Hey "The Gym".

This is my workout/weight loss tracking/suggestion/accountability thread.

As you may know, last March I was at 331 lbs. That's likely down from more like 345 (I had moved in Feb and was walking about 3 mile or so a day for the past 3 months).

Since then I've dropped about 70 lbs to my current total of 260. This was mostly just from more walking, much better eating, and the workout plan that I'll outline below (I'd been in the gym a few days a week in Nov and December, and got really dedicated and about 4-5 days a week from Jan on. (I got a car, and I'm not walking to the bus stop anymore, although my plan is to walk on days off from the gym).

My goals are mostly to drop weight. However, one of the things that happened in the period between March and Jan is that I lost a lot of muscle, so I'd like to get that back again.

Here's my current work out plan. I've been more or less sticking with this for a while.

Working out Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.

I start with 20 minutes of cardio on crossramp at the 16 setting (which works the gluts and calves) keeping up a rate of about 155-165 strides per minute and a heat rate between 130-145 (this really varies by how much energy I have), and then another 10 on the bike or the treadmill that’s typically less vigorous than the crossramp.

Then it's lifting. I was alternating "arms and chest" and "legs and back" days, but I just changed that to a rotation of "arms and chest", "legs" and "back and stomach".

Here's the various machines I'm using and the current weights I'm at. When I'm lifting, my goal is always 3 sets of 10.

Arms and Chest:

Chest Press: 85
Biceps Curl: 75
Triceps Extension: 75
Shoulder Press: 40
Lat Raise: 70
Fly: 110

Legs:

Leg Sled: 360
Calf Press: 280
Leg Extension: 120
Leg Curl: 120
Adductor: 100

Back and Stomach:

Row: 100
La Pull: 100
Back Extension: 260 (max on the machine, I do 3 sets of 15 for this)
Ab Crunch: 140
Torso Rotation: 135
Pullover: 110
Rear Fly: 110

Diet/Schedule:

I wake up about 5:30, on the bus and at work by about 7, that’s when I eat breakfast.

Breakfast is typically: Two pieces of whole wheat toast with lowfat, no sugar peanut butter and either low sugar jam or honey, a light yogurt and a bowl of some kinda whole grain non-sugar cereal with 2% milk.

Lunch/Dinner: Typically leftovers for lunch, you can see what I’m cooking for dinner on my blog. Typically it’s going to be some kinda lowish fat meat and two veggies.
I’ve been having a protein shake made with Whey Protein, one banana, and frozen fruit after dinner. This is in part to quench my sweet tooth.

Questions and comments:

1- What jumps off the page at me is that my upper body is horrible, especially chest press, but my lower body is almost maxing out some of the machines. I assume that's called "carrying around a fatass for a long time", but I'm not sure.

2- I've been told by a few people that I should be doing the lifting first before cardio. My reasoning for not doing this in the past has been that it’s the lifting I really enjoy, so by forcing myself through the cardio, the lifting is a reward. How much of an impact is this, and is it mos def something I should change? Should I still have like a 10 minute warm-up if I do that?

3- People are going to suggest squats, I hate squats. In high school I was doing them bad and ended up emptying both sides of the bar on the floor and it freaked me out. I’m not very comfortable doing them, so I like to avoid. Also, I strongly prefer to stick with machines over free weights.

4- So what do we think of my plan? Is anything painfully misplaced? What should I add, what should I drop? My gym is pretty damn nice (LA Fitness) so if there's something you suggest, they've probably got it.

5- Judge the diet. Is breakfast good? Is the shake a good/bad idea ?

My intent with this thread is to update it weekly with how often I’ve worked out, values for what I’m lifting, weight loss, and pictures (yes, topless Dids pictures!!).

Pictures for the purpose of progress tracking:






Thanks in advance for the help guys. I think this forum is going to rule if we can all work together to keep on track.

I'm not a workout expert or anything, reading posts like this (assuming you stay on) will be interesting.

The pics of food you posted in EDF look awesome, you can still eat well on a diet LDO.

Dids,
Congratulations on losing so much weight!

Dids why don't you like free weights? If the only way you will move weights is if they are attached to a machine thats fine, but you will make much bigger gains in every respect by leaving them behind you.

For your diet, have you looked into the Zone diet? It looks like you are getting too much carbs (especially for breakfast) and not enough fat.

Also, if I were you I would try to start eating much closer to my caloric needs. Dropping 70lbs in a year means you were probably on average burning around 700 calories a day more than you were eating. I wouldn't try and maintain anywhere near that pace-maybe aim for something like losing a pound every 2 weeks which will also allow you to actually make some strength gains.

Either way congrats on some awesome progress so far!

Congrats and keep it up! I started off at Christmas at where you are now. Since then I've averaged about 2 lbs a week of steady loss by doing around 4 to 5 hours a week of cardio. Started with 45 minutes on my road bike on a trainer or between 1 and 2 hour Dance Dance Revolution sessions and getting rid of a lot of junk in my diet. I bought a heart rate monitor in Jan and have been seeing the calories per workout go up as I've dropped weight, which is nice, means my intensity is getting better, I'm now averaging around 700 calories an hour of cardio, more with the cycling less with the DDR.

My typical meals look like this:
breakfast: During the week a packet of instant oatmeal and some coffee.
snacks at work: This is what killed me before, too much crap. I now bring a yogart and yogart smoothie to work for snacking. They are organic and don't have HFCS.
Lunch: Can of the Healthy Chunky soup. A couple times a month I'll go out for lunch, but this is down from several times a week.
Dinner: It's usually been ground chicken based for the last couple weeks. Sometimes some pasta or a healthy Choice frozen dinner.
After work snack: Usually a yogart smoothy or maybe a cheese casedea.
On the weekends I usually just have more coffee for breakfast then do the cardio then have something for lunch, usually something from above, and something small for dinner, I don't eat much on the weekends.

