chrischap01’s BodyBlog

So far so good. I did not accomplish all that I hoped to in January but I did make some good progress.

My weight is now 260, down from 269.
My waist is now 40", down from 42".
My body fat is now 23%, down from 24.5%.
I now have a line showing the outside of my ab muscles, that was not visible before.
I now have veins visible in my hands, arms, and feet that I could not see before.
May face and neck are visibly leaner.

In January I focused first on perfecting my diet. I was able to consistently get 6 meals per day pretty much every day. Those meals were made up of 40+ percent protein, and no more than 25% fat. 90% of the carbs I took in were complex carbs, fruits, and dairy. I ate primarily steamed or raw cruciferous vegetables as side dishes.

What I would like to improve in my diet in February is an increase in calories, and I want the vast majority of those new calories to come from protein. I only averaged about 1750 calories per day in January, and that simply is not enough for someone as big and as active in me. I’d like to add muscle mass or at least keep what I have, so I taking in enough calories and protein is imperative for me as my body fat decreases.

During January, I focused more on long cardio sessions and circuit-style lifting than I had in the past. I was hoping to kick start fat loss after a 5-6 week period where my workouts were a little sporadic. I think I would have been more successful if I had stuck with my usual workout of heavy strength training accompanied by shorter HIIT cardio sessions. So, in February I am returning to that formula. That is what got me from 355 to 269, so I know it works for me. In addition, I will be a doing Krav Maga classes 3 evenings every week, and at least one extended cardio session each weekend geared toward increasing my endurance. I expect to be challenged by every workout, and to leave the gym completely spent every day.

If I stick to those plans, I think I can reach the following goals by Mar. 1:

Weight: 245
Waist: 38"
BF: 20%

Also, I have a new goal of creating a "shapely, sculpted ass" since it has recently been alleged that I just have a "continuous back" rather than an ass. This goal will take more than one month to complete, but the process begins now.

I just realized that I am about to turn 35 in a few short months! I think that will be my new goal deadline - I want to be at 10% body fat by my 35th birthday. That gives me about 120 days to lose an estimated 40 pounds. That is about 2.5 pounds per week. Time to get serious again!

I will begin with a run in the morning.

I will hit the gym first thing Monday morning for some serious lifting, which will continue 4x per week through my birthday. The diet will be perfect, that is the easiest thing for me to control and I will not let it get in the way. The key will be staying motivated to get to the gym every day, and then working as hard as I can while I am there!

I have tended to go half speed for the last few months, and I think my progress has suffered for it. I have continued to lose weight, but I think some of it was muscle and the loss came slower than it should have. I would have easily reached my 10% goal by now if I had stuck to the program. No more, I must finish this, and finish it the right way! It’s now or never!!

I borrowed the following tips/suggestions on how to reach your goal faster from Alwyn Cosgrove. He suggests you list 5 things you need to change or improve. List them from easiest to hardest, and tackle them one at a time. When you accomplish one, move on to the next. Before you know it, you have made 5 significant positive changes and you will reach your goals that much faster!

The five behaviors I must improve or change:

(1) I need to eat more consistently, starting with breakfast and then every 3 hrs or so. This will ensure that i get enough calories each day, which will keep my metabolism fired and my blood sugar levels steady. It will also help fuel my workouts so I can keep them intense.
(2) hit the gym first thing each day, no procrastinating. I tend to put it off until later in the day if I know I will have time to go. This makes it much harder to get there on those days when I must go first thing in the morning or not at all.
(3) more intensity/focus in workouts (I tend to let my mind wander). If I start thinking about something else, watching TV, etc. I tend to slow way down or go easier without really noticing. I can’t afford to do that, I need to go all out to get where I want to be.
(4) be accountable, keep a log of all food and workouts. This helps me to avoid missing workouts or cheating on my diet, because I have to put it in print for all to see. It also helps me keep track of what I am doing so I know when I need to make changes.
(5) seek out competition - vs. myself, racing, fighting, hoops, etc. Having some external motivation other than just the scale or mirror helps motivate me. If I know I will have to spar on Sunday, or play ball on Wednesday, or beat my personal best lift/time, then I will work that much harder in the gym. I am very competitive and hate to lose, so I need to use that natural motivation to get more out of my workouts.

Recently, I was talking to my favorite person about my weight loss and she asked me what I thought it was that caused me to gain all that weight in the first place. Interestingly, I had never really thought about  what bad habit or habits specifically caused it. Since that conversation, I have been thinking about it a lot. I think to truly change myself and make sure I grow and move past obesity, I need to know the answer to this question.

The root cause of my weight gain is obvious - depression. I have touched on this before, but I spent years being depressed without even realizing it. I was in a bad relationship and under tremendous stress at home, I hated my job, and I felt cut off from my family.  As I got more and more depressed, I did less and less and ate more and more and my weight steadily increased. I rarely exercised.

