trenman’s BodyBlog

Well it’s been about 5 months since my last blog and I have to say that since then I did figure out wher the weight went.  It has really started to show up in my core my waist size has gone up about an inch and a half as has my abdominal area and chest, but this is not due to exercise or a lack of exercise.  I’ve been running pretty regularly, actually my running has improved quite a bit, although I may never have the legs to be an outdoor runner, running on the pavement even the indoor track really puts stress on my knees, shins and even calves.  But I do fine on the treadmil.  My eating has pretty much gone to crap.  I’ve had a lot of obsticles in my life for the last 6 months and have not been making time to prepare my meals nor have I been tracking my diet.  I use to keep a diet diary which, I may not have mentioned in my past blogs because I must have overlooked its importance and usefulness in my diet managemant.  I started to get away from the journal because, for one, I never really looked back at it, unlike my workout logs which I would look at from time to time to see my progress I never took a 2nd glance at my diet diary.  I also thought I could just keep track of my eating in my head.  Well that kind of reminded me of my whole reason for starting the diary.  It was accountability, if Im writing down my food intake then I can hold myself accountable for what I am doing and correct any habbits that are going to hinder me from attaining any goals. 

I’v started tracing and preplanning my meals again am hoping to drop a few pounds and try to get back under 10% BF by mid february, about 10lbs should do it I’m at 186lbs right now and around 13%bf.  I would mainly just like to get back down to where I was about 8 months ago when I finished my weighloss phase of my plan.  I did a lot of cardio and core building exercises through the summer and fall to build my core muscles but I didn’t get into the wieght room as much as I would have liked.  In addition to my fitness goals I’ve also been going to school part time to work on another degree, I decided last semester to take a full load which is also what Im planning to do this semester as well to try to finish the program by the end of the year.  Which put a lot of demand on my time, more then I realized it would.

I’ve also had a lot of things going on in my life that I would rather not mention but l have been spending a lot of time eating out and going to the gym.  Sounds kind of counter intuitive but like I’ve said before I like to exercise and I like to eat.  So a really good workout makes me hungry, I guess one habbit feeds the other.

 Well it a new year and so It’s time to set some new years goals.  I finished last year at or maybe a little lower then the weight I stared it at, which truthfully was my original intention weighwise, and I reached my year starting goal for running.  I wanted to be able to run a certain distance in a certain time.  As I said I’m no marathon runnner nor would I plan on winnning any 5k or 10ks but as I said I have never been a runner nor has cardio been a big strength of mine, I wanted to strenthen a weakness and now I have.  NOw I think its time to move on, I have done a lot of reading and research in different areas and think it’s time to set some new goals.

I hope everyone has a great 2008 and good luck to all.

Its been a while so I just thought I would jot down a few thoughts about my fitness goals.  I havent posted any new photos or updated my stats for the last few months because I really havent been tracking my workouts or physical stats.  I’ve checked measurements a few times but I haven’t really noticed any big changes.  I have been a little laxed on my diet but not out of control.  I like eating and certain foods are hard to resist but for the time being since I’m not on a specific program I try to keep 80 to 90% percent of what I eat healty and if I splurge I try to stay clean for at least a week after. 

 About two months ago I was experiencing pain and excessive fatigue in my legs (shins and knees).  So at the advice of my doctor I decreases the intensity of my workouts (running approx. 6.7 mps for about 35minutes).  I am new to running (about 4 months) so I began to switch up my workouts incorperating eliptical and varying my run speeds.  I also began takiing a different calcium suppliment and I am now back where I was before with my running and feel great.  I have put on about 10lbs in the last 4 to 5 months but I have not noticed a big difference in my fat %.  I’m not 100% sure where the weight went but I’m not to concerned.  I am satisfied with my "off season" diet and weight and I am really enjoying the running.  Which brings me to my concern.

 My real fitness goal was to eventually build muscle and strength but I’m procrastinating.  I’m still doing cardio and I have been working on my core muscles and overcoming some obstacles.  So I havent completely given up on my goals but I am concerned about loosing the fitness, cardio vascular, level I’ve achieved so far.  Cardio was never a strength of mine, I was always more into weight lifting, and so I set out to strengthen a weakness.  It’s been a long hard road and I very happy with my accomplishments, which is why I think I am apprehensive about starting something new.  I have a strategy for transitioning from cardio strengh training but It is going to push me on to the late fall before I start my weight training. 

 My big concern is that my body may not be physically ready to begin a weight training regime, and if I abandon my cardio routine and incur an injury then I’m concerned my momentum will be lost.

 Oh well,  Nothing to it but to do it, right!

