Category: Scoop

It’s taken four weeks, but this morning, I was finally able to see a little difference in my body composition. My waist is a little smaller, my stomach a little flatter, my shoulders and arms a little bigger, and my pectorals (my chest) doesn’t look quite so sad.

As a guy who lost 150 lbs, my chest looked sad. I had what some guys refer to as “Breasticles;” dad-bod chest. I hated that, but no matter how much weight I lost or how many push-ups I did, they didn’t get smaller. How, however, it looks like they are filling up; with muscle.

The best part is that they aren’t just getting bigger; it’s flattening out my chest and the extra skin I had there from being obese is now helping make my chest look normal and strong. It’s actually quite motivating!

I’m going to wait a while before posting photos; probably another two months. I want the change to be clearly evident. I remember when I began losing weight and I posted photos of me after losing 50 lbs, and honestly, it was hard to tell. Only after I lost 70 lbs and more was it evident that a change was happening. I think the same applies here.

However, there’s an important lesson that I learned: meaningful and great change is gradual and slow. What I’m after isn’t just weight loss. I’m after a complete reconfiguration of my body and strength. I know from my weight loss journey that it takes time, but in this case, it takes time, effort, and strict adherence to making workouts and not skipping. I’ve started a very strict day-on/day-off routine that doesn’t include more than one day of rest. This is going to present a challenge in a few weeks when I go on vacation, but I am going to try to find a gym to drop-in at. It will cost me some time and money, but I can’t give up on my progress now.

Final point of the day: make health and fitness a priority. It has made my life richer and has served as a foundation for so many positive things in my life. When you are not worrying about your weight and fitness, your mind is less cluttered and able to concentrate more freely on the things that truly require your attention. I no longer have to consider my ability to help someone lift a box, help them move, or to take on a home improvement project. I know that I can handle any physical task put to me.

I just completed my first month of weightlifting and I’ve made some solid gains:

Squat: 45 lbs to 110 lbs
Bench Press: 45 lbs to 75 lbs
Deadlift: 95 lbs to 155 lbs
Overhead Press: 45 lbs to 75 lbs
Barbell Row: 65 lbs to 95 lbs

I’m not going to be entering any Strongman competitions anytime soon (or ever!), but I’m happy with these solid gains. The numbers are getting respectable. In another month, the numbers will almost be impressive. Two more months, and I’m sure I’ll have hit a plateau and will have to de-load to continue.

The bottom line is this: the program works. I’m not interested in bulking; I’m after functional strength. I need to be strong to do what I do. This is helping me get there.

For those of you already on a diet and fitness plan, this may be a boring post, but many who read this blog are still in the research phase of their health journey. They’re compiling information, looking for the right thing to do, or even looking for that motivation to get started. Let me help those folks: start now.

I started my first Whole30 over four years ago. Now, I’m at the healthiest I’ve been in my life. I’m at a good weight, and I am fit. I am a runner (on hiatus due to injury) and a weightlifter (active). I am a National Guard Soldier, and according to my semi-annual physicals, in excellent health. This is all due to a decision I made over four years ago to get healthy.

A month ago, I started weightlifting. Today, I’ve already doubled my starting squat weight and nearly doubled my bench press and overhead press weights. My deadlift is almost up to my body weight. None of this would be possible had I not started with the light weights and worked slowly.

Don’t start with a boot camp fitness program. That’s the WRONG way to go about starting a fitness plan and will likely lead to you not going back due to the pain. Don’t start with a super-restrictive diet like chicken breast and lettuce. You’ll get palate fatigue and have cravings and you’ll start binging.

Whole30 is a great way to get into cutting a sugar addiction, and can be started with minimal planning. Just eat meat and non-grain/non-legume vegetables and make sure nothing has added sugar. Of course, visiting whole30.com is the best source of info.

StrongLifts 5×5 is a GREAT weightlifting program to get into increasing your functional strength. It starts you off easy and light and you work up to heavier weights as your body gets used to the movements and the weight. Best of all, there was minimal muscle aches and no real pain.

Running is easy enough to get into as long as you don’t overdo it and try to run 4 miles on your first stretch. You can start with brisk walking, get yourself into light jogging, then fast jogging, and finally into actual running. That’s how I did it, and again, I felt no pain.

The key for me and fitness was recognizing two important facts:

1. Your body needs rest. You need to NOT workout the day after a workout. Your body builds muscle on the rest days, NOT on the workout days.
2. Your body needs sleep. At least 7-8 hours a night. This is a priority, and you have to make sure you can get this.

Start now, but start smart. Don’t overdo it. The diet part, for me, was pretty easy to get into. Fitness is easy to get into as well as long as you go slow and steady. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve kept going where many others have quit.

This quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein, although it appears that this is not true. The earliest match for this quote in all sources appears in a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous organization newsletter. However, when it comes to diet, health, and fitness, it applies.

