OcUK Health Seekers: Post your progress pics

Freefaller · 13 May 2009 at 12:14

Thanks for the comments guys - I'm happy with my progress to an extent, still keen on dropping a bit of BF, and increasing fitness a little (though I'm quite happy with my ability at the moment). Focusing on increasing strength and power but of course a little bit on size too. Want to get a little more symmetry and maybe slightly more powerful tris and shoulders. It would be nice to be 16st dry first thing at my lightest possible weight with a little less BF - so I have a bit to go yet!

JAzz · 13 May 2009 at 19:41

dark_shadow said:
Here's my story:

Stopped boxing before I went to uni, become a bigger fatty at uni and weighed in at 205lb last year.

9 months of hard weight training (for the first time) I'm now at 161lb.

I'm lost for words . . I just can't believe the difference

Will - Thanks for your advice mate, found the 5x5 to be extremely useful!

Wow great stuff, that really is a great effort in such a short space of time.

If you don't mind me asking what your routine and diet like?

DarkShadow · 13 May 2009 at 21:36

Thanks for the positive responses guys! Quite overwhelming really! I kept going through motions of thinking it isn't working. Lets just say . . these pictures have given me the wake up call that I needed and it's really boosted me up. You can't appreciate the difference living with it until you see stats/pictures! It's been life changing to say the least. I had pretty bad dermatitis (skin condition) which has completely cleared up. I've been asked out more times in the last few months than I have over a number of years! Confidence is very high.

FF - Looking great as usual, them shoulder are tanks! :cool:

Andy-Jones-OC said:
Looking good Freefaller. Shave that hair off its hiding your abs . Good arms

Oi oi, REAL MEN KEEP THEIR HAIR!

JAzz said:
Wow great stuff, that really is a great effort in such a short space of time.

If you don't mind me asking what your routine and diet like?

Thanks.

I only started training 9 months ago. For 2 months I was experimenting with various exercises as I had no clue. Cue dedicating tons of research I found a number of things which started working for me. Same applied to the diet, I wasn't doing a very good job, I'd either cut my calories far too much or I would eat the wrong types of food!

They keys to my success were: Determination, calorie deficit, training like a beast - I refused to give up.

An example workout I started out on was something like this: http://www.myprotein.co.uk/your-goals/fat-loss/?article=training

This worked great, after I gained a better understanding I started varying my workout. For example, I start on a 4 x 10 week, then 3 x 10, 3 x 8, 5 x 5 where I push myself to the point of failure. I only started this 2 months ago and I've seen my figures racking up. I have however taken a step back and started focusing on my form - It's essential to get this right.

My diet varied quite a lot, I had to experiment and I think I'm only just starting to get it right.

Hope that helped

AmDaMan - What gym do you train at?

AmDaMan · 14 May 2009 at 00:22

Hi mate, any of the SIV gyms, usually Hillsborough.

danoliver1 · 14 May 2009 at 21:20

A quick update stats-: height 5'8", waist 30", weight 163lbs,chest 42", biceps 15" forearms 13". Up a few lbs currently doing a clean bulk strength increasing.

Also veins increasing in size and number.

JAzz · 15 May 2009 at 13:32

dark_shadow said:
Thanks.

I only started training 9 months ago. For 2 months I was experimenting with various exercises as I had no clue. Cue dedicating tons of research I found a number of things which started working for me. Same applied to the diet, I wasn't doing a very good job, I'd either cut my calories far too much or I would eat the wrong types of food!

They keys to my success were: Determination, calorie deficit, training like a beast - I refused to give up.

An example workout I started out on was something like this: http://www.myprotein.co.uk/your-goals/fat-loss/?article=training

This worked great, after I gained a better understanding I started varying my workout. For example, I start on a 4 x 10 week, then 3 x 10, 3 x 8, 5 x 5 where I push myself to the point of failure. I only started this 2 months ago and I've seen my figures racking up. I have however taken a step back and started focusing on my form - It's essential to get this right.

