Weak Man Does Stronglifts - EmbraCraig's Daily Log

[EmbraCraig]

Hi Rebels

Since its a few weeks to the start of the next 6 Week Challenge, I thought I'd get started on a log early and get good habits going. The plan is to post each morning about the day before.

 

A bit about me...

I'm 33, married with a 4 month old son. I'm 6'1", and I was built like a rake when I was 17 or 18, but 15 years of comfortable office work has meant a gradual weight gain. I hit 100kg this year, and along with the 38" waist trousers and XL shirts I need now, that was enough to make me want to make changes... I don't want to be a fat dad, I'd like to be able to do plenty of running around with my son as he grows up.

 

 

The Journey So Far...
I started calorie counting about 9 weeks ago, and it's worked well so far. I've made changes slowly, first cutting the bulk of the crap out, then adding more fruit and protein in the last couple of weeks. The thing that's really impressed me is that the more I clean up my diet, the less I miss the sweets and chocolate. I'm still allowing myself a treat now and again, but it's down to one or two a week instead of a day.

Doing calorie counting, along with plenty of walking, has got 4.5kg off so far. Averaging 0.5kg a week, which is bang on target.

 

This is me on the day I registered for Nerd Fitness - putting them up here for future reference and accountability

 

 

What comes next?
With the diet on its way, fitness is up next. I'd decided to focus on strength training with free weights, and found the Stronglifts 5x5 workout, before I found NerdFitness. It's great to find a community where lifting is regarded as a good way towards general fitness, and especially great that it's a community of nerds

The bad news is that, having not done any barbell (or any other sort of strength) work before, 5 sets of 5 reps was too much for me the first time I tried... I managed all of workout A, but was crippled for 2 days afterwards. I've backed off to 3 sets of 5 with the starting weights, which I'll then increase to 4 sets next week, before starting with the 5x5 proper the following. Hopefully the couple of weeks ramp up will give my body time to adjust and the pain won't be so bad...

At the moment, my gym time also includes some interval training on the treadmill... I'll keep this up for as long as I can while still keeping my total workout (including warm up and stretches at the end) to about an hour, since my workouts are a long lunch break for me.

 

Goals
Long term, I'm aiming to get my weight to 85kg. I'm not setting any goals on the lifting side other than an immediate one to get up to doing 5x5 sets and to stick at it once I start, since I don't really know how I'll take to it. 

I think that's enough as an intro, I'll add some reflections on today when I post tomorrow.

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 20/5/2015

 

A bit of an odd start to the day, as my wife woke up with horrible stomach pains. I ended up taking the morning off to look after the little guy.

 

Breakfast was muesli, then got my normal midmorning snack of some cottage cheese and nuts, and a banana before heading to the office in time to go to the gym.

 

This was my first attempt at the 5x5 Workout B exercises with the proper barbell - Squats were fine, did the 3 sets of 5 I was aiming for. Overhead press was a bit of a struggle... when I've used resistance machines in the gym before, any overhead stuff has always been my weakest exercises so it's not really a surprise, but a little worrying to be finding the start weight heavy to begin with. I did manage 3 sets of 5, but they didn't feel good - Re-checking guides on proper form after getting back to my desk tells me that I was probably starting the bar too low and my feet to close together, so hopefully if I fix that'll help tidy things up a bit. Deadlifts were ok - I did start with 30kg, thinking that was the 5x5 starting weight, but turns out it should have been 40kg. Still, since I'm only doing 1 set of them, I'll add the weight next time.

 

Finished off the gym time with running some intervals - 2 minutes walk to 1 minute running, with a bit of a higher speed than before. Kept it up for 15 minutes and felt pretty good at the end, so I'll shorten the rest time next time out.

 

Lunch afterwards was my now standard work lunch of some mixed green salad with some tomatoes, 100g of chicken and a sliced boiled egg, with a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and a Sweetclem as a wee dessert.

 

Afternoon at work was fine, stopped to eat more cottage cheese and nuts and a yoghurt pot later on.

