Winding Down

So if you couldn't figure out by the lack of posts recently, I should say that I wrapped this up after week 7. I realized that I had achieved all the results I wanted and that there was no point in blogging about "progress" anymore. Having said this, I want to make it known that I will continue to post here whenever I have a particularly creative idea, amazing workout, diet update, or just my thoughts. I think that a state of fitness isn't something that anyone should achieve and ever let go of. The idea of a lifestyle is more appealing and my goal is to continue striving for more within reason.

For all of the people who have been reading, thank you! It's been fun doing this. It was also a lot more work than I would have expected and I occasionally forgot to post workouts. Whatever. Here are before and after photos. They aren't the same exact type of photo so look at the general progress rather than the specific locations on the body.

These two pictures actually show the same side. The bottom one was taken with the phone's front-facing camera so you'll have to think about that when you mentally compare the two. I think I made great overall progress in shedding a good amount of body fat and building my abs back.
















The picture below shows the thick and blocky six pack that I developed. My abs do not look block in the picture to the right since I was flexing differently. I attribute this thickness to my incorporation of heavy cable crunches into every ab workout.

I'd say more here but there really isn't much else to say. It was fun maintaining a healthier lifestyle and tracking the progress was awesome. It ended up being more work than I thought it would be. I'll continue to post on this blog as I see fit so stay tuned!

 

Today's Ab workout

The hardest thing to do is get yourself in the right spot mentally when it comes to doing an ab workout. Most people put it at the end of the workout but some do it at the beginning. If you jump right into it you may feel lethargic and not squeeze the most out of the workout. If you do it at the end, you'll have the energy and bloodflow but may get bored (and maybe not have energy..) after having finished your main workout. These aren't the best arguments but everyone creates their own.

I think the best thing to do is to incorporate your ab workout into your main workout side by side. Rather than separating the chest workout and the ab workout, do a set of chest and then do abs. Irrespective of what main muscle group you do or if you're only focusing on abs, I suggest running at least half a mile at a fast pace to get the blood flowing and to set your mind right. I cannot stress this enough. RUN.

The ab workout below was fully incorporated into my back workout which I will not list here. For ease of understanding I will list everything as if I performed all of the exercises in exact order.

Workout:

1) L-Pullups
*Make sure that your hips do not sway back behind your shoulders. Always keep the hips forward and squeeze the entire core to maintain control. Pull up with your upper back. I grip a little narrower than shoulder width.

-4x8

2) Cable Crunches
*Use the straight bar attachment and let your arms hold it behind your head as you move down. If you feel this in your hip flexors adjust your body until you feel it in your abs. When you get tired you may start feeling the stress in your lower back. Stop the movement and rest before finishing your set. Form is key.

-6x12 w/ 80 lbs.

3) Toes to Bar
*Wide grip on the pull-up bar and do leg raises. Bring the toes up and over the bar. Try to keep the lower back out of this and use good core control.

-4x10

4) Dragonflags
*Build up to these slowly. There are plenty of resources on the web and youtube discussing various methods of building up to these. Again, form is key. If you feel the hip flexor or lower back coming in to compensate for an exhausted rectus abdominus, stop the movement and rest before finishing your set.

-4x10


---> The key is to do all of the reps in the exercise. You can divide the sets up however you want. For example, as long as you do 32 L-pullups you're done with that exercise. It doesn't matter if you do 32 sets of 1 or 1 set of 32. Anything in between is fine and satisfactory.

Update

Haven't posted in a while. I've been getting in small workouts here and there but nothing big lately. Just pulled myself out of a bit of a rut and I'm back on track now. Yesterday I did chest and managed to push out 275 for 4 reps. I also did some triceps.

Today was a bit different. I didn't really want to do arms, back, or legs, so I decided to work everything that is underdeveloped. This includes my traps, forearms, abs, and cardio ability. My workout was quick but effective.

Another thing I've noticed is that my bedtime really makes a huge difference in how the following day goes. I feel lethargic and foggy-brained for the entire next day if I go to sleep after 1 a.m. irrespective of how many hours I get total. I'm slowly dialing my bedtime back. My target time is 11:30 p.m.

Workout:

1) Cardio
-1 mile @ 7:00 pace

2) Abs
*L pullups superset w/ cable crunches (80 lbs.)
-7x8 on each exercise

3) Forearm Wrist Roller
-5 rolls up and down w/ 25 lb. plate

4) Shrugs
-6x10 w/ 155


Diet:
Meal 1:
-3 Aidell's chicken teriyaki meatballs
-4 egg whites + 1 whole egg
-Peach
-Raspberry, blueberry, and banana smoothie

Meal 2:
-Strawberry, mango, and blueberry smoothie w/ vanilla protein powder (30g)

Meal 3:
-Chipotle salad: lettuce, brown rice, fajita veggies, chicken, 3 scoops corn

Meal 4:
-Grilled salmon w/ teriyaki marinade
-2 cups sautéed carrots
-1 cup sautéed red peppers and squash

Cheat Day and General Thoughts

     Had a cheat day today and went with Jordan F. to La Vic's to get some burritos. We made the obligatory stop at Yogurtland next door. I found myself not really wanting to eat the burrito I had ordered because I've mentally conditioned myself to have a distaste for fast-food and especially burritos. More importantly, I realized just how much my lifestyle has changed over the past six years. While in middle school I would frequent unhealthy foods. I ate dessert every night and often too much. Now I genuinely think refined sugar tastes worse than sugars from fruit. I'm so glad that I got on a path toward positive growth.

On conventional diets....

