Greg's Running Blog

The big news of the day is that I have actually broken the 20 lbs total fat lost mark today! I purposefully wrote total fat lost and not total weight lost. Based on weight and body fat percentage I can confirm that I have indeed lost 20 lbs of fat so far. It is a pretty big milestone but a far cry from my transformation being complete. So back to regular scheduled programming…

Today was a fat day. I ended up with a lot more fats than I wanted to but I succumbed to my wife’s pressure to eat what they ate at dinner. We make this turkey pate from smoked turkey legs, bologna, sour cream and butter. Then we spread it on bread sprinkle some cheese on top and stick it in the oven. They’re very yummy but thanks to the butter and sour cream, even though it’s light sour cream, they are rather heavy on the saturated fats. I skipped the cheese sprinkles and put it over 100% whole wheat bread instead of the Italian pagnotta or French boule that we usually put it on. I sliced a single egg and put it on top of these open sandwiches once they came out of the oven. They tasted great. I have also added some steamed veggies for good measure. So the saturated fat was justified and worth it.

For lunch I had salad. I’m usually not big on salads and if I have the choice I prefer steamed vegetables over a salad. But we have these friends whose signature dish is this spinach mandarin raspberry walnut salad that is super easy and really good. So I have kind of been craving it for a while and made that for lunch. It was heavy on the spinach and very light on the dressing (half a serving) and mandarin syrup (none). It turned out great and actually kept me pretty filled up for the day. I added chicken to the salad to get some protein with it. While spinach has protein it’s not enough. A co-worker of mine gave me a can of Swanson premium chicken in water. This stuff is pretty good. It actually tastes a lot like tuna in water. It tastes like tuna so much that I’m not sure I could tell which is which in a blind taste test. Overall I was pretty impresed by it and I think I will buy more of it, it will come in handy when I get in a bind with no prepped food in sight.

Today’s photos turned out OK. I have a hard time with my 45 degree picture, I always end up looking like a true dork or like someone who’s about to take a dump. Today I did three takes on that one and I’m still not impressed. I kind of realized that I have been doing it all wrong before, leaning forward instead of standing fully upright. So I have modified my posture, I still look terrible in the pose but I think it will look better later. I was very close to abandoning that pose all together. But enough about my struggles with the posing. I can see visible reduction of my gut, the tape measure shows a 0.6 inch difference in my waist.

But the tape measure is not the only thing that shows the difference. Last night I wandered into the closet and took a peek at some size 38 jeans I’ve had for a long long time. They are in excellent shape as I have hardly worn them before I “outgrew” them. But I have kept them “just in case”. I have tried to try them on 2 weeks into my transformation and they did not fit. I could not even button them up. My waist then was 45.7″ and I’ve been wearing size 40 jeans. Now it’s 43.3″ and I could fit into the size 38 jeans just fine. They’re just a tad snug but I could button them just fine and I would wear them to work if I had to. These jeans will be my transitional set, it seems like they will never get the wear and tear they deserve, and once I “outshrink” them they’ll be thrown out or donated. I will never wear a size 38 pair of pants ever again after that. I have also managed to fit into some nice dress pants that I have been unable to wear in the past 2+ years. They were my Christmas/wedding/funeral pants but luckily I haven’t had to go to a funeral or wedding in a while and last Christmas we celebrated just amongst ourselves without extended family so I said “screw it” and wore jeans. I am positive that this coming Christmas will be the last one that I’ll get to wear them though, by next summer I’ll have to buy a new pair for my cousin’s wedding for sure!

As for my other dimensions, I have lost 0.25″ on my bicep which sounds like a bad thing but it’s a great thing when all you’re losing is fat. I can actually see my bicep now instead of a fat arm blob. I have also dropped 0.25″ from my chest and a whopping 0.75″ from my hips. I love that not only the scale is moving in the right direction but the tape is showing clear and obvious progress as well. My thighs haven’t changed in dimension but I see a bit more definition on my hamstrings which is great!

12/09/2009 Transformation Picture

I had to postpone my strength exercise until after work because of our company lunch. Today was leg and abs day and I incorporated a new exercise into my rotation, standing calf raise. I kind of realized that calf presses on the machine just weren’t cutting it for my calf. Pushing it at 215 lbs was really less than my body weight for the longest time so I had to add to my weight, hence the standing calf raise.