My diet varied quite a lot, I had to experiment and I think I'm only just starting to get it right.

Hope that helped

Thanks for the response, you seemed to have lost a fair bit of weight as well and did that come mainly from cardio work or from weight training?

AmDaMan · 15 May 2009 at 14:08

looking good danoliver, my main focus would be the chest now to balance in out a bit (in my opinion)

DarkShadow · 15 May 2009 at 14:51

AmDaMan said:
Hi mate, any of the SIV gyms, usually Hillsborough.

Cool - I'm moving back to Sheffield in 7 weeks and I'll be back at Concord/Don Valley

JAzz said:
Thanks for the response, you seemed to have lost a fair bit of weight as well and did that come mainly from cardio work or from weight training?

Pretty much just free weights. I may go running once a month or so and I play badminton or similar once a week as of the past few weeks.

The key is to create a calorie deficit and lose 1-2lb a week, train like a beast and sleep well. If you need any more advice, feel free to ask.

danoliver - Solid arms/back/shoulders! What are your legs like?

JAzz · 15 May 2009 at 15:06

I've had a few problems with laziness and a few injuries last few months but I'm going to start a more strict routine pretty soon. Lost ~10kg from mainly cardio last year but just haven't going properly this year. My general fitness is appalling and I get out of breath way too easily so I want to do cardio work, am thinking of doing some cardio 5 days a week in the morning and some weights 3-4 days a week in the evening.

My diet is terrible, my mum feeding me all this super fattening Indian is not helping my cause at all! When I used to stuff my face she would give me the food and then moan that I'm eating too much now when I try to cut down she moans I don't eat enough!

DarkShadow · 15 May 2009 at 19:47

JAzz said:
I've had a few problems with laziness and a few injuries last few months but I'm going to start a more strict routine pretty soon. Lost ~10kg from mainly cardio last year but just haven't going properly this year. My general fitness is appalling and I get out of breath way too easily so I want to do cardio work, am thinking of doing some cardio 5 days a week in the morning and some weights 3-4 days a week in the evening.

My diet is terrible, my mum feeding me all this super fattening Indian is not helping my cause at all! When I used to stuff my face she would give me the food and then moan that I'm eating too much now when I try to cut down she moans I don't eat enough!

Ah, the classic 'mum making killer desi food with a million calories'!

I think doing cardio 5 times a week and FW 3-4 times will be hard to stick to/bore you and ultimately lead to failure if either of the above happens. Do something you can commit to. A 3/4 day split. If you can stick the myprotein example and just do 15 minutes cardio after weights (be extremely careful not to over do it) you'll be on to a winner.

Here's something I mailed a friend recently . .

Read this information and use the workout as a starting base, do everything: http://www.myprotein.co.uk/your-goals/fat-loss/?article=training

In order to find out how to perform each excercise I recommend you careful read up on each workout. Form is EXTREMELY important, used both google and exrx http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html. This is my favourite site for executing specific techniques. You should be able to do most of those exercises at your gym. If not, substitute it for a different exercise same muscle group.

This site is short, concise and to the point about weight loss: http://www.theloseweightdiet.com/

Some superb workouts here (very useful): http://www.esnpro.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1944

Another great site and useful article: http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=795366

Some more good reading: http://weighttraining.about.com/

This is more than enough to get you started. I completely agree with you, there's a lot of conflicting advice out there etc. The golden rule is to absorb all this information and experiement, see what works for you!

This is life changing experience if done properly. You'll be more confident, look better and feel better. More importantly, your health will vastly improve.

Hope this helps.

5ingh · 16 May 2009 at 11:31

Hey DS, very well done mate, that's really impressive. In fact its inspired me to get off my arse and join the gym starting Monday 25th.

I'm 5ft 8 but underweight for my height at 10 stones! Also live on the desi diet

Breeze · 16 May 2009 at 12:15

dark_shadow said:
Here's something I mailed a friend recently . .