     People get upset and disappointed when their diets fail because they don't realize that every diet is bound to fail. The key to improvement is through gradual changes in lifestyle. One less cookie a day and then two tomorrow. Eventually you eliminate the negative and hold on to the positive. It's a process that takes months and potentially years. It definitely took me about two years to realize that I can't hope to improve physically by starving myself of carbs for an indefinite period of time. Learning processes are long and tough. Your diet fails because it is a short term crutch rather than a long term solution.

On cheat days...

     I do cheat days for a few main reasons: to get any urge out of my system, to realize that I truly dislike eating poorly, to see the sad reality that is the eating habits of Americans. Let me address the latter first. I find it very saddening that people choose to eat poorly when there are other options available, but I use it as encouragement and a fuel for my goals. When I sit in Yogurtland and eat my cookies n' cream yogurt with oreo crumbs on top I look around and realize how silly the very act is. Seeing the habits of many people who do not care for their physical health encourages me to work harder in order to maintain mine.
     Cheat days are a mental reset button for anybody maintaining a relatively new lifestyle. I intend for this health "phase" to last for the rest of my life but it is rather new, so I am still adjusting from my old lifestyle. I occasionally desire sweets and fast food. It's a good idea to get this out of your system every now and then to keep progress moving forward. One day of high carbs and high calories will not hurt your long term progress. The cheat day is best had after a good single achievement or after a series of positive progress has been noticed. For example, a cheat day can be had after a couple weeks of perfect dieting or after a series of grueling workouts. The important thing is to stretch cheat days apart as far as possible; they'll mean more to you and you'll get more out of them when they're not frequently occurring.

Week 7 Progress Pics...ABS

I have abs again. It feels pretty good. Consistency in ab workouts is absolutely essential. My abs have responded very well to consistent workouts (3 times a week.) The phone picture quality was especially crappy tonight. I'm convinced that my 10mp back camera is worse than my 2 mp front camera. I also forgot to turn on HDR, which really helps when taking low-light bathroom selfies. Anyway...

This is a shot from the right. The abs on this side appear to me more normal and well defined. It really depends on how I flex, but generally this side appears to be blockier and larger. It's not due to some imbalance since I'm fundamentally sound whenever the core comes into question. I think it's purely genetic.

 The above shot is of my left side. My abs are uneven and the top one has always been tiny. I find that explosive cardio (sprints and explosive jumps) and gradual overall core strengthening (side planks) develop the serratus very well.

Shoulders, Back, and Insanity

Came into the gym with a lot of things to get done. I wanted to knock out both a shoulder workout and a back workout within the timespan of about an hour and a half. This was completely do-able and keeping the tempo up also kept the energy up.

Workout (Back and Shoulders):

1) Military Press*

*I really like to do partial reps on these since they don't aggravate my rotator cuffs and tend to target my medial deltoids more effectively. I generally lower the weight down to my head and push back up. 

-2x15 w/ 115 lbs.

-4x15 w/ 135 lbs.

2) DB Shoulder Press

-1x10 w/ 60 lbs.

-2x10 w/ 70 lbs.

-2x8   w/ 80 lbs.

3) Lat Pulldowns

-1x20 w/ 120 lbs.

-1x10 w/ 160 lbs.

-1x10 w/ 180 lbs.

-3x5   w/ 210 lbs.

4) Seated Cable Rows

-4x10 w/ 160 lbs.

5) Shrugs

-3x10 w/ 90 lbs. on each hand

6) DB Rows*

*I did these very slowly with a tight contraction at the top. I placed all of the emphasis on my form rather than the weight.

-5x10 w/ 65 lbs. (for each side)

Workout (Insanity):

I did the pure cardio workout and went for a mile run after the workout. I spent an additional thirty minutes stretching my lower body after the run.

Note: I'm going to only post diet information when it changes. If I don't post anything that means that my diet was the same as the previous day or had one small alteration. In today's case, I had lamb instead of another meat.  I'm not the biggest fan of lamb for various reasons and I don't think I'll ever have it again.

Total Body

I spent most of today working on PCB dev. so I didn't have much time to workout. However I did decide to go to the gym in order to get in a quick total body workout rather than doing Insanity. I threw in some leg exercises, back exercises, ab exercises, and some quick cardio.

Workout:
1) Leg Press
-2x10 w/ 220 lb. (single-legged)
-2x10 w/ 320 lb.

2) L-Pullups
*Hold you legs up in the air perpendicular to the body for the entire pull-up.
-5x8

3) Cable crunches
-5x8 w/ 80 lbs.

4) Walking Lunges 
-3x25 steps w/ 110 lb. barbell

5) [superset] Calf Raises + Calf Walks
*Walk around with a 45 plate in each hand. Make sure to flex the calves at the top of each step.

(4 rounds)
-20 reps w/ 3 plates on calf raises
-20 or 30 steps

6) Sprints
-4x50m

Diet:

I'm finding it super hard as of late to continue eating the foods I like since my house's stock of food is very low. We have almost no lean meats available. It's very saddening. Anyway, today's meal plan was lower in calorie count since I didn't really do anything for the greater part of the day.  

Meal 1:
-7 egg whites
-4 Aidell's chicken teriyaki meatballs
-27g whey protein shake w/2% milk
-1 cup raspberries

Meal 2:
-Raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, blackberry, and banana smoothie

Meal 3:
-Lean ham.
-Apple
-Lemon quest bar

Meal 4:
-Three homemade burger patties (ground steak w/ tomatoes and shallots)
-2 cup sautéed carrots