Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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thremp,

i know, but the number in question was 200...that's a big difference and i've never heard that as an ideal weight for anyone at 5'8.

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Who tells you these things? Why is that too much?

Why does everyone want to be super small?

How is that any more horrid than someone at 5'8 weighing 140?!?

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Thats too much because he will still probably be around 20% BF at 200 lbs, which I assume is not his ideal. For comparison's sake, Matt Hughes is about 190 lbs of pure muscle at 5'9", so I think a Dids at 200 lbs would still have plenty of room for improvement. Obviously he would look much much better than he does now, but there's no reason not to strive for more.

And 5'8" 140 is not "horrid" if you are really cut. There are a lot of wrestlers in that range who look much bigger than their weight. And Brad Pitt was 6', 160 lbs when he shot Fight Club. Maybe thats not the type of look that you personally are going for but I bet there are a lot of chicks who not call that horrid.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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Why would your ideal weight be dictated by others? I personally like being "big". I'm 6'4", 235 and can guarantee I am healthier than 95%+ of the population. This is b/c body weight is different considering muscle/fat ratio. Jay Cutler has a body mass index of a morbidly obese person, with less than 8% body fat.

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No one is dictating anything, and how does it help to cite extreme examples that don't apply to >99% of the population?

All I am saying is that...

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This is really too stupid to respond to, but I'll just say that I wasn't talking to/about you and please don't respond to any of my posts in the future.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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This is really too stupid to respond to, but I'll just say that I wasn't talking to/about you and please don't respond to any of my posts in the future.

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This is a message board and we are here to discuss. I felt your post was a non sequitur. I replied as I wished, and will continue to do so. If you don't like it, too bad.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

I was under the impression that it was better to aim for a healthy BF % than to worry about how much you actually weigh. For example I am only 5' 7" and very much overweight at 300 lbs and 39% BF. However, unless my math is wrong even if I get down to 10% BF I will still end up weighing right around 200 lbs, and that's assuming I don't put on any more lean mass in the meantime. So maybe Dids is in a similar situation, I don't really know.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Mitternacht,

Your thoughts are fine and dandy but that would require lots of weightlifting. It's definitely possible but I think it would be challenging to lose 100 lbs and maintain the same lean mass. Hell, if you could get to 200lbs @ 20% you'd be doing great.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Skunkworks,

Yeah, I figure I'll lose some lean mass, but I'm pretty sure any way you slice it I'm going to be way over the recommended weight. To get to my ideal BMI I would have to get down to around 150 lbs and I just don't feel that's a realistic goal for me. So I'm going to be happy getting my BF% down to something I can live with and be happy with whatever my actual weight ends up being.

Well, I don't want to hijack this thread, I'm just saying that for Dids maybe 200 lbs is a good goal.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Kudos noticable on the back and side. I will be joining you in a few short weeks.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

asdlkfjasdlfkjadfklj


Tried to go to the gym today. Closed because of a gas leak. Lame.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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asdlkfjasdlfkjadfklj


Tried to go to the gym today. Closed because of a gas leak. Lame.

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I thought we told you not to eat burritos before working out, Dids.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Weeklyish update (I'm going to do pics every other week).

I've got the routine people suggested in place. I still haven't added the full body stuff Thremp has suggested, but I'm working on it.

The switch to Cardio after lifting instead of before has made a big difference.

I'll post some numbers when I get home tonight.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Dids,

Are you getting enough sleepy?

How's motivation?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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The switch to Cardio after lifting instead of before has made a big difference.



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What types of differences are you seeing from this? I've generally heard that you should lift before you run because if you run first you won't be able to lift nearly as much.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

wpr101, that pretty much sums it up. Theres a lot of research on this out there. Doing cardio before lifting will limit your lifting because some/most(?) of your energy stores will be used up so your muscles won't have the energy to lift as heavy as you could without the cardio before hand.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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Smiley,

Fat loss rate is fine for someone morbidly obese. 3-5lbs per week is fine and std when you're carrying that much fat.

