asica's fitness & nutritional journal

[asica]

I'll start off with a little about myself....

My name is Andrew, I'm 25, been out of college going on about 3 1/2 years. I am a computer scientist (thus, not a lot of activity at work) and doing very well but I've fallen out of shape since leaving college.

I've tried Atkins (personally, and I know people who have done great on it but I had a lot of problems - thats another post ) and that didn't work. I stopped that after about 3 weeks and I've been controlling calories and eating well along with exercise for about 2 months now.

I am starting this journal now because I am moving to a split routine along with cardio on some of the off days and I've now met with a personal trainer to help me develop a solid routine.

Currently: (9/17/03)
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 178 - down about 10 pounds since start
BF%: not sure, need to order calipers or get someone to measure.


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Anyway, any questions, just post. I'll update this pretty much daily except weekends that I am not around.

[asica]

Good day.

Met with a personal trainer at my Country Club. I go to the gym there, it is a regular gym with plenty of equipment, and it's where I do cardio and lift. It also happens to be about 0.25 miles from work, making it incredibly convienient. Today would have been a normal lifting day, I've been doing full body but I am starting a 3 day split Friday.

This is what my routine will look like (suggestions, comments welcome!):

• Monday: Chest,Triceps,legs
• Tuesday: Cardio
• Wednesday: Abs,lower back,shoulders
• Thursday: Cardio
• Friday: Biceps,back
• Saturday: light cardio
• Sunday: Rest

And, to get into more detail.... (I'll post weights,reps each session, generally I'll do 3 sets)
Monday:
-Chest: bench press (smith machine), seated fly
-Triceps: supine curls, cable pushdown
-Legs: Leg press, extensions, squats, calf press
Tuesday:
Cardio: 30 minutes intense elliptical machine workout (usually 400+ calories, or so the lying machine says!!!), 10 minutes moderate effort on the treadmill and usually another 10 on a rowing machine.
Wednesday:
-Abs: Crunch machine (err... it makes em really tough! adds weight, etc), seated crunch machine.
-Lower back: lower back bench exercises
-Shoulders: front/side lateral raises, also rear delts on the machine
Thursday:
-see Tuesday
Friday:
-Biceps: 21's , preacher curl
-Back: one arm rows, T-bar pullovers, shrug
Saturday:
- light cardio (20 on the treadmill or something).

Thats basically what I have so far. I am targetting under an hour in the gym including a 10 minute light warmup on the treadmill on running days. I'll adjust or change things up if one day takes too long.
Any suggestions? Any additions I should consider, or muscle groups I might be neglecting?

Anyway, since I met with the trainer today everything was off, we covered a whole bunch of stuff.... I won't post that stuff. Needless to say though, assume I spent about 1:30 with her watching and trying; preceded by a 10 minute treadmill session. I'm tired

As for food.... I have been eating around 1500 calories a day, somewhere around 40-50%c, 20-30%p,10-20%f usually. High quality food, I don't cheat often as I hate (yes, hate) sweets generally. When I do cheat, I always work it into my diet and adjust other foods eaten that day... This occurs maybe once every 2-3 weeks, so I don't even consider it cheating... more like "treating myself". Drink about 1.5-2 gallons min plain water per day, not including other beverages (I only drink 0 calorie beverages with the exception of an occasional beer).
I should mention I have a thyroid condition and am on synthroid as well as asthma, under control thanks to the miracles of modern medicine!

Anyway, here is today's food index for me; today is typical, except I usually have oatmeal for breakfast... See my fitday.com journal
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...ml?Owner=asica
Note on the fitday.... I've stopped putting my workout info there more or less... only pay attention to the foods. Also not included are beverages - I only list them if they have any calories.

