Jeff's training blog: 3 months, 30 pounds lost!

[veginator]

I probably won't have time or be compulsive enough to update this regularly, but I'll try to do so (and post progress photos--"before" pix are at the end of this) when I think there's significant progress. First a recap of my progress up until I joined VBBF last month.

I started getting serious about getting off my ass and working out in May of last year, when a few years of being relatively sedentary (unusual for me) resulted in my weight topping out at 198 pounds--some day I'll be able to say "Once I was an 198 pound weakling!" Since I still appeared in better shape than most of the people around my age (46) I knew, I didn't think of myself as obese I guess even though my BMI said I was (I'm only 5'7"). However, I certainly didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror, especially since up until about 10 years ago I was never above 160.

So I started running a lot (for me), working up to maybe 35-40 miles a week by early last fall, and lifting weights when the urge hit me and I felt like spending a few bucks for a day pass at the gym (i.e., pretty sporadically). I also tried to watch the calories, and ate very low fat for a few weeks. I got down to 175 or so by September and was pretty pleased with my progress, especially when I was able to break 30 minutes in the one and only 5k race I've run. The only trouble was, I kept getting nagging little injuries (plantar fascitis, ITB syndrome, and once a pulled calf muscle), never enough to make me stop running for months or anything, but enough to make it hard to put in the mileage I needed to. Long story short, with the nagging injuries and the three months of hell called "another typical Midwest winter," my level of physical activity dropped off considerably for a few months and before I knew it I was back up to a shade over 190.

Spring eventually came, and I dusted off the running shoes as well as hitting the weights and playing lots of basketball. Unfortunately, achilles tendonitis struck down my plan to eventually start running 50 miles a week. Still got in 2-3 hours of cardio a week on the elliptical machines at the gym and the occasional run or game of basketball or soccer with my son, but my injury as well as a crazy busy schedule at work kept my progress agonizingly slow. Even though the elliptical machines are supposed to be low-impact, I'd find that my heels would get really sore (bruises I guess) if I did more than about 20 minutes, plus even with my iPod I get really fricking bored on those things!

So, time to change my plan. About mid-June, I decided to start lifting more regularly, and figure out ways to vary the cardio so my injury would heal, which eventually resulted in my buying a new bike (yay!). I also started cutting way back on the fat in my diet again--not to the point of denying myself the occasional piece of chocolate or whatever, but enough to make the scales start moving downward again. A week or so later, I found this site and joined VBBF. These forums are great! Keeps me motivated and you guys are full of information and enthusiasm--and, just as important, vegans!

Currently I'm going to the gym 3 times a week and doing a full-body workout (largely machines but some free weights) most of the time. I supplement it with my free weights (though no bench!) at home when I can't make it to the gym or hit all the muscle groups. I'm running occasionally but mostly just doing a lot of different things (basketball, soccer, racquetball, and since I got my bike, cycling) to get in on average an hour of cardio a day. It helps that work has eased up and I have loads of free time to work out for the next couple of months!

I didn't write down details for every workout, so there are a few gaps, but here are a few highlights of my weight training progress so far this month:

7/3/08:

Inner Thigh: 8 x 212.5, 12 x 202.5
Outer Thigh: 12 x 137.5
Leg Press: 2 x 8 x 175
Leg Extension: 2 x 8 x 85
Leg Curl: 2 x 12 x 85
Calf Lift: 2 x 15 x 130
Incline Chest Press: 2 x 8 x 100, 6 x 115
Seated Row: 2 x 12 x 175, 8 x 175
Shoulder Shrug: 2 x 12 x 120
Shoulder Press: 12 x 60, 2 x 6 x 70
Seated Dip: 2 x 8 x 120
Low Back: 3 x 12 x 130
Dumbbell Curl: 2 x 12 x 25

7/8/08:
Bent-Over Row: 12 x 60, 12 x 70
Shoulder Press: 10 x 70, 8 x 70
Bench Press (free weights lying on the floor, since I have no bench!):
15 x 70, 16 x 70
Shoulder Shrugs: 15 x 100, 16 x 100
Dumbbell Curl: 6 x 30, 7 x 30

7/11/08:
Seated Dip: 10 x 130
Incline Press: 15 x 85, 6 x 92.5, 6 x 107.5
Seated Row: 2 x 8 x 175
Dumbbell Curl: 12 x 27, 10 x 27
Hammer Curl: 12 x 15
Shoulder Shrugs: 14 x 130, 3 x 12 x 130
Shoulder Press: 12 x 70, 8 x 70, 8 x 70
Crunches (Machine): 12 x 30
Low Back: 15 x 130
Leg Curl: 12 x 85
Leg Press: 2 x 12 x 145
Inner Thigh: 12 x 205, 10 x 220
Outer Thigh: 12 x 145
Leg Extension: 12 x 85

