November 30th, 2013. I went for my first time in recent years to the gym. Simple goal - get rid of extra weight. And I was way overweight - 230 lbs with a height of 5'10". Exactly, 3 months later, my weight was 174 lbs, ie 56 lbs less, and another 20 days and my weight was 167 lbs.
Some days, I was loosing 0.5 pound per day, other days only a small amount, but most of the days I woke up lighter and lighter. With weight decreasing, I got energy increasing. Although, I was eating less, I was moving more, and feeling more energized. But not always. Sometimes, I felt really exhausted, I couldn't work more than 7-8 hrs per day. I couldn't allow myself to skip a lunch, otherwise I became aggravated and felt bad and angry.
One way or another, 1 year after, my weight is 172 lbs and I feel myself best ever.
Lots of effort have been put by me during first 3 months, and I still keep myself in a diet and visit gym at least 3 times per week.
I also have to say, that my body has some specifics: I usually gain weight pretty easy, but can lose it fast as well.
So, here is my regime for first 3 months.
First 2 weeks I was randomly visiting gym, trying to get into the minimal shape when body does not fall apart and full of pain after minimal work out. First week, I visited a gym only once - on Saturday. Next week I made it twice. Week after than, I switched to 3 times per week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. That's how I keep. Not always I can do Saturday, so sometimes move it to Sunday. If I have to skip, this usually would be Thursday (hate doing legs).
On my first week I went to amazon.com and bought and weight scale. I got it same week and started using to know my weight. I grep the internet and found that the best time to weight is on the morning, after visiting restroom, before shower, and being absolutely nude. That's how I do every day.
On my second week, I met Ben in the gym, and great guy who gave me lots of good advices. On of the few first advices was to get a journal. Next day, I went to the show and bought a simple excecise book. I was filling it with list of exercises I want to do that day, and with initial weight. So I go to the gym, and had a plan what I will do, without any ways to ignore, b/c everything is planned and writted down. Although, I cheated sometimes, you can't always be 100% productive and some days you're really exhausted even before the gym. In this case, I used the rule - do as much as you can!
Another section in the journal I used for logging my weight. I log my weight every morning since then, except a few one when I was on vacation or had a travel. When you see how numbers are going down every single day, it motivates more than any support from other person. I believe in measure everything, when it is needed to get to he goal. Measure weight, measure how much stuff you've done, measure how much calories have you lost or how much you get with a food.
So, I was visiting gym 3 times a week, another 2-3 days per week I used to walk, at least 1 hour per day. I found it so awesome, that I still keep doing that, especially when have something to think. Also, 2 hours in the gym give you a lot of time to think about many things, walking (and running especially) keeps to clear you mind and look on many things from different angle.
First 4 months, I was doing my regular work outs:
- Saturday: hands + chest
- Tuesday: back + shoulders
- Thursday: legs
Except this, every day I was doing bench press (horizontal, inclined and declined depending on the day of the week, and abs). A little bit later, I've added dips as every day required thing to do.
After I was done with weights, I did running. At least 30-40 mins. That was killing. Body was already exhausted, and I spent another 40 mins running (first very slowly even half walking, later running at speed 6-6.5 mph). I believe, that good cardio after weight training gave the best results in term of losing weight. After 4 months, I switched to same extensive running on non-gym days (instead of walking). And was doing until recently, when I got sick so had to stop running and switch back to walking. Soon going to start doing it again. Running is the best activity you could do for you body, brain and spirit.
At this moment, I'm doing things a bit different. The goal changed, from losing of weight to keep being in tone and growing muscle weight. I still do 3 times per week. I do shoulders also on Saturdays now. Ben and some other guy recommended to have a short warm up run before traing. That's what I do now: I run for 6-7 mins with good speed and incline angle to warm up, then stretch and do bench press. Everything else follows. I found that a short warm up run gives a good boost on muscle growth. I usually end up my work out with dips: do as much as I can but no more than I have to. I learned a lot, and now to everything slower, trying to feel how my body works. I take higher pauses, and combine different exercises. Goal is to do less but better, than many but somehow.
Lots of good things about food and training I took from Denis Seminikhin ( Денис Семенихин) video blog.
In my opinion, there are 3 activities that should go together in order to get the result:
1. physical efforts (work outs, cardio, just walking)
2. eating efforts (normal food, no overeating, etc. etc.)
3. continuous motivation
I described well about physical efforts. Now more about eating.
First of all, I started eating breakfast. I stopped eating after 7pm. When I was really hungry after 7 pm, I ate 1-2 pickled cucumbers. That's it. I ate only low fat fish and vegetables on dinner. Everything was dozed: up to 100 grams of fish, only a few broccoli, 3 eggs white (no egg yolk - throwing it away). After dinner gave at most 15-20 mins and started moving. Dinner was usually a oatmeal (raw 50-65 grams) with fruits, berries and non-fat Greek yogurt. Lunch is a salad, with minimum of carbs (ie no beans, no bread, no bread crumbs, only low-fat cottage cheese, chicken breast etc.) I was eating less carbs, more protein. Every morning I had a protein cocktail with 50 grams of protein. Similar one I had just after the gym. I had another 2 eat times at 10am and 4pm for some bar/apple/non-fat greek yogurt.
I think my body found a way to get the all required energy from proteins instead of relying on carbs. When I lower the protein and increase carbs, for a first few days I'm loosing the weight, until the body switches back.
I'm still on similar diet right now, although I increased the portions for dinner (more fish!), and allow myself to eat more sweets (I love sweets). However, I never buy sweets, I eat them only when they are available as free food at my work. I also allow myself to eat more carbs once a week (unless I had to much of sweets before). That usually won't be something really bad: could be nuts (so much of fat), sushi (rice), lots of fruits, lots of meat, or cheese. I avoid pizza, pasta, chips etc. I also have much more milk, and it is 1% milk, while before it was a bit of non-fat milk only for cocktails. I have a pill of omega-3 fat twice a week and multivitamins every morning. I drink tea with honey now, but trying to not do that too much.
I also don't use sugar, only sweeteners.
The last part, but is as well important as previous two, is continuous motivation. First thing one need to understand, is that we can do with our mind such wonderful things, that we can't do with our body as much. We can and should create own motivation and drive it by itself. In this case, there is no way the motivation could go away, could bring us down, or just get lost. It's always with us. That's what I did. Used something small that I had to grow to real large motivation, that I was growing up and improving. Original small motivation was not important anymore, and it was external, thus hard to rely on. I created my own, the one that didn't gave me to cheat, that was always with me at tough and good moments.
I never took anything for granted. If somebody gave me a support or said how good I am looking now, I took this like he/she gave me a $100 bill with a smile on the face. If somebody says me an opposite, I just ignore it.
I can talk a lot about motivation part, as it is the most interesting thing of the process. But won't do it now, as it's a separate topic with lots of openings and lessons.
