Moobs to Pecs

[Smartlifts]

Post 1
Day 1
16/06/2015

Backstory

Hello all.

Starting a log/diary to give myself a place to write down my thoughts and track all my data as I try and change my life.

I have dieted up and down for many years with lows of 204 lbs and highs of 283 lbs.

I'm currently on a path to try and find something that is sustainable for me for the rest of my life, not just a diet that I later get off and balloon up again.

Diet

I will be aiming to eat a diet void of processed foods. Eating fruits, vegetables, lean meats and complex carbohydrates where necessary.
As stated though this is something I'm looking to be a lifestyle rather than a diet so it will be flexible when I'm at social functions or have a particular craving.

I'm starting at 2200 calories a day and will adjust as needed.
Roughly 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat macro split.
I will be aiming to lose 1 to 2 lbs a week.

Workouts

I will be lifting weights, focusing on big compound lifts initially. I am not signed up to a gym, but I have a barbell, weights and will be purchasing a bench when I move into my new house (13th July).
Until then I will be doing body weight exercises and cardio.
For my cardio, I will be running, playing tennis and doing random insanity sessions.

Stats:

Age: 24
Height: 6'3
Weight: 273 lbs
Bodyfat: 32.85%
Waist: 45.8'
Hips: 48.8'
Chest: 47'
Pictures are on my bodyspace until I have enough posts to be able to embed them.

[bbowsh54]

Post 1
Day 1
16/06/2015

Backstory

Hello all.

Starting a log/diary to give myself a place to write down my thoughts and track all my data as I try and change my life.

I have dieted up and down for many years with lows of 204 lbs and highs of 283 lbs.

I'm currently on a path to try and find something that is sustainable for me for the rest of my life, not just a diet that I later get off and balloon up again.

Diet

I will be aiming to eat a diet void of unprocessed foods. Eating fruits, vegetables, lean meats and complex carbohydrates where necessary.
As stated though this is something I'm looking to be a lifestyle rather than a diet so it will be flexible when I'm at social functions or have a particular craving.

I'm starting at 2200 calories a day and will adjust as needed.
Roughly 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat macro split.
I will be aiming to lose 1 to 2 lbs a week.

Workouts

I will be lifting weights, focusing on big compound lifts initially. I am not signed up to a gym, but I have a barbell, weights and will be purchasing a bench when I move into my new house (13th July).
Until then I will be doing body weight exercises and cardio.
For my cardio, I will be running, playing tennis and doing random insanity sessions.

Stats:

Age: 24
Height: 6'3
Weight: 273 lbs
Bodyfat: 32.85%
Waist: 45.8'
Hips: 48.8'
Chest: 47'
Pictures are on my bodyspace until I have enough posts to be able to embed them.

Great intro post!!!

Wishing you the best of luck!

What made you decide on a: 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat macro split..? Practicing meal frequency, or any fasting..?

Take care, man

[Smartlifts]

Great intro post!!!

Wishing you the best of luck!

Take care, man

Hey dude,

Thanks for the interest!

What made you decide on a: 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat macro split..?

The macro split is based on 1g of protein per lb of lean mass and 0.4g of fat per lb of lean mass. The rest is filled with carbs obviously

Practicing meal frequency, or any fasting..?

Meal frequency will be something like

Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Snack
Dinner
(snack if calories left)

I won't be practicing any sort of fasting at the moment. At my weight I shouldn't have any trouble losing the lbs if I ever have trouble losing or I'm feeling hungry all the time I will look into using an intermittent fasting protocol.

[tombaron]

From what you're saying it sounds like you know what you're doing mate! Will be following your progress good luck!

[Smartlifts]

Post 2
Day 3
18/06/2015

Overview

First few days have been good. Stuck to my diet with no cheats! Even though it's the early stages on the first day I still found the middle of the day tough. I kept thinking "I can just have a little cheat now it's the first day so it won't matter" but I ignored myself and powered through and even when I was at a friends and there was a bunch of crisps (chips) on the table I passed them up. I still had a good time and didn't need to eat them to enjoy myself.

Have been doing some calculations. (I love stats, figures and graphs .... sad I know)
At my current weight assuming I lose between 1-2 a week on average and lose 5 lbs of muscle in the cut (not sure if this is over or underestimating) I will finish this cut somewhere between February 4th 2016 and September 22nd 2016.

Obviously a big gap in dates but I understand that fat loss is not liner and I have holidays, stag do's, weddings, Christmas, birthdays, relapses and plateaus to get through so I think this will take that into account.

Once I complete this cut I will begin a slow bulk but that's a long way off so no point thinking about that now!