 

Home in time to put do the little guy's bath, then finished off some lentil and vegetable soup that my wife made a couple of days back for dinner. I did allow myself an iced doughnut as a bit of a treat.

 

I ended up getting to sleep a little later than I'd planned because I stopped to start up this thread before bed (a bit counter productive, but hopefully this thread will be worth it in the long term)... 6h 15m sleep after the little guy had us up a couple of times during the night.

 

Overall a good day - on to tomorrow!

[SevenofSeven]

Welcome to the world of stronglifts. Yes OHP kinda really sucks!

[SpecialSundae]

Welcome to the world of stronglifts. Yes OHP kinda really sucks!

 

You lie! OHP is all kinds of awesome... if you have the delts and triceps for it. 

[EmbraCraig]

Welcome to the world of stronglifts. Yes OHP kinda really sucks!

You lie! OHP is all kinds of awesome... if you have the delts and triceps for it.

I think it's more that I suck at them than the exercise sucks - but that'll change!

Log for 21st May

Bad nights sleep meant sleeping in a bit, so breakfast was a porridge oat bar when I got to work. Better than a lot of breakfast bars, but not brilliant. Snacks and lunch much as the day before, but no gym as I'm sticking with. 3 times a week. Got my normal 20 minute walk before and 30 minutes after work, so still moved plenty

Dinner last night wasn't so good - a sub style mini pizza with potato wedges and some salad and beans, with a few biscuits afterwards. Still well within my calorie target for the day, but my worst evening in terms of diet for a while.

A little late to bed again, 6h16m sleep.

Friday morning is weigh in day, so stepped on the scales at 94.7 kg - breaking 95kg means I've got 5kg off since I started, and have less than 10 to get to my target weight. Still on track!

[SpecialSundae]

Stoats are amongst my emergency breakfasts. I've got a little hooked on Skyr of late and they do single portion yogurts that you could keep in the fridge if you want something a little higher in protein.

[EmbraCraig]

Stoats are amongst my emergency breakfasts. I've got a little hooked on Skyr of late and they do single portion yogurts that you could keep in the fridge if you want something a little higher in protein.

 

I've been on the Quaker bars - but Stoats probably have less sugar and would be more filling... might grab them instead next time I need to top up. Skyr isn't something I've come across, but I might give it a go - it could be a good replacement for a fruit corner type things that normally go with my lunch to up my protein and get rid of some sugar. Thanks for the recommendation

[SpecialSundae]

I've been on the Quaker bars - but Stoats probably have less sugar and would be more filling... might grab them instead next time I need to top up. Skyr isn't something I've come across, but I might give it a go - it could be a good replacement for a fruit corner type things that normally go with my lunch to up my protein and get rid of some sugar. Thanks for the recommendation

 

I only tried them because they were on offer in Tesco. Now I'm hooked.

[Chest Rockwell]

You and I are in relatively similar places--young families, formerly fit but now struggling.  I started StrongLifts in March and I've really enjoyed it.  I think you will, too!  The best thing I did when starting was be extremely conservative and realistic with my starting weight.  I'd lifted in the past and had benched and squatted 225 before, but I realized my pride would have to let those old numbers go given the way this workout works (plus, that was 10 years ago and probably with terrible form).  So I was very realistic in my starting weight and erred on the side of going too low.  

 

Good luck and have fun!  Keep us posted.

[EmbraCraig]

You and I are in relatively similar places--young families, formerly fit but now struggling. I started StrongLifts in March and I've really enjoyed it. I think you will, too! The best thing I did when starting was be extremely conservative and realistic with my starting weight. I'd lifted in the past and had benched and squatted 225 before, but I realized my pride would have to let those old numbers go given the way this workout works (plus, that was 10 years ago and probably with terrible form). So I was very realistic in my starting weight and erred on the side of going too low.

Good luck and have fun! Keep us posted.

