some satisfaction in sorting out some of these issues.  My employers on the other hand, well let’s just say that it’d be nice to see my colleagues and myself treated more like our efforts are appreciated.  Basically, I go into work thinking this is going to be a good day and I come out ready to see if I can break 11 miles per hour on the elliptical and kick my chest press up another 10 lbs - as opposed to wanting to kick my supervisor in the chest and out the nearest window.

I’m sure you get the idea.  That’s one motivator. 

It’s true what they say.  Exercise has this amazing overall effect on the body.  It helps to release stress, improves your ability to sleep and gives you an almost euphoric feeling that’s better than any drug out there.  I don’t think I’ve been in this good of shape since I was in my early 20s. One of my big problems the past year was illness, I was sick constantly through the spring and summer months.  But you know something…I haven’t had so much as a head cold in about 4 months now.  My athsma hasn’t be bothering me nearly as much - even with the drop in temperature - and I generally feel more limber and less tired.  Working in a call center, its hard to avoid picking up every known bug out there.  We’ve had staff booking off constantly and my kids have already had a couple of good bouts of the flu since school started. 

Motivator #2.  Can I get through the whole winter without having to take a day off for any reason other than wanting a stress day just to spend it in the gym? 

I’m actually not sure who’s been happier with the progress I’ve been making recently, myself or my wife.  She’s been very supportive of what I’m doing, eventhough it’s keeping me away from home that little more often.  Alot of the pictures that are going up on my page are taken by my wife.  Just yesterday she was commenting that I am not the same man she married.  I think here words were "I’m not sure what you’ve done with the old Royce, but I hope you buried him good and deep cause I like you waaay better". 

Motivator #3.  Having my new shoulders and pecs groped constantly LOL!

As for the 4th.  Well this one is purely for me.  Who doesn’t remember Hugh Jackman as Wolverine from the first X-Men movie?  Especially near the beginning of the movie where he’s getting all feral in that cage fight in some nameless bar in Northern Canada.  Here’s a refresher….

I didn’t think so a year ago, or even 5 months ago when I started all this…but I think I can get to looking like this by my next birthday in April 2008.

This is what’s keeping me going, keeping me on track through the grip of winter and chaos of the Holiday season.   What about everyone else?  What’s motivating you?  Feel free to drop me a quick note letting me know.  I’d love to hear about it.

Cheers  

You know it was a good workout when your heart is still pumping half hour after your last rep, your legs feel like rubber and your arms still feel warm to the touch after being out in -20F near blizzard conditions.  Yeah.  That was me today. 

Tried something new today.  Instead of just walking into the gym and jumping straight into my massing sets I decided to warm up a little on the basket ball court.  Spent my first half-hour or so pumping the ball around taking shots with both my left and my right hand (gotta keep it even right).  Can’t believe how fast I got a sweat going and how much my legs were burning by the end of it.  Read recently that its just as important to do something genuinely athletic in one’s efforts to improve overall fitness rather than focusing strictly on muscle size and straight cardio.  5 months now since I started all this and this was the first time I’d gone anywhere near the court area. 

I’m a righty but as it turns out, I’m just as effective in shooting baskets with my left.  Considering overall I maybe made about half of my chucks overall, I doubt the NBA recruiters will be calling me at home anytime soon though lol.  Still, it was a lot of fun.  Definitely something different and something I’m going to have to do every now and again if for no other reason than to improve my aim.

Afterwards, I went back into my usual routine.  An hour of high weight - low reps, 20 mins on the eliptical, and then another 45 mins or so of low weight - high reps.  Tried to work my shoulders again today.  My right one especially isn’t feeling the best so I went with a slightly lower weight than I have been and tried focusing a little more intensely on each rep rather than trying to shock and overload. 

Hey…something’s better than nothing right. 

I also seem to have hit another plateau with my arms.  Haven’t seen an increase there in a few weeks as far as load.  Tried to kick the weight up to 150 lbs on the preacher curl yesterday and couldn’t get through the first set - ended up dropping it back to 140 for the rest, and just stuck with the 140 through today’s bulk session. 

Aside from that, I’m looking to make some changes to my leg and glute work.  Aside from the eliptical, I’m doing quad extensions at 4 sets of 8 reps at 190 lbs for bulk, and leg presses at 3 sets of 20 reps at 250 lbs.  Not seeing a whole lot happening in the way of size increases or definition at the moment and I’d really like to see some results in my lower half.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

But I have seen the occassion deer and winter hair outside my door.  As soon as the snow hits, you can see little tracks in the snow near my patio and occassionally, at 4 am while I’m getting ready to leave the house for work, I can see the odd deer or family of deer strutting around the townhouses across the road from my bedroom window.

Yep.  It’s winter and as I’ve been sharing with some of you, its gotten bloody nippy up here in good ol’ Winnipeg, Canada the past week or two.  We had a huge dump - a good 6 or 7 inches - day before yesterday and there’s a nice fluffy covering all over the place.  Sadly, with that much snow, the thermometer tends to bottom out and its been getting down past -30C (about -20F) with windchill pretty consistently the last few days.  On my way for my workout today it was -38C (-35F) as I was waiting for the bus and only slightly warmer when I came home.

