My fat loss log

[JSim83]

Hi all, My name is Jarno, I'm 33 years old and I'm from Finland. I decided to join these forums and create my own fat loss log, because I enjoyed reading other fat loss logs here and reading about other people lose weight gives me (more) motivation to do it myself.

When I was kid and growing up I was always quite athletic and I did lots of different sports. Soccer was always my main sport, but other than that I've played also ice hockey, floorball, badminton, running, cycling, climbing, lifting weights at the gym and disc golf.

But during the last 8 years of my life i have slowly started to do less and less physical activities and at the same started to eat more and more unhealthy food. Also during the last couple of years I have consumed more alcohol than ever (mainly beer during weekends).

All this has lead to the point where me being a athletic guy is just a distant memory and right now I'm obese and completely out shape. 8 years ago I think weighted approx. 87 kg (191 lbs), but now I weight 134kg (295 lbs). So I have gained a lot of weight and I feel like need to make a change and go back to where I was 8 years ago.

I started this journey a month ago by buying a gym membership and now I have been going to the gym 4-5 times a week. First week was absolutely horrible. I tried to start with light work outs, but something that I thought would be light was nothing but. But now I already feel better, more energetic and I have slept better. I have also gained more strength back during this first month than I thought I would. For example deadlift 5x70kg->5x100kg and bench press 7x50kg->5x80kg. I've also done some cardio at the gym. Mainly walking in the treadmill. First week I tried to run. I was able to run 1 minute at the speed of 7 km/h. (Pathetic, I know) Yesterday I tried and I was able to run 6 minutes at the same speed. So a little progress there too.

I actually didn't weigh in myself until today, because I was scared of the number, so it is very much possible that a month ago I was even heavier. I also started to count my calories on monday and right now I feel like I'm on the right track to losing some weight. My goal is to lose 0,5 kg a week. So I try to take this rather slowly. I've tried lose weight a couple of time before with higher calory deficit, but I didn't have enough self-discipline to do that and I failed miserably. This time I started with 2900 calories on training days and 2600 on days that I don't do any workout. I'm not sure if these numbers are correct for me, but I'll start with these numbers and then adjust them when needed.

So here we go.

ps. Writing english feels quite difficult to me, but I hope you can understand me.

[lukepeter]

Hi Jarno.

Welcome to the forum!

Your English is fine - I can guarantee that the vast majority of posters here wouldn't even be able to pronounce a single Finnish word, let alone write a post like the above

Great job getting back into it - Your story is very similar to mine, eerily similar actually. The good news, as you already have seen, is that your strength comes back quite quickly - and the muscle mass helps burn the stubborn fat.

When I started out the process I ate at 2500kcal a day with a cheat day each week - I was very heavy (145kg) so it resulted in good consistent weight loss.

My only advice is as follows:

Ensure you are getting enough protein and fat in your diet, and make lifting the priority in your training. Keep cardio sessions as a secondary concern and do your best to make them HIIT rather than steady state. Take your before photos and measurements - these will help when the scale shows no progress (as it sometimes will), as the other tracking methods will likely show you are still making progress.

I train 4 times a week, and try and do nothing on my rest days other than exist and play with my kids - it has really helped give me time to recover whilst being on a deficit and keep my strength up.

Log often - it helps keep you on track, and there are so many others here going through exactly what you are that will support and help motivate you as required.

Grind hard

Luke

[JSim83]

Thank you Luke for your encouraging words and great advice. I will definetly keep lifting priority in my training. This week I will do 4 work outs at the gym and tomorrow I planned on doing a little bit of cardio and a lot of streching, because my mobility is quite bad right now. Those before pictures... I took some photos of myself yesterday without a shirt and I thought I looked so disgusting that I immediately deleted the pictures, but I guess I should retake those photos so I have something to compare to when I have made some progess.

Today was the second day I measured my weight and the scale said that had gained 0,3 kg. Yesterday morning my weight was 133,9kg and today morning it was 134,2kg. Of course it is just one day, so I can't really make any conclusions based on that, so hopefully the weight starts to go down with current calory intake. I already feel hungry enough with the calories I'm currently eating.