However, there is another aspect to the question - what was the physiological cause of the weight gain? Was I eating too much, too often, the wrong things, etc.? Obviously I was taking in too many calories somehow, but it is hard to figure out exactly how. I typically would eat two meals per day and I rarely snacked. The only drinks I ever consumed that had any calories were beer and wine, and I did that maybe once every couple of weeks in moderation. I ate no desserts or sweets.

When I did eat, I mostly ate crap. Fast food. Frozen food. Pizza. Restaurant food - Mexican, Italian, BBQ, Chinese, etc. I read yesterday that an order of chicken fingers with fries and corn on the cob at Chili’s is 2700 calories. Seeing something like that tells me all I need to know about how I was carrying 150 extra pounds of fat on only two meals per day. I imagine I had a lot of meals that were far worse than those chicken fingers - 6-7 slices of pizza were nothing to me. I supersized everything. I was not shy about adding cheese, gravy, ranch, mayo, etc. to whatever I was eating. At 9 calories per gram of fat, I was probably going over my maintenance calories in one meal and the second huge meal was just feeding the fat.

I have long since changed all of these habits. I eat several small meals and never skip breakfast. I avoid fast food. I always get lean, healthy foods at restaurants and if they give me too much I take some of it home for later. I never add fat to anything. I am now trying to reduce or eliminate the bad fats I take in. Interestingly, I changed all these habits without ever thinking specifically about why I was doing it or how it was different than what I was doing before. I think fully understanding the mistakes I made in the past will greatly increase my chances of success in the future. Now that I know what I did wrong, I will always know how to do it right!

I spend a lot of time lately talking about my gym regimen and the results I have been able to get out of it so far. I am never quite sure what exactly to call it - weight lifting, body building, power lifting - none fully describes what it is that I am trying to do. One term seems to fit better than the rest, and that term is strength training. Not because of the exercises that comprise my program or even the physical results I am hoping to achieve. Strength training is what I am doing, but I am not trying to build the same kind of strength you’d typically seek at the gym.

What is strength? It can mean at least ten different things:

1. The state, property, or quality of being strong.
2. The power to resist attack; impregnability.
3. The power to resist strain or stress; durability.
4. The ability to maintain a moral or intellectual position firmly.
5. Capacity or potential for effective action: a show of strength.
6. A source of power or force.
7. One that is regarded as the embodiment of protective or supportive power; a support or mainstay.
8. An attribute or quality of particular worth or utility; an asset.
9. Degree of intensity, force, effectiveness, or potency in terms of a particular property, as:
   
   1. Operative effectiveness or potency.
   2. Intensity or vehemence, as of emotion or language.
10. Effective or binding force; efficacy: the strength of an argument.

All of these describe in one way or another what it is that I am working toward for 2 hours per day, six days per week. The first one I want to address is:

• The state, property, or quality of being strong.

I am trying to achieve the state or quality of being strong. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. I want my body to be able to perform any physical task laid in front of me. I want to push myself as hard as I can to build real world, functional strength. To do this I must constantly challenge myself. I try to get in more reps in each workout. I try to increase the resistance every week. If don’t perform a workout harder and better than I did the week before, I push myself by adding something extra to my program at the end of the day. A superset, some sprints, extra cardio, body weight exercises, ab exercises, etc. I make sure that I leave having done all that I can to improve my physical strength.

I am also working toward increasing my mental strength.  I am not talking about mental acuity or intelligence, I am speaking more of mental resolve. I want to be able to stand up and face any situation,  have the will to overcome any obstacle, and to achieve anything I set my mind to. Taking on a rigorous morning at the gym even when I am sick, tired, unhappy, bored, whatever the case may be, builds mental strength. Giving my all on every rep, every set, every day increases my resolve. If I can summon the will to get my work done at the gym, I can summon that strength in other areas of my life to overcome whatever problems I face.

Most of us face emotional hardship at some point in our lives. We suffer devastating losses, whether of life or love. We struggle with our careers. We struggle with failures, or pressure to not fail. We struggle with our faith, or our lack thereof. The best outlet I have found to deal with these things in my life is strength training. Whatever problems are going on in my life, I can forget them for 2 hours every day when I am training. I can pour myself into my workout, and use that outlet to take on whatever problems I face. I can literally sweat it out of me. I leave the gym thinking more clearly, understanding more completely, and generally more prepared to deal with any such issues.

I strength train because I want to get strong. It sounds so simple, obvious even, but it means so much. At least, to me it does.

I think I am going to become a bike guy. I have been wanting to give riding a shot for a while, but I had just not made it a priority. This last week, while on vacation in Austin, I was able to get in several hours on a bike and I loved it! I am planning to go out and get a bike in the next few days and get this show on the road.

