And second of all – today at the gym I wanted to re-confirm the weight gain – I thought that I might’ve sweated it all out, but no! I’m just under 175lbs – so I’m going to commit to 174lbs. That’s incredible. And that denotes the second major milestone – I’ve put on 10lbs since I started. That’s 10lbs since March – 5 months! God – 2lbs a month!!! ARGH!!! That puts it in context eh. Wow. But then again, I’ve gained 5lbs of that 10lbs in the last 3 weeks… so again, depends which way you want to look at it!

I’m definitely noticing changes… but would like to figure out what caused the large spike?! Was it an increase in carbs (both good and bad – had many more baked potatoes for dinner last week, as well as pizza, lemon pie and cupcakes), was it a change in weather (the cooler weather lets me work out harder – I’m not sweating everything out?), was it the change in intensity in the workouts? Was it all those things? I don’t doubt it was a mixture of it all. Tough to tell. Probably never know.

All I know is that I’m done a huge 180 from the middle of last week, where I was starting to question my ability to proceed with this training. I can’t believe how things can change – well, actually I can. I know that you’re going to have some off days. That’s just normal. I got over it, proceeded – nervously – to commit to the training, and had a huge progression. Although – to be honest, can’t expect it to continue. But c’est la vie.

This is a lot of fun – time to celebrate the 10lb gain – only another 15lbs until I’m at my 190lb goal. Well – 190lbs with 10% bf… probably need to reach 200lbs and lose 10 before I reach that… so yeah – 25lbs off :s ARGH!!!!

I was pretty surprised with how well I managed today. Bench press was good at 2x 45lb plates – as much as I normally do with Adrian, but managing it by myself – with the ominous reality of me not being able to push the weights back up and it crushing me. I did good. Bicep curls were good at 70lbs. Maybe could’ve pushed a bit harder.

But it’s when I got into my dropsets that I was quite surprised – the strength was impressive. There could be a number of reasons for that – probably the most pertinent, the fact that I had to change inclines, etc… myself, which gave me a bit more rest between each set. Those extra few seconds could really help with fatigue… and they were reflected in the results. I didn’t have my plan to go by, so I was winging it with the weights, but I certainly felt like I was doing better. Last week I was struggling to push even 1 rep on the incline bench press, but now I was getting 3/4 on the 3rd dropset. The same with the bicep curls. They KILLED me. Me biceps were so hard afterwards. They were seriously like rocks. I couldn’t believe it. In fact, it was quite funny – I was walking around the gym flexing my arms and pressing my biceps. Totally vain. But I was in my own little world.

I was totally focussed on the workout. It was excruciating at times… especially in the bicep curls. The rest was OK… strenuous, but nothing like the back workout – which is coming up on Thursday. Argh.

Then I had a surprise. I went on the scale. I didn’t do it on Saturday since I trained later than I normally do, and I didn’t want a weird reading. Turns out I could’ve gone for it… The scale showed a weight of 174/175lbs. That’s an increase of 4-5lbs. I can’t quite understand it. I don’t think I’ve been eating enough for that to happen. And I’ve been eating reasonably well. Sure – at the weekend I had some pie, pizza, gelato and a cup cake (God – it sounds bad when you put it in that context)… but I wasn’t terrible.

It’s a huge spike – and could help explain the increase in strength (which, if I’m right – was considerable today). There are a couple things to bear in mind though – I weighed myself after the weekend – I normally weigh in on Sat. Weekend nutrition is always different to week nutrition. Last week I gained nothing. I remained steady. The scale might be fucked. And – this is the disgusting part – I had a bowl movement after the weight in that might’ve caused me to lose some of that gain (ewwww – disgusting I know – but could factor into the gain).

But – this is a HUGE gain. I’m going to have to wait till Sat to figure out whether it’ll be sustained, continue to increase, or what. In any case, the body is adapting to this workout one way or another.

It’s funny though – on Saturday I went to a friends wearing my slimmest workout tee, feeling great about my body. As soon as I realized I put on this amount of weight, I immediately felt fat. Because there’s no way I could gain all of that in muscle. I’m poking my love handles – because obviously I just grew obese in one night I know it doesn’t work that way – but it’s interesting to see how the mind reads into things.

Anyway – here’s the tabulated results…

The rest of the workout was tough though. 4 sets of drop sets. I was struggling. But I think we pushed up weights from last week. Also – last week we were taking more time between sets. This time, we were tight. And it hurt.