[JSim83]

So just a quick update. This morning my weight was 133.6 kg. So it is a step in the right direction. Last night I did not sleep too well, so I'm glad that weekend is coming. Tomorrow I'm going to do a ice fishing trip and in the evening hopefully I will be eating fresh fish from the lake.

[JSim83]

Morning weight:

monday: NA
tuesday: NA
wednesday: 133,9 kg (295,2 lbs)
thursday: 134,2 kg (295,9 lbs)
friday: 133,6 kg (294,5 lbs)
saturday: 133,2 kg (293,7 lbs)
sunday: 133,5 kg (294,3 lbs)

Calories:

monday: 2582, P: 154g, C: 228g, F: 110g
tuesday: 2930, P: 196g, C: 281g, F: 108g
wednesday: 2900, P: 182g, C: 275g, F: 112g
thursday: 2580, P: 164g, C: 213g, F: 115g
friday: 2496, P: 196g, C: 190g, F: 100g
saturday: 2935, P: 193g, C: 342g, F: 81g
sunday: 2998, P: 201g, C: 387g, F: 66g

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 78cm
waist: 134cm (thickest part, around belly button), 121cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 44cm
chest: 136cm

I struggled a little bit with the chest measurement, so I'm not sure if that is reliable measurement, but there it is anyway.

work outs:

lower body workout on tuesday and sunday
upper body workout on wednesday and saturday

Original plan was to do lower body work out on saturday, but had a little bit of knee pain on tuesday during work out so I thought I give my knee one more day of rest and did upper body on saturday. There was no knee pain on sunday so thats good. I did 5x82,5kg on bench press on saturday, so a little improvement on that.

Future goals:

I spent some time today thinking about what are my future goals, and here is what I came up with:

1. Make this lifestyle change permanent.
2. Drop my body fat % to 10

I think that if I can make the number one happen, the number two will happen too eventually.

I decided not to have any specific weight as a goal at this point. I will stop losing weight based on how I look and feel and not based on what the scale says, but I'm pretty sure that I need to lose closer to 50 kg before I'm finished with this fat loss journey.

I also decided not have any specific timeframe in which I want reach my goal. In the past I have failed to lose weight by trying to do it too fast. I just ended up feeling like crap and thinking that the weight loss is not worth all the suffering etc. and went right back to bad eating habits and not working out. So I don't want some artificial timeframe to make feel like I need to rush things.

[lukepeter]

Thats decent tracking

You will be pleased you started early on.

Its also great that you are not imposing any time constraints on your dreams as it relieves a lot of the pressure, but bear in mind that the difference between a dream and a goal is a deadline. Rather than pointing aggressively towards something in a years time, break the goals up into weekly, or biweekly targets. (a weight loss of 0.5kg, and no loss in strength etc.). You are going to a lot of effort to track your weight and energy and measurements - the point of that is that you have a benchmark for progress so you know how much to adjust your energy intake or training to reach a specific goal.

You are absolutely right about the need to make this a permanent change - and the tentative deficit you have started with is exactly the small type of change that can allow the habits to form without negative emotions being linked with them.

I will be reading Keep on posting.

[JSim83]

I think it's good idea to have some short term goals. I think that weight loss of 0,5 kg a week is kind of a ongoing short term goal for each week. However, if I don't hit that goal some week, I will not try to compensate that the following week by trying to lose more than 0,5 kg.

Other short term goals that I decided to have right now are for the following 4 weeks:
1. deadlift: 5x100kg -> 5x110 kg
2. bench press: 5x82,5 kg -> 5x87,5 kg
3. Improve my mobility, so that I can do squats with proper form. Right now I'm struggling with squats.

I think all those 3 are doable, but challenging enough.

[JSim83]

I realized this morning that my scale sucks. First I stepped into the scale this morning and it showed that I had gained 1.5 kg since yesterday. I thought, that is this really right? and then I measured myself again and it showed that I had LOST 0,5 kg since yesterday. So I tried again and again and I noticed that pretty much every single time the result was a little different than the previous. So yeah, I can't really trust that thing. I'm going to buy a new scale today. So all these weight measurements that I've done so far are pretty much useless.

