MattVIP

Hello friends!
After some consideration, I decided to follow in Jon's footsteps and create my own "lifestyle blog" (which sounds strange for some reason but let's go with it). Physically I'm in a similar place and it's about time to switch my priorities if I want to stay relatively healthy. Quick recap of my "story" (or at least that part of it that's important in this blog's context): I used to be super active. Football was my activity of choice and I loved it. I used to spend 4-8 hours on the field 'erryday'... until injuries started to happen. I've sprained my right ankle more times than I can remember (you wouldn't believe how easy it is after the first time) I messed up my right knee and after I pulled my right quad I kinda gave up. I've stopped playing and I switched from very active lifestyle to sedentary one (I'm sure many of you guys can relate). Keep in mind that my metabolism was alway on a slower side and I have a relatively large frame so even at my peak I was alway 10-15 kilograms heavier than my football-playing peers. Long story short... let's just say after a couple of years I'm in obesity bus and no one's driving:) I can only assume that if I haven't switched to a vegetarian diet 3 years ago by now I'd look like Jabba the Hutt.

I've got to where I'm because having to leave my favorite game was kinda traumatic and I've switched my priorities so much that there was no place for physical activity in my life. It's time to remedy that. I probably won't have problems with motivation since I got that reasonably well figured out (though I'm sure this blog can only help), I have a lot of solid knowledge on the subject of nutrition and training that I gained when I was active and refreshed recently so hopefully, I can create some value in this thread.

Here are my basic stats:
Height: 186cm / 6' 1''
Weight: 145.5kg / 320 punds
BMR: Roughly 2,8k

Like I said 'obesity town population one' but it has some positives. For starters, it's going to make for a decent transformation when I finish my cut:) Also since I'm not an experienced lifter (I've stopped playing with iron at the same time I've stopped playing football) so I should be able to preserve a good amount of my muscle mass during my cut.

Here's the quick overview of my plan:
Diet - I'm vegetarian and even though I'm not too hot on the 80/10/10 idea most of my calories will come from carbs (50-60%) because contrary to the popular believe they aren't evil and they won't take our jobs. Personally I find low carb/ketosis unsustainable and I'm all about that sustainability baby. If low carb works for you though then godspeed. It's possible to cut without counting macros but since myfitnesspal.com makes it so easy I will count those little bastards like The Count from Sesame Street (I had to put a joke somewhere in this post as a reward for everyone that doesn't subscribe to the TLDR movement). And since I'm doing that I'll also sometimes eat dirty (and talk dirty) as long as it fits... my macros. I'm not too hot on the IIFYM idea either so 70%-90% of my eating will be clean but if a man want's a slice of pizza he'll eat a slice of pizza. Oh one last thing. I plan to consume about 2k calories each day. That's quite a bit below my BMR but should be enough not to mess up my hormones/metabolism.

Training - Currently I live slightly too far from the nearest gym to justify going there (waste of time). Fortunately, I'm not trying to build muscle so I don't need any more weights beyond the dumbell that I own. And I also... hate cardio (unless it comes in a form of a football match, but with my right leg in its current state I probably couldn't handle that) so all those bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills aren't for me either. What on earth am I going to them you ask? HIIT (High-intensity interval training) using kettlebell Tabata style (8 sets, 20 seconds maximum effort/10 seconds rest). I'll do that twice a day (in the morning fasted and in the evening) + I'll supplement that with full body workouts using dumbbell and bodyweight 3 times per week. I'll also listen to my body and ramp up the intensity/length of the workouts as my cardiovascular endurance (and hopefully/maybe strength) improves.

Goals - I don't know my body well enough to have a very specific set of goals, but I want this cut to be reasonably intensive (1-2kg per week). I want to lose 25kg or more before my birthday in November but if it ends up being 15kg I won't shed a tear (though everything below 10kg I'd consider a failure). By then I'll most likely move to a different place and go on a powerlifting style program (or some sort of powerlifting-bodybuilding hybrid if my knee refuses to let me squat) because I used to like big compound movements and big weights but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Oh and about that "Creating" part of the title... that will come later. Hopefully.

TLDR version:
Some big guy want's to lose some weight. He has the know-how and fair amount of motivation so it might be fun to follow his progress.