Thanks for the good wishes - I guess since I'm giving myself a couple of weeks of building up reps, I'm being even more conservative than the suggested starting weights. I'm fine with that, though - the wins I've got from my diet have been from making gradual changes, I'm quite happy for the lifting part to build gradually too.

I'll just keep thinking slow and steady wins the race, marathon not a sprint, it's taken my whole life so far to get this out of shape, and all those similar ideas

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 22nd May

Early start with the baby boy involved sitting munching muesli on the couch while half asleep... Friday is team meeting day at work, so ended up having a few extra biscuits along with my normal morning snacks.

 

Workout A exercises today - quite happily got through 4 sets of 5 of each with the starting weights (so 20kg bar for squats and bench press, 30kg bent over row). Definitely feeling more solid with the exercises now - when I first tried them last week the bar was very wobbly, I'm much more happy with balancing the weight (and making sure I'm properly lined up and in the middle of the bar before I start...).

 

Finished with 15 minutes of intervals again, this time 60s running to 90s walking. Definitely got a sweat on, but to be honest I think I need to up the running speed again or run for longer stretches - the fast pace is currently 13km/h and feels a bit too comfortable now. I'll take that as a sign of progress since it did feel quick the first time I did that speed. I want to up it slowly though - I think catapulting myself off the back of a treadmill might be even more embarassing than dropping a barbell on myself, which was my previous worry.

 

Ended up working late trying to get some stuff working, and arrived home in a bit of a foul mood... when my wife suggested ordering some pasta as a takeaway I was quite happy to run with it rather than cooking something. Had a bit of an overly cheesey/creamy sauce on mine, but had the good sense to stop eating when I actually felt full - not too long ago I would have kept forcing food down myself.

 

Struggled to settle myself down in the evening, so a little bit of a late night and then the wee man waking up early meant a little over 5 hours sleep... really feeling it today. Really should get an early night tonight...

 

Probably wont do an update tomorrow, will cover the full weekend tomorrow.

[SevenofSeven]

Just a thought about food. Have you guys tried batch cooking? Picking one day a week and doing up several meals for freezing, so when those nights happen when you can't be ar**d cooking, it's a matter of pulling it from the freezer and re-heating.

There are several sites with heaps of great recipes and of course pricing plays a big part as well as freezer space. I do it sparodically but it has helped on the odd occasion when cooking a full meal was the last thing I wanted to do.

Anyway just a thought.

[EmbraCraig]

Just a thought about food. Have you guys tried batch cooking? Picking one day a week and doing up several meals for freezing, so when those nights happen when you can't be ar**d cooking, it's a matter of pulling it from the freezer and re-heating.

There are several sites with heaps of great recipes and of course pricing plays a big part as well as freezer space. I do it sparodically but it has helped on the odd occasion when cooking a full meal was the last thing I wanted to do.

Anyway just a thought.

It is the kind of thing we're thinking about in preparation for the little guy moving onto solids - we're looking at baby led weaning. That'll be easiest if we're happy for him to eat whatever we're eating, which rules out most takeaways.

We do need to start freeing up space in the freezer to manage that, though

The worst thing about Friday is that we actually had some leftovers in the fridge that we could have gone for. Still, pasta. Takeaway needn't have been terrible, I just made a bad menu choice - something tomato-y instead to creamy wouldn't have made me feel guilty about the takeaway at all.

Yesterday,on the other hand, was one of our friends kids birthday party, and was a disaster food wise. I'll do a proper post tomorrow, but very much a day to forget about and move on from nutritionally

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 23-24th May

The weekend was definitely odd food wise - Saturday was a 2nd birthday party, where I definitely let my willpower slip and over indulged a bit (not half as badly as I would have done 6 months ago, but still far too many sweets, cakes and biscuits). I did limit dinner to a couple of slices of toast with some egg, as I wasn't really hungry later on. Saturday was actually the first day I've given up on trying to log what I'd eaten... I don't like to sit and log on my phone while I'm with people as I try to keep my phone away when I'm out with people, so tried to do it after the fact and realised I had no idea what I'd actually eaten.