Some excellent links/info mate. Thanks

fluffmct · 17 May 2009 at 20:13

Right, here's my story...

I was always a very skinny kid, weighed about 9-10 stone at age 18, 6'1" in height.

A couple of years ago I was sitting at 9 stone and headed off on a trip to Hong Kong, not realising at the time that I was about to become very ill and that I had Crohn's disease. For those of you who don't know what that is - basically your own immune system attacks your intestines causing all sorts of nasty problems including weight loss.

Here's a picture of me in Hong Kong at 8.5 stone:

So I get back from Asia, greet my mum at the airport and her face just drops when she sees me - first thing she comments on is how gaunt I look. I hadn't noticed much because it's a gradual change but because she hadn't seen me for a while it was a massive shock. I tell her I have been very sick while on holiday and I think I need to see a doctor. After a lot of tests, results show that I've got Crohn's and in the mean time I've dropped to just under 8 stone in weight (Was very camera shy at this weight as you can imagine!).

Without rambling on too much, I have to get 2 operations to remove a lot of my intestines over the next year or so. Feeling a lot better, the doctors tell me to eat everything I see and not to discriminate (so I did and enjoyed it

). Unfortunately, I enjoyed it a little too much and fat was unavoidable - I bulked up to 12 stone just by eating and not doing much exercise

12 stone chubby (chicks dig scars!

):

So comes January 2008... my oldest brother, Gary, tells me he wants to get back into shape after taking 3 years off especially since the middle brother, Neil, was in such good nick (shameless plug www.neilmct.com haha). Gary and I start our journey in Centaur, the oldest commercial gym in the UK
(and it looks it!).

We train hard and I eat like a horse eventually bulking up to 14.5 stone by autumn 2008:

At this stage I'm really happy with my training and diet because I was no longer the skinny kid and I was managing to keep Crohn's at bay with my diet of unprocessed foods. For curiosity's sake however I want to start leaning out so I can see what frame I have now. So at the turn of the year I start cutting back on the carbs and start bringing my bodyfat down, while maintaining muscle mass as much as I could. This stage has been the hardest for me because I've been so scared of coming down in weight too much and looking like someone from a concentration camp again.

I'm still leaning out so this isn't the finished product by any means. Here's 2 pics as of yesterday (almost a year and a half training and sitting at 12 stone again):

My goals now:
Shed more bodyfat - I won't lose any more muscle at this stage I think.
Once that's done then clean bulk really slowly until I reach my ideal body shape and then train for strength.

Thanks for reading

. Hope it wasn't too boring and I know I still have a long way to go but I like to think I've come a long way too.

Morba · 17 May 2009 at 20:15

youve not got much fat, get bulking.

5ingh · 17 May 2009 at 20:17

Wow mate you've changed a lot from the first pic, for the better I must say!

Well done

Vegeta · 17 May 2009 at 20:25

Wow inspirational.

blairw · 17 May 2009 at 20:44

Great story and it really strikes home that if you can do it while facing a nasty condition (my cousin had chrons and had to have all their horrible shakes from the hospital as meals) I should be able to shed some fat and get into shape.

Well done!

^TANK^ · 17 May 2009 at 20:46

5ingh said:
Wow mate you've changed a lot from the first pic, for the better I must say!

Well done

DarkShadow · 17 May 2009 at 21:50

5ingh said:
Hey DS, very well done mate, that's really impressive. In fact its inspired me to get off my arse and join the gym starting Monday 25th.

I'm 5ft 8 but underweight for my height at 10 stones! Also live on the desi diet

Excellent - Keep us updated and don't hesitate to ask any questions.

fluffmct said:
Right, here's my story...

snip

Good on you for working your way to recovery. The difference is staggering, well done :cool:

BennyC · 17 May 2009 at 22:28

Awesome, great transformation. Keep it up!