Diet

Small issue with the diet.

I miscalculated my fat intake for the week so it's at 0.35g per lb of body weight instead of 0.4. No big deal and I do my shopping weekly so will fix it for next week and just have like 10g less fat this week.

Food is tasty and nice only thing I'm not a huge fan of is the scrambled egg white at breakfast. It's the texture I'm not too keen on, so I will either season it and try and make it better or just fiddle with my macros and take some fat out from somewhere else so I can have whole scrambled egg instead.

Workout

Workouts haven't been great honestly.
I've been doing body weight exercises as my weights are in storage until I move into my new place (13th July) as I'm in temporary accommodation at the moment with not enough room for them. I can't wait to get them back and start lifting.

I'm no weights expert so my numbers will be very low but my excitement and motivation levels are high and I want to get stuck in. I will be doing the starting strength program when I finally get my place set up.

I've organised a tennis match for Monday. I'm pretty terrible at tennis but enjoying playing it and have improved a lot in the 1 year I have been playing.

[Smartlifts]

From what you're saying it sounds like you know what you're doing mate! Will be following your progress good luck!

Cheers buddy!

[Smartlifts]

Post 3
Day 6
21/06/2015

Overview

Still been going strong.
One step at a time making each day count.

Looking forward to getting my first official weigh in done so I can get the ball rolling!

Diet

Diet has been on point still. I have my meals planned out for the week ahead so it's all pre bought and pre planned so there is no need for me to go to the shops or be tempted into buying something I don't need.
Been planning out a bunch of different meals and saving them in myfitnesspal so it's easier for me to figure out what to eat.

Workout

Still doing bodyweight circuits.
Had to push a car on my own up a slight incline the other day. That was after my workout too! It was absolutely exhausting.

[Smartlifts]

Post 4
Day 8
23/06/2015

Overview

In terms of mentality I'm still going strong and not willing to let myself binge.
Towards the end of the week some friends are going for an Indian and then for a few drinks at a pub, I said I will skip on the pub and meet them at the pub after (for diet drinks and water of course ) so that I can stick to my diet.

It was also weigh in day today!

Weigh in

Start weight: 273.2 lbs
Week 1: 267.8 ▼ -5.4 lbs

A good start to the journey!
I'm aware that most of this was probably some water weight I was holding on to.
Looking for a loss of 1 lb for next week. Slow and steady is going to get me results.
I'm done with fad/extreme diets and binge cycle.

Diet

Sticking to it as per usual.
The one potential change to my diet is scheduling in one or two beers on Thursday evening as I'm going to see my best friend who I haven't seen in a couple of months.
I will just have less carbs during the day so that I can fit it into my diet.

Workouts

Same as usual.
Sticking to body weight circuits.
Played a best of 3 tennis match last night and won 2-0, happy with that.

[Smartlifts]

Post 5
Day 11
26/06/2015

Overview

Just a quick update today.

I'm still on the fitness train but just had nothing I thought was interesting enough for an update.
Still working out and eating right.

I may start posting up more information on my diet on a regular basis once I'm back from holiday in a couple of weeks.

I fit a couple of beers into my diet and once I finished them I turned down the offer of more and went to drinking water. That's a big achievement for me. I'm sticking to this lifestyle! Not sure if I will update before the next weigh in.

[DaveRVD]

Post 5
Day 11
26/06/2015

Overview

Just a quick update today.

I'm still on the fitness train but just had nothing I thought was interesting enough for an update.
Still working out and eating right.

I may start posting up more information on my diet on a regular basis once I'm back from holiday in a couple of weeks.

I fit a couple of beers into my diet and once I finished them I turned down the offer of more and went to drinking water. That's a big achievement for me. I'm sticking to this lifestyle! Not sure if I will update before the next weigh in.

Keep it up man! And good luck with the new place

[tombaron]

Good start mate, 5.4lbs lost will contain a chunk of fat and its got the ball rolling, you post with the kinda attitude that promises success. Yoga is quality for bodyweight exercise and core strengthening, I do a 15-20 minute session three times a week and it actually helps with sport and resistance training, its brutal on the core and shoulders.

[Smartlifts]

Keep it up man! And good luck with the new place

Cheers buddy!

Good start mate, 5.4lbs lost will contain a chunk of fat and its got the ball rolling, you post with the kinda attitude that promises success. Yoga is quality for bodyweight exercise and core strengthening, I do a 15-20 minute session three times a week and it actually helps with sport and resistance training, its brutal on the core and shoulders.

Ahh yea I didn't think of yoga. I will find a couple of routines and give it a try. Cheers mate.