I know many people who have been trying the same thing over and over to lose weight. Low fat, lots of whole grains, long sessions in the gym without changing their diet, or trying powders, pills, patches, or other products, and yet, they either don’t achieve the results they were working towards, or worse, they see the opposite results. Yet, after a failure, they go back to the same formula and try again.

I know how maddening this cycle is; I did it myself for many years. Each time, I figured that there was something wrong with me or how I was going about implementing these plans. Surely, the information I had wasn’t suspect, so it had to be me, right?

WRONG!

The problem is that the information we’ve been operating with has been wrong the whole time, yet we didn’t know it. When you have the mainstream media, the government organizations and departments, and even the medical community all telling you one thing, it’s hard to believe that they could have gotten it all so wrong, yet they did. Low-fat is killing us. The diet industry is getting rich off of us making little or no progress. The government is in bed with the diet industry and the medical industry is slow to move when it comes to accepting new information that contradicts anything they’ve believed as fact for so long. Yet, the evidence keeps stacking up that low-fat/high-grain diets are what’s killing us.

Once I ditched the conventional wisdom and adopted the low-carb life, things have turned around 180 degrees for me. During my first Whole30, I lost 20 lbs in a month. Afterwards, on the Paleo Diet, I continued to lose 10-12 lbs per month for the next 11 months culminating in a total of 130 lbs lost in one year. I did that without exercise and without suffering. I did have to give up some of my favorite foods, but it was more like a breakup with a bad girlfriend. It hurt in the beginning, but after time, I realized how much better my life was without her.

Stop repeating the cycle of failure. If doing the same thing over and over hasn’t been working, it’s not you; it’s the program. Try something different. You might be surprised at how well and quickly it works!

I hate seeing ads promising painless and simple weight loss or five minute abs. It’s natural for humans to look for the easiest way to accomplish a task; it’s who we are as a species. But certain people take advantage of this fact and make promises that just aren’t fulfillable or realistic.

Was my first Whole30 easy? No. I didn’t suffer, but I did struggle at times. My wife had a much more difficult time with it, and yes, she definitely struggled. But I was there for her when she was at her lowest, and she was there for me in my times of need.

Throughout the past four years, I’ve had times where the struggle was very real. Where I wondered if I could continue with the diet, with the fitness, or with keeping my weight in check. There are still days I struggle with it, and honestly, I think I always will. We never achieve a state of perfect or complete. It’s a journey, not a destination. Journeys are both up-hill and down-hill, filled with ease and also with struggle. Some face more up-hill than others, but know this: we all struggle. None of us have a simple time of it.

I know that in the past, I’ve written many times how it seemed easy for me at times while I was losing weight. This is true. But it’s also true that I had moments of temptation that made me really consider my decision to limit my diet to eating Paleo. There were times when I was sore from running that I wondered why I was putting myself through it. That struggle, the internal struggle, is the worst.

Your struggle is not unique. I can guarantee you that there are many other out there facing the same difficulties and challenges that you are. Reach out and talk to someone about it. Get the support you need. Talk to your partner, wife, husband, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, mom, dad, etc. Get help to find the strength inside you that you need to get past the hurdles. It is much easier with a helping hand. It’s also much easier knowing you’re not alone.

It’s a funny cartoon, but it reminded me of how I used to eat pizza before I changed my eating habits and lifestyle and adopted the Paleo Diet. I literally would order a large pizza for myself and another large for the rest of the family. I would eat that entire pizza as if my life depended on it, not entirely because I was hungry, but because I enjoyed it. I literally loved pizza.

Of all the foods I no longer eat, pizza is probably at the top of the list of foods I miss. Every now and then, we make a Paleo pizza, and it’s good, but I limit myself with the quantity. I’ve had one pizza in Salado at a food truck there that was gluten-free, and it was probably the best pizza I’ve had in the past four years. It was simply sublime.

As much as I miss pizza, whenever I start feeling sad about no longer eating real pizza or when I get hungry for a pizza, I remember how If let when I was morbidly obese and out of shape. I remember how hard it was to climb even one flight of stairs, to tie my shoes (I had to hold my breath), or to do even the most simple physical tasks like putting up a shelf (it would leave me in sweat). I think about how I can find clothes anywhere, about how I can fit into any seat, how I even have room in economy class on airplanes, and how much betterI feel being fit and in shape. As tasty as pizza is, it doesn’t compare to how I feel the rest of the time.

Eating is temporary satisfaction. Being fit and healthy is long-term. Do I miss pizza? Sure. But I will never go back to eating it with abandon. I won’t return to the obese life. I refuse.

I have been asked this a few times recently when people become aware of my lifestyle changes, fitness, and health journey. I have given it some thought, and the honest answer is yes; it has gotten easier.

