What inspired me to start working out

What inspired me to start working out


I remember when I was a chubby 5th grader, my older sister would tell me that I should exercise.


When I asked her why, she would respond with "so you don't look fat". Me being in 5th grade at the time, I didn't care about looking fat. I knew she didn't want to look fat but at that time I care how I looked.


I wasn't at the age where I was interested in girls yet so I wasn't trying to impress anybody and I wasn't so fat that I was being made fun of at school.


What I was interested in however were how comic book heroes looked with their big, defined muscles. I didn't know at the time, that they also had very little fat...I just thought they had huge muscles!


Had she shown me that I could have built a muscular, athletic body like the comic book superheroes instead of saying "so I don't look fat", I believe I would have been very interested and started working out like she had suggested.


What inspired me
What actually did get to start working out though, is an infomercial...a Tony Little infomercial to be exact.

This guy actually inspired me to start working out!

I don't remember the exact product he was selling at the time, but I'm sure it was a series of videos showing people how they can workout at home and lose weight.

The thing I remember most about those infomercials was the story about how he got into an accident, then felt sorry for himself and couldn't work out so he gained a lot of weight. They showed a picture of him looking bloated and out of shape.

Tony Little after his first accident

Seeing these before pictures and then seeing Tony as he was on the infomercial, in the great shape that he was, had a huge effect on me as I'm sure it did on many others. 

Seeing what he looked like in his before and after made me think that it was possible for me to make a change to my body with exercise!


So after seeing his infomercial multiple times, I started to do some of the exercises Tony showed on his infomercial. 


These were just simple exercises that I could do at home like push ups, crunches, leg lifts, and some light lifting with 5 lbs dumbbells. 


Changes occur
I didn't start looking like Tony Little, but I did see some changes.


I know the workouts didn't seem like much, but I actually started to see some results even as a 6th grader. I could tell I was getting thinner and actually starting to gain some muscle definition in my arms.


Now I'll never know whether these changes were a result of me working out or me starting to go through puberty. But seeing that infomercial was a great influence on me and impacted the rest of my life. 


So this was the start of me exercising but I hadn't learned anything about nutrition yet. I'll write about how I got started learning about nutrition in a future blog post :)


What inspired you to start working out?

Dieting Progress Pics

My continued dieting progress pictures

Never stop making progress

After my 12 week body transformation, I still continued to diet to cut down my body fat even further. I felt like I could have made even better progress during my 12 weeks but I let vacations to New Orleans and Puerto Rico reverse my progress.

Before pic at 189 lbs on Jan 30, 2011

So I'm continuing to diet and see how low I can take my body fat. I don't know how long I'll be doing this for but I know it will be at least until June 30th. My friends are flying into town that day and I won't be dieting at all when they are here. 

I may even diet further after they leave depending on how fat and bloated I feel, since it still is summer time and its always nice to be ripped for summer :)

Or I may decide this would be the perfect time to start putting on more muscle...I guess I'll know when the time comes around.

My Progress Pics

I took some progress pics yesterday which is about 6 or 7 weeks from my pictures taken on April 24th. Here they are below:

Front Bicep at 165 lbs on June 11, 2011

Rear Bicep at 165 lbs on June 11, 2011

It looks like I have made great progress and have cut some more body fat while maintaining my muscle. A tan helps really bring out the definition as well :)

I'm happy with my progress so far but am still continuing to cut bodyfat even further! 

How has your summer cut/dieting been going?

12 Week Body Transformation continued - Diet

How I dieted during my 12 Week Body Transformation

When it comes transforming your body and losing the maximum amount of fat, DIET is the single most important factor in accomplishing your goals.


Most people think the opposite. They think that they can start exercising hardcore and the diet will take care of itself. This is a mistake that too many people make as they can easily out-eat the amount of calories they had burned in the gym.


There's a saying that I read on Vince Andrich's blog "You can never outrun your mouth" which is the perfect way to describe how exercise can't overcome a bad diet.


This is why finding a diet that you can follow with ease and stick to is a crucial factor to success. 


I know I don't do well with carbohydrates and there's lots of research showing a low carbohydrate diet has metabolic advantages over other diets. So the diet I decided to follow was a high protein, high fat, low carb diet. 


Daily Schedule
This was what what a typical day was for me in terms of nutrition/supplementation:


7:15 AM - Wake up (Take 1 gram of Vitamin C, 1 OxyElite Pro, 4 Free Test)


2:00 PM - Take another OxyElite Pro


4:00 PM - Preworkout Myofusion shake (25 grams of protein)


4:30 PM - Workout (sip on my BCAA/Creatine mix during the workout)


5:45 PM - Post Workout Myofusion shake (50 grams of protein)


6:00 PM - Eat dinner (Take 6 grams of fishoil, 4,000 IU of Vitamin D, multivitamin)


8:00 PM - Myofusion shake with milk (33 grams of protein)


My dinner usually consisted of 3 chicken thighs, 4 eggs, 1 oz of cheese, some leafy green vegetables, and either a whole or half a grapefruit depending on how I felt.


