From Fatass to Badass - A Journal of Change

[Big_Turtle]

I didn't really have time to post last night, though I did workout. Rather than just doing what I've been doing though, I thought I'd spice it up a little bit with some supersets. I left the crunches out, but I supersetted the pushups (15 reps again) and the squats (20). I gave myself about 60 to 90 seconds between each set, and by the third one my heart was pounding harder than it has in quite a while. I think that's definitely the way to go for the rest of these workouts. I am going to try to work the crunches back in and superset all three of them together. That should be a pretty awesome ass whooping.

I am seriously jonesing for some iron right now. I've been checking the scale and I'm already making some progress just with these little workouts and by reigning in my eating to some extent. Once I can start throwing around some real poundage, oohhhhhh, it'll be great.

Then I can get in the squat rack and start knocking out those BB curls! j/k

 

[Big_Turtle]

I found out in April that I was born with a birth defect. Amazing doctors, eh, only took thrm 26 years to figure this one out. Anyway, I don't remember what it's called, but basically, as I get older, the outside of my foot curves in more and more, so that my feet are kinda "C" shaped. This causes me to walk on the outside of my feet more than is normal, which in turn puts more and more pressure on that bone on the outside of my foot. I only found out that I have this wonderful defect because I fractured said bone in my left foot and had to wear one of those big black boots for a month while it healed. Ever since then, both of my feet have hurt off and on (mostly on). It surely doesn't help that I work in a warehouse where I'm walking or standing all day long, moving pails of paint by hand.

This week, for whatever reason, they haven't hurt nearly as much. Virtually not at all, in fact. I've been thinking that it would probably help if I lost some weight, but I haven't lost enough yet to make much difference, at least I wouldn't think so. Part of me thinks it's psychosomatic; I'm working out to make my body healthier so I simply don't notice the pain in my feet as much because those would be the pains of an unhealthy body. However, another part of me wonders if these workouts have helped kickstart my body's natural healing process. When you work out, the body has to heal the damage done from the workout and in turn you get stronger. Maybe some of that went down to my feet, too.

Going into this, I was actually worried that the heavy squatting in the 5x5 program would lead to even more foot pain, but if this last week has been any indication it could be the road to salvation. Or at least the road to pain-free walking.

Squats leading to pain-free walking. . . that just might be a first.

 

[BiggT]

The only way to tell is to give it a go.......are you hitting the gym this week?

 

[jpt]

good luck....with the help of alot the good bros here i'm sure your gonna reach your goals!! remember...never quit and never give up!!! anything is achievable you juts have to believe in yourself!!

how is your diet looking? what are you eating? i don't think you've touched on this yet.

look in the diet forum for some ideas

 

[Big_Turtle]

The only way to tell is to give it a go.......are you hitting the gym this week?

This coming weekend more than likely. My wife and I both get paid around the middle of next week, so the soonest I could get a membership is probably the 21st. As wife doesn't get home from work until about 8:30 each night, we'll probably wait until Saturday before we go and give the place a close look and sign up. One more week.

 

[Big_Turtle]

good luck....with the help of alot the good bros here i'm sure your gonna reach your goals!! remember...never quit and never give up!!! anything is achievable you juts have to believe in yourself!!

how is your diet looking? what are you eating? i don't think you've touched on this yet.

look in the diet forum for some ideas

For the moment I'm not going to get too bogged down concerning my diet. I'm laying off all desserts, I'm cutting fast food back to about once a week, and basically just trying to make smarter choices about what I eat. Honestly, at my size, I don't think I need to analyze things too closely. Eat decent portions of clean food and work my ass off in the gym and I think I'll lose weight and add muscle. Now, after 6 weeks or so, if I'm not seeing decent progress I may come back to this and rethink things, but for now I'm more worried about the lifting aspect of this.

However, for a quick example of my diet last week:

Breakfast - 3 egg omelet with a glass of skim milk or Fiber 1 with skim milk
Lunch - 1 cup brown rice with 1 can tuna fish mixed in, 1 can of green beans or spinach
Dinner - baked chicken, fish, or pork chops with rice and a veggie

I take a couple snacks with me for before and after lunch, usually a little bag of popcorn that has like 100 calories, maybe some string cheese, sometimes an apple or orange. Simple stuff like that. Sometimes I'll have a tuna fish sandwich before dinner (I usually get home around 6:30-ish but my wife doesn't get home til 8:30 and I like to try and wait on her before eating dinner). Basically, if I'm hungry, I'll eat, if not, I'll wait.

