jejunum’s BodyBlog

Well, I haven’t been here on a while.  I know.

After the food poisoning in Feb. I basically lost motivation.  I did get my weight/strength up to a bit over what I could do before (I believe my bench was 240 max), but no major changes.  Then summer hit and all went to hell.  First few weeks I worked out fine, but then, as usually happens in the summer with me, a string of things happened that made me lose much weight/strength.  Well…I wanted to cut a bit, but since I wasn’t eating enough protein I cut much muscle as well.

All started with me trying to lose a few pounds in like 2 weeks because I purchased a trip to Barcelona.  Then a few weeks after that camp started (and it goes on for 6 and a half weeks, ending this Sat.)  The working hours here leave me pretty tired so I don’t make it to the gym more than 2-3 times a week (and it’s closed on weekends).  Besides, I figure why go to the gym too much if I eat very little protein here, and it’s hard to time taking a shake since most of the time I’ll eat 1 or 1.5 hours later anyway.  Oh yeah, my last meal is at 6PM.  My arms probably shrank over a half an inch.  Back is a lot weaker.  Chest suffered the most strength loss.  Shoulders about the same.

So, with that all said, I say forget BBing.  I get OK results and then through life circumstances I lose them.  Most ppl that have been here as long as I have had achieved tremendous results, and I don’t know how they have the time with school, work, and having some social time in between.  Plus, my GI tract is thanking me for not drinking milk.  Looks like I was more lactose intolerant than I thought, since I can feel a clear difference in my well-being.

I will continue working out, and taking some protein (in water).  I will also start running.  I am not going to waste money on things such as weight gainers and excessive food, and I will not try to gain weight anymore (though hopefully a few pounds of muscle for the year will be achieved.  I am hoping to lean out while staying roughly the same weight, to get my abs to show well (top 4 already show, bottom 2 are extremely faint but hopefully they’ll come in).  Hopefully I will get back the strength I had before, getting my bench to 240, but if I don’t go higher it’s OK I guess.  I’m just tired of getting to the point of a strong fatass by May, and then cutting down improperly (because I really can’t find much time to do it properly with gyms being closed a lot) and getting weak.  Happened last summer, happened this summer, will probably happen next summer.  So I just want to have a generally athletic shape and that’s it.

so upon buying cytogainer today (GNC, was on sale, could order it a few bucks cheaper but then I’d have to go back home and get it), I realized that in the last year and a half I had spent $250 on various supplements.  I wonder, was it worth it? In the beginning, it was, but since May or so I’ve hovered around the same weight plus or minus 5 pounds (though granted that I am leaner than in May) and battled many setbacks while still spending money.  Really the only things that have aesthetically improved since May are my arms, my traps and neck and I guess my shoulders a little bit.  Liftwise my squats and deadlifts improved a lot and my shoulder press and various rows a little bit, but other things not really (esp. after I lost a lot of weight/strength due to food poisoning followed by gastritis followed by a giant blob on my earlobe which hurt so I couldn’t work out).  After that I basically lost all my motivation.

 Recently I regained some of my motivation, but over spring break I couldn’t work out yet again because I did an alternative spring break program.  Last week I had an awesome week’s worth of workouts, and I hope it continues that way.  If not, I think I’ll just try to get as lean as possible, even if it means being 155, but I’m sure there are going to be many setbacks with that too, with me eventually losing all my muscle (since I can’t retain it even if I don’t work out for a week).  Just hard to balance college, work, programs I want to do like the alternative spring break and a conference I’m going to for 4 full days in TX, with lifting and eating right.

I’ve recovered from all my ailments, but I still can’t fully get back into lifting.

Apparently the main problem is that I can’t digest that much protein right.  So far I’ve been drinking only 1 scoop whey post workout and not eaten that much over the past few weeks, and my digestion is doing great.  Last semester and early this semester when I tried eating as much as possible (clean) and eating about 1g/lb/day or slightly more of protein, I had horrible digestion.  I had to go to the bathroom every hour or 2 sometimes, which did not mesh well with school and work (pharmacy intern), not to mention the horrid farts.

So if I can’t have too much protein, how can I work out efficiently? I ditched deadlifts when I got food poisoning (and before that I didn’t put them in first, to get a bit better at pullups) so my forearms are shot now, and my lifts are nowhere near where they were before, and I can’t get them back to what they were because I can’t eat too much, and I can’t eat too much protein.  Why does the world hate me so?

/rant

A week and 5 days ago I had food poisoning.  Then it turned into gastritis.  Of course I could barely eat anything then and threw up a lot, and lost a lot of weight.  Couldn’t work out either because I kept having stomach problems Then Tues. night I got a cyst on my earlobe (basically a giant blob).  I get this thing every 2 years or so.  It hurt for a while so I didn’t feel like working out.  Now it doesn’t hurt as much so I went back to the gym today.  Overall I lost about 7-8 pounds in less than 2 weeks, and am weak as hell.  I also look pale as a ghost and have a blob on my earlobe (so I have to wear hoodies to class to cover it up).  What a sight! Still don’t want to start up protein again because my stomach recently went through hell.  And really, I’m not sure if I want to start it up again period.  When I’m on it I get watery stools and I fart like crazy.  I feel better without it.

