Health and Fitness

[likwidtek]

No kidding man.  I can't quit now!

[likwidtek]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/opinion/sunday/always-hungry-heres-why.html?_r=2

Awesome article about general health in regards to food.

[Tbone]

I need to start this back up again. I went out of town for a gig and lost the routine. On top of that, the batteries died to my scale so I didn't have the number to motivate me anymore. I've tried to keep to my diet, though, so it took a long time for me to gain some of it back. I'm not sure what my weight is now, but I'm feeling some of my shirts start to get tight, so it's time to shred!

[Akiya]

..... I can't resist .....

[Tbone]

I got my scale working again and I was getting close to 190 lbs! I guess that's not too bad for not keeping up with the exercise for a year and a half. I've gotten back into my routine, though, and I've already shredded down to 182. Setting the first goal at 170 and then gonna go from there.

I'm using this Lose It! app to count calories. You can scan the barcode of your food and put it in the system. You can also add your exercise as negative calories. You set a goal and it tells you how many calories you can eat a day to achieve your goal in your time frame. Pretty convenient stuff if you keep up with it!

I'm doing HIIT again. 30/45 this time. I usually do it semi-fasted, drinking half my whey protein before and the other half after my complete workout. I've started doing the weight lifting before HIIT so I have more energy for the weights (trying to maintain muscle better). In between days I'm still doing the regular cardio and Ab Ripper. If I don't have time to exercise on a day, I try to at least stick to my calorie count.

This go around I'd really like to make it to 160 and start losing some of that stubborn belly fat!

[Subb]

All about the sprints for the belly, boss

[Tbone]

Down to 175! Probably took me about two months to lose 15 lbs, which is right on target. Been toning muscle at the same time. Some tweaks I've been doing

-Turkey burger is lean but full of protein.
-Greek yogurt, 80 calories and 12 g protein
-Started putting lite dressings on my dinners to keep it fresh. Lite Italian is only 15 calories 0.o
-Almond milk for my cereal! Tastes good and is 30 calories per cup instead of 90!
-Multi grain rice has slightly less calories (220 instead of 250).

Five pounds left to goal! After that I should probably spend more time on weights, but I also want to keep losing fat. I might see if I can extend my workout and add an extra rep of weights AFTER my cardio (so I'd be doing weights before AND after). I might also start doing two protein shakes a day instead of one (maybe I'll add a protein shake to my late night snack since muscle rebuilding happens while you're asleep...not sure).

[Tbone]

These last 5 lbs have been a bitch since I had some filming projects and a Fourth of July party, but finally hit my goal!



You can see my progress over two years. When I gained weight back, at least it was pretty slowly over a long amount of time!

My new goal is to hit 155 lbs. I'm not sure that I'll ever actually hit it, as I'm going to be focusing on muscle at the same time. The more important goal is just getting body fat percentage down - more lean muscle, less fat. It's going to be hard to really gauge that progress, but hopefully I can slim down at the same time. I've adjusted my weight loss from 2 lbs a week to 1.5 to allow enough calories to get more protein. I may change that to a 1 lb/week if that's still difficult to maintain. I'm going to mix up my exercising as well, basically quadrupling the amount of dumbbell exercises I'm doing. Instead of doing it every other day, I'll do it every day, and I'll do two rounds instead of just one. New regiment should look something like this:

Chest/Tri
HIIT Cardio
Chest Tri

Back/Biceps
Abs
Back/Biceps

Shoulders/Legs
HIIT Cardio
Shoulders/Legs

Chest/Tri
Abs
Chest/Tri

Back/Biceps
HIIT Cardio
Back/Biceps

Shoulders/Legs
Abs
Shoulders/Legs

REST

I hardly ever make it to rest day because of my schedule...I usually end up having to take a day off somewhere in the middle. Heh. They say you should have your weight in protein (grams, of course) when building muscle, but that would be way overkill for me right now (170 grams of protein is a lot to try to build in). I'm gonna try to get at least 100 grams a day, though. I'd like to avoid having to double down on my protein shakes, as that gets expensive. I've got greek yogurt and Protein Cheerios! I'll keep looking for more protein-heavy foods!