It’s easier to eat good food when you know it’s tasty, good for you, and will fill you up. It’s easier to avoid snacking when the foods you eat at meals don’t leave you hungry or with an appetite a few hours later. It’s easier to exercise knowing the benefits of not only your heart, but how much better you feel afterwards and how much more capable you are in performing day-to-day tasks. It’s easier making decisions affecting my health and fitness having first-hand experience with how a bad decision will affect my body in the short-term and possibly long-term.

Is it hard to change your lifestyle to get rid of added sugar, grains, dairy, legumes, and soy? Sort of. I guess it’s different for everyone. It wasn’t so bad for me, while it was far more difficult for my wife. Is it hard to change your lifestyle from sedentary to one of being physically active? Not really, as long as you take it slow and have a plan and don’t try to join some fitness boot camp and attempt to keep up on day 1.

Motivation is where it’s at. You need to find a reason to achieve your goals. This is true not just for health and fitness, but for anything important. You have to make yourself, your diet, and your health a priority. You have to make getting in shape and losing weight your mission. You have to want it as bad as a person under water wants air. Until you can taste the desire to change, it’ll be an up-hill battle. Once you’ve embraced the desire and motivation to make the change, it’s all down hill from there and it gets much easier.

It’s working

I was hopeful, much like when Sherry and I started our first Whole30, that it would work, but at the same time, I was not holding out too much hope. I did weightlifting in the past, and it always left me sore and unmotivated to continue. StrongLifts 5×5 changed that, and three weeks in, I’m seeing the results.

Do I have huge arms? Of course not; it’s only been just over three weeks. But I did notice yesterday that my arms do get “Swole” after a workout. I also noticed that my squats, which are now at 100 lbs, are even easier now than when I started at 45 lbs. I add 5 lbs to every workout which has left me with 15 lbs gain every week. My bench is not huge, but my deadlift is quickly approaching my body weight, and I’m able to do it without straining or being hurt or sore afterward. That’s huge!

I’ve also noticed that I am able to carry “things” around with ease now. My own backpack for work is loaded down with an extra laptop now, and honestly, it feels just fine. I weighed it: 22 lbs. That’s not HUGE, but it is quite heavy for a normal work backpack load, yet for me, it feels perfectly fine.

If I’m doing this well after just over three weeks, I can’t wait to see where I’m at after three months, and then six months, and so-on.

A lot of the training I do in the National Guard benefits me as a civilian; as a person. Although I was doing training on thermal optics on crew served weapons (large machine gun’s that require more than one person to operate), we also did physical training. On top of the PT, we also had to carry and handle these heavy weapons. The M2 I’m firing in the photo above weighs 84 lbs, and the tripod it’s on weighs 45 lbs. The boxes carrying the M2’s held two M2’s per box.

We lifted, carried, and otherwise dragged those boxes around for three days, and while I was a little sore afterward, I was not nearly as wiped out as I would have otherwise been had I not been weightlifting for the past three weeks. Aside from that, moving the weight around felt good, and being strong enough to do so without straining or extra effort was a wonderful feeling.

For the PT, I couldn’t participate in the 4-mile run on the first day due to my Achille’s heel injury, but on the second day, we did a circuit training that included kettlebell swings, farmer’s carry, release push-ups, burpees, and squats with a medicine ball. I was able to do all those, and I did them not only well, but at least as good as, if not better than a lot of the other soldiers. I don’t know if it was my conditioning or my willpower, but either way, I was not the weakest by a long shot.

Motivation for weight loss and motivation for fitness may be different for you as it is for me. My motivation to lose weight was to improve my health, while my motivation for fitness is to be able to perform better as a Combat Advisor in the National Guard. It’s rewarding to experience the benefits of all that work during a training evolution, and it further motivates me to keep going, keep pushing, keep getting stronger.

Yesterday was the beginning of week 3 of my weightlifting on the StrongLifts 5×5 program. So far, it’s been a really fun trip. I’m still learning and perfecting my form (I found out yesterday that my bench form and barbell row forms were not great), but at least the newbie pain is gone. Now, I get a good muscle burn when I’m done, but not nearly as bad as that first week.

I find myself actually looking forward to working out in a way I never have before, even when I was doing my most intense and best running. I never thought I’d enjoy weightlifting, but here I am. I actually wish I could do it 6 days a week, but that’s not good for you and can actually be counter-productive. So, I do light exercise on the rest days and go all-in on my workout days.

As for progress, I’m doing well. I’m making micro-increases (5 lbs/session) so I’ve done the following:

Squats
Starting: 45lbs
Current: 75lbs

Bench Press
Starting 45 lbs
Current: 60 lbs

Deadlift
Starting: 95 lbs
Current: 115 lbs

Overhead Press
Starting: 45 lbs
Current: 55 lbs

Barbell Row
Starting: 65 lbs
Current: 80 lbs

So, I’m no Arnold, but it’s just been two weeks. I can already feel minor changes in my arms and back, but I’ve made big progress in my strength. Lifting things has become easier already, and climbing stairs is easier now than it was when I was at the height of my running.