[JSim83]

So yesterday I got a new scale and I spent some time testing it. It seems it does indeed give consistent results on consecutive weight ins, so I'm happy with that. On Monday I did 20 minutes of cardio to warm up my muscles then did some stretching, foam rolling etc. Yesterday I did a upper body work out, which consisted of the following:

warm up

Bench press 5x5
Pec deck 3x15
Technogym pull down machine 5x8 (I'd rather do pull ups instead of this, but right now I can't do a single rep.)
T bar row machine 3x10
Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl 3x10
Side lateral raise 3x10
Triceps Pushdown - Rope Attachment 3x10
Cable rope Rear-Delt Rows 3x10

I did the biceps and side laterals as super sets and I also did the triceps and rear-delt rows as super sets.

It was surprisingly hard to write that work out in English. First I started with google to try to find out what are all those exercises called in English, but then I found the bodybuilding.com exercises page and it got a little easier. So another good thing about this log is that I'm also learning English while I'm writing this.

[JSim83]

Yesterday I did lower body which consisted of the following:

warm up

leg extensions 5x10-15
leg curls 5x10-15
dead lift 5x5 (and 5 warm up sets)
leg press 5x10

I was supposed to do also something for my abs, but after leg press I really felt like I was done and I skipped it this time. I do the leg extensions and leg curls always before any "heavy" lifting, because I have a little bit of bad knees and it seems that those really help me warm up my knees and avoid pain.

[lukepeter]

Hi Jarno.

Great that you are keeping at it!

Doing the accessory work (leg curls and extensions) before your big compounds (dead lifts and squats) can really help - especially as you are starting out. When you fatigue the muscles before the compound it allows you to get good benefit out of low weight training on the compounds, and reduces your risk of injury since you are not shouldering massive loads - keep working on getting your form good with lower weights and your muscles will all come to the party together and develop at the correct rate for good progression.

[JSim83]

Morning weight:

monday: 133,3 kg (293,9 lbs)
tuesday: 133,5 kg (294,3 lbs)
wednesday: 132,4 kg (291,9 lbs)
thursday: 132,0 kg (291,0 lbs)
friday: 131,9 kg (290,8 lbs)
saturday: 131,9 kg (290,8 lbs)
sunday: 131,9 kg (290,8 lbs)

The change of the scale might affect the results a little bit, but it is what is. I tried to compare the results of the new scale and the old one. If I weigh myself 10 times on the old scale and calculte the average and compare that to the measurement of the new scale, the difference is 0,4 kg. So it seems that the new scale gives a little lower number, but even considering that, it seems that the weight is going down.

Calories:

monday: 2634, P: 202g, C: 192g, F: 113g
tuesday: 2589, P: 215g, C: 254g, F: 76g
wednesday: 2847, P: 214g, C: 286g, F: 89g
thursday: 2606, P: 196g, C: 229g, F: 97g
friday: 2937, P: 205g, C: 270g, F: 110g
saturday: Cheat day
sunday: 2561, P: 185g, C: 224g, F: 99g

Saturday was a cheat day. In the evening I went to visit a friend of mine and while I was there I did not eat according to my current diet. That was something that I had planned already before I started to write this log and I have to say that mentally it felt good to get a one day break and eat a little bit more freely. I'm not sure of the saturdays calories, but rough estimate would be something like 3500-3800 I think. Today I contintued to eat according to plan.

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 78cm -> 77cm
waist: 134cm -> 132cm (thickest part, around belly button), 121cm -> 120cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 44cm
chest: 136cm -> 134cm

There could some error in the measurements, but at least it seems like they are going to the right direction.

work outs:

lower body workout on wednesday and saturday
upper body workout on tuesday and friday

After saturdays lower body workout my lower back got sore. I'm not sure what caused it, because I did not feel any pain during the work out. Even this morning the back did not feel too good, but now towards evening it is already starting to feel a little better.

I think need work on my form to make sure that I don't get injured. So now the plan is to lower the weights a little bit and really focus on the correct technique and I guess I forget my goal of increasing deadlift weight for now.