[Tbone]

Revising my plan a bit after more research. I'm going to focus more on quality instead of quantity. Instead of doing the entire rotation twice (once before and once after cardio), I'm going to focus on taking my time. For most exercises I'm going to do three sets of 8 reps with a slow count - I think two going up and four going down. This should enable me to get more resistance/burn more even while still using the 20 lb dumbbells. It felt good today, so we'll see!

[Tbone]

Time for another update! I had gained some weight back but trimmed it down last November. I checked again a few weeks ago and was around 187. That seems to be about my warning spot when I know I need to focus up again. I'm back to exercising and dieting and am already down to 181. I've decided to add supplements to my regiment this go round to optimize digestion, metabolism, and fat burning.

I'm taking vitamin D and fish oil with lunch, zinc with dinner, and psyllium husk fiber at night. Of course I'm still taking whey protein during my workout as well. Besides improving overall health, these supplements should keep my metabolism where it needs to be. I probably won't need the vitamin D if I start swimming this summer, but I'll probably keep taking it just in case. I've seen probiotics and magnesium also recommended, but it just seems like a LOT. I'm gonna start with these and see how it goes.

Tonight I also made a high protein/low cal food called meat slop. It wasn't bad! I used peas instead of mushrooms because I don't like mushrooms. We'll see how long it takes to get sick of it.

Other than that, I'm just doing the same exercise rotation I landed on before, alternating HIIT with Ab Ripper while cycling through the muscle groups on dumbbells. I have my reps on a slow count, but I'm still tempted to do each set twice. Maybe I just need to find more dumbbell exercises for each group.

Setting my goal for 170. Even going from 187 to 181 I had a fellow cast member tell me today that it looked like I had lost some weight. I think I'm gaining muscle at about the same rate I'm dropping from my waist line, so my actual weight may not be a good representation of the work being done. We'll see how far I get this time!

[Tbone]

I'm down to 174, so it's going well. I made my third batch of meat slop - it lasts for 7 days. I tweaked the recipe a little to my liking. I'm doing 3 lbs of lean ground beef, only one cabbage, three cans of tomato sauce, one onion, and two cans of peas. I bought a cheap food processor to really shred the cabbage and onion. I put everything in the slow cooker and add lots of spices (curry, pepper, sriracha, cinnamon, garlic powder) and the result tastes like a nice meat sauce! I like the texture like that, but you can make it more into a stew if you don't shred the cabbage and onion as much. Split into seven portions, the "meat slop" ends up being...

568 calories
50 grams protein
40 grams carbs
19 grams fat
12 grams fiber

Calories, protein, and fiber are the main ones I'm looking at, though you can tweak the recipe to get less carbs and more fat if you wanted. I might look at replacing the green peas with beans, but I'm not sure I want the calorie trade off.

[Tbone]

Things slowed down a bit in July since there was a lot of barbecues and parties, but I finally hit my goal of 170! I'm setting my new goal for 157, though I'm planning on taking a three week trip soon, so we'll see how far along I get. 165 is the lightest I've ever been, so I'd at least like to get back to that. Feels good to hit my initial goal, though!

[Heironymus]

Congrats T on the weight loss!

I started Keto three weeks ago after doing research and my friend/coworker who had to have abdominal surgery  was recommended it by his doctor. With diet and get a personal trainer he lost almost 40 lbs in 3 months leading up to his surgery.
Ive been on it three weeks and have lost a little over 10.. now only 100 more to go! Good luck meeting your goals!

[VanceRew]

Congratz on the weight loss Tbone. That's some inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing. How have you been doing on that front lately?

[Tbone]

Congratz on the weight loss Tbone. That's some inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing. How have you been doing on that front lately?

I got down to about 165 before I booked this two month gig in Michigan. Since I've been here I've been eating out more and working out less, so I've probably gained some of it back. I'll have to shred it back down once I get back home!