I have been thinking of posting my training logs for sometime.  So after some embarrassing finishes in my last two competitions I have decided to make a change.

There are a few things in life that are worth being passionate about; family, career and hobbies.  After watching a demonstration put on by Mr. Irvin a couple of years ago I was immediately hooked on the Highland games.  The first couple of years I spent plenty of time in the weight room gaining “gym strength”. But, due to work constraints I couldn’t compete and train like I wanted to.  Well now it’s time to make a serious commitment to something I enjoy greatly.

I want to post my training, diet and stats for any to critique.  I know that right now I am not the specimen of what an athlete looks like. But that will change. 

My goals for the next five months are to lose a lot of weight. My final games for the season will either be Tulsa or McPherson not quite sure yet.  I have been throwing in the “C’s” ever since I started and I know I got what it takes to eventually throw in the “A’s”  and now that I have focused my time and efforts fully.

Training starts out  this week doing a the 5/3/1 workout made famous by Mr. Jim Wendler found here http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/how_to_build_pure_strength - .

I haven’t stepped in the gym in the last three weeks.  Two competitions and travel with the J.O.B.  So this is my workout for the first day of the first week back.  I am going to ease in for the first cyle because usually after a layoff I get over zealous and end up feeling like I got nerve damage for about a week.

Another area that I have been lacking in is disciplined dieting.  My wife is a dietitian and not listening to her advice has cost me in the pounds department. 

I have used this program before and if you have a smart phone feel free to use it. The last time I used it I lost about 30 pounds.  So I am going to use it again as it is more handy than writing everything down or trying to remember what you have eaten from the day. http://fatsecret.com/ - It calculates your RDI you need to have.  There are many other functions and the web-site is fun to explore.  I have found very few items that it didn’t actually have in their database.  Here are my calories for day one.

I also am keeping track of my weight and body fat percentages on a daily basis but I will only post it on Monday’s to save bandwith.  Body fat was done by my wife in the morning using the Jackson/Pollock four point measurement and the number put into http://www.linear-software.com/online.html - to calculate my stats.  The measurements are as follows.

So again I thank you for your time and any advice is greatly appreciated.

I want to be around 280 - 290 at about 10 - 12% body fat.  I have never had that low of bodyfat in my adult life.

I want to take it off over the next five months.    And if I don't hit that then I will keep plugging away until I do.

I want to accomplish the weight loss first.   So my ultimate goal weight / bf% is the one from the previous post.

I will post my meals.  I am trying to find on fatsecret where I can export it to excel...if that option exists. 

I will also post my supplementation this evening. 

I highly doubt if I will put on that much LBM in five months. Bodyweight is the primary goal.

Thanks guys.  I appreciate the input.  Hopefully this will give me more motivation than I have had in the past.

Craig thanks for the sites I will check those out.

Matt, with the decrease in calories my activity wil increase particularly my cardio.  In the past I have done little to none. Now I am planning on working up from 15 min per session for three sessions a week on the dreadmill to eventually actually getting outside and trying to briskly walk around the neighborhood.  Maybe do some sled drags around the hood once the weather stabilizes hear in central Oklahoma. Doing this should increase my weight loss. 

About the water weight yes generally the first 25lbs for someone like me is water.  What I am looking forward to is tapping into those fat reserves. 

ROB EVANS wrote: Matt, with the decrease in calories my activity wil increase particularly my cardio.  In the past I have done little to none. Now I am planning on working up from 15 min per session for three sessions a week on the dreadmill to eventually actually getting outside and trying to briskly walk around the neighborhood.  Maybe do some sled drags around the hood once the weather stabilizes hear in central Oklahoma. Doing this should increase my weight loss.  About the water weight yes generally the first 25lbs for someone like me is water.  What I am looking forward to is tapping into those fat reserves.

The trick is to figure out as quickly as possible what your true Total Daily Expenditure (TDE) is.  As you are tracking body fat %, you can make the assumption as a starting point that all of your caloric deficit equates to fat burned.  While probably not quite true, it is a starting point.  at ~ 3500 kcal per # of fat you can back out the fat burned each week by multiplying your final weight by the %drop in body fat.  Multiply this by 3500 calories/# and you have an estimate of your caloric deficit for the week.  In my experience you can't use the body fat mass change, because it is skewed by water weight shift. 

So week 1 you started at 41% body fat and 400#.  Let's say at the end of week 1  you measure 40% body fat and 392#.  I would recommend multiplying the change in body fat % (41%-40%) = 1% by your scale weight at the end of week 1 (392#).  This would put you at 3.9# of fat burned.  Thus your weekly caloric deficit would be 13,650, or 1950 cal/day.  Since you logged what you ate you can add this deficit to your actual intake and determine you TDE.  Do this for a few weeks until this number stabilizes.  Then you can start planning your intake based on a deficit vs. your actual TDE instead of the generic RDI.

As for the first 25# being all water weight.  I disagree, you will start burning fat very quickly, and it will show on caliper measurements.  A portion of your weight drop over the first few weeks will be due to shedding water, but MOST of the caloric deficit will translate into fat burned.  Some of the water weight lost will be due to depleting muscle glycogen and thus the water that hydrates it, but much of the water weight will be due to other sources.

Here are the numbers for today.  Shoulder still is sore it is a nagging Judo injury from a few years back so that's why I am beginning a Glucosamine Chondrotin supplement. 

I felt that there was still some in the tank but I am not pushing with my ego anymore.