[lukepeter]

High quality log post. Progress looks good, and always go for good form over high weights

Keep on doing the stuff.

[JSim83]

My lower back has been bothering me still a little bit after it gut hurt on Saturday. I did a workout on Tuesday. I was extra careful with everything I did and actually a little exercise seemed to help a bit, because after the workout the back felt better. Today my back feels almost normal and I'm going to do a lower body workout and again with lower weights and with extra careful technique.

My weight seems to be going down steadily and for some reason this week I have not felt as hungry as I've felt during the last couple of weeks, so that's a really positive thing. (I hope this continues.)

[JSim83]

Today I went to the gym and for some reason iron felt lighter than usual. I still tried to be extra careful that I would not do anything that would hurt my lower back, but I did test my current strength levels a little bit. I was able to do 5 x 92,5kg on the bench press, which is 10 kg improvent in just two weeks and I also did 10 x 110 kg on technogym pull down machine. Two weeks a go I was able to do 8 x 100 kg on that same machine with in my opinion worse technique. I really don't know where this sudden increase of strength came from, but l gladly take it.

[JSim83]

Weight:

monday: 132,4 kg (291,9 lbs)
tuesday: 131,8 kg (290,6 lbs)
wednesday: 131,8 kg (290,6 lbs)
thursday: 131,4 kg (289,7 lbs)
friday: 131,8 kg (290,6 lbs)
saturday: 131,2 kg (289,2 lbs)
sunday: 131,1 kg (289,0 lbs)

Weight seems to be going down steadily. I just hope this continues.

Calories:

monday: 2567, P: 196g, C: 210g, F: 100g
tuesday: 2783, P: 216g, C: 243g, F: 101g
wednesday: 2447, P: 202g, C: 210g, F: 84g
thursday: 2942, P: 204g, C: 270g, F: 113g
friday: 2566, P: 197g, C: 198g, F: 105g
saturday: 2905, 224P: g, 262C: g, F: 104g
sunday: 2844, P: 195g, C: 296g, F: 106g

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 77cm
waist: 132cm -> 130cm (thickest part, around belly button), 120cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 44cm
chest: 134cm -> 133cm

Measurements seems to be slowly going to the right direction and I have to say that I have noticed these shrinking numbers in my clothing too. My jeans feel a little bit too large and my winter jacket that was just a month a go a bit too small for me, now fits perfectly. So that is also good indicator, that I'm going to the right direction.

work outs:

lower body workout on thursday and sunday
upper body workout on tuesday and saturday

I have been focusing mainly on squat now on lower body work outs. It is a struggle. It seems that my mobility is still so bad that proper form seems impossible, but I'll keep grinding with low weights and eventually I will be able to do proper squats. Right now it is kind of pathetic that I'm able to bench press more than squat, but it is what it is.

Overall this was a great week for me and right now I feel more motivated than ever to make this transformation happen.

[PeteDenmark]

Solid workout progress man - good work.

It's a really good idea that you are so diligent with posting you measurements. In a year, you'll be glad that you can go back a see it. For the same reason, you should post a picture. Don't worry about being judged. Very few of us in here are Mens fitness front page material, but who cares. This is a support forum, not a beauty pageant.

How tall are you (i'm danish, so metric is fine)? i Can't see if you have written it anywhere.

One thing i want to ask you. Why do you prioritize your carbs? They seem to pretty consistently be over your protein intake. I'm not judging, but it is a pretty well established fact, that protein is more satiating, help prevent muscle loss and has the highest thermogenic effect (takes the body the most amount of energy to digest it), so i was wondering if you ate the carbs as a habit, because they taste better or as a conscious choice?

[JSim83]

Solid workout progress man - good work.

It's a really good idea that you are so diligent with posting you measurements. In a year, you'll be glad that you can go back a see it. For the same reason, you should post a picture. Don't worry about being judged. Very few of us in here are Mens fitness front page material, but who cares. This is a support forum, not a beauty pageant.

How tall are you (i'm danish, so metric is fine)? i Can't see if you have written it anywhere.

