Spyke,

Where'd you go?!? We're missing you over on the Biggest Loser Club forum. Hope everything is okay and you're back soon! :)

You have pulled away from me in this weight loss game.
I now submit to you, o great one.

I'm thinking about running a nail through my junk. I'll do anything to lose weight like you. Jerk.

You're such a lil devil, Derek Donut! ; )

Spyke, my fellow lone-wolf-work-out-warrior, just a little surf by to wish you a swell weekend and some extra good vibes for your last 20 kgs. I'm rootin' for ya from France.

: )

M.

I've got a box of doughnuts, want some? I'll even let you have the big half!

Miss you on the forum - hope everything is going well!

Missing my competition in the 20 lb race!!! ;-)

Nicely done... I hope I can post some stats like these soon!

Spyke

Great job! Keep up the good work, you'll wake up one day healthy and wonder how you did it but you did :)

Keep in touch and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

James

Spyke, you are incredible!

Not only are you doing an amazing job for yourself but you have inspired me and others to stay on track. keep it up buudy, you are looking spectacular! :)

nice dude ... you lost 4 lbs in 5 days, great work. keep up the awesome work and you'll reach your goal whatever it is !

To be truthful, the diet line is stuck on the same even line for a reason...

Since the beginning I've been counting calories, and doing very well. A nice 40/40/20 ratio which I'm pretty good at keeping (I have SOME days where I go higher on protein and lower on fat, usually the days that I overdo it in the gym and recognize that I need the extra protein...)

But I have NOT been eating all the calories that traineo tells me to, and there's no way to enter custom calories. So when I log my calories, it's "GREAT" when asked how I'm doing, and the slider goes to the lowest when I say how many calories I've eaten.

I notice the "lower" is getting lower and lower, so hopefully as I continue losing weight I'll be able to enter the REAL number of calories that I've been eating :)

But don't get me wrong, I keep the weight and workout charts up to date and accurate :)

Dude, your stats look like clocks work! As the weight descends, your training ascends, and the diet stays as a nice even line -- GREAT JOB!

As for me, hopefully, I can get down another six pounds and float around that indefinitely.

Spyke you are doing amazing. Keep up the excellent work!

Excellent progress, you're doing incredibly well. :) 50lbs gone, woohoo!

Very inspiring Spyke! That is an insane amount of weight to lose in such a short time! I can tell it's from hard work though!

Spyke, you are amazing my friend.

50 POUNDS GONE FOREVER!!!


MUAAAHHHHAAAAHHHAA!!!! :)

HEY! I just found a new motivation!

I was talking to a colleague of mine today. He's the kind of guy that used to irritate the heck outta me, one who ALWAYS talks about fitness. He was a professional martial arts instructor for many years, and has more titles than anyone should ever have...

He knows I've been working out, and has always been supportive of me, but he's been rather preachy - not the good kind of preachy, but more the "be careful you're so fat you'll die if you work out" kind of preachy. Very snooty.

Today we started discussing fitness and he started at me again. Started talking about some examples of exercises I should do - bicycle never treadmill (I'm too fat), swimming never weights (I'm too weak)... that kind of stuff. Oh, and he told me I should stop eating junk food.

HAH! GOTCHA!

I then told him about the 1800 calorie workout I had today.

Followed by telling him how much weight I lift and that they're 5 sets of 10 (he thought I was talking about my max lift, not my usual workout)

Followed by showing him my fitday charts where junk food hasn't even seen the light of day in about 6 weeks.


I surprised myself with this talk, because I don't really have anyone irl to talk to about this stuff, but I could see something happening during the conversation - he went from preachy, to..... IMPRESSED!

Gawd I wish I could so a little "eat my shorts" dance electronically so you all could see how happy I was pwning his butt. LOVED it!! :)

So, ONE of my many goals (besides getting healthy, fitting into cool clothes, adding self-esteem)... to eventually look MUCH better than he does lol

You're doing awesome, Spyke! Keep up the great work!

Ivie :)

YES, bring on the current photo!

I was about to comment on the new, (to us) pic, but now that I see it's an older one, it only makes me want one from like, yesterday.

Still, this pic is much more positive and light looking than the previous.

Have a nice week, Spyke,

M.

New pic on my profile - it's still me at my heaviest, prolly the BEST pic from that time (I'm REALLY good at avoiding photo-opportunities lol) where the weight doesn't show as much - black is REALLY slimming, and having your hand up works too!!!