Now you may be wondering where the food and protein shakes are from the time I wake up until my preworkout protein shake.


The answer is that I didn't eat anything or drink any protein shakes from the time of my protein shake the previous night to my next preworkout protein shake! Crazy huh? :P


Intermittent Fasting
This may sound crazy but this is the basis behind Intermittent Fasting.


This was the eating pattern I followed during my transformation which is essentially short periods of fasting otherwise known as intermittent fasting. This is the exact opposite of what is generally recommended these days which is to eat every 2-3 hours to keep the metabolism revved up.


In my previous dieting experiences, eating every 2-3 hours was a real chore. Having to constantly think about where your next protein source was going to come from was a big hassle. 


With intermittent fasting, I am not thinking about nutrition all day long. The only I think about nutrition is during the 5 hours between my preworkout protein shake and my nighttime protein shake.


What I also found with eating every few hours is that every time I ate, it would make me hungrier and want more food! Of course since I was dieting, this was not a good thing.


With intermittent fasting, I am almost never hungry now! I was hungry at first, but that was because my body was used to getting food every few hours. After a couple of days of intermittent fasting, your body adapts and then the hunger goes away.


Eating this way has made dieting sooo easy for me that EATING is actually the hardest part of it (sometimes its difficult to eat that much protein which is why I also rely on protein shakes).


If you want to learn more about intermittent fasting, check out Martin Berkhan's Leangains blog. His site is full of information and research debunking a lot of the myths on dieting.

Martin Berkhan knows what he's doing

The best thing about Intermittent Fasting is that it's just so easy to follow and adhere to. I wake up, go on with my day, and don't think about food until my work day is over!


Note that I didn't follow Martin's guidelines exactly, but I modified it to work best for me and still got great results! If you decide to try intermittent fasting, I would recommend following his guidelines exactly at first, and then make adjustments if needed.


Give it a try!
For those who don't like eating every few hours or even eating breakfast, I would recommend you give intermittent fasting a try. It might change your life...I know it has mine :)

Look Thinner Instantly

How to look thinner instantly with the help of a broomstick


One of the easiest ways to instantly look like you've lost 10 lbs is to improve your posture by having your shoulders pulled back, chest up and out, and your head up and back. By pulling your shoulders back and sticking your chest out and up, your body will also naturally lengthen your stomach and pull it in. This gives the illusion that you've lost 10 lbs! 

Now it may be difficult to hold this position for long periods especially if you're not used to being aware of your posture. 


The typical office worker is hunched over their keyboard with their head in a forward and/or down position and this contributes to the bad posture that everyone is accustomed to.


A simple way to help improve your posture besides being aware of it, is to use a broomstick (or some other similar firm stick object).

Grab the broomstick with both hands and extend out in front of you. The grip you should use will be wider than shoulder width. As you increase the flexibility of your chest and shoulders, you'll want to move your grip in to further increase the stretch. 


Now take the broomstick, bring it over your head and pull it down to your trapezius muscles. Make sure you keep your head up. You should feel a stretch in your chest and shoulders.


Hold this position for as long as you can or as long as you feel comfortable. Do this a couple of times during the day during your breaks and you'll notice your posture improve immediately and look slimmer instantly!


Has anyone noticed how much better they look and feel once you've improved your posture?

Memorial Weekend drinking & cheating

Memorial weekend drinking leads to cheating :(


If you've been following along with my blog, you know that I have scheduled cheat days every 14 days and I'm usually very good about eating very strict until those scheduled cheat days.


Unfortunately, this past Saturday a little too much drinking lead to me cheating the next day trying to recover from the hangover. 


I know I really shouldn't be drinking too much if at all while dieting but there are ways to still enjoy alcohol while losing fat as written by Martin Berkhan of Leangains, in his article The truth about alcohol, fat loss, and muscle growth


That morning, me and my girlfriend has just finished at the gym and were laying on the beach tanning and getting some Vitamin D :) My girlfriend gets a text saying her friends were getting together to hang out. 


She gets a text later that they were also planning on going out to Myth nightclub that night as well. I knew my girlfriend wanted to hang out and be social since its been a while so I told her we could go if she wanted to.


So that night, we were pregaming and I started out having a couple shots maybe about 4 or 5. When we get to the club, me and my girlfriend get long island iced teas that were made extra strong (This was my mistake right here...there was too much gin in there and my body doesn't handle gin well). I think I probably had another 1 to 2 shots after that but I definitely should not have as that long island iced tea had me feeling pretty bad already.

