Matt's Log

[UFMatt]

Alright guys starting my workout program today, I'll try to update this as much as I can. Here's some background on me:

I'm about to start circuit training at a local gym 2-4 times a week and alter my diet in order to drop some lbs before fall semester starts. My story is in middle school I was a chubby kid, I started running and eventually joined the track team in HS and got down to approx. 145-150 at 5'8"ish. I stopped running track (had to do cross country if I wanted to do track and I HATE long distance running) went off to college and along with that came the fast food, alcohol and cigarettes lifestlye. Because of that I put on a good amount of weight, I'm at 185-190 now. I never really cared until I had friends from h/s see me and jokingly say stuff about my weight gain and all that good stuff. Then it hit me that I was going down a slippery slope and needed to start trying correct this problem before it got any worse. I'm overwhelmed by all the information and all the different products and slang for stuff in the fitness world. Hopefully I'll see some encouraging results in the near future, and continue a healthy lifestyle into my senior year of college.

This is what I'm planning on doing:
1) circuit training program at local gym (talked to many people who have worked with this guy and they told me he was very good) which includes cardio while incorporating weights. They also give nutritional advice and all that good stuff.
2) Running on my treadmill at home when I don't go to the gym for the circuit training
3) Cutting out fast food and soda from my diet, and trying to stick to lean foods like chicken, steak, etc. (any healthy tasty suggestions welcome) I'm a terrible cook so I'm going to keep it simple lol
4) I was thinking about taking a weight loss supplement, I've skimmed through some reviews and it seems people like Lipo-6, anyone have opinions on this? I have a friend who took hydroxycut for a while and said he had good results.

Here is a picture of me in HS in Honduras on a mission trip (on the right obviously lol):


And me a week or two ago (I'm now 21 y/o) w/ my girlfriend:


As you can see there is a very noticeable difference in my face, which I dislike. I'm not trying to be the next world bodybuilding champ, my goals are to drop 20-30lbs (is this healthy?) which probably will not happen in the next two months of summer, but like I stated earlier I hope to continue a healthy diet/exercise filled lifestyle back into college.

I'm on a lot of forums so I know I should read the stickies and use the search function, which I will try to do as much as possible. Still, I might have some beginner questions about slang terms people use and all that good stuff, so bear with me!

So that's my starting point, tonight is my first circuit training group and it's supposed to last 1.5hrs. My good friend/boss told me he would give me 30 minutes before quitting lol, and the owner of the gym gave me 15mins LOL!

Matt

[UFMatt]

Today:
Breakfast-Glass of chocolate milk and then a glass water

Lunch-One chopped pork bbq sandwich with a bit of bbq sauce

I'm thinking about having the little left over pork I have as a snack before leaving work.

Dinner-

EDIT: I'm going to try to cut my meals down in size and up in frequency.

[UFMatt]

Alright first day of circuit training at the gym I signed up for and all I can say is holy ****! An hour and a half of non stop action to keep the hear rate elevated the whole time. I managed to go most of the distance, only taking 2-3 one minute breaks. I spent the whole day pounding water in preparation, and I ended up throwing up some afterward, oh well no pain no gain right? Now drinking 5g of glutamine with gatorade and starting my animal cuts tomorrow in the AM, then back to the gym tomorrow night to repeat tonight's festivities.

[UFMatt]

Also weighed myself right now, my starting weight is 186, hope to be down to 170 by the end of summer.

[UFMatt]

any suggestions/tips/etc are welcome, getting lonely in here lol

[UFMatt]

ok time for an update, it's been 3 weeks and I've lost approx. 10 lbs. My lowest weight reading was on Saturday (July 5th) in the morning I weighed 179.8 That is only going to the gym twice a week. Went to the beach for the 4th of July and had people notice a loss of fat, and I'm not as embarrassed to get into a bathing suit anymore lol. My weight seems to have leveled off now, so I'm going to do more cardio/eat even healthier to get down this last 10 lbs. This morning I weighed 181 so I'm guessing I can attribute the change due to variance seeing as it's only a bit over 1lb. I'm now taking meltdown to see how that works, animal cuts seemed to work very well for me, so we'll see how this goes. Just took 2 at lunch time and I feel jittery, but that's been reported by many people.

[UFMatt]

so today is the 15th, almost a month since starting. Weighed in this morning at 176.2 I'm pretty happy with the progress!