4 Weeks to Fit

I haven’t posted in a long time. Sorry to anyone who has been following my progress. I took some new photos today and I have put them together with my previous 2 photos so you can see the progress. It is slight, but I have made additional improvements.

I weighed myself today as well. 195 lbs. That’s pretty much exactly what I weighed when I started. I think I have lost a little fat and put on a little muscle. So, I am making gains, but it’s slow. I think part of it may be because I’m 34 years old. You can build muscle and lose fat faster when you’re younger. Not that I’m old or anything, I’ve just slowed down a bit.

About a month ago, we switched our workout routine. We no longer do the 5 seconds up, 5 seconds down cadence. We do two sets to failure at regular cadence for each exercise. Here’s my workout:

Upper Body

Dumbell Bench Press: 55 in each hand x 18 reps
Dumbell Bench Press: 60 in each hand x 12 reps
Dumbell Flys: 30 in each hand x 25 reps
Wide Grip Pulldowns: 125 x 20 reps
Wide Grip Pulldowns: 135 x 12 reps
Tricep Extensions: 20 x 12 reps (each arm)
Tricep Extensions: 20 x 10 reps (each arm)
Cable Upright Rows (what’s this?): 125 x 17 reps
Cable Upright Rows: 135 x 14 reps
Dumbbell Bicep Curls: 35 x 15 reps (each arm)
Dumbbell Bicep Curls: 35 x 13 reps (each arm)

Lower Body

Squats: 110 x 28
Squats: 130 x 16
Lying Hamstring Curl: 105 x 20
Lying Hamstring Curl: 115 x 24
Standing Calf Raises: 220 x 21
Standing Calf Raises: 240 x 16
Leg Extensions: 210 x 25
Leg Extensions: 210 x 16

Those weights and reps are just what I did last time. It always varies a little bit depending on how strong I’m feeling. If I did many reps at a certain weight then I will usually go up on the next workout. I’ll probably go up on the dumbbell flys, squats, and hamstring curls next time.

We workout 3 days a week and alternate between upper and lower body workouts. For example:
Wed - upper
Fri - lower
Sat - upper
Wed - lower
Fri - upper
Sat - lower
Wed - upper
Etc.

I also ride my stationary bike on occasion, but it’s fairly infrequent. Like once every 3 weeks. I’m going to try and bring that up to at least once a week, maybe twice.

I have stuck to a healthy diet for the most part. I eat the same breakfast and lunch almost every day.

Breakfast
About 250ml Egg whites (from a carton), one whole egg, one tomato sliced and fried, and fried refried beans. I don’t use any butter. I spray the pan with a non-fat spray.

Lunch
Frozen veggies, chick peas, 1/4 chicken. The chicken is one of those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store. One chicken does 4 lunches and I don’t have to cook it! It takes me 3 minutes to make my lunch. Frozen veggies on a plate in the microwave for one minute, add chicken and put back in microwave for another minute, add check peas and one more minute in the microwave.

I was a little slack on my protein intake for about a month, but the last 3 weeks I have gotten serious about it. I have breakfast at around 9:00, 40g protein shake at 11:30, lunch at 2:00, protein shake at 4:00, dinner at 7:00, shake before bed at around 12:00. It seems to be helping with the muscle gain. I’m going to stick with it.

Other than lunch and breakfast, I generally eat healthy, but I’m not too religious about it. I eat normal healthy dinners and I rarely eat desserts or snack foods like chips. A typical dinner might be tenderloin steak with brown rice and broccoli, or grilled fish with brown rice and asparagus, or sometimes spaghetti and meatballs. I don’t worry about meals like spaghetti and meatballs since I am eating pretty lean and healthy most of the time.

I won’t be posting daily meal and workout routines anymore, but I will post again in a month or so with another update. I have no plans to slow down.

Until next time…