My BodyBlog

Day 2 so far has been harder than day 1.  I had a funny feeling in my head all afternoon, not quite a headache, but still enough to be a bother.  I made a cup of green tea at 4 pm then my wife and I went for a walk - it is cold and windy here so that took my mind off it!  I just had supper, and instead of diet coke I had a glass of milk.  But I was tempted!  I am feeling better now than I have all day, maybe the worst of it is over?  I go to the gym in an hour and a half, I’m doing squats and some other leg work, and maybe some abs.  I’ll spend half an hour on the treadmill too.  Being focused on the training should keep any thoughts of diet coke away, and I’ll be drinking lots of water…by the time I get home I’ll have a quick snack and off to bed…then day 3 begins!

I always thought I was doing great drinking my diet Coke.  I’d have a large glass of it with at least one meal a day, sometimes, two meals.  I heard about concerns over the sweetener, aspartame, that it might be linked to cancer.  But I ignored this possibility, horrified over the thought at giving up my precious Diet Coke!  It’ only carbonated water, right?

Now that I’ve got good eating habits, I’m focusing on drinking a lot more water.  The health benefits, and specific benefits for the bodybuilder, are well documented.  There is only so much I can drink in a day, so when you take into account my morning juice and cup of tea, daily skim milk and protein shakes, man, something’s got to give because I can’t spend all day in the bathroom!  So for this reason and because aspartame might be linked to cancer, I’ve decided to stop with the diet coke. 

This first day is almost over, and so far, so good.  Late this afternoon I started to get a bit of a headache, and the first thing that came in my mind is that I must be having caffeine withdrawal because I didn’t have my usual lunchtime glass of diet coke!  Whether that’s the case or not, I don’t know, but it prompted me to try something.  I had 2 ‘green tea’ bags in the cupboard that someone had given me to try last year, so I thought that today would be a good time!  I didn’t think I’d like the taste but you know what, it wasn’t too bad, and I did feel better after I drank it! It tasted better with no milk or sweetener than my usual orange pekoe tea does.  The health benefits of green tea are well documented too, so drinking it is a habit I should get into.  So I’ll try green tea everyday for awhile as a way to get some caffeine into my system, and at the same time get the health benefits too!

Now, only two and a half more hours until bedtime, when I can say that my first diet coke free day is over….I’ve got to go get some more water to sip on!

I’ve read a lot about the benefits of having a training partner.  I won’t get into them here, you all know about it.  I’m at the point in my development as a bodybuilder where I feel I could make much greater gains if I had a training partner.

Motivation is not the problem, I have no trouble getting to the gym and doing all of the workout I had planned.  Here’s how I could benefit:

• With a spotter always available I could push myself and not fear getting into trouble.  Recently I wanted to try a heavier bench press but there was no one around to ask to spot me, so I didn’t go for it.  Having a spotter would boost my confidence at times like that so I could give 100% to the lift.
• Someone to help me lift off or set up when using very heavy weights, such as incline dumbbell chest press, and to help me finish that last rep when I need a little support or encouragement.
• Someone to talk about lifting with on a regular basis.  I have small conversations with some acqaintances at the gym, but I don’t know anyone who is training the same way I am.  Having a training partner to share experiences with would be an extra boost to my motivation.

In the small town where I live I don’t know anyone else my age who is training as consistently and intensely as I am.  The few guys I see regularly at the gym are into upper body mostly, and aren’t training legs or abs much.  I would like a partner dedicated to training the entire body every week who I could count on to be there when I needed him.

I get lots of positive comments from bodybuilding.com members, and I appreciate each and every one of them.  I wouldn’t have come so far in my development as a bodybuilder without the information and support I’ve found on this site.  It’s just that I know I am missing out on something very beneficial by not having a partner at the gym with me, and it is frustrating.  All I can do is keep looking for one and keep working hard in the meantime, making the most of the gym time I have.

I started awhile ago to compose a blog about how much I hate smoking and how bad it is for a person.  I have strong feelings about the subject for personal reasons.  My goal was to put something out there that a smoker might read that would help them stop smoking.  I typed and typed and typed, saving drafts day after day until I ended up with a long-winded blog post where my message started to get lost among too many words.