Fitday has the totals... here were the meals:

Breakfast:
-Alvarado St. Organic multigrain bread
-Apple

Snack:
-Tangerine (1)
-Quakers Cheddar rice cakes

Lunch
-Ground turkey with taco seasoning, low fat cheddar, lettuce and organic salsa on a small, light, corn tortilla. (2 of em).... Good stuff
-Dole pears in kiwi jello

snack (had this about 30 before workout):
1 low fat fig newton bar
2 tangerines

Post workout shake:
-OE Whey protein, water,ice, 4 strawberries blended together

dinner
Turkey Breast chunks (fresh made by me) mixed with organic salsa and lettuce... eaten in a nice pita ( both halves).

I haven't eaten anything yet since then. I may have a snack later (apple, possibly some blue corn "guiltless" baked tortilla chips with salsa).

I am still trying to lose weight.... I don't feel hungry during the day mainly because I love fruit and each a large amount of it and typically (although you wouldnt necessarily know it by todays meals) vegetables. Keeps the calories down.

I don't really have a target weight anymore per say... I used to want to get down to 155-160 but now I'm more concerned about raising lbm and lowering bf%.

I promise future posts will be shorter! Just had a lot of intro type stuff to throw in here....

Questions, comments.... please

[asica]

BTW...

Salsa is a gift from the gods. I get a great red salsa from a local market, a little spicy - its organic, locally made. Pretty low in sodium, very low calorie of course. I could go through about a gallon of the stuff a week. I love it. Someday I'm going to write an 'ode to salsa'.

Speaking of which, I'm just ran out (salsa and "guiltless corn chips", yum) and we've got this freaking hurricane coming in tomorrow night here (Poughkeepsie, NY). I better remember to hit the damn grocery store tomorrow just in case I can't get there for a few days!

[asica]

I'm sore today. My legs... from squats. Ouch.

Enough of my bitching!

I'll update this as I go on today... quantity info on fitday journal:
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...ml?Owner=asica

breakfast:
-Old Wessex Oatmeal: 150cal 3f,27c,6p
-Apple: 81cal 0f,21c,0p

On a side note, does my nutrition info for the apple look off to anybody? I get the info from fitday.com.... it just doesn't quite seem right to me. Too high in carbs I would think. The oatmeal info is from the box

Snack: Tangerine.... 31 cals, 0f,8c,0p

Lunch:
Turkey Sandwich:
-two slices organic multigrain bread: 120cal, 2f,22c,6p
-turkey, about .7 cups (need to get a food scale....) 148cal, 3f,0c,028p
-lettuce and mustard - about 6 total cal
Kiwi jello with pears 50cals, 0f,13c,0p

Snack 2:00:
Quakers Cheddar mini rice cakes - 70cals, 3f,11c,1p
Tangerine.... 31 cals, 0f,8c,0p

quick snack 4:00:
tangerine 31cals 0f,8c,0p
1 fat free fig newton: 100cal 0f,22c,1p

workout:
Cardio day.... bad idea after learning a bunch of leg routines yesterday. cardio today hurt a lot on the efx machine.
30 minutes about 420 or so cals
then switched to rowing machine instead of treadmill
10 minutes for 140ish or so calories.

dinner:
Subway sweet onion chicken teriyaki 6" 380cals, 5f,59c,26p
guiltless corn chips 1/2 serving: 55cals, 1f,11c,2p

[cursor]

In your search for body fat calipers, you may want to consider these:
BodyTrack II calipers

[asica]

They look like exactly what I am looking for! Thanks for the link...

I have one of the bf% scales. It's a complete piece of crap

Just ordered the item from that site. This is great, I'll be able to confirm that I am not taking off a lot of lbm as well as bf...

[asica]

Any comments on today's routine (back, bicep, see above post)???

I'd appreciate any! I am pretty sure I did enough back (lower back is another day), but how about only 2 bicep exercises? I'm not a preacher curl fan though I'll do it. Maybe there is a cable exercise I should check http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html for, unless people generally think I did enough. The concentration curls were an absolute bitch to finish! I was dripping sweat by the time I was done with the 21 on each arm.

