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I have been reading the front page news and threads here on Sherdog for about a year now, and formerly posted every once in a while on Testosterone Nation. I never have posted here because all I ever saw from the front page were the ridiculous speculation and flame threads, but I don't feel like opening up on T-Nation, and I just found this forum and decided to give it a go. Lately I have felt like rambling about my training and my thoughts on training, so I thought I would introduce myself and do a little of that rambling.
I am 22 years old, 6'0", 210lbs., 12%bodyfat, have no conventional high school or college sports experience. I was a fat kid who hated team sports and quit football and baseball in Jr. High. At my biggest when I was 15 I was 250, by the time I was 18 I had starved myself down to 175. I didn't eat right and I didn't work out or excercise at all.
At 19 I started seeing a personal trainer, then I stoppd doing that, got up around 230 again. Smoked since I was 15, ate a ton of greasy food, drank a lot. Around 2 years ago I read a book called "The Body Sculpting Bible For Men" and I quit smoking and completely turned my life around. Since then I have had a little less than a year of BJJ/MMA training(currently taking a 3-4 month break after having several injuries and a staph infection), and I have purposely bulked back up to around 225lbs., then cut down to about 195.
I gained too much fat in my bulk, had my never good cardio get worse, and I decided I really needed to stop training like a bodybuilder even though I still find some bodybuilding type information extremely usefull and that type of training fulfilling, it's just not what I want to focus on right now. Like I said I bulked up, then I cut down, got in a lot better shape, then I got a staph infection. After a week I was down to about 185lbs. and was very disappointed in how I looked. I figured that I should have looked better at that weight and was not too happy. I also posted a picture on the T-nation "Rate My Physique Forum". I posted one relaxed picture with bad lighting and had a few negative reviews which I took in stride. There I was 195lbs. with 12% bf and people were telling me they couldn't see my abs enough for me to be 12%, and a 170 pound dude said I had nothing to rate.
Even though I should have expected that seeing as how I am not a bodybuilder, it still irked me that a physically smaller guy was being pretty harsh with his criticism of my physique so I was a bit discouraged from posting there again. I take progress pictures pretty often and know that if I had a tan, and wasn't taking the pictures myself in a mirror I could get a much better rating, but what the hell, there's not really a point. I'm not a bodybuilder am I? Besides, I can look in the mirror and see that I am not content with my physique, and I'll never be strong or fast enough to make me feel complacent so I don't need someone else's approval, I just need to bust my ass as hard as I can and improve as fast as I can.
So I got back in the gym, and kind of had a fire under my ass. I read an article that gave me some good ideas, and then I had a huge moment where I decided to write down all of my training info. Before I wrote down my weight lifting programs, but I didn't write anything down about my cardio, and seeing as how I have been competing fairly regularly in local 5k's and I want to get back to fighting in great shape I decided I needed to write all that down too. Then I tried writing down my diet, and I found out why I feel so drained in many of my workouts, I had been undereating... and for someone working out 2 hours a day 6-7 days a week undereating a lot.
I finally realized the difference between an athlete's diet, and your average "fit person's" diet.
I upped my carb intake by a lot. I kept writing down my diet, and I stopped thinking about weight gain or loss. Even though I still weigh myself pretty often, I plan my diet around my performance now rather than around my weight. That is the reason I have been wanting to make a post like this lately so I could rant about how good I feel now that I seem to have gotten my diet and training down perfectly for me.
I am doing more cardio that I ever have in my life. Running, incline walking, sprinting, intervals, cycling. On top of that I am currently lifting 3-4 days a week as well. The amazing thing is that I have been gaining weight. Looking back over my log I can see that in the past month I've gained almost 10 pounds, and according to a 7 point BF caliper test almost every bit of it has been muscle.:icon_surp Like I said, my weight and bodyfat are not paramount to me, but it is very encouraging to see that at the same time I'm making speed, endurance, and strength gains at the same time I am losing fat, which as most all of us know if no small feat, esp. for those who aren't rank beginners.