One thing i want to ask you. Why do you prioritize your carbs? They seem to pretty consistently be over your protein intake. I'm not judging, but it is a pretty well established fact, that protein is more satiating, help prevent muscle loss and has the highest thermogenic effect (takes the body the most amount of energy to digest it), so i was wondering if you ate the carbs as a habit, because they taste better or as a conscious choice?

Hi pete, I'm 178 cm, so I'm not that tall. I actually took some photos on the 17th of february and again this morning for comparison and I thought about posting those photos here, but I'm still so ashamed of how I look so I chickened out. I know no one here will be judging me so I I'll just post them now. There is not much, if any, difference in those photos, because the weight difference is only 3 kg, but at least now you know where I'm at now.

As for my diet, well, that's a good question and I think it is a little bit of all of those three things you listed. Eating a lot of carbs has been definetly a habit of mine, well, I guess my whole life and yes I do like the taste of the carbs in pretty much any form. There is no denying that. And yes I have read about protein intake should be around 2-2.2 g/kg if you are lifting, so that would be something like 260-290 g per day for me. It just seems ridiculously high and I just did not want to make too extreme change to my diet, because I was afraid that I don't have the self-discipline to do that and that I would fallback to my old bad habits. So far the way I have been eating seems to working fine so I haven't seen any reason to change anything (yet).

[lukepeter]

Hi Jarno.

You will thank yourself for taking the pics later - its fantastic to look back at where you were and see how far you have come, and you are right - nobody here is going to offer anything but encouragement. Posting a progress picture on a public forum is also great motivation to stay on top of your diet - I post to bodyspace once a week, and an impending photo day definitely improves my adherence

Bear in mind the protein and fat requirements are based on kg of lean body mass - I have based my macros on the lean mass I want to have when done (around 90kg) (200g protein) and I train with that in mind also. If you want to keep your lean mass (and in our case you can certainly gain muscle during the process of fat loss also) you must eat sufficient protein, and sufficient fat to maintain acceptable hormone transport and production.

Bodyfat also requires nutrients to maintain - that's why your maintenance energy is higher than what your LBM would dictate, but it is significantly less energy kg for kg than muscle.

Your weight loss looks to be steady at a safe +-1kg weekly - try and keep it there, it is mostly sustainable.

Keep on working at it man, the end result will be well worth the effort.

Luke

[JSim83]

Today I woke up and scale showed 0,5 kg drop since yesterday, which was a pleasant surprise. Nice way to start the day.

You will thank yourself for taking the pics later - its fantastic to look back at where you were and see how far you have come, and you are right - nobody here is going to offer anything but encouragement. Posting a progress picture on a public forum is also great motivation to stay on top of your diet - I post to bodyspace once a week, and an impending photo day definitely improves my adherence

I know, now I just wish I took a photo of myself already in January before I bought the gym membership, because now I would like to see if there is difference between now and then. I think there could actually be some visible difference already. Too bad I can't go in back time to take that photo.

And again, thanks for the advice and I'll definitely keep working.

Right now I feel so motivated to do this, because already I feel so much better than before I started this journey. I'm not tired anymore all the time, I sleep better and I don't feel so stressed all the time. It's great. Also it's great that the weight seems to be going down so easily and I have still been able to gain some strength without that much effort. I know there will probably be time in future when the weight does not come off so easily and also I know that pretty soon the progress in the gym slows down significantly. But right now I just enjoy this relatively fast progress.

[JSim83]

Weight:

monday: 131,00 kg ( 288,8 lbs)
tuesday: 130,50 kg ( 287,7 lbs)
wednesday: 130,80 kg ( 288,4 lbs)
thursday: 131,00 kg ( 288,8 lbs)
friday: 131,30 kg ( 289,5 lbs)
saturday: 130,80 kg ( 288,4 lbs)
sunday: 130,60 kg ( 287,9 lbs)

This week the weight first went down then up and then down again. Weekly average is still 0,8 kg below last weeks average, so I see it as progress. I kind of hoped to get under 130 kg this week after the scale showed 130,5 kg on tuesday, but didn't happen, so maybe next week...