Ab Crunch

• 3×10 @ 50lbs

Twisting Oblique

• 3×16 @ 40lbs

Leg Press

• 3×10 @ 215lbs

Calf Press

• 3×10 @ 215lbs

Standing Calf Raise

• 3×10 @ 130lbs

Leg Extensions

• 3×10 @ 50lbs

Today I couldn’t do my lunch cardio as we had a company birthday lunch. So all I did was my 60 minutes of elliptical at the house. I’m well into the second season of 30 Rock now, Biggest Loser is over, Grey’s Anatomy is over, Flash Forward is over, I guess there is just not much else to watch on TV.

Today’s calorie count might not reflect the actual truth. At work we have celebrated December birthdays so we went out for lunch to a Chinese restaurant. I usually get sweet and sour chicken, no sauce, with fried rice (they make fun of me for ordering chicken fingers) an egg roll and egg drop soup with a ton of the chow mein hard noodles in it. Today I had egg drop soup with no noodles, steamed rice and steamed chicken with sugar snap peas and no egg roll. A lot more healthy choices. I have  tried my best to estimate the calories of the lunch but I might have screwed it up a bit, I still think I got it in the ballpark. It is very difficult to count calories when you’re going out and not eating home made meals. Even home made meals can be tough especially if they’re complex. Simple foods make simple accounting and healthy eats. My breakfast was pretty weak in anticipation of a heavier lunch but after seeing just how well I did at lunch I have decided to eat my morning apple along with my afternoon protein shake. The two were a bit too much together and made my stomach a bit queasy, next time I think I’ll keep the apple and the shake separate from each other.

Lat Pull

• 3×10 @ 100 lbs

Seated Low Row

• 3×10 @ 130 lbs

Chest Supported Row – Outer Grips

• 3×10 @ 80 lbs

I ate brisket today. Twice. I haven’t had BBQ meat in a while and it tasted really good. I have also eaten the last of my quinoa pretty much so it’ll be back to brown rice soon. Since I kept my beef portions down to stay within my calories my protein intake was lower than the past couple of days but I was still pretty close to the 1g per lean body mass number with 140 grams. I had a talk wit a co-worker today, he used to weigh 260 lbs and he’s down to 200 lbs. He managed to get down to the 190s but failed with the adjustment over to maintenance from caloric deficit so he gained some of it back. He’s trying to go back down again and he’s on a 1,500 calorie daily diet. When I asked him about macro-nutrients he had no idea what he was taking in terms of fat, carb and protein percentage. I have tried to explain to him that eating a healthy amount of protein is essential during weight loss otherwise he’ll be losing some of his muscle mass along with the fat. I hope he’ll take my advice and start watching what he’s eating.

On a side note, I’m starting to like this GNC Wheybolic stuff more and more. It is very chocolaty. If it wasn’t for the bit of extra sweet after taste I’d say it is perfect. I think I’ll hit GNC up for another jar at the beginning of the month when I get the 20% off with my gold card, another price marketing BS.

Bench Press

• 2×10 @ 100 lbs
• 1×8 @ 100 lbs

Butterfly

• 1×10 @ 80 lbs
• 2×10 @ 70 lbs

Since I’m fending off a bug I went easier on the cardio at lunch. Then for the evening one I was ready to pack it in and call it a night without actually doing it. My nose is running like crazy and it’s getting stuffy at the same time. The skin is getting raw under it from all the nose blowing, not a good feeling. I took NyQuil last night and DayQuil in the morning. I’m not sure if it does anything but hopefully the placebo effect will make this cold pass quicker. However, while on the elliptical I have noticed that my heartrate was significantly higher than anticipated. I was going to take it easy but my heart just kept racing. I think it had to do with the fact that my nose was all stuffed up and I was deprived of oxygen because of it so my Vo2Max was not as good as usual, not that it’s all that spectacular to begin with. Since my heart rate monitor knows nothing about my stuffy nose my calculated calories were probably higher than the actual ones tonight. I really hope I get to feel better by tomorrow, I’d hate to miss work and working out.