I’ve changed my mind and will simply state my message:  

SMOKERS ARE POISONING THEIR BODIES AND PUTTING THEMSELVES AT RISK OF PREMATURE DEATH FROM MANY DISEASES.  SMOKERS ARE HARMING THEIR LOVED ONES BY EXPOSING THEM TO SECOND HAND SMOKE.  SMOKERS ARE REDUCING THEIR OWN QUALITY OF LIFE.

I WANT EVERYONE WHO SMOKES TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GIVE IT UP, TODAY!

I feel so much better having said this.  Now that I’ve gotten this out of my system, I’ll stick to posting about bodybuilding!

All kinds of people go to the gym.  It’s just like anything else in life, so its no surprise there are gym goers whose behavior is not always the best.  For the most part I can just ignore bad behavior, but sometimes it just gets to me, so its time to vent!  There are a few people I’d like to tell to grow up and get a life, but I’ll just settle for listing here what I consider to be bad gym behavior that I’ve seen from all types of people.  Some may disagree with what I call ‘bad’, that’s fine, we all have our opinions.  I’m no saint, but I try to show a basic respect for people wherever I go, and that’s all I want people at the gym to do.  Hope you don’t do any of the things I list here! LOL

• Leave plates on the barbells and the floor; leave dumbbells on the floor (obvious)
• Cut in and take a machine, cable station or bench from the person already using it, who is obviously just taking a rest between sets and is standing nearby.  Is it so hard to ask if they are finished or if you can jump in and do a set while they are resting?
• Tie up an area when the gym is busy by just chatting with others.  There is a lounge for talking, others want to use the equipment you know!
• Being disgusting in the bathroom by not flushing, leaving paper towels everywhere, etc;
• Be pushy with giving unsolicited advice to a new person.  I once saw a teen who was new to lifting and trying out the different machines.  A guy started to follow him around, telling him what he should be doing on each machine and pushing him to use more weight even though the poor kid was clearly struggling.  After the guy left, a staff person and I told the teen to ignore what the other guy was showing him, and start off by learning good form with moderate weight.  What if the pushy guy had turned the kid off from weightlifting?

Anyway, that’s a few things that bug me, for what it’s worth!

Until I started to lose body fat I absolutely hated to shop for new clothes.  Standing in front of the dressing room mirror I had no choice but to face the stark reality of who I was - a man with way too much body fat.  A man who was ashamed about how he looked.  A man who had failed countless times at the dieting game.  A man who dreamed about being fit but who did little about it, adding to the guilt and shame.

Trying on pants was particularly depressing.  The size I needed to fit me was creeping up year after year.  I wear dress pants for work just about every day.  I remember, shorty after I met my wife, she helped me pick out a new wardrobe.  I purchased several pairs of good quality Hagar dress pants, waist size 36", costing about $60 each.  I wore them for a few months, until the summer, then they were washed, pressed, and put in the closet.  When I took them back out again in October, I could just barely get them done up.  Wearing them was really uncomfortable, and I had to give in and buy some new pants, this time size 38".  The lovely 36" Hagar pants were put in a box on the closet shelf, serving as a reminder to me of my fat status every time I saw the box.  From time to time I would get the idea in my head that it was time to lose some weight so I could wear my 36" pants again.  As with all my diets, it soon went off the rails, and the sight of that box made me feel depressed every time I saw it.

Over the next several years my stomach slowly grew, and I outgrew 38" and moved to 40" and then 42", which were very tight on me.  I really should have been wearing 44".  Then, I started exercising, thank God, and things levelled off.  Slowly, over three years, I lost a lot of fat, with my stomach slowly shrinking.  Last summer, when I put away my winter dress clothes, I was back to wearing 40", although they were a little tight.

Last October, I finally was successful at cleaning up my diet in a big way, and I became more consistent with my cardio.  Thanks to this and consistent weight training, my body began to shed fat at a faster rate.  In November, after delaying as long as I could it was time to get out my cold weather dress pants again.  Much to my wife’s surpise and delight, I told her I wanted to scrap the tired old pants I’d been wearing for years and get a new wardrobe.  So off we went to Sears, where I soon discovered that size 38" pants fit me well!  I wasn’t sure I should get this size though, since I was determined to shed all my excess body fat, and thought I’d be a size or two smaller in a few months.  My wife said I needed to have clothes that fit my body size now, and I couldn’t worry about the body size I might be later down the road.  I only bought 3 pairs, which I will make do with for the rest of this cold season.  I’m happy to report the 38" are now getting loose, I had to buy a new belt, and I guess I’ll need more new dress pants for the warmer weather and again next fall!  I’ll also need new casual pants, shorts, and shirts.  A lot of shopping ahead for my wife and I, and for the first time in my life I’m looking forward to it!  I’m not ashamed of what I see in the mirror anymore!