Calories:

monday: 2517, P: 195g, C: 213g, F: 96g
tuesday: 2562, P: 196g, C: 216g, F: 96g
wednesday: 2897, P: 225g, C: 232g, F: 111g
thursday: 2777, P: 220g, C: 258g, F: 88g
friday: 2532, P: 180g, C: 199g, F: 105g
saturday: 2966, P: 197g, C: 262g, F: 107g
sunday: 2863, P: 212g, C: 263g, F: 102g

Average calories for a week has been a bit over 2700. So far it seems to give me progress, so I'll keep eating the same way.

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 77cm -> 76cm
waist: 130cm -> 129cm (thickest part, around belly button), 120cm -> 119cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 44cm -> 43cm
chest: 133cm -> 130cm

I'm sure I did not lose 3cm off my chest in a week, so there's likely some error in that measurement, but I measured my chest several times and thats what the measure tape says, so I go with it.

work outs:

lower body workout on thursday and sunday
upper body workout on wednesday and saturday

I trained harder this week than any other week before. I didn't use any heavier weights, but I did more sets and more reps in each set and I can really feel it now. I'm pretty tired right now. The upcoming week I will do workouts on the same days as this week, but the plan is to do lighter work outs on wednesday and thursday and then train a little harder again on weekend.

[JSim83]

I think it's good idea to have some short term goals. I think that weight loss of 0,5 kg a week is kind of a ongoing short term goal for each week. However, if I don't hit that goal some week, I will not try to compensate that the following week by trying to lose more than 0,5 kg.

Other short term goals that I decided to have right now are for the following 4 weeks:
1. deadlift: 5x100kg -> 5x110 kg
2. bench press: 5x82,5 kg -> 5x87,5 kg
3. Improve my mobility, so that I can do squats with proper form. Right now I'm struggling with squats.

I think all those 3 are doable, but challenging enough.

Now it is almost a month gone since I set these goals. number one did not happen. I have not increased my deadlift weights since I hurt my lower back. My back feels 100% healthy now, but I want to be sure that my deadlift form is absolutely right before I start increasing weights again, so that's that. I definitely want to reach this goal though and go past it at some point, but I'm in no rush.

Number two did happen and I was able improve my bench press a lot more than I thought. Now my best bench press set is 4x100 kg, which I did on wednesday. I wanted to do 5, but fourth was already so close to failure that I did not even try that fifth rep. And yeah, my plan was to do lighter workouts on Wednesday and Thursday, but I did not do that because I felt energetic and well recovered from last weeks workouts.

Number three... well, I have been doing squats now on regular basis and I think my mobility has improved a little bit, but it is still a struggle to squat with proper form. I'm confident that my mobility will improve more as I keep working on it.

[Denfete]

Nice log! Subbed!

//Chris

[JSim83]

Thanks man!

[lukepeter]

Now it is almost a month gone since I set these goals. number one did not happen. I have not increased my deadlift weights since I hurt my lower back. My back feels 100% healthy now, but I want to be sure that my deadlift form is absolutely right before I start increasing weights again, so that's that. I definitely want to reach this goal though and go past it at some point, but I'm in no rush.

Number two did happen and I was able improve my bench press a lot more than I thought. Now my best bench press set is 4x100 kg, which I did on wednesday. I wanted to do 5, but fourth was already so close to failure that I did not even try that fifth rep. And yeah, my plan was to do lighter workouts on Wednesday and Thursday, but I did not do that because I felt energetic and well recovered from last weeks workouts.

Number three... well, I have been doing squats now on regular basis and I think my mobility has improved a little bit, but it is still a struggle to squat with proper form. I'm confident that my mobility will improve more as I keep working on it.

Jarno, there is just so much win in this post...

You are absolutely crushing this, keep going man.

The squats... I was in the same boat as you - without knowing the specifics of your body kinetics I cant say for sure, but I can almost guarantee that your glutes are the weak link - it tend to happen in those of us that spend a large part of our day sitting. Do Glute bridges with extreme prejudice - you may be judged slightly by other men in the gym for doing a "girl" exercise, but **** them

luke

[JSim83]

Jarno, there is just so much win in this post...

You are absolutely crushing this, keep going man.

