Howdy, and forgive me if this is not the right place to post an intro, but…
I figured after reading these forums for the past few weeks, I’d post a little about myself and say hello! By the way, love the site, and the plethora of information available for reading.
Anyhow, a little about myself. Currently 38 years old, been training seriously for about a year. Yes, in my “younger days”, i.e. high school, I hit the weights and all that, but knew nothing about nutrition, proper methods etc. In short, I had a life changing experience a few years ago when my daughter was born. I was in my mid 30’s, weighed 290+ pounds at God only knows what BF%, had high blood pressure, and well, the outlook wasn’t good. My wife and I made a decision in February 04 to drop some weight. We decided to follow the Atkins plan, and did, by the book, for just over a year. My weight dropped to an all time low of 175lbs, and my body fat was just below 10%. Blood pressure was under control, and everything else was working great! That is, until I took a long hard look in the mirror one day…
Mmm, something aint’ right here. Oh yeah, I know what it is, I’m now thinner than I’ve been since grade school, but eh, I look like every other average guy out there! I made the decision to join a newly opened gym, just a few miles from my house, that weekend. That’s roughly a year ago this month, and since then, I’ve managed to put back on 25lbs, and begin to look more like I want. I feel a heck of a lot better too since adding carbs back into my life, and have been making tremendous progress over the past months in the gym. It took me quite a while to decicde to up the carbs again as I had done so well without them. Problem was, my workouts were simply suffering because of it.
In order to put the most “healthy” mass back on over the course of the past year, I’ve used a combination of different eating plans, but what seems to work best for me now is a 40/30/30 type ratio. To be honest, calories seem to matter more for me than anything, and I’m currently looking to add a few more pounds through February, assessing my BF% and seeing what I want to do from there. I guess you can say I’ve been “bulking” on 3500-3800 cals per day for the past few months). As far as the foods I eat, I try to eat 6-8 meals per day, including my pre and post workout stuff. Primary sources of nutrition come from Oats, chicken, lean beef, TONS of veggies, sprouted grain breads, whey etc. My wife is also KILLER cook, and makes some of the most amazing dishes, including desserts, you could ever dream of. Basically, if it’s available in a high fat, high carb, generally bad for you version, she can make it taste just as good in a “healthy” form, LOL.
As far as routines, I found that, for adding size and strength, HST worked wonders for me. I currently switch between it and a pretty standard 4 day split, over 8-12 week periods. (I try to take at least 9 days off somewhere in between, as it really seems to “jump start” me again).
My current basic stats are as follows:
Age: 38
Height: 5’11"
Weight: 200lb
Current BF% 12-13
Waist - 33" at naval - (go figure, I wear a size 29 pant, LOL)
Chest - 44"
Arms - 17.5"
Thigh - 24.5"
Calves - 18"
Considering when I started training a year ago, my strength was completely in the toilet, I’ve posted my latest best numbers for the basics here. I have yet to try a 1RM as I workout alone, so I’m going by my last workouts reps here:
Squat: 240x8 (Yes, ATTG)
Incline Bench: 230x8
Flat bench: 250x8
SLDL 225x10
Deads - 250x10 (Just started doing these and could kick myself for not starting sooner)!
Well, I hope I haven’t bored anyone, but again, I wanted to post something in here as I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, and have obtained what I feel is a TON of good information from this site. I hope to be a more regular contributor in the future, and as soon as I get some recent pics, I’ll post em’ up. God knows I have some REALLY bad ones of me uh, pre-weight loss, LOL.
thanks for listening!
