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Main Goal: Bulk up to 175 pounds with 12% body fat by my 40th birthday Current Status: Measly 156 pounds at 15-20% body fat and just turned 38 How am I going to do it? It may take some divine intervention, but I have a plan: HIT it! Goal 1: Lift! Follow the workouts in The New High Intensity Training by Ellington Darden. Darden has a variety of workouts in the book, and I should probably play it safe and just follow the beginner routine, but I was intrigued by the workouts focused on specific areas of the body. So I'll be focusing on Arms, Shoulders, and Chest (while not neglecting the rest of the body). For the first 3 weeks, I'll do 3 days a week: A-B-C, and then for the last 3 weeks I'll switch to 2 days a week and do A-B, C-A, B-C. Total of 15 possible workouts. Goal 2: Eat! If I'm going to get up to 175 pounds, I need to eat more. Every day. Plenty of carbs, protein, and fat. My weight has been all over the place for the last 2 years and I *think* I'm finally ready to commit to just gaining some dang weight. If I stick with the weight training and don't overdo the calories, I should hopefully build more muscle than fat. I'll worry about losing any excess fat once I get closer to my goal weight. My plan for this challenge is to continue to eat healthy (more meat, fruit, veggies, and water; less candy, donuts, desserts, and soda) but also to make sure I get 300-500 extra calories a day. Goal 3: Mug shots. I've been dutifully taking progress pictures for over 2 years, but I've never really done much with them. My plan is to put together a progress collage (a la Waldo) so that I can actually see when I was making good progress and then correlate that to what kind of diet I was eating and what exercise plan I was on at the time. I've got around 30-40 pictures, so I'm going to shoot for just adding one a day over the challenge. I tried this project once before and lost several hours worth of work when my Photoshop crashed and I hadn't saved any of it... If I stick to one a day, that will be a more manageable time commitment and it will force me to save! Life Goal: Get The Band Back Together! I play bass, guitar, and banjo. Or rather, I own a couple of basses, a guitar, and a banjo. I don't play them nearly enough. So my life goal for this challenge is to play at least one of those instruments for an hour a week. That works out to less than 10 minutes a day! Plus, it aligns nicely with my wife's new year's resolution to learn to play the mandolin. She loves to play/practice and I am terrible at it, so hopefully we can spur each other on and it may even bring us closer together. As everyone knows, you have to keep your woman happy, otherwise...

Day 1: Friday, October 25, 2013 Hi, I'm LuckyGamer and welcome to Fatass. Basic Stats: Height: 5'10 Weight: ~225 lbs. (I can't find my scale, but from what I'm reading, weight isn't a particularly important metric. I'll start updating this once I start going to the gym) I'm decently strong and quick from my time as a high school football player and swimmer. I lifted alot in college too. I have poor endurance due to obesiety, smoking, an extremely sendentary lifestyle and plenty of other things. I've spent most of the past 3 years sitting or laying down (bed -> car -> office chair -> car -> couch -> repeat). I remember what it was like to be healthy and energetic and I'm fed up with being a frustrated, stressed out, lethargic lump. My eating habits are terrible. Let's chronicle my consumption from the past 24 hours: - Last night's dinner: Half of a medium sized pepperoni, jalapeno and cheese pizza (tasted amazing, but yeah...) and over a liter of regular Coke. - "Breakfast": Two Solo cups full of milk, the rest of the 2 liter of Coke when I got to work instead of coffee - Lunch: It's 1300 as of writing this and I haven't eaten anything yet. I'm kind of hungry, but I didn't bring lunch and don't want to walk to the local office cafe. - Planned Dinner: Wood Ranch BBQ - not changing this because its already a date. It'd be my cheat meal if I was actually dieting. We can glean the following information from the above: - I'm addicted to soda/caffeine - I skip meals - I order delivery and eat out more often than not (even though I am fully capable of preparing a healthy home-cooked meal). - I'm lazy My goal is to change this to: - I drink no more than 2 cans of soda a day (thinking realistically in the shorter term. I drank a 2 liter in less than 12 hours) and stick to coffee for the caffeine (I like tea too). - I eat regular meals to keep my body and mind fueled and my metabolism active - I prepare the majority of my own healthy meals. I endulge within reason once a week (Friday night dinner, going out with friends, party etc.) - I proactively do what needs to be done in order to achieve my goals, both in fitness and in life I know that my diet is what is primarily screwing me up, but I want to become strong too. I feel that the path of the warrior is for me. I used to lift heavy in high school and college and nothing beat the feeling of pushing myself until my muscles went limp. I liked how it made my body look too. I also remember the endorphin rush after a good run, so I am going to be incorporating that as well. I'll probably post a "before" picture tonight and hopefully I can find a scale, just for reference. Tomorrow I will be attending a family member's wedding, and I have no intention of turning down champagne and cake etc. This truly begins Sunday when I go shopping for groceries.

I didn't move a pound or an inch the entire last challenge, and I was feeling pretty down in the grumps... so I decided to take my first progress picture! From 226lbs in August to 164lbs in May -- That's 103kg to 74kg or 16st to 11.7st. I don't take pictures very consistently at all, but maybe I should start doing it more often. I had no idea that I changed so much! Somebody tell the Empire to watch out; this isn't even my final form! So anyway, I thought I'd share this as the current challenge gets underway! Get out there and own it! FOR THE REBELLION!