As It Began...
A long time ago I was 18, 5' 8" and skinny as a racing snake. Only one of those three things is still true. I weighed 9 stone and had a physique like a split end. I discovered bodybuilding through my (still) best mate, one of those genetically gifted, talented and naturally cool people that often end up murdered. 2 years go by; I trained as hard as I possibly could in that time and yet despite following all the brilliant advice and routines in Flex I strangely did not become huge. In fact, I gained not one single pound in weight in 2 years.
But somewhere around this time I discovered the word nutrition, though I tried hard to ignore it. Crash Weight Gain powder was my friend, but that didn't work (800 calories? I laugh at thee). Then I discovered Infinity 1700, the most beautiful taste ever invented in the history of mankind and with enough calories that even my lightspeed metabolism had to admit defeat with. I gained weight! I made it to 10 stone, uncharted territory indeed. Later came the irresistible temptation of magic pills and potions, namely Andriol and Winstrol and before you know it I'm 11.5 stone. I felt great and looked ok, although my tiny girly bones told me I would never be huge but I improved enough that people stopped thinking I would die or blow away in a breeze.
Then I took a break from training to concentrate on and complete some exams (idiot) and never got back into training again for more than a few weeks here and there. My metabolism that used to cope with anything appeared to have changed its mind and I gained weight slowly but constantly over the years.
17 years later (holy crap) I reached 16 stone and finally pulled my finger out to do something about it. After many months of running (which I utterly hate) and much more sensible eating I got back down to 13 stone. Stupidly I then relaxed and with a flash I'm 14.5 again. I then remembered those long forgotten days of weight training; joints that don't hurt, knees that don't click when I stand up, feet tendons not sounding like a maraca when I get out of bed in the morning, looking ok and not feeling like a walking time bomb.
So I (we) bought some good gym equipment and began training again; I loved it and made some progress.
But after a while we became I and life moved on again. For a long time I have had a diet of pizzas and beer and pies and crap. But I've had enough now so finally I joined a gym, a real one, with rusty stuff, every type of kit you can think of and full of big stinky blokes. Not one girl in spandex. A good thing in some ways, but I wouldn't mind seeing some skinny girls on the cardio machines some day...anyway...
So here I am, 38, 14 stone, started training on 16th May and apart from a few days in Dublin on the Guinness diet with my beautiful girl I haven't missed a workout. I found this wonderful forum and realised that most of what I knew about training, diet and the gear was rubbish. I've changed my diet drastically from the disaster that it was to a much improved and cleaner diet and have been training hard, following a routine adapted from Cashman's post in the Beginner's forum.
So, six weeks later I write this post. Guess how much weight I've lost...? None. Not a pound. My weights are going up each week and my clothes are starting to look too big but the scales read the same. I keep telling myself that I must be just balancing muscle gain with fat loss but it is hard to believe after so many weeks. I expected to see results on the scales by now, having swapped frozen pizzas for salads, but no luck yet.
I didn't take pictures or measurements before I started and I wish I had now, it could be more reassuring that I'm not still doing it all wrong. So I thought I'd put up a journal instead to enable me to track what I'm doing, get some advice and hopefully make some progress. It's weird to think that the last time I was training regularly there was no internet to refer to....
I've been looking into calorie requirements recently and it appears that my BMR is 1875 and my average TDEE is 2906. I had been aiming at a target of 2400 calories a day over the last few weeks and I achieve anywhere from 1800-2300 each day depending on what I have, So I thought I really would be losing weight unless I'm doing/understanding something very wrong.
I'll put up my routine and attempted diet soon, but at the moment I am too pickled from a BBQ ribs and vodka night out with my mate to do anything that complicated. I'm quite smug that 5 vodkas has got me trashed enough to write this, some things are changing at least! It's rare for me to drink anything these days so tonight's extravagance has knocked me flat, but at least I've got this post made at last...
If you've read this far, well done! Sorry I wasn't funnier though, will try harder tomorrow