Strangely enough, my favorite aspect was climbing. Every hill I passed, I turned around and went up it. Sometimes I raced up the hills, sometimes I just rode to see if I could make it. I found one looooonnng hill Saturday and finished my workout by just riding to the top, turning around and flying back down. Then I did it again, 4 times. I felt like a little kid at a roller coaster, running back to the line to ride it again and again. Who am I kidding, I still do that too…

I am still feeling very motivated! This has been one of the best weeks ever for me in terms of diet and exercise. I recently had a job where I had no time to waste, so I only ate when I could/had to. They had a lot of crappy food laid out for us free, cookies, cakes, sodas, lasagna, fried foods, etc. I worked with someone there who did not even seem bothered/tempted by all that stuff, as I know I normally would have been. Watching her inspired me to do the same, and I don’t think I would have succeeded without her. That three week experience allowed me to totally re-train myself in terms of my diet. No more cheating (I previously allowed myself 1-2 cheat meals per week), and I ate lots more salads/vegetables. I even cut way down on coffee, which I know is not necessary in order to continue losing fat but I felt before that I was drinking way too much of it. I feel better now, and I sleep better.
After just one week of eating like that, I was seeing visible results. My waist size went down. My stomach started shrinking. My shirts became looser. Obviously, I have been at this a while and had seen very good results before, but nothing as sudden and as noticeable as this. That inspired me to step it up in terms of exercise as well. I kept lifting, although had to drop down to once/twice per week instead of my usual 4. With less time to lift, I worked in more short cardio sessions wherever I could. Once I finished the job and got back into my routine, I did not reduce my cardio back down to what I was doing before. I can literally feel the pounds flying off now and see visible differences in the mirror almost every day. I am so excited for what I think I will be able to do over the next few months. I hope to have reached all of my fitness/weight/body fat goals by the end of the year now, and I think I have a real shot at doing it!

Many of you know that this past year saw the end of my 12+year marriage. After deciding with my wife that I needed to make a career change, with her full support I left home in August 06 to complete a 9 month LL.M. program in Washington, DC. I made several trips home during the fall semester, and things seemed to be OK - not great but better than they had been in years. After finals, I drove through the night to get home early and surprise her, but instead she surprised me within minutes of my arrival with the news that she wanted a divorce.

We spent much of the first few months of 2007 with me trying to pry the reasons this was happening out of her, and then trying to convince her that we could overcome those problems if we just worked together. She listened and thought it over, but was unwilling to budge from her decision. In May, she finally told me that she was not going to change her mind and we stopped talking about it. Months continued to roll by and it became clear that we were still in limbo and she was not going to do anything to change that.

Morally, I am strongly against divorce except in abusive situations, so I felt that it was not an option for us. However, after many long converstions and some great support and advice from family and friends, I decided that if I wanted to move forward with my life I needed to get this process over with, and that God would forgive me and I could forgive myself for doing so. I am still conflicted about it and I generally do not believe in moral relativism, but I decided that I had done what I could to try and save the marriage and that accepting her decision and getting a divorce was best for both of us.

Tonight, I called Mary and asked her if she still wanted a divorce. She said that she did. I told her that we should go ahead and file and get it done, and that I would take care of everything. She insisted that since this was her decision and she knew I was against it, that she be the one to file. So, I am now going to prepare the paperwork and let her take care of it.

Surprisingly, although the conversation was very hard and admittedly I did not make it through with dry eyes, I feel like a 10,000 lb. weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Over the past year, even before we separated, I feel like I have really gotten back to being me. For the last 4 years, I was consumed with trying to save that relationship and I think I lost who I was. I was depressed, unhealthy, overweight, and generally lost. As sad as I am to see that relationship end, I am excited to move forward and continue to grow and learn more about who I am. I am a very passionate person, and I am finally able to apply that to something other than fixing a broken relationship. I have never been more excited about my future than I am tonight. I feel renewed, cleansed, and ready to tackle anything!

It has been a good weekend for me! I did an awesome hike through the C&O national park (not really hiking but a good first step). I went 8.5 miles, which I think is probably the longest I have ever walked. The terrain only had a few hills, so I made up for it by zig-zagging a lot to make sure I hit all the hills and stairs multiple times. My legs are definitely feeling it this morning. I can’t wait to do it again, though. I may try to run some of it next time.

I have received several compliments regarding my weight loss this weekend. One friend said "wow, you look very different, I can really tell that you have lost a lot of weight!" Another said I looked really skinny in a new pic I sent her! I wouldn’t call myself skinny, and I probably never will be, but it was nice to hear!

I feel like I am slacking doing my new weight circuit type program, so I may go ahead and switch back to real lifting tomorrow. It was a good break that I probably needed, but I feel like I need to get back to work and get stronger and build a little more muscle.

On the diet front, I think I am just about fully adapted to my keto-style diet. It is not the high fat BB keto diet that most on here follow. It is closer to Atkins and South Beach. I did increase to 50% fat for a week to give me energy at the gym until I got adapted, and I think it worked. I now want to get back down under 40% fat and see how I do. If I still run out of steam at the gym I will increase it again, though.