I’m not a nutritionist or physiology expert but I do have a strong science back ground and I use my basic knowledge of these things to try to get a better understanding of my body as I try to impove my physical self. 
 So with that having been said I want to talk about some things I have noticed about my weight fluctuations over the last few months.  Actually it’s more of a life long thing but in the last six months I have been eating healthier and I have been able to get a better idea of what happens to my body when I eat certain foods.  When I’m talking about weight what I am referring to mostly is my body’s hydration level.  I think a lot of people only think of body composition in terms of fat and lean body mass and forget about water.  Which is a big reason why, I believe, so many people get discouraged when they try to loose weight and don’t see the numbers fall the way they would like them to.
 This was always my mindset when I didn’t really know that much about body composition.  I still don’t really but I have noticed a few things.  I recently completed a weight loss program that is comprised of 3 phases.
Phase 1:  Weight Loss.  This is the part where you calculate your BMR and design a balanced diet plan designed to put your metabolism in fat burning mode.  It is a balance of all of the food groups not a fad diet or starvation thing.
Phase 2: Stabilization.  After you loose all of the weight you set out to loose you slowly start to increase your servings of certain food groups to slowly slow down your metabolism.  That way you don’t wither away or shock it into storing fat, I’m not 100% sure if that is how that works but it sounded good.  So that is what I did.
  In my case I wanted to loose 20lbs so I dedicated myself to 10 weeks.  I wound up increasing my food intake because I was doing 4 to 5 days of cardio at 1.5 hours each session so I wound up loosing a lot more weight.  But the idea was 2lbs per week.  My numbers must have been off.
Phase 3: Maintenance.  The final stage and where I’m at now is maintenance.  I go in and talk to a nutritionist once a week and find out more about nutrition and how things affect my body.  As well as try to keep my weight where I want it.  I am interested in gaining weight but I’ve found that when I increase my eating I wind up feeling shitty and loose energy.  So for now I’m just trying to stay where I’m and keep my energy levels where they are so that I can keep exercising and pushing myself to set and reach new goals.
I told you all that so that I could say this.  I’ve been holding my weight steady around 175lbs for the last couple months now.  Some days I’m down to 173 and I’ve been up to 180.  The variable in all these fluctuations has been my diet.  I have bit of an affinity for junk food.  I don’t deny myself these little pleasures but I don’t worship them or go to junk food cabinet when I’m depressed or angry, although sometimes I want to.  No this was about 2 weeks of vacation and taking my kids out to dinner for father’s day, or they took me out.  Plus movies and popcorn.  Hey, what can I say, I work hard and I play hard.  Or as my nutritionist said when you go over your go over big, but you seem to bounce back well.
The bouncing back is what I’m getting at.  One of the big things that has changed over the last few years that has made more of a positive impact on my life then anything is the way I think about things.  When my weight goes up I don’t just assume that all is lost and that I am on this downward spiral back into obesity.  No, the first thing I look at is my diet.  I’ve realized that most of what I’m looking at when I look at the scale, in terms of change, is water not fat.  I weigh myself pretty often, not out of obsession but to better understand my body’s patterns.  I know that my digital scale that calculates my BF that my weight is lower and my BF is higher in the morning.  And throughout the day the weight goes up and the BF goes down.  Hydration is the variable here not fat.  I do this so that I know what to expect when I step on the scale after a day of eating heavy or not eating.  It doesn’t happen to often but the truth is I do have a tendency to let the numbers bother me because of all of the hard work I put in.  So rather then beat myself up over it I try to understand it. 
Last Monday I weighed myself in the morning and my weight was 178lbs.  I have been very strict with my diet, supplements, and water and now I’m down to 173lbs, that was after about an hour of cardio so I know that I’m basically in the ball park of where I was before the eating spree.  I also know that the numbers were up due to water not fat.  I am pretty confident that my metabolism will recover but to be sure I will stay strict for at least a 3 more days, I know that eating healthy is a lifestyle not a fad but by saying that I will be strict for a few more days it gives me something to shoot for.  I really do enjoy the buffalo wings and pizza but I don’t overdo them I have 3 kids that always seem to bring these things home from the grandparents so the temptation is always there.  I try to take things one or 2 days at a time.  Setting small goals and working towards them is one of my little motivational tactics.
So from now on when you see your numbers go up on the scale ask yourself are you gaining fat or have you been eating things to make your body retain more water.  A lot of food we eat is packed with sodium which I am told will cause your body to retain water.  So don’t beat your self up or get discouraged from your weight loss goals.  Just take things one day at a time and get back on track.
Good luck to all on reaching your fitness goals!
“Life isn’t about haw hard you can hit.  It’s about how hard you can get hit and still get back up.”

Welcome to the Bodybuilding.com BodyBlogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!