Beginning a new voyage...

[StarCaptainAllen]

Setting a new course, with a different isotope in the fuel cells and an experimental engine run sequence...

My name is Eric, and I am a jolly fat man. I am 5'10" and 255 pounds. At the beginning of the year, my wife (cacklesmadly) started us on this Paleo diet thing, kind of as an experiment. I was pretty skeptical. Sounds like another stupid fad diet with a rabid internet following based on an off-the-wall principle. Eat like a caveman would have eaten? Yeah, sure okey-dokey. But I agreed to go along with her because I love her and support her, and also because she cooks all the meals so really, what choice did I have? I was seriously not looking forward to denying myself pizzas and pasta and everything wheaty. Sounds crazy!

Well, it turns out, that after doing some research, the idea did start to intrigue me. After six months, I had lost twenty pounds, and that was with LOTS of cheating and almost no exercise. It was starting to look fairly effective. In that time, I started really looking into it. I read articles on Nerdfitness.com and Marksdailyapple.com, finished Robb Wolf's The Paleo Solution and Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint. A friend recommended and I watched the movie Fat Head, which is free on Netflix and I highly recommend if you have friends who don't like to read. I have also learned to cook better and have started doing some of the household cooking.

So I realized the diet thing was actually real, and not some kooky fad to make money. The other piece of the puzzle was the working out, and it took me a while to get the hang of that. I used to be under the mistaken (and internet-source verifiable, of course) assumption that if you aren't doing 45+ minuted of cardio three times a week, there is no reason to even bother with anything else. I tried doing some exercise videos (wife had me doing P90X with her for a while), and even latched onto the Beginner Body Weight routine on this site. But whatever I was doing wasn't working right, because I'd end the workout feeling like I hadn't really done enough to make a difference, and the next three days would be spent being sore and miserable because I'd obviously done too much.

So, again, with the ever-supporting wife at my side, she bought me the Rebel Fitness Guide. I have started working my way through the Rookie level workouts, and it has been awesome.

So, on July first, which was a Sunday, conveniently enough, we both started getting a lot more strict in following the Paleo guidelines for our food, and I started the level 1 Wookie workouts. And it has been pretty awesome. I have made it through six workouts over two weeks, and already have increased the weight for a few exercises and raised the number of sets from two to three for the most recent one, all while sweating bullets and enjoying rubbery arms for the rest of the day, and NOT feeling sore and sorry the next day. I almost begrudge the Saturday rest day, but I know better, and make the most of it. Starting with tomorrow, I will also work in the cardio routines on every other day, which I have been neglecting up till now. I hate running, ellipticals, stationary bikes, pretty much everything you drudge along to. But, I have discovered that I do enjoy just running as fast as I can for as long as I can (about thirty seconds). So, I figure that I will just do sets of sprints for as long as I can (probably ten minutes) until I am comfortable enough to transition to a real interval training program.

So anyway, that's my past. Please post TL/DR's, as an administrator it warms my heart to know I am doing a good job! Fortunately for me, I only have about a month left at my crappy desk job, then I will be free to live off the wife as she is getting promoted, and I will be stay at home dad with our three-year-old son.

My immediate goals are to simply continue with what has been working, and finish out the rookie workouts on schedule. I think that I am making good enough progress that I can transition right into the Recruit level strength training next month, and also start a good interval training cardio program. I intend to stick with the paleo diet, and love my meat and veggies, so I don't really feel deprived until we start talking about the ice cream, but that's OK, because I still cheat, just a lot less than I used to. The only real supplements we use are a typical daily multivitamin, a 3000mg dose of fish oil for those Omega-3's, and this stuff called Primal Fuel from marksdailyapple.com for post workout shakes.

My long term goals are to drop another 20 pounds over the next six months (to get to 235), to get way less sugar in my diet, and to stick with the weight training program. I also intend to take over as much of the cooking as the wife will allow me, as well as other household chores like cleaning and laundry and stuff.

Looking forward to the new journey, and I'm a big fan of the science behind it all, because "If we didn't have the right calculations, we'd fly right into a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"

[tigersheart]

Welcome, and way to go on experimenting, and listening to your body!

The hardest thing for most people is to understand,that unless you are specifically training for some 'even't, you do not have to do anything near what traditional 'fitness' recommends to be in great shape under the paleo/primal way of life.

Welcome aboard, and good luck!

[StarCaptainAllen]

Thank you! Yeah, I am definitely looking at progress so far and the effort involved, and it makes me optimistic for how far I can go if I actually put some oomph into it!

[StarCaptainAllen]

I love that out of all that first post, you latched onto the stay at home dad part!

Thanks for the advice. I ahve had a while to plan for this, and I can't wait to be able to spend a lot of time with my son. The best part about the transition is, we will be moving to Japan, and so many of the things I want him to experience will be new to me, too. I plan on getting the whole family train passes and just riding all over the country, seeing new things, trying new foods, etc.

[StarCaptainAllen]

Honestly? Its because you sound like you've got things really well planned out and under control when it comes to diet & fitness plans. So I didn't really have any thoughts to contribute on that, beyond "good work".

Well, thank you. I do try to do my research. I work in a sort of technical field and pretty much have to know the "why" behind everything.

Marvellous! Where abouts in Japan are you moving to? I've never lived there, but had a week's holiday in Kyoto back in my child-free days.

We'll be living in Yokosuka, the navy base region of Tokyo Bay. I've been to Sasebo twice, and the second time took a train out to Nagasaki for a couple nights, but I've never experienced big city Japan.

[Underling]

I can't contribute anything more than a hearty "keep on rocking life," 'cause you certainly are; you've got the plan, you've got the motivation, you've got the cheer squad/supportive family, and you've caught the fever!

I are jealous of all the awesome in this thread, 'nuff said.

[StarCaptainAllen]

I are jealous of all the awesome in this thread, 'nuff said.

Sweet.

[StarCaptainAllen]

So, today I spent mostly finishing a paper for my next-to-last college class, so my 30 minutes of cardio turned into ten minutes of water balloon fight with the kid in the backyard (yes, that's an excuse; yes, I must stop that). I feel pretty good from the weight training workout yesterday; I'm in that zone of not being sore when I am still, but wen I move my arms around I can tell I pushed them the day before.

However, I only get that feeling in the chest and arms, and whatever that muscle is that run down your sides from your armpits. My core and legs hardly feel worked at all. Now, due to my basic body shape, I do have some tree-trunk type legs. Still, even with doing three sets of lunges or step-ups or squats or whatever is called for in that particular workout, and doing them all with 20 pound weights in each hand, I still don't feel challenged. I try to go real slow on the down and explode back up, but if I push any harder than that on the way up I tend to, well, jump up, and that can't be good for form, right? Good form is paramount, is one lesson I've learned since starting this.

Any tips on how I can challenge the legs like I challenge the arms? Curious too on the core, I have worked myself up to 45 second planks, but if I try to tighten up my abs while I am doing it, I just end up trembling, which I suppose is good because it means the muscles are moving, but again it feels like bad form.

Oh yeah, not a goal met but a milestone: I have stuck with this workout for seven straight sessions, whereas my previous record was two. PROGRESS!!!

[Underling]

You could try overhead squats or jump squats; there are videos of them on the Nerd Fitness youtube channel. Doing good squats with a solid, straight back will work your entire core. As for the planks, trembling means you're really starting to push those muscles to the limits. Unless something is tweaking, just keep holding the planks until you can't hold no more. Generally I find that only my obliques feel sore after core workouts...could be that they're just purely undertrained, while the center recovers faster.

Good job on sticking with it, keep on keeping on!