7/13/08:
Incline Press: 6 x 115, 6 x 107.5
Seated Row: 2 x 10 x 175
Dumbbell Curl: 3 x 6 x 30
Leg Curl: 10 x 90
Inner Thigh: 2 x 12 x 230
Outer Thigh: 2 x 12 x 145
Leg Extension: 2 x 12 x 92.5
Squats: 12 x 90


Okay, here are my first progress photos, taken around July 1. Weight was around 183 at the time. I'm really psyched about the progress I'm making now that I've started lifting regularly and maintained or increased my aerobic exercise. I've gone from 185 in mid-June to 178 as of this morning (July 14), and put on some muscle as well. More to come!

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[veginator]

I almost fainted when I stepped on the scale this morning. 176.8 pounds! I checked it 3 times just to be sure, as it can vary a little bit, and it was the same each time. I find it hard to believe that I could have lost over 1 lb. in 24 hours, weighing under the exact same conditions (empty stomach, wearing boxers or nothing, first thing in the morning). Yeah, I rode my bike a total of 3 hours yesterday, but that only burned around 600 net calories an hour. And yet, it's at 177.6 now, and that's only 3 hours after dinner. So maybe some of it was water weight loss, but maybe I really did lose the better part of a pound in a day.

So, if I wind up weighing about 177 again tomorrow morning, that means I'll have lost 8 pounds in the last month, five of it within the last 15 days. And despite the weight loss, my muscles are getting noticeably more toned than they were a month ago. So all in all I'm pretty ecstatic about my progress so far. I think taking weight training seriously rather than being haphazard about it, along with keeping up the cardio and really watching the fat in my diet (most of the time) is really paying off.

Workout on 7/15:

Seated Dip: 2 x 8 x 140 (new p.b.)
Hammer Curls: 2 x 12 x 22.5
Flat Bench Press: 12 x 95, 8 x 105
Dumbbell Curls: 6 x 30, 10 x 27.5 (I was tired by this point!)
Incline Situps: 8 with 25 lb. weight, 12 with 10 lb. weight
Lower Back
Machine: 20 x 130

And riding my bike to and from the gym as well as to and from work, so about 1.5 hours of moderate-intensity cardio.

[markc7]

Hey, I just want to say great work so far! Keep it up and those muscles will keep getting more and more tones even as the pounds drop off. Way to go.

[veginator]

Hey, I just want to say great work so far! Keep it up and those muscles will keep getting more and more tones even as the pounds drop off. Way to go.

Thanks!

It was slow going and a little frustrating up until recently when I found ways to work around my running injuries, but it took me 10 years to put on 50 pounds of fat, and it's going off a heck of a lot faster, so I can't complain about that.

[veginator]

7/16 workout:

Shoulder Shrugs: 2 x 10 (?) x 140
Bent-Over Rows: 2 x 10 x 90 (yay, lats!)
Standing Rows: 2 x 8 x 60--stopped on the second set because I felt something start to tingle around my right shoulder blade. Am I doing something wrong?
Shoulder Press: 2 x 12 x 70

Also did a 28-mile bike ride as well as ran errands on my bike for about another 6 miles. I need to do something to make biking more comfortable! Even with biking shorts, my butt was pretty sore after about 20 miles, and riding in running shoes started to kill my feet after a while--I had to slow down on the way back even though my legs weren't particularly tired. I definitely need to get some cycling shoes. Not sure what to do about the posterior issues--maybe a seat pad?

I'm starting to gravitate away from full-body workouts in one day. Yesterday my biceps and triceps were so shot from exercises focusing on them that there's no way I could have done shoulder and back exercises that would have done me any good, so I did them today instead.

Weight loss is still coming right along. 176.4 this morning, and 176.8 as of now.

I'm wondering what my body fat percentage is, but I'm not sure how much I trust the readings from my scales. They seem to go up and down much more drastically than my weight, and for reasons that don't make sense (e.g., losing a lot of water weight from sweating). Are calipers a more reliable method, and where would I get some?