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3-5 wow. Do you think that is still maintainable for Dids? I just feel like a slower and steadier approach is better because it is easier to maintain, but I'm not an expert on dieting.

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When there's an imminent risk of death present you just want to get rid of the fat as quickly as possible, maintenance/muscle loss issues pale in comparison to that.

Nice work so far OP.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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is that right that for bicep curl you are doing 75 pds on each dumbbell?

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he'd be pretty goddamn swole up if he were doing bicep curls with 75 lb dumbbells, wouldn't he?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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The switch to Cardio after lifting instead of before has made a big difference.



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What types of differences are you seeing from this? I've generally heard that you should lift before you run because if you run first you won't be able to lift nearly as much.

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I used to run first then lift, but as my cardio hsa declined over the years, I have gone to lifting first, then taking a break and drinking a ton of Glutamine-fortified water and running afterwards. I think I like it a lot better.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Thremp,

Oddly I haven't been sleeping well. Typically when I've been working out a lot, I sleep great, but not so much as of late. Although a vacation kidna [censored] that up (as well as my diet) some.

Motivation is fine. I still love doing this. The hardest part to keep up with isn't the working out so much as it is the eating. Donuts sound hella tempting right now. I went overly heavy on carbs this weekend, and I feel it a bit, but I'm staying incontrol. Part of what makes it hard is that the loss is slowing down a bit, and I know that I'm gong to have to get a little more biblical with my diet.

Benefits of Cardio after lifting I've found are twofold:

1- I have a lot more energy to lift and my lifting has been a lot more constructive.

2- My heart rate is already up there when I hit the cardio and I'm spending more time in my target range.

3- (omg a new fold!) by the time I'm done lifting, there's more machines open.

Another thing I've been doing, per Jake's "rest between sets advice". Right when I feel ready to start a new set, I count to 30 reallll slow, and then do my lift. I feel like his has made a big difference in the amount of energy I have on those 3rd sets. It also gives me more time to star at hot ass.

Oh- and I wrote this the other day, in case people missed it.

From my blog: http://bdids.com/?p=382

People in random places have been asking, so I thought I’d just post this up here so I can refer to it.

Step 1- be really fat. I was 330+ lbs at 5-8. It’s reasonably easy to lose weight when you’re morbidly obese. Now that I’m down to 257, it’s going a lot slower, a lot harder, and will require a lot more careful attention to diet.

Steps I took:

1- Eating a large, healthy breakfast. I have light yogurt (much lower cal than fat free or low fat, where they ramp up the sugar), a bowl of non sugar cereal, fruit, and some form of protein (I was doing peanut butter toast, I just switched to a protein shake). This is pretty huge, because 1- my old breakfast was violently unhealthy 2- It fulls you up and gets your metabolism working in the morning.

2- Good, healthy snacks throughout the day. I tend of have some fruit at about 10:00 and 3:00.

3- Drink a fuckton of water. Keeps you feeling full, is good for you anyway, and I just read that your body actually burns calories when it processes cold water.

4- Integrate activity into your standard day. I started losing weight because I moved to a place where I HAD to walk like ~2.5miles per day to and from work. That way even if I was bad about going to the gym (which I was), I was still getting some activity.

5- Cook your own food: Make easy, healthy choices for dinner. When I have a choice between a high fat meat and a lower fat option (say pork sausage vs. chicken sausage) I choose the lower fat option. I try to avoid having red meat more than once a day. I just started on a campaign of avoiding starches in for dinner to try and keep all my carb consumption to the morning. I don’t count calories, and I don’t try and cook super light, but I also avoid dinners that are super bad for me.

6- When you do cook, bring leftovers, don’t eat lunch out. It’s hard to eat healthy out, if you bring leftovers, you’ll eat better, you’ll save money, and eating dinner with the concept of leftovers in mind helps with portion control, which is a big problem of mine.