Hoping to take a pic of me NOW real soon - people say I look slimmer and it's visible in my face - looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks!!

Oh boy - was THAT a typo! lol

Nope, not 5 hours - and I hope that if I HAD worked out for 5 hours I would have burned more than 800 calories lol

Did you seriously work out on the the eliptical for 5 hours? That must have been fun...not.
Good work!

Congrats! Way to go, you WILL accomplish this!

I've overcome the 20 kilo milestone - YAYY!!!! :D

GRRR - the card reader at the gym (our membership card is the key to the building) was BROKEN, so I couldn't come in today to work out at 6am like I usually do!

I don't know whether to cry or throw chairs!

Hmmm, throwing the chairs would probably be better for my health :)

Hehe - seems like I've gotten into a rhythm. The days where I burn the most calories are the cardio days - and my heart monitor tells me every time that I've burned the same amount!

I'm hoping to get more time in the gym on the weekends - I only have an hour to work out during the week, but there's no reason that I can't do more on my days off.

AND I'm waiting for the good weather to come around. Looking forward to biking the 10km up and downhill to work and back.

Wait... was that ME that said that???!!!

Holy cow, look at your training graphs!!! Now I feel bad for being too tired after school the past few days. I need to get back on it!

As usual, your weight chart looks great. Mine is slowly coming along. I hit 230 today and I'm too excited!!! YEA BABY, YEA!

Thanks Dave - I'll be checking in regularly :)

Phil - definitely going gradually - I have NO desire to overdo it and then not be able to train - I'm addicted already!!


Other than that, I feel like writing another little "triumph" of mine. I talked to the doc about my training, jogging, whatever - and also got some blood tests done while I was at it - my cholesterol looks GREAT!

LDL - 113
HDL - 39
Triglycerides - 113

I'm happy - especially considering my carbs sugar diet that I had been on for WAY too long!! Looks like good diet and excercise give good results pretty darn quick!

Spyke:

http://www.gcast.com/user/zap120/podcast/main is the main page where you can also get the iTunes link.

The blog is at zap120.blogspot.com and contains all the archives since 2006.

Spyke,
Just a suggestion -- ease into it gradually over time to prevent injuries. We keep seeing a lot of folk who get shin splints early on, because they tried to do too much too soon. Your body needs time to adapt. 30 seconds is a good length for an interval. 45 secs could be a bit much to begin with, at that speed, if your body isn't used to it at all and you are carrying extra poundage. You might want to work in short jogging pace intervals like 8 kmh into your walking program for a couple of weeks, before beginning the C2%k in earnest.

It's not just the cardiovascular system you want to watch but the knees, feet, legs, and lower back. Go in gradually and your body will thank you by letting you continue.

Good luck.

Awesome work Spyke!!! Keep on keeping on!

Sincerely,
Jess

I decided to take the challenge. Today, after my elliptical and weight training (pushed myself HARD today - yah!), I looked over at the treadmill and... got on it.

Started walking fast. Faster. A little incline. Faster. No slower. Ouch. Wuss.

Found the 10km/h button. Punched it. Ran like a mofo for 45 seconds. Ok, only 45 seconds, but I felt proud of myself for trying! Tomorrow I'm gonna try and go for 1½ minute

And MAYBE, just MAYBE I'm going to begin considering the couch-to-5k program. As soon as I figure out the "easy" way to work our treadmills - they're so advanced they're impossible to just RUN on...

Oh, and you all know the expression "feel the burn"? I felt it today, and finally understood what that means! lol

Hey, I'm not the only one commenting on my page anymore - yay!! :)

Ara - PLEASE don't hate me - I know I have a plateau coming on sometime - you just have to be patient lol

Phil - GREAT post - thanks! Got the heart rate monitor and love it. It keeps all the records I need and I'm paranoid enough to keep tabs :)

Oh, and yeah - my dog's the greatest :D

Keep it going Spikey, you are doing great. Pretty inspiring how you are keeping to healthy food choices.

Doing the bike like you are, and the elliptical could put you in a better position to lose more weight and start jogging down the line.

Hey, I was only a wee 220 lbs when I started, and I swear I was the slowest ever. (I'm 47 with controlled hypertension, high cholesterol, and I know what you mean about hypochondria -- any little twinge near the chest and I am very nervous) I use the treadmill the the gym mostly -- it's easier going than the road or pavement. Never thought I'd like it, but now I find I really do like it.