What can you expect from this blog? Daily updates including calorie intake (I probably won't post pictures of food... or will I?), some jokes, some random stuff... ok you got me I haven't exactly figured that out yet, but I'll try to make this somewhat entertaining and/or educational. Stay tuned!

Last Post 8 years ago by

Jon-PokerVIP

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07.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2125
HIIT Sets: 8+16

Today was a heavy carb day which probably isn't perfect, but I had so much energy that my second workout was really intense. Which is good because my morning workout was rough especially with my triceps(ssssss?) still sore from yesterday's strength training. Overall another solid day going according to plan.

I suspect that my first post is fairly impossible to read. I should probably highlight the TLDR section:)

For some reason, I felt pretty miserable right after I woke up today but quick HIIT workout got me back on my feet (literally and figuratively). I ate a protein shake + small dinner and I'm sitting at about 1k calories for the day. So far so good.

Now it's time to explain that "Creative" part of the blog title a bit. I used to play guitar I'm kinda into coding and I always wanted to create stuff, but so far I've limited myself to writing. I want to branch out a bit and in order to do so I need to gain some new skillz. I started playing piano and learning about graphic design. That last part is especially tricky because I can't draw to save my life. Fortunately, there's this thing called vector graphics which I'm sorta able to wrap my small brain around. Here's the first thing I made and though it's not amazing It doesn't look half bad in my humble opinion:

Attached Image

It's not an original work, I basically followed a tutorial and I don't think I managed to replicate it a 100%, but I'm fairly pleased with how I did + I've learned something.

In a couple of hours, I'm gonna treat myself to some brutal weights session. Should be fun. Wish me luck friends!

10.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 1669
Workout: 8+16 HIIT Sets + 1 hour of strength training

I haven't posted any updates on Sunday because it's my rest day. Monday was fairly intensive though. I did my usual HIIT workout sessions + 1 hour of biceps/shoulder workout. I don't think bodybuilder split is optimal for anyone that's not on drugs not to mention really overweight guy on a semi-intensive cut, but I just feel like full body workout session that could completely tire my muscles would take way too much of my time given the fact that I don't have access to heavy barbells and I can't do big compounds. As for the calorie intake I usually need around 2k to not feel hungry but today 1.7k seems to be enough so I guess I'll just listen to my body.

Oh, I also made something new today. It's a poker table that's compatible with ipoker mods in PokerVIP store. It's obviously not as good as Bazyl's, but maybe someone will like it for some reason (if so just copy it to modified -> 'table1' or 'classic table' for example depending on which mod you're using -> topview and replace the back2.jpg file).

Attached Image

I'm not as pleased with this as I'm with the coffee cup from my previous post, but I've learned some new things and it turns out that with practice I might actually be able to create some images that don't suck.

G'day Matt. Good luck and will follow mate.

Hope you don't mind me asking and I know you touched on it in terms of the physical activity levels but how did you manage to get out to that weight? I ask because despite being sedentary, I just never imagined you being at this point with what I had gleaned from your vegetarian / mediation lifestyle. Is there bad vegetarian food that you consume too much of?

Sorry if these sound like silly Qs. I'm genuinely interested.

I pretty much got to the point I'm before I went vegetarian. As for how it happened, well after I stopped being active which was initially caused by the injuries I mentioned in the first post my interests shifted dramatically. "Sedentary lifestyle" doesn't exactly give it justice. I was basically sitting for the 90% of the day every day (playing poker/writing/learning + I also substituted the thrill that I got from football with competitive online games like DotA 2). Keep in mind that I was approaching 100kg even when I was physically in my 'prime' spending hours on the field, working out and eating reasonably clean (large frame + slow metabolism) so gaining another 40 with change was simply a matter of stopping all that and eating processed food on a caloric surplus for a 1,5 -2 years or so. Going vegetarian stopped the process (achieving a caloric surplus on vegetarian diet is much more difficult even if you don't care what you eat) which further pushed the realization that there's a problem that needs to be adressed. I learned new stuff every day, grew as a person and my physique seemed to be good enough for sitting all day so I didn't feel the need to change anything. Also every attempt at going back to playing football made me a bit bitter when time and time again pain in my knee and ankle made me realize that it's not possible. It made a lot of sense to just play poker and DotA (I probably couldn't be in the top 1% of football players anyway, but I was in top 1% of players in DotA... ).