So, whatever happend to those 36" Hagar pants in like-new condition put in storage?  Before I started exercising I had given up any hopes that they would ever fit me again, so I sold them on e-bay!  Some lucky guy got a great deal on pants, hope he’s enjoying wearing them!  If I had known then what I know now, I would have held on to them for sure! 

"Do you want some pie now?"

"No thanks."

"I thought you loved lemon mirangue pie?"

"I do, but it’s not the type of food I want to eat anymore."

"Oh go on, once in awhile won’t hurt you!  You’ve got to treat yourself sometime!"

"No, sorry, I just don’t want it."

That’s the gist of the conversation I had with my Step-Mother a week ago.  I arrived at her house to stay for 3 or 4 days while doing work for a client.  Ever since I’ve known her, about 26 years, she has been baking goodies for me to eat and take back home.  I told her on the phone not to bake anything this time.  It comes of no surprise to me that she went ahead and did it anyway, that’s what Mothers do!

I knew nothing about the pie until I opened the refrigerator door to get a drink.  There it was, in all its glory, its flaky crust, lemon filling and golden-baked mirangue, just waiting for me to eat it.  In times gone by I would have eaten such a pie in about two days, along with anything else I fancied.  This visit, I was determined to stick to my clean eating.  She had told me how much effort went into the pie, having burned the first crust and then the first batch of mirangue, before redoing both until the pie turned out just right.

It did cross my mind, for the briefest moment, that since she put so much work into the pie, I should show my gratitude and have just one piece, afte all what harm could one piece do?  Guilt and gluttony are a powerful combination, and I came very close to having that piece of pie!  I was able to put the moment of weakness behind me by remembering all of the progress I have made losing fat and by remembering how good I am looking.  In reality, I know that one piece of pie wouldn’t have done any physical harm.  I am more concerned about the mental damage it may have done to me.  If I opened the door even a crack and let some of that type of food back into my life, would I be able to stop?  Would one piece today lead to another tomorrow?  Would bad habits start to creep back into my eating and derail my good work and progress?  I am not about to take that chance at this point in my life.  I still have goals I am working towards and until I get there I am not going to waver in my determination to eat cleanly!  So sorry Mother, I’m sure you’ll find someone else to eat that pie, but it won’t be me.  It’s not who I am anymore.

Awesome!  That’s the only word I can think of to adequatly describe how I feel after my deadlifts last night!  Breaking through a plateau on this exercise makes me feel great and increases my motivation to keep working.

I’ve only been doing deadlifts for about five months.  I had a six week interruption during that time due to a sprained wrist.  By concentrating on good form I’ve seen slow but steady progress.

Last night, I felt energized and planned an intense quad workout, starting with deadlifts, which I hadn’t done for 2 weeks.  At my gym, I don’t see people doing deadlift very much.  I tend to do it on Friday or Sunday evening, when there are few people around, since when I started I couldn’t do it very well, and for some reason people seem to stop and watch you when you’re doing a deadlift!  Silly I know to feel self-conscious about being looked at, but that’s how I feel when I do deadlifts.  Last night, there were only 2 other guys in the gym, and I knew them both, so I didn’t feel any inhibitions about doing deadlifts and giving them my all.

While setting up the barbell, one of the guys commented "You’re doing deadlifts tonight?  You find that good for you back?"  I told him deadlifts are for quads and you shouldn’t lift with your back.  I was a little surprised, since he had been going to the gym just as long as I had or longer, and he didn’t know this was primarily a quad exercise!  I started with warmups 135 x8 and 223 x4.  While I was finishing the last rep, I noticed the other guy watching me and he said "I can’t do that.  It’s too hard on my back."  I replied that I used to find it really hard too, until I learned the proper form, and when you do deadlift right you will not hurt your back since you’re lifting with your legs.  Those guys learned something from me last night, just as I’ve learned things by talking to other people.  Anyone reading this, don’t be afraid to ask questions!  It’s the best way to learn!

