Skinny to skinny fat to slightly less skinny fat and all over again

fluffmct

fluffmct

fluffmct

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20 May 2008
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Belfast
There is a log coming out of this but I'd like to give a bit of background cause I know it always gives me loads of motivation to read other people's struggles and it's not as often you see the skinny guy bulking. I'll fire my whole story over a two posts cause it's a bit of a long read and I'll have to dig out some pics in the interim. I had posted this a long time ago when I was training consistently but, as you'll see in the follow up posts, things got more complicated than they already had been!

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

A good few years ago I was sitting at around 9.5 stone...

20121024_193545_zps929bb24e.jpg



...and not long after headed off on a trip to Hong Kong, not realising at the time that I was about to become very ill and discover I have 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:

HK-85stone_zpsca754bf2.jpg



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 around 7 stone 12 in weight (I was very camera shy at this weight as you can imagine so I've no pics!).

Long story short (ish), I had 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!) :

12stone-chubby_zpsb9a9541f.jpg



So come the following year 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. Gary and I start our journey in 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 that summer:

Ralph-Heavy_zpsdeaf2df8.jpg



At this stage I was 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 largely unprocessed foods. For curiosity's sake however I wanted to start leaning out so I can see what frame I have. So I start cutting back on the carbs and start bringing my bodyfat down, while maintaining muscle mass as much as I could. This stage had been the hardest for me because I'd been so scared of coming down in weight too much and looking like someone from a concentration camp again.

Here's a pic sitting at 12 stone again but a fair bit leaner:

12stoneleaner_zpsdfc3c638.jpg


I'm not sure of the timeframe in all the above, but it was over maybe a year and a half of training and the last pic was a few years back. So I'd like to say that brings me to today but unfortunately this story will bring even more moisture to your eye than one of those x factor auditions! Alright, it'll maybe just make you cringe as much with comments like that :D
 
*** PART 2***

Ok so to bring us more up to date, and I'm well aware this all sounds ridiculous haha, the doctors managed to discover 2 more chronic diseases somewhat related to Crohn's. One has meant I go through periodic bouts of vertigo and the other is a form of autoimmune arthritis that affects almost all of my joints (although no back and only minor hip issues *touch wood*). As you can imagine, this has put a little bit of a detour into my journey of getting in shape :D

So around February of this year, I took this photo of myself not having trained for well over a year and having lost a lot of strength (especially in my legs due to them being in crutches for long stretches of time whilst the docs worked out what was going on).

February 2012

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As you can see, I look pretty horrific. I've retained a bit of the muscle I put on when training, mainly because my diet was still fairly good, although my bodyfat has obviously went way up here from eating too much **** and not having any sort of ability to exercise.

There were also severe mobility issues, most of which I have got over although I'm still working on wrist flexibility, and I'll chat about that in a later post.

I trained on and off this year and in the last few months the doctors have put me on medication that seems to be keeping the arthritis at bay so little by little I've been putting more effort in the gym, taking it easy on legs at the start but now I can pretty much train as I once did. Diet wise, I've been eating... a lot :p. I've been in this position before, so I figured let's just eat and eat until I've got a bit of size about me even though I'll not get any leaner.

That brings me up to August where I went to America for 2 weeks and pigged out on Dunkin' Donuts. I got my friend to take a quick photo at the start of September with a decent camera, looking bigger (and FAT!! :D) but at least with a bit of muscle on in the right places to boot. The reason for the decent pic is I'm hoping to do proper "after pics" at some stage when I get properly lean and put on some quality muscle mass and I think it'd make a nice comparison rather than the usual terrible phone pic in terrible light followed by a photoshopped pro pic in super lighting. By the way, no prizes for noticing I'm suddenly void of bodyhair - I was sick of it and it does nothing for the ladies unless you're FF :p

My bro did my bodyfat here - sitting at 18% :o

September 2012

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So since around the 2nd week of September I've dropped all sugar and slowly dropped my carbs, whilst upping fats and keeping protein high. I got my friend to take another pic, for the craic as they say over here, exactly 4 weeks on from cutting out sugar/processed foods:

October 2012

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Apologies for the sketchy lighting and ridiculous pose but it was all a little rushed :)

I feel pretty good right now, definitely leaning out and don't feel like I've dropped too much muscle if any. The plan now is to keep leaning out - yep I'm aware I'm much to skinny to do that but I'm holding unnecessary bodyfat, I'm not in any super rush to put on muscle as I'm still adjusting to training at a higher volume and I'm trying to balance out insulin levels so hopefully I can bulk up without putting on too much fat next time.

Next one, I took a pic yesterday just to see where I'm at and cause I knew I wanted to put a wee log up here when I saw the subforum idea suggested. Pretty carb depleted and a bit of a poor pic (although anabolic lighting whoop!):

Yesterday (23rd Oct 2012)

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Would be interested to see how I'd look carbed up and with a pump but I think I'll leave that for down the line when I'm a bit leaner just to get a more dramatic difference to how I currently look.

So anyway, apologies for the long and probably mundane read, but that's me up to date and I can post some training/diet log stuff in the coming weeks and months, with the odd pic thrown in (although I think there's enough there to last a lifetime :D )

Thanks for reading if you did and any comments welcome. *In before stop leaning out and put on some weight* ;)
 
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His point still stands but now even more so!

Nice work man. It doesn't sound like you need much advice because you seem to be doing great on your own :p.

Keep it up!
 
In awe. You kept at it despite having a life changing operation,. You should be really proud - and you've just proven to everyone here you says "I can't do it" - that they have no excuse.

