I Gained Weight!

It had to happen sometime. Up until now I may have been unhappy with some of my weight loss weigh ins but I never went backwards. That has officially changed today. I stepped on the scale and it read 270 pounds which means I gained 2 pounds. I didn't feel quite as bad as I thought I would when I found out. When you go back a step you have two options. You can either give up or keep pushing forward and try to take two steps forward the next time. I am in it for the long haul. Besides it doesn't suprise me too much that when I jumped on the scale a few days after Thanksgiving I gained weight. In reality I feel pretty good so instead of changing and tweaking I'm going to leave everything as is and after two more weeks we will see if I have to make any other additional changes. So instead of feeling sorry for myself or getting frustrated I will be back in the gym plugging away tonight. This isn't over until I say it is!

My Weight Loss Week in Review

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day and enjoyed the time with your families. I enjoyed mine although being from Michigan the Lions game was absolutely painful to watch! Tomorrow I'll be jumping on the scale and I'm not quite sure If I lost any weight. There a couple things that will make my weigh in tomorrow interesting. First, I increased my daily over all calories. As I discussed in an earlier post I am experimenting a little bit with my food in take because of my recent lack luster weigh ins. I'm still not counting calories but I would estimate my increase to about 50 to 100 calories extra per meal. We'll see if this caused my metabolism to increase or did it cause me to straight up gain weight. The second thing that came up was obviously Thanksgiving. I'll be honest I indulged. I had a few beers watching the football games, ate dinner and had some pumpkin pie for dessert. I didn't feel guilty about it at all because its one day out of 365. With this being said I can't help but think its going to impact my weigh in if only just a little. So with that in mind I'll let you guys know the results tomorrow. Your guess is as good as mine!

The Rewards Of Eating Frequent Meals

If your trying to lose weight I'm going to need you to throw out the old adage of 3 squares a day. Sure if you eat 3 healthy meals a day your going to see some improvement but don't you want to maximize your results? If your answer is no you really have no business being on this website but if so please keep reading. Eating smaller more frequent meals will drive your metabolism into second gear and will promote more fat loss. There are thousands of studies that confirm this, but I don't need to rely on that. I know it's true by the way my body responds to it. A typical day for me includes eating 5-6 small meals a day and I'm not talking about snacks either. Now realize they are smaller meals and for me that means roughly 300-400 calories per meal. When I eat this way I never feel full and I'm never hungry. Doing this my body feels much cleaner and my energy levels are noticeably higher. Eating 3 meals a day cannot compare. Another great reason to do this is it provides your body a steady stream of protein and nutrients. This means that after I get done working out my body is constantly being supplied with the building blocks it needs to repair itself and make it stronger. So to sum things up if you want to lose weight, gain muscle, and never feeling hungry start eating 5-6 times a day.

My Thanksgiving Day Weight Loss Tip

I've been reading a lot of blogs and news articles giving advice on how to eat healthy on Thanksgiving Day. They all mention healthy alternatives and different ways to eat healthy and still enjoy the holiday. I would like to give my own advice about about everyone elses advice. Screw It! There are 365 days in a year and I can promise that you (or me) didn't get fat because we pigged out on Turkey Day. We are fat because we ate like crap the other 364 days. So here is my plan for the rest of the week. I'm going to eat healthy tomorrow and Thursday morning I'm going to workout like I would any other Thursday. After that I'm going to do it up big. I'm going to watch the Lions get their ass beat and probably have a few beers in the process. For dinner I'm going to have all my Thanksgiving Day favorites including a big piece of pumpkin pie. Then on Friday I'm going to resume eating healthy and working out. It's as simple as that. So the next time you see someone giving advice on eating healthy on Thanksgiving Day just keep on surfing. Eating whatever you want one day in November is not going hurt your weight loss goals!

My Chest And Tricep Workout

Tonight I went to the gym and hit my chest and triceps. Right now as I am typing this my chest is shaking a little bit and my triceps feel really pumped. Like my other workouts its almost entirely free weight orientated with just a couple of exceptions. Maybe its because I'm a guy but working out my chest is one of my favorite body parts to train. Laying on that bench and pressing the weight off your chest is a great feeling. After I've hit my chest its time to move on to my tricep workout. It's a great body part to follow a chest workout because they are already warmed up and ready to go. Because my triceps are already warmed up I don't have to do as many sets as I would with other body parts. Below is exactly what I did at the gym today.

Chest

1. Incline Dumbbell Press 5 sets
2. Smith Machine Barbell press 5 sets
3. Pec Deck 4 sets

Triceps

1. Close Grip Bench 3 sets
2. Skull Crushers 3 sets
3. Cable Press downs 3 sets

Week In Review

Another week has ended and another one is beginning. This week was the hardest I have ever hit the gym. I lifted heaver weight and did more sets since I started this back in August. As a result after each workout that particular body part was sore for days. That is both good and bad. Good because I know my body is going to respond positively from the increase in intensity at the gym. The increase in lean muscle that will come down the road will only make my metabolism faster and ultimately help me lose this weight. Its bad because my body was so sore that sometimes I had a hard time doing simple things around the house. Bending over to pick up a box with sore back muscles can almost make you cry. I felt ridiculous walking up a flight of stairs after a leg workout because I was hobbling up them. I am curious to see if my tweaks that I have made to my diet will yield results. In a previous post I had explained that because of my lack of weight loss I was going to bump up my calories. My reasoning behind this is I feel that maybe I wasn't eating enough causing my metabolism to shut down. I'm not sure if it is going to work but I do think it will pay off in other ways. Because I have been hitting the gym harder I can only imagine that the extra calories I ate went to repairing and building my muscles. So next week when I jump on the scale we will see if this little experiment will produce results. I will have either lost weight or gained lean muscle. Is there really a downside then?

My Back And Biceps Workout

Since I posted my leg workout I thought I would post my back and biceps workout that I did today. Like my leg workout this is a no frills routine that involves free weights when ever possible. That means using barbells and dumbbells instead of a machine. Everything I have read states that using free weights recruit more muscle fibers than machines. More muscle fibers involved equals more lean muscle I can gain. The more lean muscle I have the faster my metabolism will be. So the next time your in the gym pass up the machines and grab some free weights.


Back

1. Barbell Rows 5 sets


2. Seated Cable Rows 4 sets


3. Lat Pull Downs 4 sets


4. Dead lifts 4 sets

Biceps

1. Barbell Curls 4 sets


2. Seated Dumbbell Curls 3 sets


3. Seated Preacher Curls 3 sets