After the warmup I was feeling strong, so I decided to go for a personal best.  I put on 4-45’s and 2 44’s, add in the bar for a total of 313 lbs, 10 pounds more than I’d lifted before.  Looking at the bar on the floor with those six plates was a little intimidating.  I’d tried that weight a few times before and hadn’t been able to budge it!  I stood over the bar, focused, took a few deep breaths, and got into position.  I noticed the 2 guys watching me!  I thought ’Shit, what if I can’t do this?  I’ll look like an idiot!’  I then remembered how hard I’d been working, how good I felt, and the fact that it was only 10 pounds more than I’d lifted before.  Refocusing, I squat down, adjusted my straps, and then did that ****ing lift!  When I was standing with the bar I looked at myself in the mirror just in front of me, and I really liked what I saw!  The lift was hard, but I knew that I could do more.  After a rest I put on two more plates for a total of 324 lbs.  Again, the guys were watching me.  After getting focused I did that lift too!  One of the guys asked if I was going to go for more, but I felt like I had given it my all and was tiring.  I didn’t want to push it too much and risk injury, so that was it for the PB attempts.  I did a couple of lifts at 267 to finish deadlifts off for the night.

What a great feeling to have accomplished that!  All bodybuilders know how great it feels to meet a goal.  Well for me, for some reason, increasing my deadlift personal best was particularly satisfying.  I know I’m progressing, I see it in the mirror.  But to have such a tangible, quantifiable success on a difficult exercise is further proof that my workouts and eating habits are working for me.  Not only will I keep trying to increase my personal best in the months to come, from now on I won’t be worried about who might be watching me, since they’re not watching to see me fail, they’re watching hoping that I will succeed, and I believe some of them will be motivated by my success! 

I just got back from a four day business trip to a town about three and a half hours drive from home.  In past years a business trip would mean mostly unhealthy eating and no exercise.  I was determined not to do that this time around.  I made a real effort to include working out and healthy eating as part of my trip, and I’m very happy to report that I succeeded!

I left home on Saturday afternoon.  There is a community about half way between home and my destination that I found out has a new Global gym, so I went there and had a great chest and calves workout!  This is the first gym, apart from my hometown gym, that I have worked out at since I started 4 years ago, and it was a great experience!  They have some different machines that I tried out, including chest press and standing calf raise.  There were a few guys at the gym, I’d say ranging in age from 20 to 40, and at different points during my workout I saw some of them watching me.  They probably were just wondering who I was, since they hadn’t seen me before.  A part of me would like to think they were admiring my muscular physique LOL!  Seriously though, I am really pleased with my muscle growth and I know I compared favourably to the most muscular guys in the gym that day….makes me feel great!  The daily rate was $10, well worth it considering how great I felt after the workout!

The community I was travelling to happens to be the town where I grew up.  I get out there a couple of times a year either on business or to visit my step-mother.  I planned to stay with her, as I always do, but this time some things were going to be different.  Her food is not my food now.  Her way of cooking is not my way of cooking now.  So instead of just accepting whatever meals she planned to cook during my visit, I decided to be proactive and do things my way.  I explained to her that I have decided to eat a certain way and that she doesn’t have in the house the kind of food I want to eat.  I went to the grocery store and bought enough of the kind of food I want to last 4 days.  During my visit, I prepared all of my meals except two, when she cooked things I would eat.  I guess I was taking a chance on hurting her feelings by doing things my way, but I was hoping she would accept my new lifestyle choices.  I’m sure everything worked out fine since she ate the meals I cooked and I over heard her ‘bragging’ on the phone to a friend about how good I looked and how she liked the meals I had prepared!

On Sunday, the weather was bad so I spent the day doing some work on my laptop.  By the time the evening rolled around I was getting cabin fever and had to do something active, so I went to the local civic centre where they have an indoor walking track open to the public free of charge.  It’s on the second level, so you can walk around while looking at the hockey players on the ice.  I did ten laps which is 2 kilometers.

I worked at my client’s office all the next day, looking forward to going to the gym after work.  In that town there was a small gym with a keycard entrance only, but I had phoned ahead and arranged for the owner to meet me there and let me in.  It was a crowded little spot, not with people but with equipment.  Stuff was old, but everything you could possible need was there for a good workout.  I did some interval training on the treadmill, then had a good triceps workout with a few sets of straight-leg deadlifts mixed in.