7- I used to have a massive sweet tooth, and I still kidna do. I solved that by having a smoothie made with frozen fruit, bananas, and whey protein after dinner. It’s actually good for you, and it’s low fat, low sugar, etc.

8- You have to make losing weight a big focus of your life. Right now that’s pretty much my only hobby. It dominates a ton of my time (about 2 hours per day on the days I’m at the gym, which is 4-5 days out of the week). It’s worth it, both in terms of how I feel and the whole “not being dead soon” thing. These days I don’t let myself do anything until I’ve been to the gym. It’s get home, change and go. No stopping to read email, go to the store anything like that. It all waits for me to hit the gym.

9- Make yourself accountable to people beyond yourself. I started posting pictures of my dinners so that my friends could see what I was eating and comment. I post on some message boards noting my progress. If I fall off, people will know, and let me know about it. This helps a lot.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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I start with 20 minutes of cardio on crossramp at the 16 setting (which works the gluts and calves) keeping up a rate of about 155-165 strides per minute and a heat rate between 130-145 (this really varies by how much energy I have), and then another 10 on the bike or the treadmill that’s typically less vigorous than the crossramp.


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Why do you keep your HR down at 130-145ish?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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I start with 20 minutes of cardio on crossramp at the 16 setting (which works the gluts and calves) keeping up a rate of about 155-165 strides per minute and a heat rate between 130-145 (this really varies by how much energy I have), and then another 10 on the bike or the treadmill that’s typically less vigorous than the crossramp.


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Why do you keep your HR down at 130-145ish?

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I don't, that's just the max I hit. Remember, I'm old and stuff (30).

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Update.

Clocking in at 256.

I haven't had the best few days of eating. More carbs than I would have liked over the weekend. Not anything really horrible, just not super good like I need to be.

The recent workouts have been harder. I don't know if it's bad sleeping scheduling or what, but I'm just not able to keep up the same pace on the cross ramp as I have in the past. Before I was hitting about 150 strides per minute, which was almost a run. Now I'm closer to 135. Part of that is that I've upped the angle at which I'm working, so maybe I should cut that down a bit.

Current weights for lifts (what I'm doing 3 x 10):

Legs and Abs:

Leg Sled 380
Calf Press 280
Leg Extension 130
Leg Curl 130
Adductor 120
Ab Crunch 155

Back and Biceps

Row 105
Lat Pull 100
Back Extension (maxed out machine, do 3x15) 260
Torso Rotation 145
Pullover 120
Rear Fly 100
Biceps Curl 75

Chest and Triceps

Chest Press 90
Triceps Extension 75
Shoulder Press 45
Lat Raise 80
Fly 110
(I'm working on adding a forearm workout here)

Pictures:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/4...42bdb95a61.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/4...e721ccddc5.jpg

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Sorry not to weigh in with any advice here, but wow dids. Amazing work so far. Was there one particular straw that made you just say no to dying early all of a sudden?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Ed,

Not really. I mean, if you're familiar with my history, I was basically trying and failing to do this for a long time. I kept waiting for the switch to flip, and I'm not really sure why it finally did.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Dids,

I'm a college athlete (soccer) but I too am for the first time undergoing a consistent workout routine that doesn't merely consist of constantly playing soccer, basketball, football, etc. with my friends.

I have been and will continue to be following along with you on your attempts to get in better shape. Good luck!

At any rate how I've found myself struggling with the same thing that you are in terms of free weights vs. machines.

In my experience starting with free weights at the beginning of your workout (after warm up of course) and then moving to machines is my favorite way to do it.

Just for examples sake, i might do a chest/tris/shoulders day:

Warmup
bench press
nosebreakers
shoulder press
butterfly with free weights
inclined bench

I feel when I do free weights after a good warmup I feel strong and get a great workout in. Also, I don't feel very much in danger of dropping the weight (like you did with squats and I've done before as well) or otherwise putting myself in a dangerous situation, since I'm fresh and feel good.