[veginator]

As of this morning, weight was 175.0, down 8 pounds from the beginning of July when the photos at the beginning of this blog were taken. Also had a couple of personal bests with the weights the last couple of days. I didn't write them all down, but my best guess on the p.b. numbers is something like:
2 x 12 x 140 on shoulder shrugs
2 x 12 x 100 on the squat machine
10 x 100 and 12 x 90 on leg curl machine
2 x 12 x 100 on leg extension machine
2 x 12 x 157 on outer thigh machine

and 2 x 12 x 250 on inner thighs. I maxed out the machine except for a 7.5 lb. slide-down weight. What now?

Rapid progress is nice! I've got another month or so before work kicks into high gear again, so I'm going to take advantage of it!

[veginator]

More improvements to report:

Standing Shoulder Press: 2 x 12 x 70, 8 x 70
Bent-Over Rows: 2 x 12 x 90
Shoulder Shrugs: 14 x 140, 2 x 12 x 140

Weight is presently holding steady at 175-176 on an empty stomach. I think about a pound of this week's weight loss was due to a bit of indigestion I had earlier in the week; i.e., partly water weight rather than fat. Still, 7 pounds in 16 days is not bad! I'm probably just hallucinating, but I think I'm starting to see abs again.

Did very little aerobic exercise today and had a big, delicious dinner (Thai red curry with tofu and bell peppers...mmmm! ), so we'll see what the scale has in store tomorrow morning.

[veginator]

Have been weighing in at around 173-174 in the mornings the last 3-4 days, even though I've been eating lots! I've been going pretty heavy on the cardio (biking as well as soccer tennis and left-handed racquetball with my son), around 2 hours a day this week, so as a result I've continued to lose weight just a little bit despite overindulging some diet-wise.

Still unable to go running due to my Achilles injury--sufficient pain to make me want to stop begins about a mile after I start. Fortunately, stop-and-go exercise such as racquetball doesn't seem to inflame it very much, and biking is just fine. I saw a foot specialist this week and will begin physical therapy next week.

After a three-day rest from weight-lifting, did a full-body workout today except for a couple of areas that I'll get to later. I didn't remember a notebook so didn't write anything down, but here's what I remember:

Squat Machine: 12 x 120; 12 x 140 (another p.b.!)
Flat bench press: 12 x 95, 12 x 105
Dumbbell Curls: 20 x 20, 12 x 25, 12 x 27.5
Pullups: I managed three. Couldn't do any a few weeks ago when I weighed about 10 pounds more and had slightly less upper-body strength.
Inner Thigh: 12 x 257.5
Outer Thigh: 12 x 152.5
Leg Curl: 12 x 110
Seated Dip Machine: 12 x 140, but pretty sloppy form--arms were tired by then.
Calf Raises (done on squat machine): 12 x 180

Done later:
Shoulder Press: 2 x 8 x 75 (p.b.)
Bent-Over Row: 12 x 90; 12 x 100 (p.b.)
Shoulder Shrugs: 2 x 12 x 140

[pamela]

Have been weighing in at around 173-174 in the mornings the last 3-4 days, even though I've been eating lots! I've been going pretty heavy on the cardio (biking as well as soccer tennis and left-handed racquetball with my son), around 2 hours a day this week, so as a result I've continued to lose weight just a little bit despite overindulging some diet-wise.

It's amazing how fast our metabolisms can become, huh? I eat a tonne for my size, but I stay teeny tiny because my metabolism is so revved up. I'm only running half what I used to be it doesn't seem to matter.

Good work on your progress so far.

[veginator]

It's amazing how fast our metabolisms can become, huh? I eat a tonne for my size, but I stay teeny tiny because my metabolism is so revved up. I'm only running half what I used to be it doesn't seem to matter.

Heh, well, as long as I exercise at least an hour and a half a day and sometimes a lot more, yeah. But I managed to put on 15 pounds in 3 months last winter, and I wasn't even totally sedentary, so I don't know.

Good work on your progress so far.

Thanks!

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 172.4. That makes more than 10 pounds lost for the month. Except for a day here and there, I'm managing to stick pretty well to a diet in the neighborhood of 10% fat, which is very important since I've found that exercise alone isn't quite good enough for anything other than very gradual weight loss.