So I don’t know what’s gonna happen.  Maybe I should just not give a shit and maintain my weight.  Since the gastritis, my eating habits completely changed and I am not hungry for breakfast anymore, being able to only put 500 cals into myself.  And I wanted to do a program to bring my bench up…didn’t even last a week. 

Didn’t eat too much for the past 5 weeks.  Didn’t try to cut or anything, but just ate like a normal human being with a normal (or slightly higher than normal) metabolism.  Ate way more than either of my parents.  Lifted spottily but got in about 1 or 2 workouts a week over the past 4 weeks (the week before that was finals week, I lifted enough but didn’t have enough time to eat much and didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of a final).

 So I step on the scale today, and I lost 5 and a half pounds in 5 weeks! That doesn’t make me happy.

Monday I’m getting into the bulking mode again.  I didn’t eat enough last semester, but this time around I have to get up earlier with more spread out classes, so I’ll have time to go back to the apt. to eat more.  Planning on trying for 3750-4000 cals every day, because less doesn’t put weight on me anymore.  I’ve also bought some cytogainer.  I have about 7 servings left, and I don’t know what I’ll do then.  Parents would be scared if 12 pounds of weight gainer (2 tubs, more economical that way unless the shipping were free) arrived in their house, and I can’t send packages to my apartment. 

I seriously think that the only reason I just don’t stop working out is because my back is getting stronger and that my deads are still going up.  Today I figured I’d try maxing again (first time in a month or so).  Got 335 easy.  Figured I’d try 355.  Got it up but couldn’t lock out, so I consider that a fail, but I figure I’d be able to do 350 with a lockout.  I tried 350 but my grip was out by then so I couldn’t even lift it 6 inches off the ground.  Rest of back workout was good too, with me doing more weight on everything than last workout.  At this rate and if I don’t stop working out over winter break/summer, I could probably pull 4 plates by June.

With school and classes and tests and work and not going to sleep until midnight and not sleeping well, I’m just getting tired and find myself taking more and more time off from the gym, since I feel like if I go I’ll just have a wasted, unproductive workout.

Besides, I find myself unmotivated nowadays.  I mean everything is OK and is going up OK, except my damn bench.  Yeah I brought it back up to May levels or maybe a tiny bit higher, but not more.  Just doesn’t want to go up.  I’ve tried high reps, low reps, you name it.  My chest has just always been an incredibly stubborn bodypart for me.  I mean, sure my deads have gone up a lot, but deadlifts don’t change much aesthetically. 

Just not normal to keep having these 2-3 month plateaus on chest.  And when I do work it out, I don’t even feel the workouts in the lower part when I do declines and such.  Shoulders always give out first.  So now I actually have an OK upper chest but no lower chest. 

I now do them either once or twice a week.  Whenever I do them twice a week (back day and leg day) I only do about 2 sets on leg day and not too heavy.  Today I set a new PR of 320×2.  That’s almost a 100 pound difference between about February and now!  At this rate I could do 4 plates by May (of course I’m realistic and expect a slowdown, so I’ll be content with 3 plates and a 25 on each side by April or so, when I will probably start cutting).

 In other news squats are going up OK.  Bench is lagging horribly (up only about 15lbs in a little under 2 months, in comparison to deads being up 55lbs since then).  Lats still not worked out well because my forearms tire out to quickly.

So I figure I’d try doing deads twice a week, once stiff-legged and once regular.  In 3 weeks I went from 1×275 (if that, no idea exactly how much I could do but I know I couldn’t lift 275 in early Aug.) to 5×275.  Should be doing 3 plates soon, so gonna continue doing deads twice a week for the next month or so.

So you’ve been warned.

So I’m finding out slowly that my last bulk was close to a failure.  I believed those people both here and in real life saying "you’re getting jacked" and whatnot, but now I see that a lot of it was fat masquerading as muscle.  I mean who with an unfailed bulk puts on 22 pounds but only adds 25-30 to their bench.  Other exercises are better though, esp. squats and shoulder press, so maybe that’s why I look bigger, but still, now I’m pissed that I got kinda fat.

Typical skinny guy’s story.  Wants to put on weight badly and eats everything in sight.  Before he knows it, he’s put on too much fat.

I mean I made up for it my first bulk.  Put on 7 pounds and raised bench by 30, so it’s kinda evened out by now.

Yeah my bench kept plateauing, a lot.  I spent half my bulk on plateaus, so I guess that’s why it barely raised.  I’m doing a premade program this time around, so hopefully it gets better.  It’s just that I really don’t want to get fat and am kinda afraid of bulking now.  Plus I have lots of stretchmarks around my ass.