Measuring Success

I wrote a few weeks about the challenges in measuring success while strength training. For months I had been weighing the same. No gains or losses according to the weigh scale. I "though" I was looking better but since I hadn't been mearing my size all over how would I know?

I decided the best way to measure my success is abviously not by looking at the weigh scale. For 15 bucks I went out and purchased a Body Fat Pencentage measuring tool. It's a very simple device that tells a lot about my overall fitness.

Now using it I can determine if I'm reaching my goals even if my weight doesn't change because my progress is measured in fat loss and muscle gain, not just weight loss.

For example, last week I lost 2 pounds of fat and gained one pound of muscle. On the weight scale it shows that I've only lost one pound. I'd rather know I lost 2 pounds of fat and made myself one pound stronger.

My goal is to get to 10% body fat (if possible) so that means I still have another 28 pounds of fat to go. How much you wanna bet by the time I get there that I'll weigh just about the same as I do now?

Newest Body Shot

It came to my attention that I officially got off my fat ass one year ago and got on a treadmill. A few months later I got into strength training.

Every time I take these shots I can hardly believe I'm looking at myself in the mirror. Talk about an exciting thing when you look at the reflection in the glass and you actually like what you see staring back. Not only that but you can hardly believe its YOU in the mirror.




I took this picture tonight of my shoulders, neck and back. This was the first time I had really seen my back muscles.

If I ended up looking like this after just a few months of strength training I can't wait to see what I look like in January when it's officially 1 year of Bowflexing....

Stay tuned...

Experts & Nutrition Supplimentation

I hate experts.

If I had listened to experts on how I should work out then I don't think I ever would have started. I know that if I had read some of the comments on the Body Building forums before buying my Bowflex that I would have never bought anything. I also know that a lot of times (unless you know them personally) experts are selling something.

I've been trying really hard to figure this slim down/build muscle thing on my own and I think (considering I know next to nothing on the subject) my results are looking quite good. Don't get me wrong, I try to read about fitness trends to see if there's anything useful but for the most part it's all bull.

Here's what I've learned that worked for me when it comes to strength training and muscle building. I'm not recommending this I'm just throwing it out there because everyone is different:

1. Eating right and building muscle is way more effective for me than eating right and doing cardio
2. Giving time for your muscles to heal is SO important. Sometimes I can get away with only having one day off in between Bowflex days. Most of the time it's two days. I say, if I only needed 1 day off I didn't work hard enough.
3. Get 'yer' protein. I tried eating 2 low-fat hamburgers for dinner or adding cheese. I found that it helped grow my muscles but I started to gain weight in my stomach area so I cut back on that and went to;
4. Chocolate Protein Shakes: They taste good and give a very low fat/high protein source. Don't use to replace a meal (this isn't Slim Fast). At this time in my life, I'd avoid those big "muscle man" shakes with magical mixtures to complicated for me to understand. Just a straight & simple whey protein drink.
5. Creatine is a great product if you can stomach it. Drinking a lot of water is more than likely just as good and generally cheaper but you'll have to piss more often. I don't take creatine.
6. I do 2 sets of unlimited reps. I aim for 12-15 reps in my first set and 8-12 reps for my 2nd set.
   
   HOWEVER if for some reason I'm able to do more than 15 I keep going until muscle failure. Next time, I'll increase the weight.
7. Always work your muscles to failure.
8. After my 2nd set I'll lower the weight to something less intense (usually take off 30% of the weight) and just go until failure for a third time. I don't bother counting this. I just go until I can't do it any more

Anyway, for what it's worth that's what I've learned. Not a whole lot more than common sense stuff but it's more than I had going in.

I'm sure my ideas will evolve and change again but I like the simplicity of what I'm doing now. It keeps it easy to remember what to do and fun.

Get your hands off my McBelly

Let's face it, we've all eaten at McDonald's or Burger King or some other fast food joint.

Although it may taste ok it is simply not nutritious at all. In fact, it's bad for you.

I recently heard about the "McDonald's Diet" where people eat exclusively at McDonald's to lose weight (I guess they needed to do something after Jared lost weight at Subway and following the Super Size Me documentary).

Even with these restaurants coming up with their "Healthy Choice" menus they are still bad for you. Ceasar salad can be just as bad as a fried hamburger because of the dressing.

I'm not arguing why they sell the stuff they sell...obviously there is profit in it. But why are they so focused on selling people unhealthy food and saying it's healthy? If they want to attract people who are interested in health then actually SELL HEALTHY FOOD.

Work In Progress

I've been feeling kind of down lately about my whole workout routine.
I look at the changes in my body and I like what I see but let me be as candid as possible.

Yes I've made HUGE progress. I'm more slim and I've built more muscle. In fact I ran about 10.5 K yesterday for and beat my wife for the first time. That felt like an accomplishment.

I guess that's the thing I've been struggling with though. I find that with strength training it's a progressive experience. You perform a certain exercise with a certain weight then you move on progressively making it harder. There is no "goal" or benchmark. I have no idea where I stand compared to other people so I'm solely benchmarking against myself and although it's great to see the progress there is still no finish line to cross.

10 K under my belt

I'm very proud to post that I ran 10K (that's 6.21 miles) on Sunday for the first time.

My wife and I are still training for the Stephen McClatchey 10th Anniversary Memorial Run so I knew, sooner or later, I'd have to actually run 10K.

We've been working up to it weekly. It started with 5K, then 7K then 8K to our 10K on Sunday.

I wish I could say I "ran" the whole way. Sadly I did not. My endurance was fine but my legs had no more juice by the 8.5 kilometer range and I simply had no more strength in my muscles to run the rest of the way so I switched between walking and running for the final stretch. Although I was disappointed in that I was pleased to see that even with my walking I still averaged about a 10 minute mile and the whole run took me just over an hour to complete.

Although drained I was giddy the rest of the day knowing I would in fact be able to complete this run without falling on my face in embarassement. I didn't know I had it in me to WALK 10K let alone run it. I've pretty much given up on the notion of racing my wife though who seems to have taken to running like a fish to water. I'm so proud of her too.