How it got warmer, after the sun went away, I have no idea.  But I’m not complaining.  LOL.

Speaking of my workout.  I’m not afraid to say, I hurt like a sonofa…. especially in my arms and calves.  Been really pushing it the last few days.  Don’t know if its anything to do with the weather, but I seem to be having to really work a lot harder lately to stay at the weights I’ve been lifting rather than backtracking.  I also seem to have to really push myself on the eliptical machine to get my heartrate up to a point where I’m actually accomplishing something.  By the end of my cardio today, my knees were definitely buggin me and I was a little worried about how I was going to go when it came time to do my machine extensions and presses.

4 more weeks and I’m gonna give this quitting smoking thing a try - the next step in my efforts at reaching my optimum physical condition.  Put in a request at work for a week off starting Monday the 31st so that I don’t have to worry about subjecting my co-workers and customers to what I’m sure will be some pretty freaky mood-swings.  May have to lock myself away at the gym or my bedroom that week so my wife and kids don’t have to worry about being subjected to it either.

In the meantime.  Gonna take the day off tomorrow and give myself a rest day and a chance to recoup after the last 2.  May take Friday as well, depending on how I’m feeling.  The real problem with this weather in maintaining my motivation to go out in this to get to the gym.  Thankfully, the Y is just a couple of blocks from work and I generally stop in after my shift since I’m out in it anyway.

Thats all for now folks.  Cheers

Normally I use blogs to talk about what I’m doing now or plan on doing soon in the way of my continuously developing training plan.  For example, the fact that we are only a month away from ringing in 2008 and how I’m hoping to add being a newly non-smoker to my efforts in self-improvement come January 1st.  But, I think tonight we’ll take a pass on all that and take a slightly different track.

I’ve been doing my usual rounds of various pages, leaving comments, updating my own stats and in the process came across a couple of items in the blogs of friends that got me thinking about a few things.

One of these blogs suggested that BodySpace may not necessarily be just about sharing training plans, diet tips and progress encouragement.  There seems to be this notion that for some people around the place, the displaying of pictures in various states of almost-dressed and the swapping of complimentary comments may have more than a little do with mere exhibitionism or drawing the eye of members of the opposite sex (or same sex, as the case may be).

Along similar lines, the other blog looked a little at the apparent double-standard where if you are young and lithe, you can be covered by little more than dental floss and postage stamps and be revered, where as if you are in the group of 30-35 years + (raises hand - guilty as charged) and do not remain somewhat modest, you are regarded as an ‘old perv’ regardless of whether you are male or female.

I have to say, I found both blogs fascinating, extremely well-written and most of all, quite valid in their opinions.  I have seen instances in my few months here which definitely backs up the sorts of issues both of these friends of mine were trying to address.  As for my opinion on these issues….

Regardless of what some individuals chose to do with their page here, I believe that the purpose of BodySpace is to meet and share with others who are fitness minded.  To share in the accomplishments of those for whom fitness is a profession and to encourage those who are just starting to find their way, or are taking on a new leaf (as is my case) in the area of becoming as healthy as we can.  Granted, I’m not blind.  There are a lot of stunning beautiful women on this site, but I am just as drawn to the male physiques I’ve seen if for no other reason than to look at them and go "Damn…I want that guys abs" or "Hmmm….wonder what I should be doing to get biceps like his"

Let’s face it. What’s the point in working so hard, in spending hours pedalling or pushing plates, in watching every calorie if you don’t put yourself out there to be seen.  You work hard, you get results, you become proud of what you’ve accomplished and you want others to see it, to acknowledge it and maybe to serve as inspiration to others who seek similar results.  It’s just a shame that there do seem to be some people though who take it a bit far and maybe only join this site to oggle and flirt, but then there has to be a downside to everything I suppose.

As for the ‘old perv’ thing…I think it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and leave yourself open to criticism about how you look.  I don’t think it matters if you are 25 or 55.  We all want to be proud of what we are accomplishing here and I don’t think its vanity to want to be seen as attractive by others and congratulated for your efforts.  If we didn’t want that feedback, then why are any of us on here instead of just keeping what we are doing to ourselves for ourselves.  The sharing and support is what this place is about, in my opinion.

If you feel proud enough of what you have accomplished and are willing to display a pic of yourself in just a towel covering the vital bits so others can see what you’ve done, does it really matter how old you are?  I am 36 and I have got horrible skin, dreadful acne scars but I’ve been putting shirtless pics of myself up there for all to see.  Am I really that hideous that by doing so I’m leaving myself open to be put down for my hard work.  Maybe.  Do I care?  Not really, no.

So, if any of you wanna see me in a pic of just a strategically placed towel, feel free to let me know.  I for one am proud of the work I’ve done in the last 4 months and can’t wait to see how much better I’m gonna look 5 months from now when I turn 37.