Like I said though, I'm not too concerned for now with the exact numbers, calories, protein, etc of what I'm eating. I just want to try to eat mostly clean, healthy food in fairly normal sized portions. That being said, I am considering picking up some protein powder and having 1 to 2 shakes once I start working out. But, I'll have to see if my check card will agree with, and allow, that purchase.

 

[Big_Turtle]

Performed 4 supersets of 15 pushups and 25 squats. Did 4 sets of 35 crunches afterwards.

I have to say, if my buddy stays the course with his current lifting regime, I don't think I'll have any trouble beating him on the squat or bench press in 6 months. We've always been fairly even in both lifts over the years, but right now he is doing 5 or 6 sets of 8 reps with 20 seconds rest in between each set. I'm not sure why, really, something someone else told him about and now he seems to have fallen in love with it. Of course, while he was telling me about it and explaining how he had to lower the amount of weight down because there is such a small rest window, in my head I was just grinning while I pictured the 5x5 plan. I'm building for strength, no question. I'm not sure if he's really thought his plan through very well.

I don't know how likely it is that I'll stay on the 5x5 for the entire 6 months. I've looked around but I haven't really seen anyone mention how long they were on it before they switched. As long as I'm getting positive results I'll definitely stay on it. If I can go the entire 6 months without any problems, and assuming I can increase steadily like the template shows, I should be able to show up 6 months from now and throw down 6 reps on the squat with about 475 and bench around 365 for 6 reps as well. This definitely exceeds my original hopes. I had dreamed of showing up and benching 315 and squatting 405. I figured that if I could swing those two, he might be close but I could probably beat him. I know it's not for sure, that those are only estimates and all, but damn that would be awesome. By then I could be benching more than I weigh. That'll be greatness right there.

Definitely want to get that protein powder now. I don't want to slow down or hinder my gains by lacking in protein.

 

[BiggT]

Big man, just stay on it as long as you make gains.....first thing is not to think of it as a program, when something stalls, evaluate and make a little tweak and keep going, when something else stalls, evaluate and make another tweak....a year from now, what you are doing may look nothing like the '5x5', but it will be YOUR routine that works for you.....all any good routine is, is a snapshot in time and a way to organize training to foster progress.

And, yeah, short rest periods are useless for strength.....load is KING, when you limit the load you can place on your body by not resting between sets or by supersetting, it is not good.

For the protein, toss in more eggs and lean meat/chicken/fish, and a powder is good to have on hand for lazy moments......I feel like you about diet, my eating is simple, when I want to gain I gorge, when I want to lose, I don't go crazy with counting this and that, I just eat less

 

[Big_Turtle]

biggt - thanks for the comments. I'll definitely add some more eggs. I bought a dozen today for only 72 cents. Gotta love the price.


Alright, performed 2 supersets with 25 squats, 15 pushups, and 40 crunches. Worked up a real good sweat. Everything felt pretty good, too. The pushups are actually starting to feel almost easy. I know that I'm really working my cardio system more than anything with this stuff, but at least I'm doing something instead of just sitting on my butt feeling sorry for myself. I can't wait to get this week over with. Saturday morning I can pop out of bed, give away a few hundred dollars and start the real work.

 

[Big_Turtle]

Workout for Monday:

Pushups - 5 sets of 15

Squats - 3 sets of 25

Crunches - 3 sets of 40


The last couple of sets of the pushups were difficult, but I still feel like I'm making good progress and I think tonight I'll see how I do with 20 reps.

I called my buddy last night. He finally got his stats for our little bet. He's 5 feet 8, 206 lbs, 24.7% bodyfat. His goal is to get down to about 12% on the bodyfat, which would be a pretty good drop but I'm not too worried about it. I think he's undershooting on the lifts, although he is planning on changing his routine to emphasize strength. He did the whole high school football thing when he was younger, and he considers that time to be when he was in the best shape of his life. His best lifts back then where a 275 bench and a 325 squat, so that's basically what he wants to duplicate (he's coming from a 265 squat and about a 225 bench right now, all for 6 reps of course). And when he was telling me his final goals on the lifts, he was kinda laughing and saying something like, "yeah, I figure if I can beat you by about 20 pounds on each lift I'll be alright." I didn't persue it, but I guess he thinks I'm going to try to just lose a ton of weight and beat him like that, but in reality I'm throwing 90% of my focus on the lifts and not just beating him on those by a little, but I want to beat him by at least 50 pounds on both, minimum. I think I can beat him by a lot more on the squat, I'd say well over 100 if things go right. I'm going to blow his freaking mind when this all come to fruition. I can't wait.

Time for work. Everybody have a good workout or off day today. Just 4 more days and I get to start tearing it up at the gym.