[asica]

Holy Crap.... I just blew away todays entire post, so please ignore the above note

I'll rewrite it a bit later, I need to go bang my head against the wall for a while.

[asica]

Here we go again...

Nutrion first:

see my fitday journal for nutritional values http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...ml?Owner=asica

Breakdown of meals is:

breakfast:
bowl of oatmeal
apple
(eaten preworkout)

post workout / lunch
whey protein shake
apple
can of white tuna with - calorie walden farm dressing.
2 slices of organic multigrain bread

snack:
quaker cheddars

Dinner
Cheat dinner, havent had a cheat meal in a long time I worked it into my guidelines though. 3 slices pizza hut thin and crispy. 190 cals each, nutrition info per slice is on the pizza hut website, also in my fitday journal! I am still way below 1500 cals for the day.

workout:

back and biceps! woohoo

back:
-Lat pulldown - 8x104lbs, 8x91.4, 8x91.4
-t-bar: apparatus is heavy, weight listed is ontop of that... 45x6, 35x8, 35x8
-bent over rows: 30x8,30x8,30x8 *possible increase
-shrugs: 60x10,60x10,60x10 *increase

biceps:
-21's (concentration curls 7reg,7halfup,7halfdown): 20lbs *increase weight
-regular curls: 25lbs *possible increase

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Any suggestions, please post. I am feeling the workout, the 21's were rough even at that weight. Any suggestions on food or workout are welcome!!!!

[asica]

Hi All...

Off day... for workouts

Fitday journal for foods:

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...ml?Owner=asica

Got my caliper... bf% is 22! ouch! and I've lost weight....

22% current weight is 178 = 39.16lbs fat and 138.84lbs lbm.

[asica]

Chest/Tricep/Leg day... rough going.

Ingested plenty of protein, a good preworkout meal and postworkout shake as well... see fitday for values,amounts:
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...ml?Owner=asica

Breakfast: 9am
Bowl oatmeal (1/2 cup)
Apple

Snack: 10:30am
Tangerine

Lunch: 12
Broiled Chicken, skinless
1/2 pita bread
Dole Pears in kiwi jello
Quaker Cheddars

Snack: 2:30
Tangerine

Preworkout: 3:30
Can tuna in 0 calorie dressing (walden farms)
1 slice multigrain organic bread
Tangerine

Post Workout Shake: 5:45
1 scoop Choc. Whey protein
1 strawberry
1 tablespoon organic peanut butter
1 cup water


in progress, will post lifting stats and dinner later.

[asica]

Been sick, but still managed to get to the gym. Thats my excuse for not updating this further though The last two days have not been good. I'll update ASAP though..

[asica]

Originally Posted by asica

Been sick, but still managed to get to the gym. Thats my excuse for not updating this further though The last two days have not been good. I'll update ASAP though..

Still sick and going to work. Too busy to update as I have to meet a deadline next week on a code cutoff and by the time I get home from work and the gym (still going, so at least thats working out) I'm about ready to die... Can't seem to kick this cold.

[asica]

Sorry I haven't been able to post. I doubt I will again for a while.

I am going through some marriage problems that have taken every ounce of willpower out of my body. My wife and I are trying to work things out, but I am struggling daily with depression and anxiety as right now everything is up in the air...

I'm down to 165 now, without exercising much at all, maybe once per week. I have been virtually unable to eat for a few weeks now due to stress, managing barely a nutrigrain bar or two a day, most days.

Anyway, right now I am struggling to get thru this time and keep my marriage intact, so I will not be updating my journal with exercise related items until things clear up.

Thanks

[Wolfnatas]

Good luck with things, man. Sometimes life can suck pretty bad, but try not to let it cause you to neglect your health. Even if you can't find time to workout, it'll still benefit you to keep your body supplied with the nutrients it needs. You'll get thru this period okay... just don't beat yourself up over it.