Sunday was also odd, but this time it was because I barely ate through the day instead... Lunch was a portion of veggie sushi from boots, then a slice of cake at my wife's gran's house (she's a traditional nana in that it's usually easier to take a slice of cake than have to refuse repeatedly for the whole time you're there). Dinner was fairly sensible though.

All in all, a strange weekend. Managed to get a half decent night's sleep last night, though, so feel pretty good today - back to the gym at lunch for 4 sets of the stronglifts workout B exercises, and I'm quite looking forward to it. My protein shake stuff should also have arrived at work, so a couple of those a day will help get my protein intake up to about where it should be.

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 25th May

Up early enough for a proper breakfast, less snacks at work but my protein shake powder did arrive, so added in one of those in the morning and one in the afternoon - whey protein isolate (vanilla flavour.... Mmm) with some semi skimmed milk. Those together with my normal food meant that I hit my target of 1g protein per lb of LBM for the first time, which is good.

Gym time was Workout B exercises for 4 sets of 5 (still 1x5 deadlifts). Still struggling to find good form for overhead press, but better than last time I think. Increased the deadlift to the correct weight of 40kg, which was fine - the weights lifting the bar up to a better height definitely helps. Still had time to run some intervals, so increased the speed compared to last time and did 60s run/120s walk again. Went well, will reduce the walk time next time and do a 60s/90s split.

[SevenofSeven]

This guy ( Omar ) has a heap of youtube showing correct form of all sorts of lifts.

OHP:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WoLZbonns

I also found his Squat video very helpful.

[EmbraCraig]

This guy ( Omar ) has a heap of youtube showing correct form of all sorts of lifts.

OHP:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WoLZbonns

I also found his Squat video very helpful.

Cheers for the link - I'd found the stronglifts website had a lot of stuff on squat and deadlift, but not much advice on some of the other lifts.

Log for 26th May

Non-gym day, so only eating to worry about... Which was pretty much all as normal, except for two servings of the whey protein. With water this time to keep the calories down on a non workout day. Dinner was stuffed chicken breast with chorizo and some roast veg - lovely

Grilled some real chicken breast for lunches to get away from using prepacked stuff. Should hopefully be much tastier (not to mention cheaper). Not bad for something I can do in 25 minutes while I'm washing dishes etc, at the same time as boiling eggs for the week.

Also noticed that the threads are appearing for the upcoming 6 week challenge. I know roughly what my goals are, but will need to write something up.

[MrPhysicsTeacherGuy]

Craig,

Cheers on the progress. Strong lifts is a great program, and I made huge progress with it. I'm sure you will as well.

Just a note: the real engine that powers that program is the squat. As long as your squat goes up, then the program is working. As far as the OHP, it will always be the weakest lift and the hardest to improve. For example, getting up to 60 kg in the squat is a good start but won't set any records. However a 60 kg OHP is great! So, if you need to stick with the bar on OHP for several weeks that is ok, just don't let that slow down your progress on the other lifts.

Lastly, I have a guess that you're loosing some strength on the press by not keeping the rest of your body tight (something most people struggle with). Maybe remember to squeeze your abs and your glutes. It can make a huge difference.

-Teach

[EmbraCraig]

Craig,

Cheers on the progress. Strong lifts is a great program, and I made huge progress with it. I'm sure you will as well.

Just a note: the real engine that powers that program is the squat. As long as your squat goes up, then the program is working. As far as the OHP, it will always be the weakest lift and the hardest to improve. For example, getting up to 60 kg in the squat is a good start but won't set any records. However a 60 kg OHP is great! So, if you need to stick with the bar on OHP for several weeks that is ok, just don't let that slow down your progress on the other lifts.

Lastly, I have a guess that you're loosing some strength on the press by not keeping the rest of your body tight (something most people struggle with). Maybe remember to squeeze your abs and your glutes. It can make a huge difference.