[Smartlifts]

Post 6
Day 15
30/06/2015

Overview

So another week down in this journey! Not a bad one at all. Stuck within my calorie limits all week. Made my diet flexible and work for me while still sticking to my macros.
Weather is picking up this week and it's getting very hot so I will be spending more time outside going for walks.
Less than a week now until my holiday. Looking forward to a nice relaxing one. I'm going to enjoy myself but try not to binge. There are tennis courts near by so I will probably be playing tennis a couple of times. I will probably make use of the hotel gym, combined with the fact I will be swimming a lot in the pool/sea I shouldn't do too bad.

Weigh In

Time for the weekly weigh in!

Start weight: 273.2 lbs
Week 1: 267.8 ▼ -5.4 lbs
Week 2: 263.2 ▼ -4.6 lbs (-10 lbs total)

Another good weigh in. I Don't think losing weight this quickly every week is ideal however so if it happens one more time I will bump up my calories. I will take another weigh in the day before I go on holiday to try and get a rough gauge for how my weight is going, then once I get back from holiday I can start on slightly higher calories if necessary.

I will probably do one more official update before I go away but I will be on the forums browsing everyday.

[x18jay]

very very best of luck with your journey

[tombaron]

10lbs is still solid man you'll lose a tonne of water and more fat than Someone in the 20% bf range per week anyway, as long as your macros are good you're sound. You've got this mate, dont go wild on your holiday and refocus when you get back and you'll be lean before you know it!

[TylerNL]

Congrats on the first milestone! I'll be following!

[Smartlifts]

very very best of luck with your journey

Thank you!

10lbs is still solid man you'll lose a tonne of water and more fat than Someone in the 20% bf range per week anyway, as long as your macros are good you're sound. You've got this mate, dont go wild on your holiday and refocus when you get back and you'll be lean before you know it!

Cheers mate! Yea I'm pretty focused right now. Probably the most focused I've been in years so I'm sure I will be fine post holiday.

Congrats on the first milestone! I'll be following!

Thank you buddy.

[NoCarbsNoSugar]

Great progress so far.
Keep it up!

[Smartlifts]

Post 7
Day 36
21/07/2015

Update:

OK so I went away on holiday and when I came back I moved into my new house. That distracted me from my goal as I knew it would. That's all done with now though so now I can fully focus on this journey again.
It's been over a month since my first post so in theory I would like to be 8lbs down.

However I know that this is not going to be the case. I enjoyed myself on holiday and had beers/cocktails and ate whatever I fancied. I didn't binge and over eat but I was eating calorie dense foods.

My new weigh in day will be on Friday.
On Friday I will also take new measurements and photos for the log although I expect not much positive change for this month it's something I want to get into the habit of.

I will also post up some more details about my weekly nutrition since I can now embed photos.
I will take screenshots of my myfitnesspal.

[DaveRVD]

Glad to hear you're getting back on track~

Can't blame you in the least for slipping though! A house move alone can be unbelievably stressful

Sounds like you had a good time on holiday, where did you go?

[Smartlifts]

Sorted my s**t out.
I basically undid the work I did pre holiday.

I know I have issues with my eating and always self sabotage, that's how I got to this weight.

I'm not going to dwell on it.

My new squat rack and bench get delivered today. This means I can finally hit all the big compound lifts at home.

When I weighed myself a few days ago I was back to 273lbs

So I'm sticking to the same calories.

I did my HIIT this morning and I'm going to do weights once my bench gets delivered. I will be following the starting strength protocol.

I will be going light on weights I know I could lift easily. Maybe even starting with the bar.

On a side note I know that my triggers are the people I live with. I just moved into a new house with two friends and their habits are not healthy and they smoke (MJ). So I have announced to them that I am cleaning up my diet and exercising more now so hopefully that will help me stick to it.

Will post up pictures of food later once I've cooked it.

[DaveRVD]

Great stuff - I am actually jealous that you have space for a rack. I would love to have the space at home for that.

[Smartlifts]

Workout completed!

40 kg (88lbs) Squat 5x3
40 kg (88lbs) Shoulder Press 5x3
40 kg (88lbs) Deadlift 5x1

This was light and easy for me. Especially the squats and the deadlift. I want to start low and nail the form first though.

I forgot to take pictures of my food. Will post up some of my last couple of meals later.

In other news I also have a fitbit charge hr.

Just so I can get a rough gauge on my daily activity.

[Smartlifts]

Great stuff - I am actually jealous that you have space for a rack. I would love to have the space at home for that.

Yea it's great!

Being able to do squats in my own home is amazing.