Love the last pic on your 1st post - you look happy and in great shape. :)

What are your plans now? More size, or just stay as you are?
 
Thanks guys. My health is reasonable these days so I'm hoping this is a clear run until the summer to really step it up a gear.

Delvis, I was sitting at 13 stone 13 in the september pic there and I'm 12 stone 13 pretty much on the button now. Obviously, a lot of that isn't fat but there was enough of a drop that I'm well chuffed.

I'll try and get my bodyfat done again very soon so I can get a good idea of how much further I need to go. On that note, FF, I'm probably gonna keep leaning out until I get to 10%, even though it'll leave me far too skinny, mainly just out of morbid curiousity but also so that I can slowly put on the weight again without having to worry about bodyfat creeping up!

Will try and get some basic training and diet logging going on soon, just bogged down with work this week but thanks to all for reading so far
 
Just a quick update with my current routine. Also have a day where I do some gymnastics training on paralettes/rings. I've went high volume on lower and low volume on upper on the last routine so I've swapped it round a bit to keep my body guessing - only 1 dedicated lower day although I do some single leg work on the gymnastics day which I'll explain in a different post. It's very different to any routine I've done because it's practically all supersets combined with slow negatives - definitely bashes the ego a bit when you're doing it but the pump is out of this world:

Day 1 UPPER

A1 Chins
A2 Clean and Press

4 x 6-10
90 second rest
2010


B1 Flat DB Press
B2 DB Row

4 x 10-12
60 second rest
4010


C1 Face Pull
C2 Side Raises

3 x 15-20
60 second rest
2010



Day 2 LOWER (note: only 1 superset)

A1 Deadlift

90-120 second rest
2010
5 x 3

B1 Squat

90-120 second rest
2010
5 x 5

C1 Front Squat
C2 Romanian Deadlift

3 x 10-12
2010
60 second rest

D1 Pistol Squats
2 x 6-8
3010
60 second rest



Day 3 UPPER

A1 B/O EZ Bar Row
A2 Reverse Fly

4 x 10-12
90 second rest
4010


B1 Inc DB Press
B2 Overhand Fly

4 x 10-12
90 second rest
4010


C1 CG Pulldown
C2 Tri Pushdown

2 x 15x20
60 second rest
3010


Dead happy with how this is working so far, very quickly regaining strength, particularly in my legs, and the workouts are short and sweet so I'm always 100% motivated. Considering I've dropped a lot of weight I was a bit worried that my strength would go to pot but hopefully I'll be fine for a few weeks yet and when it starts to waiver I'll mix up the order a bit to keep things fresh before turning to a completely new routine.

Like I said above, I'll do a quick run through of my basic gymnastics routine some day (with some videos!) just for your own curiousity and to mix it up from deadlift/squat/bench videos haha; although I'll get some of those too down the line
 
Djdom56 said:
Looks like a really solid routine.

I just don't get what the "2010", "3010", "4010" means :).
Click to expand...

Oh, it's tempo. 4010 would be:

4 second eccentric motion (like lowering a barbell to chest in the bench press)
0 second pause (at bottom of rep on chest)
1 second concentric motion (up to the top again!)
0 second pause (at top of rep where your arms would be extended)

So basically it's a slow negative with no pausing to keep the muscle under constant tension - both of which annihilates you :) Have to go crazy light on anything 4010 and anything 2010 would be standard tempo for me.

Edit: probably got eccentric/concentric mixed up but the principle is the important thing!
Edit 2: yep quick google sorted it - eccentric is lengthening of the muscle and concentric is shortening so my example above should be swapped round
 
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Gymnastics training day in the house :-) Mixes it up and provides the necessary tendon support that standard weightlifting doesn't always cover! Got a pair of gymnastic rings in the post a week ago but not had a chance to use them yet cause I've nowhere to stick them up. Going to get a friend of a friend to weld a freestanding pull up bar with a large base so I can get it all set up in the next month or so. In the mean time, I'm doing bodyweight holds, different variations of the gymnastic plank as well as some russian dips on the parallettes:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32965302/Parallettes.jpg

Anyone who hasn't tried Russian dips, I HIGHLY recommend them although they're a lot harder than they look ;)

Thanks Zefan for the fixed link!
 
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By the way, I'm not doubting them as an exercise but as I watch that vid I can't help but imagine they'd wreak havoc with my intermittently dodgy shoulder!

:edit: Just read the rest of the thread and saw the pics, awesome progress dude.
 
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Found this, taken at the same time as the first before picture, so probably around 8.5 stone:

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and just for kicks, here we are as of 2 weeks ago:

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Hopefully not too many pics going on in this thread haha; it's just true what they say about saying a 1000 words.

Gymnastic/bodyweight training went well tonight, was worried that I'd have lost a bit of strength due to being too busy to do my usual workout last Sunday.

I can write out a more detailed explanation of the gymnastic fundamentals stuff but just as a quick overview I did:

2 variations of a straight arm elevated plank - 60 seconds each
2 variations of a hollow hold (lying on front or back and elevating arms and lower legs from ground whilst keeping tensed everywhere else) - 60 seconds each
L-sit hold - 4 sets x 15 seconds
False grip dead hang on rings - 4 sets x 15 seconds
Russian dips - 4 sets x 6 reps on parallettes with feet on ground
Headstand hold - 3 x 10 seconds with bent legs

As you can see, this is VERY different to weight training but it does help with core strength as well as, and more importantly to me, tendon strength, particularly in the elbows and wrists.
 
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