Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

With relatives who don't exercise at all in town the last few days, it's been a bit of a challenge either to stick to my diet or get in enough of a workout, but I've done what I can. I've eaten out 4 times in the last 3 days. Tried to get in as much cardio as I could (rode bike 30 miles Sunday, 15 Monday, 39 Tuesday) to make up for it, but at best I was stuck on 167-ish in the mornings when I weighed myself the last few days.

Yesterday I got back into the swing of things in terms of both diet and exercise. Did 44 miles on the bike, and did an upper-body workout at the gym. Numbers:

Barbell curls: 2 x 12 x 60, 8 x 60
Shoulder Press: 3 x 12 x 70
Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 115 (slight assist from spotter on last two reps)
Back: 20 x 130
Incline Situps: 10, with about a 50-degree incline
Pushups: 12
Pullups: 4 1/2? I almost got up for a fifth one, but not quite.

And the result of all that working out...165.8 lb. this morning, down over 17 lb. from July 1 and down 24 lb. since March. I have no idea if it's accurate or not, but my scale says I'm at 25.5% body fat. If that's an accurate number, then I need to lose about 1 more pound to officially be out of the "overweight" category in terms of body fat percentage. I'd say I probably need to lose about 20 more pounds of body fat to get some good definition in my abs, but I'm over halfway there from where I was in March, and with a shirt on you can't tell there's any flab there at all.

No new records to log as far as weight lifting is concerned. Managing to maintain strength in most areas, gradually gaining in some, while I shed body fat. Did push-ups (12), shoulder shrugs, and bent-over rows yesterday.

Weight this morning: 165.0 lb., down 18 from July 1 and 25 from March.

My scale says I'm at 25.3% body fat. Although that's probably not very far off (I'd say it's a tad high judging from looking at pictures of men who say they're x% body fat), I have to say that at least this brand of scale (Homedics) is completely useless for accurately measuring body fat. If I exercise and sweat a lot, it registers my body fat percentage as dramatically lower, by exactly the amount you'd expect if I'd lost all that weight as fat instead of the majority of it being water (sweat). And this morning I measured my body fat a second time, after I'd had two bananas and a cup of tea for breakfast. Now it says I'm at 25.9% body fat! Yeah, I have sugar in my tea, but there's no way I gained a pound of fat in two hours from consuming around 300 calories!

Rode 44 miles on the bike yesterday. Will probably try for 50 today.

Managed to do 12 reps of 115 lb. on the bench press. Did 8 and 4 reps the next two sets. Otherwise, nothing beyond what I've done before. I did feel good about still being able to do 4 pull-ups after my first set of the bench press. Worked most of my body tonight, except for abs and the exercises I did yesterday.

Decided to forego the long bike ride today due to various errands I needed to run, but did most of them on the bike, so I got in 16 miles.

No weights yesterday (note to self: remember to do abs soon), just cardio and lots of stretching and self-massage using the foam roller I just got. I've heard that foam rollers are really good for working the kinks out of tight muscles and tendons, so I'm hoping it will help with my slight Achilles tendonitis and tight iliotibial bands.

Rode the bike 30 miles in 2:18. Did the first 5 and the last couple at a very easy warm-up/cool down pace, probably not much more than 10 mph, and pushed pretty hard most of the other 23, over some pretty rugged (for Indiana) hills. Average heart rate over the 30 miles was 130, with a high of 165. (I think my max hr is between 175 and 180.) I think I've identified a key to conquering "sore butt syndrome" on longer rides: Riding out of the saddle frequently. It's a lot harder in terms of the effort you exert (since you're in a higher gear and going faster) to ride this way, but not only is it more of a workout, it helped a huge amount in terms of my not having a sore ass after 2+ hours on the bike!

Weight this morning: 163.6.

Rode the bike 23.5 miles today through the hilly southern Indiana countryside. Didn't push quite as hard as yesterday, but didn't take it easy any, either, aside from a minute or two water break halfway through. Average heart rate: 125, max: 163, average speed 14.1 mph.

I also ran for the first time in about a month! Ran 4 miles at about a 10 min/mile pace and walked the last half mile. Thankfully, my Achilles didn't hurt very much during the run and was fine afterwards. I think I should be fine to run a 5k next month.