The squats... I was in the same boat as you - without knowing the specifics of your body kinetics I cant say for sure, but I can almost guarantee that your glutes are the weak link - it tend to happen in those of us that spend a large part of our day sitting. Do Glute bridges with extreme prejudice - you may be judged slightly by other men in the gym for doing a "girl" exercise, but **** them

luke

Thanks, man. I'll definetly keep going. This week I didn't really lose any weight and measurements didn't show progress either, so that's a little dissapointing. I will write my weekly recap tomorrow, so a little more about that then.

I can't really disagree with you on glutes being a weak link. You are propably right. In fact, I have already started to work more on my glutes and I'll keep doing that. Other than that, I think the problem is just tightness in my lower body muscles, especially in hip flexors/groin area and I've actually had some pain in that area after squat sessions. Nothing major, but pain anyways, so that's never a good sign.

[JSim83]

Calories:

monday: 2503, P: 206 g, C: 199 g, F: 94 g
tuesday: 2559, P: 185 g, C: 200 g, F: 109 g
wednesday: 2664, P: 209 g, C: 243 g, F: 90 g
thursday:2766, P: 206 g, C: 243 g, F: 102 g
friday:2505, P: 183 g, C: 198 g, F: 105 g
saturday: CHEAT DAY
sunday: 2450, P: 169 g, C: 219 g, F: 96 g

Saturday was a cheat day. I decided to have cheat day, because I had several places to go to and plenty of stuff to do and I didn't want to carry a bag full of food with me all day long. I decided to eat whatever was available and it got out of hand. I kind of found my old self and I'm confident that I ate well above 4000 calories on Saturday and drank some beer too.

I returned to form on sunday, so this is not the end of the world. This will be a long journey anyways, so there will be more cheat days in the future due to social events and whatnot. I just have to make sure that they don't happen too often so it doesn't kill my progress.

Weight

monday: 130,90 kg ( 288,6 lbs)
tuesday: 130,20 kg ( 287,0 lbs)
wednesday: 130,90 kg ( 288,6 lbs)
thursday: 130,70 kg ( 288,1 lbs)
friday: 130,30 kg ( 287,3 lbs)
saturday: 130,70 kg ( 288,1 lbs)
sunday: 131,70 kg ( 290,3 lbs)

So not any progress on my weight really and of course the weight jumped up after the cheat day on saturday.

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 76cm
waist: 129cm (thickest part, around belly button), 119cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 43cm
chest: 130cm -> 129cm

Chest measurement is the only measurement showing some progress. I took the measurements on Saturday morning and I kind of hoped to see some progress despite of the weight not dropping, but didn't happen.

I have been taking progress photos now once a week and here is a four week comparison photo. At least to my eyes there is some progress or what do you people think?

work outs:

lower body workout on thursday and sunday
upper body workout on wednesday and saturday

Sundays lower body workout was unusual. I did not go to the gym. As I mentioned I've had some pain in hip flexors/groin area so I decided not to lift on sunday. Instead I went to walk some stairs and all I can say that damn it was hard for a fat ass like me. In my home town we have these stairs built specifically for fitness. 261 steps from the bottom of the hill to the top. So I walked the stairs up and down for 48 minutes and then I decided to stop because at that point my thighs and calves were literally shaking and feeling like they are gonna give up any second.

[lukepeter]

Progress is clearly noticeable, even week on week - which is pretty awesome!

Don't sweat the cheat day (although I will caution keeping it to a single cheat meal instead - that way there is less chance for reckless abandon), so long as you get back on the straight and narrow afterwards the damage is minimal.

[JSim83]

Calories:

Mon: 2421 kcal, P: 186 g, C: 200 g, F: 92 g
Tue: 2473 kcal, P: 181 g, C: 211 g, F: 93 g
Wed: 2746 kcal, P: 208 g, C: 257 g, F: 91 g
Thu: 2614 kcal, P: 186 g, C: 238 g, F: 95 g
Fri: 2610 kcal, P: 187 g, C: 235 g, F: 95 g
Sat: 2746 kcal, P: 208 g, C: 228 g, F: 107 g
Sun: 2551 kcal, P: 194 g, C: 246 g, F: 85 g

I ate a little less calories than previous weeks and it didn't feel any different really. A little hunger here and there, but overall I felt ok with the calories.

