Week 4 - Day 28 Photo Progress

I been kickin' it wit some a dat rap shit lately. Most recently I've been checking out The Wu Tang Clan. I never heard any of their shit back in high school and I'm glad I get the chance to hear it with wizened ears. Check out the sweet ryhmes, minimalist production, and head bobbin' beats. Dope shit for what sounds like a 4 track mix. Ryhmed by The GZA, produced by The RZA, Liquid Swords....enjoy!

Now, on to the pictures. I weighed in at fucking 159 again this morning. (157 after hockey, we're going with that figure).

Front Flexing

















Side Flexing


















New Muscles


















No Flex Front




















No Flex Side

Back To Where I Started

I weighed myself yesterday evening and found that, despite my new diet regimen and workout routine, my weight was the same as when I started. 162 lbs. I was somewhat depressed, especially considering that I had weighed in at 160 a few times already.

The good news is that I can feel myself getting stronger. I've been sore every day since I began, so I know my body is working to build some new muscle. I can hold my back up a little straighter when I walk around and I don't feel like such a miserable, slouching, uncoordinated louse.
















Ever since I injured my shoulder in the last high school hockey game that I played in (in 1999), I hadn't been able to really perform a strenuous upper body workout without worrying about my shoulder becoming dislocated. At least, not until recently. I received shoulder surgery about 2 years ago which fixed the torn muscles and tendons in my shoulder that had been getting damaged worse and worse for about 8 years. However, it wasn't until playing men's league hockey late last year that it finally felt like I had achieved full range of motion again. The lingering internal shoulder pain from the surgery had finally gone away completely as well. There were no longer sharp, shooting pains any time I tried manipulating something heavy.

I assume what's happening is that my body is building dormant, undeveloped muscle beneath my warm layer of fat and, hopefully, is converting some of that fat to muscle. The problem is that muscle weighs more than fat, so it's possible to both build muscle and lose fat while not losing weight.

At least I hope that's what's happening. Otherwise, I'm just stuck maintaining my equilibrium--which would be terrifying--but which would be nearly impossible considering the torture I am subjecting myself to.

I'm also making it through more and more of each hour long routine, so I hope that within the next few days I'll be completing the full workout.













Equilibrium--great for maintaining peace and harmony in oneself and in the universe, shitty for caloric expenditure vs. intake.

Anyway, I'm not overly concerned yet. If this was still happening at week three, I'd be fucking furious. This morning I hopped on the scale and it was back down 160 again. I'll feel real progress once that needle can't make it past the 160 lbs line and people start treating me with respect again. I'll just stop talking and thinking about weight until that happens and will focus more on the shrinking and tightening of my pectorals. Like a muslim rising from prayer, my nipples are slowly rising back up to face the world.

All I Need is One Final Hit...

to sooth the pain. (click the "Continue - I'm over 18" button after the link at left for a great clip from the movie Trainspotting)














A final favorite from Portillo's...I will not be seeing many more of these beautiful things for a while. Italian beef with hot peppers, a small order of cheese fries, and 500ml of some crazy 7% abv Polish beer called Warka that I found in a strip mall liquor store. Once the fries are done, the cheese can be re-utilized as a dip for the sandwich. Mmmm.

With all systems check and the new blog set up, I think I've accomplished my first goal of painting myself into a corner. Hopefully putting this shit out publicly would make my failure more embarrassing and painful than having to lean over my belly to find my penis for another month.















This is as more of a personal journal to remind myself of what a pain in the ass it is to do this and to catalog what sort of progress I can expect to make the next time I get lazy and my belly starts looking like that of a dead, bloated fish again.

What I'm not looking forward to is cutting out beer and, possibly, making an attempt to stop drinking during the week. I'm curious to see how it may affect me and my weight loss compared to the other times I've started exercising and eating right (I continued drinking, primarily hard spirits, and I was smoking when I have gotten back into shape before).

I have a feeling that my drinking habits parallel my smoking habits without the element of true addiction (as to nicotine). I never really crave a drink like I used to crave a smoke, I think I just drink out of habit and to soothe a powerful oral fixation. Of course, the elevated mood is always welcome after dealing with the daily bullshit at the office, and not kicking back with a cold beer could turn me into a very angry man.

We shall see.














Meanwhile, I weighed in at 162 lbs (check out those freaky webbed toes). It looks like I added a couple pounds after drinking two of those large Warka's, but we'll check again in the morning and develop a baseline starting weight. Starting between 160-165 should give me a 15lbs weight loss goal. That should be easily achievable in two months if I don't totally fuck this up and get lazy again.

The goal is to pick a DVD workout routine that demands something like an hour a day, 6 days a week. It is cold and wintry here in Illinois, so this seems like the best option next to joining a gym. Men's league hockey will be starting up soon, so it will be nice to have that replacing one workout per week. Currently, I'm looking at DVD programs called Power 90, P90x, and Slim in 6. I've already downloaded the torrents, so I plan on trying out a few different ones to get a feeling for what might work. I'm not sure how comfortable I'm going to be with following along with some stranger on a tv screen.

As for diet, I'll read up on some of the material provided by the DVD's and see if I can't put something interesting together.

Here are my sexy photo time pictures. The first two are me "flexing", which doesn't look nearly as bad as the last two, which are me letting it all hang out. FYI, it's not you...I look like various well-known male actors depending on how the light strikes me.

Eating my addiction away.....

It all started when I quit smoking. Sure, it's true that I effectively won my war against nicotine on what was roughly the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. In fact, I've almost made it 8 full weeks without a smoke.

Unfortunately, the 11th was not the "War to End All Wars" for me and, thanks to Pfizer's advice not to worry about eating too much while using Chantix, I have swollen up to what I am guessing is over 170 lbs. The Taco Bell people are starting to recognize me and I have drank a local liquor store out of two of my favorite brands of beer.












"You gonna eat that?"

I'm about 5'6" (maybe 5'7" on an especially proud day) which means my Body Mass Index (BMI) is somewhere between 26.6-27.4...if my weight guess is correct. That puts me smack dab in the middle of the "overweight" category and dangerously close to the "obese" range.

There are some people who argue about the usefulness of the BMI. They point out its inability to differentiate different body types. If I was a body builder, for example, my massive rippling muscle weight would put me into the obese category...there are even some plump folks who are permanently chubby and in great health, regardless of what some silly chart says.













Of course, the people making those arguments are almost certainly fat, lazy, and unwilling to heed the advice of their doctor...or, you know, they argue that some glandular issue combined with their large frame and asthma makes it hard to lose...blah blah blah.

Luckily, Pfizer makes a variety of medications that keep blood coursing through the overburdened arteries of the obese. That makes it a perfect solution for fat people who want to live the long life of a much healthier person without the unnecessary hassle of doing shit.














I have no qualms about taking pills...I wouldn't even mind dying a little bit younger than most, but I sure as hell am not comfortable with some fucking scientist calling me fat.

I don't like it one bit...but judging from the fact that the profile of my body resembles that of a small breasted woman who is 5 months pregnant, "overweight" sounds a bit too nice.

...next up, pictures and an official weigh in! Plus, I begin choosing an exercise regimen and diet plan.