The next day I again went back to the civic centre in the evening where I walked/jogged another 2 kilometers on the track - not a lot I know, but at least something.

The next day I finished my work sooner than expected and found I had a couple of hours free before lunch and then starting the drive back home.  So I called the gym owner and she was very kind to leave her work on a coffee break and let me in.  I then spent a glorious two hours all alone in that gym, with the music cranked up and feeling like I was Superman!  I started my workout with 15 minutes of hitting and kicking a hanging sparring bag.  I kept moving for the 15 minutes and worked up a nice sweat.  This was a great activity and I wish my local gym had this.  My warmup was followed by a good shoulder, traps and biceps workout.

So, during a business trip that was five days and four nights I managed to get in three gym workouts and two walking sessions, plus I ate clean the same way I do at home.  This is a big accomplishment for me and is further proof in my mind that my healthy lifestyle is with me to stay!   

March 1, 2004.  That’s when my life changed, but I just didn’t know it at the time.  My wife and I went to our local gym to give it a try.  It was her idea, she wanted to be more active and thought the machines were a good way to tone up and lose weight.  I had a vague idea about working out, having been a gym member in another town for about 10 months about 10 years earlier.  I remember enjoying it, but it was just a small part of my very busy life at the time and I didn’t really get into it in a big way and it fell to the wayside as I gave my time to other things.

Anyway, we both enjoyed that first day, trying some of the different machines.  We actually did circuit training that was posted on a sign, as suggested by an employee.  We had to start off on the lowest recommend weight settings, of course, and I was winded after each circuit which consisted of eight machines and ab crunches on the ball.  We bought a 3 month membership that day, and went together 3 times a week, usually in the morning.  We did primarily the same circuit training, doing 3 circuits, which took about 45 minutes.  Some mornings it was a chore to get the motivation to go, but we helped to push each other to do it (plus we didn’t want our membership money to go to waste!).

After the first 3 months, my wife didn’t want to renew our membership.  It was summer, and we would be walking a lot, so she thought that would be enough exercise for her.  I didn’t want to give up.  I was seeing real progress in the amount of weight I could do on the machines, and I was started to see a little toning up in my upper body.  I was also very worried that if I gave it up I wouldn’t get the motivation to go back.  I wanted to lose body fat and improve my health, and I knew that I could get on the road to doing that if I stuck with going to the gym regularly.  So I purchased a 1 year membership and kept going alone (My wife did go back for a little while in September, but decided she didn’t like the atomoshere at the gym - too much sweat, loud music and too many teenagers!).  That first year going alone had its ups and downs.  It was harder to stay motivated to get up and go by myself.  I started going at different times during the day, and found that I had a lot more energy and stamina for it later in the day than early in the morning.  I found that I wanted to try different things, especially dumbbells and barbells, and I learned about different exercises by watching what other people did and then starting to add some of it to my workouts.

After that first year, I was hooked.  I could really start to see changes in my body, and I was feeling great after each workout.  I enjoyed the free weights and the more I used them the better I became with them.  I found that I needed more than 45 minutes to do the workouts I wanted to do, and was going for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on if I did cardio or not.  Motivation was less and less of a challenge, as I knew I was on to a good thing and that I would continue to improve as long as I kept going 3 times a week.

In the past 4 years, bodybuilding has become an irreplacable part of my life.  The physical and mental benefits I am enjoying are things I want to stay with me for the rest of my days.  I now go 3 or 4 times a week for about 2 hours each session, doing split training and cardio.  What I have learned so far about my body and about working out is only the tip of the iceburg, and I love reading and talking about bodybuilding.  All of my life I had been looking for something that I could be good at and  that would be a passion in my life.  I know I’ve found it with bodybuilding.

I have transformed my body, accelerating the transformation this past year with a much better diet, and even though its still a work in progress (and probably always will be) people are noticing.  Bodybuilders know it takes tremendous dedication and commitment to achieve body transformation goals.  I don’t know the percentages, but I know that the number of people who can do this are a significant minority of the population.  The fact that I am one of these people is extremely satisfying to me.  I am proud of my accomplishments, grateful that I have found this tremendous life-changing activity, and I’m committed to living my new lifestyle forever.

Looking back over what I’ve accomplished over the last 4 years, I’m excited to think about what the next 4 years might bring!