Long story short injuries might have been a valid excuse to sit on my bottom for the first year (if that) so it's obviously a matter of prolonged negligence on my part in the two specific areas of my life (nutrition/exercise). Fortunatelly I was active for most of my life and because of that I know a bunch of stuff about both of those subject so I hope that getting back in shape won't take very long.

11.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 1760
Workout: 16+24 HIIT Sets

Another 1.7k day calorie wise and I feel really good. It's probably a touch too low and I'll try to go closer to 2k on the resistance training days. Other than that I've added 8 HIIT sets to both morning and evening workouts. I'm planning on doing that every week/two weeks as I develop better cardio endurance. Overall it's going great and I'm hoping for a good news next time I weigh myself (I'll do that every Monday).

12.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2333
Workout: 16+8 HIIT Sets + 1h of ST

Today wasn't exactly a cheat day (I was still good 20% below my BMR and I haven't eaten anything unhealthy) but with around 1.7k in the last two days I was getting dangerously close to cutting my BMR in half and that can cause more harm than good. From now on I'll try to hover around 2k which is still probably a touch to low but I feel good and I want results:) Also my evening HIIT cardio session was really short because of the back workout before which was kinda brutal.

Seems you have way more heart and motivation than i do at the moment. I just cant get out of the house and into the gym although i am walking about 1.5 miles a day at the moment at night so at least its something. Also eating a hell of a lot better.

Could you list your meals per day and how they form the amount of calories? Would be very interested to see what goes into it all.

Jon-PokerVIP: Seems you have way more heart and motivation than i do at the moment. I just cant get out of the house and into the gym although i am walking about 1.5 miles a day at the moment at night so at least its something. Also eating a hell of a lot better.

Could you list your meals per day and how they form the amount of calories? Would be very interested to see what goes into it all.

As for the first part of your post don't feel pressured to go aggro from day one. Baby steps. Losing a large amount of weight takes time and it's easy to burn out quick. At the same time like I said in the past it's impossible to outrun a bad diet so meaningful changes are necessary, but if you have problems with motivation it's better to take things slow. Slight caloric deficit (10-20%) is all you really need at the beginning and it's a good place from which you can start to slowly ramp up the intensity.

Oh and it's not a matter of motivation. Motivation is volatile, it comes and goes and it's hard to rely on it when you're trying to make long-term meaningful changes.
Also it drains a lot of your will power (which is a finite resource) to rationalize not eating a snickers bar and/or big mac when it's right in front of you and it's screaming at you and all of your primal instincts "eat me I have so much fat and sugar your ancestors would go insane after just one bite". That's where the discipline comes in. You just have to make sure those biscuits/junk food won't get anywhere near you for like 2-3 months and you're golden.

And yeah I can write about specifically what I ate from time to time. I can even post some photos occasionally even though I'm not really into that:) Since I'm vegetarian It's going to be slightly on a carb-heavy side and while this might not be optimal it's good enough as long as I'm in caloric deficit + I feel like diet high in carbs is more sustainable for me especially when I'm working out 2 times per day.

Breakfast: I ate a spinach and egg scramble. I just defrosted about 150g of frozen spinach, cooked it for a second using a small amount of vegetable oil added 5 eggs, used generous amounts of spices et voilà. A vegetarian dish that's simple to make and high in protein, perfect after fasted morning workout. // 375 calories 6g carbs/24g fat/31g protein

Dinner:
Attached Image

(Relatively) Quick improvised veggies + couscous.