Then after that I might move to tricep extension machine, shoulder press machine, bench machine, and butterfly machine (again this isn't always my workout, just an example)

I feel like I get a great workout this way. After my muscles are already tired, I can work them as hard as I can without worrying about injury.

So you have to find what's best for you, but I like to work free weights when I'm fresh and then burn out on machines.

Just my .02 cents.

Good luck! (and love the forum btw)

Stak

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

All these machines are awful. Please stop using them. They're not going to make you strong and will end up getting you hurt.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Colt,

You talking to me or Stak?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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All these machines are awful. Please stop using them. They're not going to make you strong and will end up getting you hurt.

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I'm curious about this too. I'm going to start a new thread on it...

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Per everybody's suggestions, I added squats (on a machine) and some step up stuff.

EFF YOU IF YOU SUGGESTED THAT 'CAUSE NOW I FEEL LIKE CRAP AND WON'T BE ABLE TO TALK TOMORROW.

aka thanks.

Made for a very good workout.

Although some combination of my undershirt and the squat machine left tiny cuts on my shoulders, that's weird and annoying.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

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Per everybody's suggestions, I added squats (on a machine) and some step up stuff.

EFF YOU IF YOU SUGGESTED THAT 'CAUSE NOW I FEEL LIKE CRAP AND WON'T BE ABLE TO TALK TOMORROW.

aka thanks.

Made for a very good workout.

Although some combination of my undershirt and the squat machine left tiny cuts on my shoulders, that's weird and annoying.

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The knurling on the bar cut you? Was the bar moving around on your back?

Also, maybe next time try the barbell with very little weight?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

UPDATE:

I'm at 250, which has been an initial goal for a very long time. In theory this means I can get a tattoo. However, since I just hit that this morning, I'm going to wait a bit to make sure that isn't just variance and water weight.

Wasn't the best two weeks in terms of how I ate. I wasn't horrible, but my nose wasn't to the grindstone like it should have been.

Given that every pound I lose could be worth about 25 bucks from the bisonbison thingy, and I've got about a month left, I'm going to be trying really hard to eat perfect and make sure I'm not slacking in terms of going to the gym.

As mentioned, I've added some lifts. Mostly squats (on a machine) and I just started with dips today. Both are painful, but I'm enjoying them.

And now, of course, pictures:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/4...e66328346c.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/4...5139ca1d55.jpg

A montage: The first is from over a year ago, the other 3 you've seen in this thread:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/192/4...28097e9554.jpg

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Dids: Kickass work man, keep it up. I gotta good feeling your going to be a great success story with the progress you've already made.

My older brother had a very simlar shape to you in the second picture in that group. Basically he was "average" in high school and gained a bunch of weight in college. He worked his ass off for about two years and is now skinnier than he was in high school and can run longer than I can.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Saggy boobs. I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] them.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

That's pretty dramatic! Your face is starting to not look like a fat guy's face. What is that like 80+ lb. now? Keep it up.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/192/4...28097e9554.jpg

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

I know its been said before, but you are Drew Carey now. Unreal. Good job though, you won't look like him for long if you keep it up.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

dids, congrats on your progress.

This is a serious question not meant to offend: how will you handle all the excess stretched skin when you reach your target?

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Ja,

I'm not sure. If it's really bothersome, I'm not like against getting it fixed, but we'll see.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Dids: It's not something I'd worry about until it happened. Some people end up with a lot of it, some people don't. My older brother was lucky and has very little problems in that area despite losing a whole lot of weight.

You just never know what the finished product looks like.

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Hmm, I replaced the montage, so the old links are dead, but it's here again with an addition.

I'm down to 246. I've been doing 40 minutes of cardio, and more full body lifty type stuff. It's paid off.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/192/4...dbe6de21_b.jpg

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

god damn dids, thats awesome. great work, keep it up

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

Dids keeps losing weight and I keep getting fatter

this is ridiculous

Re: Official Dids Gym Thread
 

For real, he's dropped like three pounds for every one I've gained this year. It's getting dangerously close to the point where I can't call him a fatty. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]