What I ate today, more or less:

Bananas, raw 3 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) 315.1 calories
Bread, rice bran 4 slice 262.4
Broccoli, raw 1 cup chopped 30.9
Quinoa, cooked 1.5 cup 333.0
Mushrooms, portabella, grilled 50 g 17.5
nutritional yeast sauce 1.5 Cup 324.0
Carrots, raw 0.5 cup chopped 26.2
tea, sweetened 2 cup 184.0
Vegetable oil, coconut 2 g 17.2
(This was part of a sauce with the mushrooms and some other calorically insignificant stuff not listed here.)
Potatoes, baked, flesh, without salt 2 290.2
Rice Protein, Nutribiotic 14 g 57.9

Total Calories: 1858
Calories from protein: 243 (13%)
Calories from carbohydrates: 1480 (80%)
Calories from fat: 135 (7%)

Only biked 12 miles total today because I spent about an hour at the bike shop buying and getting used to clip-in pedals. I did manage to get in a brief but fairly complete workout at the gym (supplemented, as usual, with some free weights at home):

Inner Thigh Machine: 12 x 257.5
Outer Thigh Machine: 12 x 160 (p.b.)
Squat: 12 x 140
Flat Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 110 (p.b.)
Pullups: Did four today, although on the last one I didn't make it 100% up.
Incline Situps (approx. 60 degree angle): 8
Incline Back Raises 12, w/25 lb. weight
Leg Extensions: 12 x 100
Hammer Curls: 12 x 30, with a slight assist from the other arm on some.
Barbell Curls: 12 x 60
Standing Shoulder Press: 6 x 80, 11 x 75, 8 x 75 (p.b.)
Shoulder Shrugs: 10 x 145, 2 x 12 x 140

[veginator]

Weight loss still progressing well: 170.4 this morning, down over 12 pounds from July 1!

I managed to get by with just a couple of bananas and a smoothie until dinner tonight, knowing that I would "pig out" when I had company over for dinner. Though I ate a ton for dinner, I still managed to keep it low-fat, even going so far as to make my own poppy seed salad dressing with lowfat silken tofu substituted for the massive amounts of oil in the store-bought poppyseed dressing that was in the frig. Hopefully eating low-fat foods will compensate for the large quantity
of wine I drank -- unusual for me, since I've hardly been drinking alcohol at all since I started getting serious about being fit.

Did about 29 miles on the bike today, keeping a pretty good pace (for me)--managed it in just under 2 hours, despite it being a pretty hilly ride. I started on physical therapy for my sore Achilles tendon today; hopefully it will get things healthy enough down there that I can start running again some time!

Since I had guests over for dinner, I only had time to get in a brief workout, which consisted of:

Barbell Curls: 10 x 60, 9 x 60, 2 x 8 x 60
Shoulder Press: 8 x 80, 8 x 75, 2 x 8 x 70
Bent-Over Rows: 12 x 100, 8 x 100

I took some progress photos this weekend and was debating whether they showed enough progress to be worth posting. In the end, I decided that although it wasn't huge (how could it be in only 4 weeks?), there was definitely some noticeably improved muscle tone and it made some difference that I'd lost about 10 pounds since the previous pics.

It's strange, my scales only show me losing fat, but both from the somewhat increased weights I'm lifting and from checking things out in the mirror, I find it implausible that I haven't added a little muscle mass the last few weeks. Maybe scales that measure body fat just aren't very accurate? Here are the photos, so anyone who views this (if they really want to ) can compare with the photos at the beginning of the blog and judge for themselves:

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 169.

Recent workout figures:

Squat: 12 x 140
Flat Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 115 (another p.b.)
Pullups: Did four complete ones today.
Incline Situps (approx. 60 degree angle): 8
Leg Extensions: 2 x 12 x 100
Leg Curls: 12 x 100
Barbell Curls: 10 x 60, 9 x 60, 2 x 8 x 60
Calf Raises: 2 x 20 x 155

Just biked a bit here and there the last couple of days, totaling about 20 miles.

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 167.2 pounds. Only 7.2 pounds to get to my initial goal weight, but I want to go well beyond that as far as fat loss and, when I'm satisfied with my body fat level, I'll start eating more calories and try to put on more muscle.

I've managed to lose a couple of pounds this week without trying all that hard. Totally stuffed myself at a Thai restaurant on my birthday Tuesday--although, for the first time in my life, I did without birthday cake! Last night, I ate a pizza and a half, although it was homemade and very low-fat (nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce, yum!).

I haven't been lifting as regularly the past week or so as I had the weeks prior to that, as I've had some muscle soreness and strains in various places that I wanted to get over. Amount of cardio is also down. Since my son has been over the last few days, although we've done something active every day (soccer, racquetball, basketball, biking), I haven't had any days with 2+ hours of exercise the past week.

In short, diet and exercise have still been pretty good the past week but I haven't been as strict/intense this week, so not surprisingly the rate of weight loss has slowed down a tad. I will get back to pushing myself hard the end of this week.

[robert]

Awesome blog!

Great work! All the best man!