Weight

monday: 131,30 kg ( 289,4 lbs)
tuesday: 130,70 kg ( 288,1 lbs)
wednesday: 130,40 kg ( 287,4 lbs)
thursday: 130,40 kg ( 287,4 lbs)
friday: 130,10 kg ( 286,8 lbs)
saturday: 129,90 kg kg ( 286,4 lbs)
sunday: 129,70 kg ( 285.9 lbs)

After last weeks cheat day, the weight dropped really nicely and it feels good to be under 130 kg.

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 76cm
waist: 129cm -> 128cm (thickest part, around belly button), 119cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 43cm
chest: 129cm -> 128cm

Now I'm hoping that the thinnest part of my waist would shrink faster, because I currently only have one pair of jeans left that fits me and they are almost at the breaking point. I have several pairs of jeans that almost fit me so I would not like to go to buy any new jeans now as I'm losing weight.

work outs:

Just grinding in the gym and also did some stairwalking too. I did 5x100kg on bench press yesterday and it was actually quite easy. So I guess that was my highlight of the week. My best set ever in bench press is 5x110kg which I did I believe in august 2012 right before I stopped going to the gym. It would be nice to beat that.

But the thing is, I think I have pushed myself too hard in the gym. My joints have started to hurt all over my body, like my shoulders, left elbow, right knee and right hip. It does not feel like it's anything major at the moment and I haven't really felt any pain while working out, but the following day/days. I think that if I don't give my body some rest now, these issues will become something major. The only good thing is that my hip flexors aren't hurting anymore. So next week will be only some really light training and let's see how my body feels after that.

And to be honest, this is not really anything new to me. I've had similar issues with my body when I was younger. The only difference is that back then I did not give my body the rest when it needed it. I had that no pain no gain kind of attitude and I just kept pushing until the issues became a lot worse and then, of course, took a lot more time to heal and the next thing you know, I did it same thing again! (Yeah, I know I was stupid.) So now I'm trying to learn from my past mistakes and I will give my body some rest as it clearly needs it.

[JSim83]

Calories:

Mon: 2571 kcal, p: 201 g, c: 176 g, f: 112 g
Tue: 2467 kcal, p: 199 g, c: 181 g, f: 102 g
Wed: 2647 kcal, p: 219 g, c: 217 g, f: 98 g
Thu: 2551 kcal, p: 218 g, c: 197 g, f: 98 g
Fri: 2515 kcal, p: 200 g, c: 210 g, f: 93 g
Sat: ~3000-3200 kcal
Sun: 2619 kcal, p: 193 g, c: 232 g, f: 98 g

I don't know exact calories for saturday, because I had a cheat meal in the evening, but at least it wasn't the whole day full of reckless eating like last cheat day. (Thanks Luke for the advice )

Weight

Mon: 129,70 kg (285,9 lbs)
Tue: 129,60 kg (285,7 lbs)
Wed: 129,20 kg (284,8 lbs)
Thu: 129,50 kg (285,4 lbs)
Fri: 129,40 kg (285,2 lbs)
Sat: 129,40 kg (285,2 lbs)
Sun: 129,40 kg (285,2 lbs)

Some measurements:
arm: 45cm
thigh 76cm -> 75cm
waist: 128cm -> 127cm (thickest part, around belly button), 119cm -> 118cm (thinnest part, right above hips)
calve: 43cm
chest: 128cm -> 127cm

workouts:

Just light training like I planned. I did also a lot of streching and some foam rolling.

My plan for the upcoming weeks:

3rd to 13th of April: normal training and eating
14th to 17th of April: Easter holiday
18th to 28th of April: normal training and eating
29th of April: going out with friends (which means beer and junk food and so on...)
30th of April: most likely hangover and return to form

I will spent my Easter holiday in the woods in the middle of nowhere in my parents cottage. While I'm there, I will not do any training and I will not track my weight or calories, but I do plan on eating healthy. It should not be too difficult since my parents have quite healthy eating habits anyway. So I'll just propably eat whatever they eat.