Getting a head start

[Potentiallyhuge]

Hey guys, i'm pretty new here. I've been visiting the site for about half of a year, and reading all of the articles, and I finally decided to sign up. I'm 15, 5'8" and almost three-quarters. I weigh around 155. I've decided it would be way easier to just get in really good shape before I have to go off to college in a few years, than waiting till my metabolism slows down and my opportunities drift away.

I've got this pool party at the end of the school year(June 5th) and a bunch of girls that I like from school are gonna be there, so my first goal is to get a six pack visible by that time. Today is March 15th so that gives me a little bit under three months to cut.
I will probably just maintain throughought the summer since I will be swimming a lot, and have to be lookin good :). After that I will start my first bulking cycle.

Anyways, let's layout the goals as of now.

Goal by the end of March: Stick to diet and get cardio routine set.
Goal by the end of April: Continue with plan. Have most of the fat cut.
Goal by the end of May: have a six pack and bring calorie intake up to maintainance.
Long term goal: Gain muscle mass and weigh around 180 by the end of sophomore year.


Now that we have that set out, let's get started.
I read that maintainance calories for an athlete is 15 times your body weight. Since I weight 155, that means 2325 calories a day. I also read that a cutting diet requires around a 500 calorie defecit(pretty sure- if wrong, please notify me), so I will be averaging around 1825 calories a day.

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Entry #1 03/15/03

I set my alarm for four in the morning, since I will be going to sleep at 8, I will be getting the full 8 hours every day. So from 4am-8pm that's 16 hours of being awake. That means if i'm consuming 6 meals a day, they will be spaced about 2 and a half hours apart.

Since i'm cutting I am doing cardio twice a day. I woke up, got to stretching, got my stopwatch and ran for 15 minutes around the hilly streets of my house. No biggy, I run plenty in basketball so it wasn't much. I also had my 10 pound ankle weights on.

Then I decided to do some ab excersize so that when my six pack does pop out, it is as nice as can be. I read somewhere that stomach vaccuums were a good excersize, so I did three of those for 20 seconds each. I then put my ankle weights back on and laid flat on my back. I lifted my legs about 6 inches from the ground, and held them there for 20 seconds, twice. The third time I didn't count, I just held them until my legs fell down. I'm not sure of the name of this excersize, but I think they are called leg raises.(correct me if wrong)

After this I did a bicycle type motion with my legs while lying down. I'm not sure how many I did, but I did it for about two minutes.

Meal 1(4:25)- 3 whole eggs. 1 piece of whole wheat toast. Multivitamin.

*Note: I gave up soda a few weeks ago for the delicious and nutrition water, and when I tried one last night, it tasted like crap. Maybe I have adapted to not liking soda. Good for me :)*

Meal 2(6:45)-I had a packet of turkey that my mom bought. I checked the back and it seemed pretty low in fat, so I had at it. I grabbed an apple and some grapes to go along with it.

*Note: I did not count calories today, as I had not yet found the calorie amount needed for the day. Tommorrow I will start.*

Meal 3(9:00)- Another packet of turkey, an orange, and some more grapes. I fear we are going to run out of food pretty soon :).

Meal 4(12:00)- For lunch I made two corn dogs. We didn't have much else to eat today, my mom shops on Sundays. I also took two of these fish oil capsuls we have since I read that they are good to take, and I don't really like fish.

Meal 5(3:00)- haven't had yet.

Meal 6- haven't had yet.

I'll get back to you guys with the rest tomorrow. They are about to kick me off the computer at the library, so I better get going :). Please reply with ideas or concerns. Peace.

[NateDogg]

Please tell me you are not putting off lifting until after summer? Also, I believe there are better and safer ways of burning calories than running with 10lb weights on your ankles. Check out the HIIT sticky in the training forum. Other than that... :spam: is all.

[AstronautJones]

I agree. Look into doing some HIIT. HIIT rules!

Congrats and good luck on the journal. It will be interesting to see your progress. :spam:

[Potentiallyhuge]

Thanks guys. By the way, I didn't post on Sunday because I didn't have access, but it went smoothly. I decided to give up the ankle weights. There's a brand new rec center by my house, and they have some pretty nice equipment.

I'm going to designate Monday as arm, shoulders and back day. I'm going to check up on some routines around here and do them when I get out of school. I'm looking to see someting with chinups, some benching(i'll have to find out about incline and decline), maybe pushups, curls and pullovers. I'll look around.

On a side note, i'm in journalism class, and we have to write an in depth story on someting, and I've decided to write on sports nutrition about things such as supplements, bad dieting, the good and bad effects of it all. If you guys have any information on ephedrine, or creatin(e?) or some kind of protein powders, it would be a big help. Thanks. I'll tell you guys what workout I chose and how it went some time tomorrow, and give you any updates.

