[Jacques D]

A little background info about myself. December 31st, 2000 I made a New Year’s resolution that I would lose some weight. I’m 5’9” and at the time I weighed 245 lbs with a 42” waist. I had seen a picture of myself and it really drove the point home that I needed to do something about my weight. Also, looking back, although my marriage seemed good, psychologically I felt I would soon be single. I had a gut feeling something wasn’t right. If I was going to be single and dating I needed to prepare myself. So I started walking 45 minutes per day five days a week. I didn’t count calories but I did cut sweets, sugar, rice, pasta and potatoes out of my diet. After about 2 months of this I added weight training to my program. I wasn’t starving myself, on the contrary I was actually eating more, but the weight just seemed to melt off. In June 2001 my wife left. It was a difficult time in my life but bodybuilding saved me. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning. I started working out twice a day during the week (morning cardio and abs, afternoon weights) and once a day on weekends. In September 2001 my weight was down to 195 lbs with a waist of 34”. I continued with a 12-workouts/week schedule until the end of November 2002 then I just seemed to run out of steam so I dropped to 6 workouts/week. At the beginning of 2002 my weight increased to 210 lbs yet my waist decreased to 32”. I was adding muscle yet still losing fat. I’ve had my body fat calculated twice. The first time, in December 2002 gave a result of 24%, which I though was a little on the high side. The second time in March 2003 gave a result of 18%, which I thought was kind of low. In each case I’ve felt that my body fat was probably around 21-22%. Although my weight is now 225 lbs and my waist has increased to 36” I still feel like my body fat is around 22%. I’ve been working my back quite hard this past year so I’m thinking the increase in waist size is a result of my back getting bigger. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Our local Science Centre has a dunk tank to calculate body fat so I plan on setting an appointment to have this done in the near future. Why keep an online journal? This year I hit the big 40 and one of my goals is to compete. Since I started, as one of those New Year’s resolution people back in 2001 I’ve worked out constantly only taking one week off every 6 months. Although my workouts are fine my diet sucks. I need to focus more closely on cleaning up my diet. Keeping a daily journal and recording my progress is going to help me stay focused. I’ve been recording what I eat since January 7th this year and it’s really showed me how off my diet is. My average caloric intake, amount of protein, amount of carbohydrates and amount of fat for these past two weeks have been 3181 Cal, 28.2%P, 37.2%C, 34.6%F for the first week and 3383 Cal, 27.6%P, 25.8%C and 46.6%F for the second. My goal is 3000 Cal, 40%P, 25%C and 35%F. I’ll make adjustment as time goes by.