My goal is 230 by my 40th b-day in June (which I'm about 2 weeks ahead of) then 200 by the end of the year. Sometime after June I'll worry about doing something besides the bike riding for muscle. At the moment I want to be smaller and am not worried about being stronger.

Smiley,

Fat loss rate is fine for someone morbidly obese. 3-5lbs per week is fine and std when you're carrying that much fat.

Unless kyle suggests other, I'd think this woudl be better served in your own thread.

Not trying to hijack just showing another way down.

3-5 wow. Do you think that is still maintainable for Dids? I just feel like a slower and steadier approach is better because it is easier to maintain, but I'm not an expert on dieting.

Dids,

Cool thread. Look forward to some of the responses.

What about working in a couple days of something along the lines of high intensity interval training (maybe at the expense of less of the cardio you're currently doing)? I'm not sure how feasible that is at your weight, but something like some wind sprints could be beneficial.

The rate will slow obv as he gets skinnier.

As long as his BF% is >35% or so. I doubt he'll have trouble maintaining it. He's more fat than Dids ATM. Well he might've passed it now. Before there was almost no question.

Thremp,

What do you mean by "more fat than Dids". You're talking % bodyfat?

I haven't had that measured, I think I can do that at the gym, I should check (and then bring a stick to beat away the [censored] trainers trying to sell me [censored]).

Also Thremp, setting aside whatever beef we had in the past, Kyle's said you know a ton about this stuff, so I'd love your input.

Dids,

Yes, I meant BF%.

There are better resources on the interwebs, but people don't want to use them so I'm trying to do my little part.

"For your diet, have you looked into the Zone diet? It looks like you are getting too much carbs (especially for breakfast) and not enough fat."

Smiley,

This doesn't make sense to me. For a person dropping weight and looking for endurance in their workout which Dids has somewhat and will keep adding more and more to his cardio, complex carbohydrates are what he needs for glycogen storage. If Dids were non-active all these carbs would be a problem but they are stored energy and essential for his workouts and as his intensity increases he will just need more and more carbs since ATP is used quickly (has a limited ability to store carbs), this is different for fat. You can do more high intensity work (endurance) with a high carb diet. Shouldn't his diet, considering the person, be about proper diet that gives him the best workout? I mean he isn't all protein and fats to get swole like some people here, this is about increasing aerobic ability and lifting. Thoughts?

Dids I always thought the guy in your picture w/ the cockatiel was you.

Now I don't know what to believe anymore.

EDIT: Oh and kick ass job w/ the diet man.

Dids, free weights are far superior to machines, but I can understand your reluctance to do more intimidating exercises like bench press or squat where you need a spotter/there is a perceived risk of injury.

I'd suggest trying out free weights for easier exercises and see how you like it. If you try them, I think you will find that they are more enjoyable, and then you might be willing to try more intimidating free weight exercises like the squat and bench press.

One exercise that I would highly reccomend is the standing overhead press using a barbell:



This is a great shoulder exercise and also hits the triceps. But it also improves your balance and requires you to stabilize your core. Moreover, it will give you some experience pushing free weights (ie bench press) and standing with weight (ie squats). And since you will probably be using pretty light weight (just start out with the 45 lb bar and see how it feels), you shouldn't feel too intimidated.

Hell, even do bicep curls with free weights. That's pretty much the easiest free weight exercise there is. There's many other great free weight exercises that you can do that are not too challenging if you want more suggestions.

I'd turn your "chest and arms" day into chest and triceps day, and your back day into back biceps day, and do abs on your leg day. The philosophy behind doing triceps on your chest day is that most chest exercises also hit your triceps to some extent, so if you also do triceps that day you will hit them fully and give them a full week to recover before working them again. Same reasoning for doing back the same day as biceps.


Oh, and as far as diet goes, from glancing at your cooking threads it seems you eat a lot of fish and vegetables, which is fantastic. As far as breakfast goes, I highly recommend oatmeal. It's a much better source of fiber than wheat bread, which is probably processed and enriched with bad stuff.

I can't debate the actual mechanisms about how diet works as I simply don't know enough. I do know that programs like crossfit sing the praises of Zone eating (which is 40/30/30 or therabouts of protein/fat/carbs). I think AZK has done a lot of reading about this subject.

Re; fuel for high intensity activities: Dids isn't doing enough activity to really NEED much in the way of carbs - if he was an olympic swimmer, triathlete, marathon runner etc. etc. than yes a high carb diet is better. As it stands light aerobic activity followed by lifting won't deplete glycogen stores enough that aren't easily replenished with a post workout shake with some sugars.

In terms of breakfast, one of the big changes for me when I started dropping was focusing on having a big breakfast that would keep me going throughout the day (my old breakfast habits were horrible and full of all the wrong carbs).

I just started adding the toast, mostly so that I could get some protein in the morning.

to be honest, i would drop the toast. if you get enough energy from the other stuff, the toast isnt necessary, the protein shake is enough, along with your dinner.

The shake's at night thought. The point of the toast is the benefits of protein specifically in the morning.

Protein in toast?

I think 1 whole egg + 3 egg whites would be a way better option for you.

Peanut Butter, toast is just a delivery method.

I'm doing this at work, so eggs aren't an option (nor is a morning protein shake really, unless I do it at home, which is iffy given my timing).

The official Dids thread gets much more traffic than mine

Anyway, thanks Dids. Looks good, and keep up the burn!

hard boiled eggs are your friend