One last thing- eating six meals a day is going to be very hard for me, with school and all, so is it going to hinder me if i'm only eating 4 or 5 on certain days?

[Potentiallyhuge]

------------------Wednesday 3/19/03-------------------------

First off, sorry for the lack of updating, i've had no access to a computer. I'll fill you in on the last couple of days in this post.

Diet had been so-so since the last post. I haven't been able to eat 6 meals once yet, but i've been eating good, nutritional food and drinking tons of water. Next update i'll give you a full day's list of what I ate, since I don't really remember.

To the workout.

Monday was arm,back, shoulder day. I couldn't get to the rec center, so I worked with what I have.

I have some 10 pound dumbells/barbells(which is for one arm only?) so I did
2 sets of 20, holding it nice and long at the most exhausting point each rep to get the most out of the small weight.

Next I did 2 sets of 20 wide-armed pushups going nice and slow to still feel as much burn as I could.

I don't have a chinup bar, so I used the top of our patio cover. I had to use some receiver gloves because it scrapes the hand. Man am I good at improvising? I could only do 2 sets of 5 because of my body weight compared to my arm and back strength. I'm hoping to get better and be able to do sets of about 12 so I can add weights eventually.

I also did some ab work because it provides some more sweatage and i'm still cutting. I can't see any physical improvement yet, but I don't expect to for a while, so I'm not discouraged.

On Tuesday I just got some rest because my chest was pretty sore, but I still did some 20 minutes of cardio on that Gazelle freestyle machine since my parents have let it collect dust and it's being wasted. It was pretty easy and my legs were nice and loose today. I also did some ab excersizes for the same reason as Monday.

On to today. We're about half-way through the day, and i've gotten some work done. We have a crappy old weight room that we are aloud to use in P.E, and instead of war ball, I decided to check out what they had. It turns out wednesday is now leg day.

I'm not sure of the names of these excersizes, so you guys can help me out. First there is one where you sit in a chair, and your knees are bent at your chest and you have to push out the weight. I did 2 sets of 12 of what I think was 221. I wanted something challenging, but possible, and this was pretty good. I may try the next weight up next time.

The next excersize was one where you are on a chair again, and this time your legs go under the bar and you lift upward. I have no clue how much weight it was, but I did 2 sets of 12 with that too.

I don't know about the effectiveness, but I've been wearing the 10 pound ankle weights while I walk around today(not while I worked out), and we have a bunch of stairs I have to walk up and down at school, so it seems like it might be working at least somewhat.

I'm looking to add one more leg excersize, but those are all of the machines we have for legs at the school. Maybe you guys have some suggestions. Or maybe I shouldn't add any. I'm open to anything that you guys(the experienced ones) have to say, as I am looking to improve and not do some worthless things.

I'm gonna try to do 30 minutes on that Gazelle thing tonight, since it was fun and helped flexibility. Also, I found that if I lean forward and do it, it works my chest and triceps, and if I lean back it works my biceps, so I will alternate every couple minutes from how I lean, or if I lean.

Hopefully I will get to go to the rec center today and play some basketball and some pool to pay for my hard work.

On one last note, I've been saving money and i'm thinking about going to the grocery store with about $50 to buy myself some stuff for the next week or so. What brand of chicken breasts do you guys recommend? Hopefully when I do this I will be able to eat 6 meals a day for a while. That's it for now, see you guys tomorrow.(It won't be such a lengthy post, don't mean to bore you guys if I did.

Peace out.

[Potentiallyhuge]

---------------------Friday 3/21/03---------------------------
Yo. Well, i'm holdin on strong with eating no junk food and no soda. I've been keeping around 1800 cals, which is what I want. Thursday was a rest day, and the most cardio-related activity was taking my dog on a 40 minute walk, which was nice and easy.
Today i'm going to the gym, and i'm going to do a more fulfilling arm workout than last time. I barely felt any burn 10 minutes after the workout. This time, i'm going to be doing it at the gym. I'll probably run 2 miles on the treadmill today. I like to run a lap, walk a half lap while cooling down and drinking some water, run another lap, half lap, and so on until i'm finished. That way it's easier to go for longer amounts of time and I can still burn those calories.
I'm going to do something like this.
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Curls 2X8-10(I forget how much weight I can handle, so i'll find out as I go)
Pulldowns 2X8-10 *over the summer I think I did 45 pounds, I think i'll try something a bit higher than that* (they might be called pullovers, not sure, but it's like a reverse curl, working the tricep muscles.)
Chins 2X6 *bodyweight* (hopefully)
Pushups 2X20 *slow and painful, how I like it*

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This time I am so set on reaching this goal, there is no stopping me. I may even get to where I want to be early, and get to start bulking. Woopty woop.
Guys, where's the support? I need all of the help and advice I can get. Thanks. By the way, my name's Jeff. Peace out.