Gained some weight since yesterday, probably because I ate Ethiopian food, which is very high in fat, for dinner last night. However, I was a good boy today and consumed only about 2000 calories with only about 6% of them from fat, and managed to mostly stay away from simple carbs (just one cup of sweet tea), unless you count fruit. Hopefully by tomorrow morning things will be back on track weight-wise.

Didn't do a long bike ride today, just rode around for a couple of errands, maybe 10 miles or so. At the gym, I worked legs, chest, and biceps. The workout was:

close-grip pullups: 5 (a new p.b.)
flat bench press: 10 x 115 (last 2 reps assisted), 8 x 115 (last 2 reps assisted)
hammer curls: 12 x 25
barbell curls: 2 x 12 x 60
back raises (not sure if that's what it's called?): 12, with 25 lb. weight
squat machine: 8 x 180, 12 x 160
hamstring curl: 12 x 90
leg extension: 2 x 12 x 92.5
inner thigh: 12 x 257, 12 x 250
outer thigh: 12 x 175, 12 x 160

Weight this morning: 163.4. About 19.5 lb. lost since July 1. Diet has been good the last 2 days--today I consumed maybe 2100 calories, with only 4-5% of it being from fat.

Did a 50-mile bike ride, so it's highly likely that I burned more calories than I took in! We'll see what the scale has in store in the morning.

And the scale this morning says...162.8, 6/10 of a pound less than yesterday morning. The numbers seem to add up--I estimate that I took in about 2100 calories yesterday and burned at least 4000, and it takes about a 3500 calorie deficit to lose 1 pound.

So, I can now say I've lost a shade over 20 pounds since July 1, about 27 since March, and about 35 since my peak rotundity about a year and a half ago. I've improved at least slightly in almost all my weightlifting numbers since July 1, so I'm hoping that means I've lost only body fat and not any muscle mass. Even if I haven't gained significantly in lean body mass (the body fat readings on my scales suggest that I haven't, while the mirror tells me I've gained at least some), my main priority right now is still shedding fat.

I think I've got maybe another 20 pounds to go before I see some ab definition. I'm looking forward to getting there and eating more, and seeing if this bulking thing really works (for me)! I must confess I've always been a little envious of guys who were stronger and more muscular than me (though not particularly of the "Incredible Hulk" look of guys like Ronnie Coleman) and still wonder whether my body can do that. Then again, I've seen in people's "Before" pictures here on VBBF that some of you guys who are pretty well-built now started out a lot skinnier than I was 20 years ago when I weighed 135!

Biked 28 miles this morning. Did a few sets of shoulder presses (6 x 80, 8 x 75, 8 x 70), but haven't done anything else because my forearms were a bit sore for some reason--maybe the 50-mile ride yesterday.

Weight this morning: 161.4. Almost 22 pounds down since July 1! I'm down more than 10 since my last set of progress photos, so maybe in a few more pounds I'll have to take some more.

My scales say body fat is at 24.3%. As I've said before, I think they probably read a little high, but my guess is that the method involving taking neck and waist measurements, which pegs me at around 20.5%, is off in the other direction, so I'm probably somewhere in between. In any case, it's going down! And I'm getting stronger, so even though evidence of it is not showing up yet in the body fat readings, I think I'm managing to put on a little muscle mass while I'm shedding all this fat.

I did squats with free weights for the first time yesterday. Not wanting to take any chances, I was a little conservative with the weight and went with 135 for 2 sets of eight reps. I felt like I could have probably done about 20 pounds more for that number of reps, but I won't try that unless I have somebody to spot me. Don't remember all the numbers exactly, but roughly my workout was:

squats 2 x 8 x 135
leg curl mach. 12 x 100
leg extension 12 x 100
inner thigh 2 x 12 x 250
outer thigh 12 x 175
shoulder shrugs 2 x 12 x 140
pec machine I have no idea, I think it was about 55 for 12 reps.
bent-over row 12 x 90
seated row machine 2 x 12 x 175
pull-ups 5; almost made 6!