-Teach

Thanks for the advice, it's all very gratefully received - I did make more of a conscious effort to keep myself tight doing the bench yesterday, will try the same with OHP tomorrow.

Log for 27th May

Diet was normal workday stuff, including the now standard protein drinks. Dinner was fish cakes with some couscous and salad, which was very nice

Gym at lunch went well - did another go at 4x5s of the workout A exercises, trying to concentrate on the form being right. They feel ok, but I think I really need to get a mini tripod to video myself to check. Went for 60/90s split on my intervals, and they felt like a better workout - will repeat that next time round and probably increase the speed again the time after.

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 28th May

Another good day diet wise. Had a slight problem with Lunch when I ran out of salad stuff to take with me, so had boiled up some rice to have with my chicken etc. was fine, if a bit dull. Finished the day within calorie allowance, even with allowing myself a doughnut after dinner. Protein target managed again as well.

Started my recruit challenge thread, and stepped on the scale this morning - full kg off this week, taking the total loss to 6.3kg. That's as near as dammit to a full stone, so quite happy with that for 10 weeks

[EmbraCraig]

Lastly, I have a guess that you're loosing some strength on the press by not keeping the rest of your body tight (something most people struggle with). Maybe remember to squeeze your abs and your glutes. It can make a huge difference.

-Teach

Just a quick note to say cheers again for this - concentrating on squeezing my abs and glutes, along with gripping the bar in the right damn place (thanks to Staci's Strength Training 101 here) made a huge difference today, OHP felt much better.

Now it's time to go eat a big pile of chicken

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 29th May

Mixed day over all. Work and gym both went well, finishing up my 4x5 workouts with a good shot at the workout B lifts and the same intervals as my last gym session. Felt good, and as I said on Friday, the tips up thread seemed to help with the OHP.

The evening was less good - had my parents coming round, so ended up getting a bus from work and missing my half hour long walk up the hill in the evening. Also over-indulged on Chinese takeaway quite a bit. Net result of those two is that not only did I miss my calorie target, I was actually at a calorie surplus. Not a great end to a good day, but never mind.

Log for 30th-31st May

After Friday, a good weekend food wise. Impromptu family trip to the beach on Saturday meant there was lots of junk food around, but kept everything in moderation to keep to my calorie target. Sunday was a fairly quiet day, but ate sensibly and got some housework done.

Today's gym session is the first of me starting progression on the full 5x5 program. Quite looking forward to it, which is a bit of an odd feeling to be honest - never really thought I'd be a person to get excited about starting a weights programme.

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 1st June

A good day! Cereal bar for breakfast since I was running a bit late, but other than that a really good day food wise - finished under my calorie target and well over on protein.

This was also the first official day of the Stronglifts program for me - 5x5 done successfully of all the workout A exercises at the starting weights, so weight to be added to them all next time round. Had to keep my interval training a bit shorter since the extra rest periods between sets has started to add up, so 10minutes of 60s run/90s walk, and turned up the speed of the runs to 14km/h to make up for the shorter time. Definitely made me work, so I'll repeat that next time round.

All in all, a good day - looking forward to seeing where this programme takes me

[MrPhysicsTeacherGuy]

Hey, congrats on your first 5x5! Glad to hear the OHP is feeling a little better, just keep working on that tension. Honestly, I think it's a key to every lift. Great Job!

-Teach

[EmbraCraig]

Log for 2nd June

Rest day today, so no lifting. Felt good after the previous day's exercise though, no sign of the DOMS which hit me the first time I did 5x5 a couple of weeks back, so hopefully stepping up my reps again gradually has done the trick.

Food was a bit odd yesterday, I ended up being 10g short of my protein target, but my calorie burn (according to my fitbit) were lower than normal, and I was too close to my daily goal for me to want to eat the nuts and cottage cheese I missed in the afternoon. Still, 165g is quite a lot of protein for a day, and hitting my calorie target needs to be my main goal while I'm aiming to keep weight coming off. I don't mind the compromise, just a little surprising since I don't think I did much differently to a normal non workout day.