Swingdoc's Log Please Help!

[swingdoc]

Damn I am in absolutely horrible shape. I'm 27 years old, 6'1" 280 lb and I just can't take this [censored] any more. A little more background on me. I'm a 4th year med student and my fitness has steadily gotten worse throughout med school. I came in at about 220lb (I know, not exactly skinny) and have progressively gotten fatter each year. I really haven't had any serious physical activity for the last 3 years and my diet is pure [censored]. Fast food at least once per day, normally 2x. Basically the complete opposite of a clean diet. ~4500 kcal/day [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I had no clue how much I was eating until I carefully kept track for 5 days.

I'm really sick of not being able to participate in activities that I used to enjoy and that I want to try out (skydiving, ultimate frisbee, rock climbing). So, I've decided that I must make some changes. I've started exercising and have begun to change my diet. I'm basically using the BFL eating program with 6 meals per day. Each meal has 1 portion of protein and 1 portion of good carbs. 2 meals each day include extra veggies. 1 day per week is a free day. Anything wrong with this type of diet? Is it going to give me enough calories so that I'm not always starving?

Exercise: I think I'm going to start with EDT lifting 3x per week and HIIT 3x per week. I am having kind of a hard time picking out specific lifts for this. Should I do something like back squats/military press? Dead lifts/bench press? Pull ups/squats? Should I do the same pair of lifts every day of the week or alternate them?

Any help you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated. My initial big goal is 230 by March.

[MightyA6]

Great that you've decided to start! I ain't got a big insight in the gym and diet training part but when I was up to loosing weight, I did like this:
* 1 free day a week, as you have. It's a good thing. You have something to wait for and a reason not to eat bad **** in the week.
* Some kind of activity. I used Running, about three times a week on average. It seems like walking in the morning works fine too. And that gives time to listen to some music and do some thinking.
* Eat lots of good stuff, a real meal doesn't take that long time to cook up! (like egg and wholemeal sandwich, or wholemeal spaghetti with some meat to it)

That's about it. Drink a bunch of water should be good too, I've heard. Right now, I suck on this part but I am trying to get better on it!

Avoid all kinds of pills and ****, they don't work!

Right now it seems like you have the right mindset to get this going! Good Luck and have fun!

Btw, results comes slower if you do things properly, specially when training gym! But remember that if you don't loose weight at instant, your fat will come into muscles and you will, by time, loose that extra fat. Just keep going and results will come.

[DLKeeper1]

with dedication and discipline you'll be well on your way

[thirddan]

hey doc,

congrats on deciding to get in shape...looks like you have already done quite a bit of homework on your own which is a really good start...as for the diet plan im not sure on the specifics of the BFL, but any change from pure crap will head you in the right direction...just make sure to get in a lot of protein and fat, and some carbs around workout and in fruit/veggie form...make sure not to starve yourself since you are a big dude and probably don't want to be unable to concentrate because of poor diet...

as for edt check out Staley's articles on t-nation or his book muscle logic (can get on amazon for like 15 bucks) its not much info, but there are a ton of PR examples and workout setups...if you search here there is also a thread with a bunch of edt info from jah...like someone said above, daily walks are great as well...

the fact that you did your own homework is great, just stick with it...post progress...good luck...

[swingdoc]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. Here's update #1:

Ended up settling on Rippetoe workout as I just couldn't decide on an efficient way to use EDT to start out and make sure I get a solid balanced workout.

Squats - 75lb 5/5/5
Bench - 115lb 5/5/5
Deadlift - 115lb 5

Squats were fairly light, but I'm really unused to doing this exercise so I'm really having to use a lot of focus on form. I'll go up 20lb next time. Bench was fine, not super easy but not difficult. I'll go up 10 lb next time. Deadlift was super easy but I'm really unfamiliar with this lift also so i'll probably only increase by 20 lb next time.

Cardio is just going to consist of walking this week. I'm in such pathetic shape that I'm not sure I can really survive a full week of HIIT and starting to lift weights again. For that matter, I'm not sure how HIIT is going to work for me even when I start, it may have to be walk/jog as I'm not sure I can really complete jog/run.

Diet has been pretty easy so far. I'm eating 1 serving protein + 1 serving good carbs 6x per day. It's a broad enough structure that it's easy to vary my meals. Sweet cravings have easily been met with choc whey powder + strawberries in smoothie form. I did have a pretty bad fastfood craving and ended up getting a spicy chicken sandwich and water from wendy's. Not perfect, but it killed my desire and is way better for me than my old normal order of spicy chicken, junior bacon cheeseburger and large dr. pepper.

[thirddan]

nice job swingdoc...

good choice on the program, save edt for when you are more familiar with the lifts and with your body...

don't sweat not being able to do a job/run interval for cardio...walk/jog is fine as long as you work hard...hell, even standing on the rails and a jog would be fine...

a suggestion on the diet would be to replace some of carbs in your later meals with some healthy fats, avocado/mixed nuts/peanut butter/olive oil/flaxseeds etc...this will reduce carbs and get you some good fats which are necessary to lose weight into your diet...

as for fast food, if you are gonna eat it try to find ways of doing damage control, like throwing away the top bun and eating it like a bagel...small things like that could help...