This blog began as a daily journal of my life while on Nutrisystem. Since starting in August of 2009, I've lost 80+ pounds. I still want to lose more, but I've left Nutrisystem and returned to real life foods. The blog now is more about how I train, along with the things I'm eating. Below is a copy of the first post...
First things first. This blog is about me, and for me. I'm gonna use it for motivation, & as a measure of progress. If you stumble across it and enjoy it, find it humorous, or perhaps even motivating, then great. If not, please click away, on to another page. I'm not being rude, but remember, this is not about you :)
I've decided to try Nutrisystem.
Currently I weigh somewhere between 270-280. I don't really know how much because the scales STOP at 270. In the past (let's say about 15 years ago) I was a certified personal trainer. In college I worked out like it was my job. When I graduated college I was in the best shape of my life. I weighed around 220 and was in fantastic shape (stupidly I didn't think so at the time). Shortly thereafter I was training with a couple of bodybuilders and injured my knees (from squatting to heavy) and took a little time off from training. The respite lasted about 7 years. I became busy with work, life, etc. At one point after my break began I actually lost some weight and was briefly under 200. Once my girlfriend and I settled down into a slow steady existence, I began to gain a good amount of weight. Being busy with work and a lack of desire to return to training persisted for several years. About 2 years ago I returned to the gym. It took about a year and a half to regain all of my strength and really enjoy training again. At my current body weight I can still bench press, shoulder press more than my body weight for sets of around 12-15 reps (that's around 278-280 for reps), squat about the same (which is about what warmed up with years ago), do a hand full of pull ups, and generally have decent workouts (I now train with my mother). For the past year I've done cardio on average of about 4-5 times a week (30 minutes on the treadmill, speed 3.2 mph, incline 11.5). Over the past 3-4 months I've picked up my cardio to 8-12 times a week by adding an evening walk with my girlfriend and some of our dogs. In the two years I've been back training, I haven't lost a pound. I'm drastically stronger and my cardiovascular conditioning has improved greatly, but I'm still the same weight.
Why? I eat like a fool. Michael Phelps ain't got shit on me in the eating department. Typically I don't eat breakfast (I do have quite a few cups of coffee) before I train. By the time I'm finished with my workout & first round of cardio, I don't want to eat for at least an hour. So this puts my first meal around 1-2PM. When I do eat, I feast. Then I don't want to eat again until late in the evening. My girlfriend usually doesn't want to eat until a bit later either, so we typicall eat late. I eat another huge meal.
While in college I consumed lots of protein shakes (Met-RX, & Designer Protein). When the alarm on my watch went off, I had a protein shake. I usually added one or two high protein meals throughout the day as well. I was very regimented and the program worked well. The key thing was that I was never hungry, so I never ate a huge meal (thus never overate). This also (supposedly) kept my metabolism high all day. Hopefully this is what the Nutrisystem program will help me with. I hope to consume small meals all day, and relearn portion control.
Once I start the program I'm gonna take a picture of everything I eat and post it. I kept a food journal years ago with good success, and this will be a more techy/weby version of that. I'm also gonna track my training to a certain degree. I'll review the foods as well. I HOPE they DON'T taste like cardboard.
Well, here's to me. The goal is back to college weight or better.