I want to thank you guys for your support. Once I begin to throw (tomorrow) I will try to post vids for you to critique.

The diet is staying consistent.  With the lack of calories I am trying to cut out diet soda as much as possible. It's beginning to give me headaches but I have been drinking lots of tea and coffee to make sure I don't go cold turkey on the caffeine. 

I would like to post what my diet consist of but the program I use doesn't let me export it to excel.  I will continue to try to figure out a way to post it.

Here are the supplements that I am taking.  You will notice that there isn't a protein supplement.  I haven't had a chance to get to the store to pick any up. 

Thanks C. Smith for your previous post it reminded me that I had some 96/4 ground beef in the fridge to cook.  I cooked it with some fresh jalepenos and cilantro that coupled with a cup of brown rice is lunch tomorrow.

Not to much going on today some open stone throws.  Light core work.

The diet wasn't that great today.  Still under the RDI for moderate weight loss.

OH WHATTA DAY.  Almost didn't go train tonight. But, I decided that I wouldn't let life get in the way.  Screw the stuff that doesn't matter.

Got to the gym about two hours later than usual.  Had supper before training something that I try to never do on Dead or Squat days. I always feel like I am about the throw-up. 

The calorie deficit was good.  Although I started the day off wrong.  Had to shop my comp-set so I had their donuts and coffee.  Two donuts so I amped up the cardio tonight. 

The evening was as follows.

Did the warm up sets with speed.  Well that's what I called it.  Not to fast but faster than I normally do them.  Work sets were money until set 3 grip began to fail had to take my time to complete the set.  I hook grip anything under 365.  So the grip is going to have to worked on.

Felt good to get back to the deads.  After questioning them earlier in the week I have decided they must stay.  They are just fun as hell.  As for the other stuff  I traded the cable pulldown for the HammerStrength pulldown.  I one day want to be able to do pull-ups again.  So once the weight is gone they will be added to the regiment.

The the calculation is based on weight, age, lifestyle and sex.  I weigh nearly 400 lbs so thats why my RDI is high.  

The Expenditure comes from fatsecret.com.  I input my activities for the day and they calculate it.  If your seditary your calculations would be correct.  So on Wednesday I didn't too much and my deficit showed, along with my expenditure. 

On my "off days"  I am going to have to monitor my eating my intake didn't differ too much.  I could eat less or, I could workout more.  I am trying to do more of the latter.

"The the calculation is based on weight, age, lifestyle and sex."

Don't worry about that last part Bro...won't help your throws at all.

Damnit that's what I have been doing wrong.  "Women weaken legs"  Thanks Duncan "MICKEY" McCallum

I hate shoulder day more than bench day.  But it is a necessary evil. 

Relaxed on the diet for the day.  Still calculated and tracked everything I feel this is necessary not to let the eating get out of hand. Still on track to post a big weight loss number on Monday. 

Just another manic monday.  Still following 5-3-1.  Felt pretty good after training this evening. Felt like I still had some in the tank.  Almost feel bad not wearing myself out.  But Just trying to stick with the program.  Going to up the weight after this cycle.

You will notice a discrepency in the body fat percentage.  I switched from using the calipers to an OMRON digital tester.  With a digital bf% tester and a digital scale this should make my measurements more consistent eliminating human error.

Here are today's calories and counts.  I have also found on fatsecret where I could copy export my diet to excel so I can post it.  So here it is. 

Should not have had the pizza 3 slices versus what I would have eaten a couple of weeks ago which would have been a whole pizza and cut back on the chicken. 

Thanks it was a rough week.  Beginning a diet always means cutting out sugar so I had to battle headaches all week.  But my body is adjusting well. 

I am still hungry a lot but I just got to fight the urges. 

It's bench day.  Still left some in the tank.  The problem I have is that on bench day I feel that a lift off is needed once I get up to the 250 mark.  The shoulder has a pinch in it. It's not deep but hopefully its just a strain. 

Good workout no-less. Tomorrow is throws and going to try to figure out a way to train the sheaf without a sheaf.  Still gotta get a bale of hay to make it.

The diet was better still some fine tuning.  Had a reese's PB cup and Popcorn while watching my favorite TV show.  Oh well although I am trying to lose weight I am not training for a bodybuilding competition.  Still a decent deficit. 

Nothing like getting a e-mail in the middle of your workout to really piss you off.  Too bad it wasn't before the deadlifts I might have decided to pull a little more weight. 

The diet is back on track.  Thankfully. 

On the goblet squats I didn't do them in the typical manner of holding the dumbbell around the handle.  Instead I held the dumbbell around the weight part like the initial phase of the pick on the caber. Trying to make grip a little stronger. 

Spent more time on the treadmill upped my time to 20 minutes.  Looking to make it 45 by the end of summer.  I hate the damn thing for 20 I can't imagine what 45 is going to feel like. 

I didn't throw yesterday.  Planned to.  Was ready too.  But instead we went house hunting. 

Overall decent workout.  Next week is max then it's a deload week. 

Man I am glad this week is behind me.  It was a beyotch but I pulled through.  5-3-1 is working great. 

So begins DELOAD WEEK.

Wow it's almost embarrasing how little weights I did.  But one good thing about deload week is that I really focused on my form and depth.  So it was a decent workout. 

Deload calls for 40, 50, 60%. 

Cardio sucked totally failed at it tonight.  I gotta figure something else out besides the damn treadmill.

Continuing the deload week.  Really focused on my form.  not a lot of weight but form was dead on, I think.