I am normally pretty good at not drinking too much and I thought I was fine until we got into the car on the ride home. This was when I felt like throwing up and held it in until we got home. We get home and I go straight to the bathroom and throw up the dinner I had. After I throw up, I go straight to the couch and pass out.


Me and my girlfriend wake up around 8:30 AM and drive home while I am still feeling very hungover. When we get home I go straight to bed and sleep until 12:30 PM. I feel a little better but still terrible. 


This terrible feeling leads to me agreeing with my girlfriend about getting Pho to cure my hangover. If you don't know what Pho, its a delicious Vietnamese beef noodle soup that is great for those morning after club nights. Being at the restaurant and hungover leads to me eating not only the pho, but some summer rolls and fried chicken wings too. 

Then after we eat pho, we go to a Vietnamese deli to get Vietnamese hoagies! This was the hungover me taking over! 

We get home and eat our hoagies and finish a whole container of Mint Cow Tracks ice cream...horrible.


I know this is going to sound like I'm making excuses but I know this wouldn't have happened had I not drunk to the point of throwing up. If I didn't feel so terrible I wouldn't have felt like needing more nutrients to help my body recover. I've learned my lesson...Don't drink too much when dieting!


Have you had any similar drinking and cheating experiences?

12 Week Body Transformation continued - Cheat Days

One of the strategies I used during my 12 week transformation was the use of cheat days. Cheat days are basically a day where you take a break from your diet and eat whatever you are craving or were craving while dieting. The primary function of cheat days was to allow for a psychological break from strict dieting and also as a reward for strict dieting. There are also supposedly physiological benefits as well such as boosting leptin and increasing metabolism. I'm not sure how true this is or how much the physiological benefits help fat loss, but I know the psychological benefits definitely made dieting easier.


I scheduled cheat days every 14 days, which I felt was a good time period between cheat days for me. Every 7 days would have been too short as I've done it this way before and progress was very slow, sometimes almost none at all as I might have a accumulated a 3,000 calorie deficit the previous 6 days of the week but then eat it all up in the one cheat day!


Early on in the diet, my cheat days consisted of me eating anything I wanted starting from 4 pm to 9 pm. I would eat Chinese buffets, noodles, pasta, breads, chips, cookies....basically whatever I was craving and wanted to eat on that day. There was no regard for calories, protein, carbs, or fats...and everything was fair game! Cheat days are always great at the beginning but I always felt terrible by the end. I would stuff myself so full and just eat random things because I could. Regardless, I still made great progress doing this but knew I had to do it better as the diet went on.


REFEEDS
As my diet neared the end of the 12 weeks, my cheat days turned into "cleaner" cheat days and what are also considered "refeeds". The difference between refeeds and cheat days is that refeeds are high carb, moderate protein, and low fat. LOW FAT is the key here and really limits a lot of the foods that I was able to eat on cheat days so it definitely wasn't as "fun" as the cheat days were. No more ice cream, donuts, high fat pastries, or fattening meals like lasagna, mac & cheese, or even ribs.


Eating high carb and low fat allows your body the same benefits as cheat days except the fat gained from the refeeds will be much lower. I've seen recommend guidelines that say to keep the fat around 50-60 grams of fat on the refeed day. An example of some of the foods I would eat on a refeed: bagels, pasta, breads, pretzels, and noodles. I also didn't feel as bad after these refeeds as I did after the cheat days. Moving from cheat days to refeeds allowed me to make even better progress than before!


-Intro to my 12 week transformation

-Important Key Points to My Body Transformation

Supplement Deals

One of things I love getting in on are supplement deals, especially ones where there's a price mistake! My two recent ones were buying Driven Sports Triazole for 15 dollars a bottle and Controlled Labs Purple Pysko for 22 dollars a jug. I got three bottles of the Triazole and two jugs of the Purple Pysko. Unfortunately the price mistakes are gone now.


Now I know a lot of people think most supplements are worthless, which I do agree a lot of them are. But aside from taking the basics: Protein powder, multivitamin, fish oil, creatine, bcaa's (there's a lot of disagreement on this one but it's a basic for me); I like to try out new supplements from time to time.


I've had periods before where I swore off all supplements besides the basics just to see how I feel and I know that I feel a lot more awesome when I do take supplements :) 


Whether that is due to a placebo affect or actual results from the supplement is debatable, but I'd like to think that I'm pretty in tune with my body to know when a supplement works or when it is garbage.


A few of the websites I check daily for supplement deals are:
http://www.wheycheap.com
http://www.whey2buy.com
http://www.supplementdeals.net