Also – I’m learning that I need to be better with nutrition on Sat. I felt like my energy was running out in the middle of the workout. I need to swap around my nutrition – wake up is a Myoplex MRP, then just before the workout, have the smoothie. I think that’ll work.

Now on to results. I could barely detect an increase in bodyweight. I’m like – WTF?! How can I be eating as much as I am and not putting on weight?! Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining, I’m just even more intrigued by how the body works. I’ve had two people this week notice changes with my physique – primarily shoulders and back. Apparently the biggest changes are going to happen in week 4 of this routine. If that’s when the biggest changes are going to happen – wow. Like changes are rapid even now!

But – getting back to current results, I’m comfortably at 170lbs. This is good.

We’re doing standard sets plus dropsets. We did squats, seated shoulder press – 4×6 of each of them. Then drop sets. Starting with deadlifts. Standard, stiff then sumo. I was DYING. Then – not over yet… Standing shoulder press, push press, then jump shoulder press. You’d've thought it’d be over by then. But no. Fuck no. Lateral raise, front raise and bent over raise. Only two sets of those. Easy.

The raises were the easiest, because they were the most targetted… the deadlifts were killers. The shoulder press – the individual exercise – started difficult – we were using 45lbs… I’ve NEVER gone that weighty before. Never. Never. So my left arm had difficulty balancing. But after a few reps, I was there. It worked well.

The shoulder drop-sets. They killed. We had to drop the weight a little bit. The press was tough. The push and jump, easier. Because they’re meant to be.

Right now I can barely move my arms because my shoulders – and to an extent the lats – HURT LIKE HELL.

Adrian’s like – yuh huh. You’re going to feel it tomorrow. But during this phase, nutrition is even more important.

I also got a bit more information on how this next phase is going to go. It’s three months. The first 4 weeks are prep. We’ll be doing more and more sets. Less and less rest between sets (increasing the intensity). Then we’ll move into true mass gain for 4 weeks. After that, we’ll be in another 4 weeks of fat loss. INTENSE. FUCKING INTENSE. But this is good. Training is planned at about 4x per week – 5x if you include a cardio workout. I’m debating on that. I’ll only train with Adrian 3x per week. 4x would run through my sessions too quickly.

And the goal is to put on a good 10-12lbs of muscle over the 3 months. Wow. That’s about 6-8% of my whole body weight. Adrian suggested it’d be about an inch on every part of my body – chest, shoulders, arms, legs… wow. Can I just skip to 3 months from now??? Cos it’s gonna KILL. It already does. Ouch.

On a separate note… I’ve put on about 0.75-1lb this past week. That’s good. I’m getting back into that flow where my nutrition is in line with my gains. Phew. The coming week, I have to clean up the nutrition – in respect to cost and also optimizing the nutritional benefits given the intensity of the workouts I’m doing right now. That’s fine. I just need to better align myself and make sure I deliver on it. It’s going to be intense. But as I discussed in a previous post, this is what working out is all about. Wow.

The gym was tough today… I managed to push myself and keep the intensity of the workout up, but after 4 days of kayaking (about 5 hours a day), I was kinda tired. Managed to maintain or increase all weights from last week though. So it’s not all bad

I’m also surprised with the chinups! I’m still at about 6, 4, 2. Which is pretty damn awesome. I rock

Got my results today as well – wanted to check in. Down 1lb from last week. Makes sense. While kayaking, I wasn’t able to eat as well as I would’ve in town, but I still made sure I had lots of good protein shakes, bars and well balanced meals (well, for the most part). I’m assuming that the weight I lost would be mostly water weight, as I was sweating a shitload. All good.

So – going into this week, I’m at 169lbs. Not a bad place to start.

So this is good… all’s going well Muahahahaha!

But it was OK. I realized a few things – some of which I’m going to note elsewhere on this blog… probably in a few moments

One thing that did take me by surprise today was my results… I’ve put on a good 4lbs this week! Wow. That’s kinda crazy! I was umming and arrring last week whether I’d gone up to 166, or 167, I kept it at 166 because I thought 167 was kinda unreasonable for my timeline… but well, this week just shot up.

I’ve definitely been noticing an improvement in size, but I haven’t been doing enough to accommodate for 4lbs of gain! Neither have I been eating sufficiently to make a gain like that either. What I’d say is that it’s likely to be my body readjusting back to the whole gym routine. And it also highlights the ‘fat’ that I’ll’ve been putting on in the past few weeks. That’s OK – I knew it was there… the numbers just reflect that.