I didn't ride the bike yesterday other than running a quick errand due to neck and forearm soreness which I attribute mainly to riding a lot of miles earlier in the week. Instead, I did 25 minutes on the elliptical machine at pretty high intensity (average hr: 153), and then later I went for a run. Did 3.5 miles at a pretty good pace (< 10 min/mile) for me and walked another mile to cool down. The portion of the run that came after my warmup was at a faster pace than I did a 5k race back last September, and I felt like I could have run significantly faster (hr monitor said I averaged 140, whereas I averaged near 160 during the race last fall). My resting pulse is getting freaky slow--upper 40s--while for a given exercise intensity it's about 5 beats less than it was a few months ago. So, I guess that means I'm getting in shape!

I'm still not completely over my Achilles tendonitis, but the pain was pretty mild and intermittent during my run and went away completely during the last mile or so. I feel confident that as long as I keep my running mileage low and focus mainly on biking for cardio, I'll be in good shape to run an all-out 5k in the fall.

Biked 27 miles, ran 3 yesterday. Weight is up about a pound this morning, but I don't think it's fat gain, probably just more food and water in my system this morning than yesterday morning. I did, however, drink too many sugary drinks yesterday, including a couple of glasses each of lemonade, tea, and wine. So I doubt I lost much if any fat despite the large amount of cardio. Back on track with the diet today!

I just wanted to show my support as I've just recently found your thread. Keep at that insane cardio and I'm sure in no time your gonna start seeing the bf% melt away. I've personally experienced where my bf% would stay at a certain number for upwards of 3-4wks, then in the following weeks drop 1.2-1.8%/week. Then it would, for a better lack of a word, plateau again. This trend seems to be the way my body reacts. So don't be discouraged if your seeing higher numbers than you expect or slight fluctuation. As it'll all come off eventually, if you keep up the hard work.

Thanks for the support! Fortunately, with the amount of cardio I've been doing and how careful I've been about fat consumption the past couple of months (sugar I'm not as careful about, but more so than I used to be), there have been a lot more days where I've made progress than when I haven't made any or regressed. My window of time where I wasn't working very many hours and could do as much cardio as my body could take has come to an end, though, so I guess I'll have to learn to deal with somewhat slower progress.

My son unexpectedly had two out-of-town soccer games yesterday and I was busy with work last night and this morning, so I haven't had a lot of exercise the last few days. Rode my bike into the shop this morning for a tuneup and walked/jogged back home, and played basketball for about 45 minutes Saturday, so that's a total of 1 1/2 hours of exercise the last 3 days. I'm hoping to get to the gym later today after I pick up my bike from the shop.

Weight in the mornings has been holding steady at 162 the last 2-3 days. I haven't measured body fat lately because I don't presently seem to be putting on enough muscle mass for body fat change to be significantly independent of body weight.

Weight this morning is back at 161.4, after being up in the 162-163 range the last few days when I wasn't exercising a great deal. Still hoping to break 160 by the end of the month, but we'll see whether I can get in enough working out to do it. I seem to need lots of exercise for the weight to melt off; good diet is just enough to basically maintain things.

Yesterday I rode my bike into the repair shop (about a mile), walked home, walked to pick it up, and rode back. Later I rode to the gym (2.5 miles), and did the following workout there:
squats: 8 x 135; 2 x 12 x 135
bench press: 9 x 115; 7 x 115
pullups: 2 x 5
barbell curls: 8 x 60, 12 x 50
leg extension: 12 x 100
leg curl: One set of 12 with most reps at 100, some at 90 and some at 80.
inner thigh: 2 x 12 x 250
outer thigh: 2 x 12 x 175

Biked 28 miles yesterday, about 20 of it at a pretty fast pace for me, averaging about 16 mph going out to Lake Monroe which is a ride with more downhills than uphills, and 14.5 coming back, with an average heart rate of 130.

Weight this morning: 159.2. Body fat according to the scale: 23.6%. According to the Navy's method (measurements of waist at navel, neck just below Adam's apple, and height), it's at 20.4%. I don't know which figure is more accurate, but whatever the actual number, the one on the scale which is the one I've been tracking all along has gone down about ten percentage points since July 1, and weight is down slightly under 24 pounds.

Yo, great progress man!

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