Get a heart rate monitor, monitor your heart rate when you bike. Keep records of the ups and downs. I use a Garmin and motionbased.com. When you know what you are capable of biking, then you will have a better idea of what your system can deal with jogging.

Go real easy. Just 20 -30 second intervals of jogging in with your walking at first. The body needs time to adjust to the impacts you are placing on it. You don't want to do any damage that would hinder your training. It will all come in good time as you lose more weight -- which it looks like you are on a good track to do.

Couch to 5 K is a good guideline, but might even be a bit ambitious for some of us real big guys or big and old guys.

Whatever, make sure when you do, you have real serious motion control running shoes with the best cushioning you can get your hands on.

L8rrr.

BTW. Nice dog!

I am starting to hate you Spyke... lol

Amazing I haven't hit a plateau yet...

I'm beginning to LOVE working out (strange, huh?) - and my diet is going GREAT

Funny, I didn't think I missed all my junk food, but yesterday I went into a mini-mart to buy some water (I forgot my bottle at home) and I REALLY wanted to grab a few snickers bars...

but I just walked on by... dammit!! lol

Great news on the scale today - yippee!!

And I've screwed up my workout a bit today, worked out like a mofo and DIDN'T DIE!! :)

Gotta love it!

didn't work out today - got all the way to the gym and found out that I had forgotten my wallet, which contained my members card (which is they key to the gym). So, ½ hour drive back home to get the wallet and voilà, no more time to work out :(

Feeling crappy about it - that makes 2 days in a row since Wednesday is my rest day - Gotta work out double so hard tomorrow...

Decided to buy a pulse monitor as well - The bike at the gym this morning was showing me 180 when I had bearly started - which gave way to lots and lots of hypochondria :)

Been having some problems working out (cardio) lately. I moved my workouts from evening to early morning and have a really hard time getting going, and then the hypochondriac in me starts seeing every little pain as a symptom.

I also thought it would be a good idea to get in touch with my doctor to make sure I CAN work out like I have been - I mean, without dying or something really inconvenient like that. I'll see him on Thursday the 17th.

damn

I THOUGHT I'd been eating like a pig. I've replaced all snacks with apples or carrots (I'm a HUGE sugar/white flour binger), gave up soda for green tea, no more coffee, minimal carbs, lots of dark green veggies... my main protein is grilled chicken breast (no skin, grilled with no fat) - breakfast is low-fat cottage cheese...

Today just for "fun" I counted the calories I ate yesterday. I HOPE I'm forgetting something, because I came up to just about 1000.

W0T!!??

It sounds too simple, but it must be working...

with the HUGE change in my diet (see above) the 1-1½ hours workout every day with lots and lots of sweat (didn't know it was humanly possible to sweat THAT much!!!), the scale gave me good news AGAIN TODAY

I'm down to 308.4 lbs!! I'm liking this.


p.s. I want to share a little triumph - yesterday at work our cook made cinnamon rolls. TONS of them.

And I walked right by the table with all that cinnamonny goodness and reached for the apples on the other side. I am SOOOO proud

GREAT workout today -

45 min on the bike ("hill" program, great interval training) @ 90 rpm. I wanted to puke sooo bad but DAMN was I happy when I made the 45 minute mark!!!!

½ hour working hard with the weights - dunno what that means exactly in calories but it was nice to get some weights in - I'm gonna alternate cardio/weights from now on, with a switch .every other day

Then I weighed myself - and again. Then I asked the trainers at the gym if the scale was good. They say it's a professional scale calibrated last week.

Is it possible?? I've lost 7,6 kilos???????????

Dinner this evening:

5 small shredded carrots mixed with 1 apple and a handful of raisins, and 100g broiled chicken.

I have NO idea if that's a good meal, but it felt like diet food, so... :)

Worked out today for the first time in a LONG time - dunno if I can trust the calorie counters on the machines, but I worked my butt off!

10 min on the eliptical @ 70 rpm (gotta love the podrunner podcast that paces me real nice)
30 min on the bike @ 90 rpm
10 minutes on the rowing machine and holy CRAP is that a tough machine :)

Felt like i was gonna puke but I'll just have to keep going - it'll get better!

Made a mistake yesterday when I joined the site - I weigh 10 kilos more than i thought :(

Oh well, that's life. I'm going to work out tonight and get rid of those extra 10 kilos as fast as I can! No way around it!! :)