I really think the key to my recent success has been my increase in activity and food consumption, and it's really got me pumped up and motivated to keep this pace up.(obviously i have to take a day off every once in a while when I start feeling overly fatigued or drained)
Well, there you go. A whole lot of rambling, but I've been looking for a place to spill all this positive energy and I hope this is the place to do it...for some reason my gf doesn't love to hear about my ball busting workouts.:icon_chee
I am 22 years old, 6'0", 210lbs., 12%bodyfat, have no conventional high school or college sports experience. I was a fat kid who hated team sports and quit football and baseball in Jr. High. At my biggest when I was 15 I was 250, by the time I was 18 I had starved myself down to 175. I didn't eat right and I didn't work out or excercise at all.
At 19 I started seeing a personal trainer, then I stoppd doing that, got up around 230 again. Smoked since I was 15, ate a ton of greasy food, drank a lot. Around 2 years ago I read a book called "The Body Sculpting Bible For Men" and I quit smoking and completely turned my life around. Since then I have had a little less than a year of BJJ/MMA training(currently taking a 3-4 month break after having several injuries and a staph infection), and I have purposely bulked back up to around 225lbs., then cut down to about 195.
I gained too much fat in my bulk, had my never good cardio get worse, and I decided I really needed to stop training like a bodybuilder even though I still find some bodybuilding type information extremely usefull and that type of training fulfilling, it's just not what I want to focus on right now. Like I said I bulked up, then I cut down, got in a lot better shape, then I got a staph infection. After a week I was down to about 185lbs. and was very disappointed in how I looked. I figured that I should have looked better at that weight and was not too happy. I also posted a picture on the T-nation "Rate My Physique Forum". I posted one relaxed picture with bad lighting and had a few negative reviews which I took in stride. There I was 195lbs. with 12% bf and people were telling me they couldn't see my abs enough for me to be 12%, and a 170 pound dude said I had nothing to rate.
Even though I should have expected that seeing as how I am not a bodybuilder, it still irked me that a physically smaller guy was being pretty harsh with his criticism of my physique so I was a bit discouraged from posting there again. I take progress pictures pretty often and know that if I had a tan, and wasn't taking the pictures myself in a mirror I could get a much better rating, but what the hell, there's not really a point. I'm not a bodybuilder am I? Besides, I can look in the mirror and see that I am not content with my physique, and I'll never be strong or fast enough to make me feel complacent so I don't need someone else's approval, I just need to bust my ass as hard as I can and improve as fast as I can.
So I got back in the gym, and kind of had a fire under my ass. I read an article that gave me some good ideas, and then I had a huge moment where I decided to write down all of my training info. Before I wrote down my weight lifting programs, but I didn't write anything down about my cardio, and seeing as how I have been competing fairly regularly in local 5k's and I want to get back to fighting in great shape I decided I needed to write all that down too. Then I tried writing down my diet, and I found out why I feel so drained in many of my workouts, I had been undereating... and for someone working out 2 hours a day 6-7 days a week undereating a lot.
I finally realized the difference between an athlete's diet, and your average "fit person's" diet.
I upped my carb intake by a lot. I kept writing down my diet, and I stopped thinking about weight gain or loss. Even though I still weigh myself pretty often, I plan my diet around my performance now rather than around my weight. That is the reason I have been wanting to make a post like this lately so I could rant about how good I feel now that I seem to have gotten my diet and training down perfectly for me.
I am doing more cardio that I ever have in my life. Running, incline walking, sprinting, intervals, cycling. On top of that I am currently lifting 3-4 days a week as well. The amazing thing is that I have been gaining weight. Looking back over my log I can see that in the past month I've gained almost 10 pounds, and according to a 7 point BF caliper test almost every bit of it has been muscle.:icon_surp Like I said, my weight and bodyfat are not paramount to me, but it is very encouraging to see that at the same time I'm making speed, endurance, and strength gains at the same time I am losing fat, which as most all of us know if no small feat, esp. for those who aren't rank beginners.
I really think the key to my recent success has been my increase in activity and food consumption, and it's really got me pumped up and motivated to keep this pace up.(obviously i have to take a day off every once in a while when I start feeling overly fatigued or drained)
Well, there you go. A whole lot of rambling, but I've been looking for a place to spill all this positive energy and I hope this is the place to do it...for some reason my gf doesn't love to hear about my ball busting workouts.:icon_chee