On a separate note, given that tomorrow’s going to be the first day when I start my new diet (the one that’s about half the cost of my normal diet), calorie intake is going to reduce, as well as improve in the balance of nutrients… no longer will I be going for foods where I don’t know all the ingredients in it. I’ll know every ingredient in almost all of my foods. Yippee. That’s better.

Anyway – here are my results for this week:

I’m still feeling the burn. A LOT of burn. But it’s fun. It’s pushing me… and I’m now returning to that place where I’m happy with the state of the body. It feels exercised and energized. It feels like it’s growing again. Back on track and focussed.

I’m surprised because I wasn’t able to sleep as much as I’d've thought today… I thought I’d be napping every five minutes, but I was actually pretty productive! I managed to complete my Peru PhotoBook – it’s uploading in the background right now, meaning that tomorrow I can focus more fully on sesshin and getting back down to earth. I think there’ll be time to journal tonight too, because some realizations about life and the world (yes – how vague eh?) are hitting me… and I want to document them in the home that I’ll remember them sometime in the future!

Anyways… as today’s Sat… there are some results! I’ve gone up a pound since Tues! I think this is good. I think it’s the body quickly adapting back to what it was. Most of it is probably just water weight, but that’s OK. I’ve got no problem with that. I can see the muscles growing a little bit too. So 166lbs. I don’t want to know my bf percentage, because I know it’ll be worse than when I left… but c’est la vie. All good.

I’m also changing the way I’m counting the days training… rather than set up phases with specific goals (I’ve realized that they can be motivational, but you rarely succeed in achieving them), it’s about the continuous goal of getting fit and healthy. So it’s continuous. Hence it’s day 359! 6 more days to having trained for a WHOLE YEAR! Woo hoo!

So – on to training. Fuck today was hard. First time back in 5 weeks. OUCH. I did a standard conditioning routine, and I’m down on weight able to lift, as well as reps. I knew that today’d be tough, but I’ve just got to accept it.

I also discovered that I’ve lost weight! Argh. 2lbs. I’m now at 165lbs. I honestly thought I would’ve gained weight, with the amount of pizza and chocolate bars I’ve been eating (yes – I know – bad)… but apparently the metabolism kept things in tow… I’m not sure of my body fat percentage at this point, but I know it’ll have gone up. Fortunately I’ve maintained some of the tone from pre-holiday. But I know it’ll be about another 3-4 weeks before I feel like I’m back on top of the world. BRING IT ON.

Separate note – saw Adrian, and he’s planning to continue with conditioning for a week or so. I think I may need more than that LOL! And we also spoke about moving up to 3x a week while doing the dropsets. I think that makes the most sense – then I can go back down to 1x a week while we’re doing conditioning… or something. We’ll figure it out!

One thing I’ve gotta mention – this chart isn’t mapping right – I’m at 167lbs now, not 166.5. It’s 0.5lbs off. Hmmmm. Bad grapher.

But it’s going to be worthwhile.

Day on day I’m experiencing incredible changes. Sure – I look at some people in the gym, and their bodies are amazing. They’re where I’d like to get to. And if I compare myself to them, I’ll be entirely inferior. But if I compare myself to who I was a week ago, a month ago, two months ago, the changes are incredible.

What I’m starting to notice now is a tightness of skin around the arm muscles. It looks really healthy and taught, and fit. And I can see that happening to the rest of the body – not that it is yet, but that it will.

And then – I’m watching a movie like Dear John with Channing Tatum… and I see what it could end up as. And wow. Seriously, wow. He’s incredible. And I have glimpses of what it must feel like to be as fit as him.

And I realize what it takes to be as fit as he is. A LOT. Dedication. Motivation. And the ability to give up stuff for the bigger picture.

Watched Dear John and Green Street Hooligans tonight with a friend. They brought me really back down to earth – where I should’ve been for the longest time. I can’t believe how far off I’ve gotten from that ‘equality’ line. That line that is the balance between up and down. I haven’t really been ‘down’, but I’ve been off. But off doesn’t hurt… it doesn’t hurt like it hurts right now – and hurt isn’t physical hurt – it’s emotional and mental. It’s the reality that not everything is as we want it – or as it could or should be. And that’s fine – that’s seeing life as it is.