Ingridients:
150g Couscous (this is how much it weighed after cooking)
60g Mushrooms
60g Green Peas
60g Red Beans
60g Corn
70-80g Frozen Spinach
100g Chopped Tomatoes
1 Small Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
2-3 teaspoons of Tomato Paste
Spices: paprika/salt/pepper/oregano/turmeric/whatever you like

I've heated one spoon of vegetable oil, cooked onions for a couple of minutes on medium heat (until translucent and not browned), added garlic and cooked it for 2-3 minutes also. Then I added a mix of the spices with one teaspoon of tomato paste straight to the oil and onions/garlic and cooked that for a minute or two to intensify the taste of spices (depending on the surface of your pan you might want to add a bit of water to the mix if you want to avoid burning this and ruining the taste). Then I've added mushrooms (cooked those for at last 5-10 minutes), defrosted spinach, tomatoes, beans, pea and corn (cooking everything for a couple of minutes before adding the next ingredient). You might want to add a bit water to the mix, but you don't want to make a soup out of this. Add the rest of tomato paste, some more spices to taste and cook the whole thing on a very low heat for 5-10 more minutes. // ~500 calories 65g carbs / 13g fat / 22g protein

I also snacked on some raisins, plums and I also drank two cans of Pepsi which is somewhat unusual because I drink mostly water, but the heat was killing me and ice cold Pepsi was within my reach. It's important to not treat things like that as a failure, drinking calories (especially in such an unhealthy form like soft drinks) obviously sucks when you're trying to cut and it kinda messed up my macros for the day but my caloric intake is still relatively low so it's all good. I'll just make my supper protein heavy and instead of turning those cans of Pepsi into binge it's going to be like I almost haven't touched them at all. Oh and btw all of those snacks amounted to: ~450 calories 115g C / 1g F / 2g P

So I'm sitting at around 1300 calories for the day. I'll probably add 400-500 calorie protein shake to the mix (frozen banana, 1.5 cup of some sort of vegetable milk or regular non-fat milk, 2 scoops of soy/pea/rice protein and maybe one spoon of peanut butter) + one more small snack (some sort of fruit most likely) trying to hit 2k for the day and that's my typical day (minus the Pepsi thou I rarely eat 100% clean, and usually 10-20% of my calories come from a 'dirty' sources because I don't have problems with binge eating).

Hope that helps

@Jon-PokerVIP. If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask.

13.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2080
Workout: 8+16 HIIT Sets

You can read about what I ate in my previous post. As for my workouts, I had to cut those 8 additional sets from morning and evening sessions simply because my body said "not today bro". HIIT workout is kinda draining to begin with and the fact that I'm doing it twice a day 6 days a week is all kinds of sub-optimal, but I treat myself like my own science experiment and I'm planning on adjusting my plan aggressively every week or two depending on how my body reacts.

Hey Matt,

Well done for making this thread and showing some dedication there, even when no replies were coming. It shows you have a level of commitment.

Where do you live? You deserve honesty and the town, your injury, they are factors, but they are nothing compared to your own motivation and commitment to this. If I was you, and I said this type of stuff, and thought it, I would be setting myself up for failure. It's cliche, but you do control your own destiny and obstacles are completely normal - They are not what will stop you from doing what you want to do, only you have the power to do that.

---
Some Practical Thoughts

* I was big on Irn Bru and Coke. It is the devil for weight. Substitute it for diluting juice. It also doesn't have any gas. Obviously, I still drink coke a little, but before it was all I drank and these days I might not have a carbonated drink for quite a few days. Even for me, and I'm probably what you would define as skinny, I notice a difference.

* Vegetarian - Is that an ethical thing or just a practical thing?

---

As for creativity, something I would love to do if I had more time is put together compilation videos. Like motivational ones, sad ones, - that's just me, but it's not hard to do, they're rewarding and will live for a long time

Good luck

and your food looked good. I cannot cook at all. All you guys can!

Also, do you have any other vices apart from food?

Good luck with the cut Matt!

I know how the torture of injuries feels

End up wishing you were stronger and hating your body because of it...But injuries happen all the time to the very best.

I've given up on a routine for training, having a set routine makes me personally lose too much motivation (It's just too much of a chore, and exercise shouldn't really be like that), so I constantly mix it up every single week now.

You sound like you know what you're doing though - Kettle workouts / HIIT are insanely good for shocking your body into changing.

13.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2084
Workout: 16+16 HIIT Sets + 1h of ST

@Jamie I'm not concerned with the number of replies. I figured they will come if I make this blog a valuable resource and/or interesting story and that will take time (and/or results). This blog will also get a bit more interesting when I switch to powerlifting style training (which I'm planning to do in two months or so).

Currently, I live a good couple of miles from the nearest city, but that will change in the next two months or so.

Oh and the vices. I don't think I have any, I don't smoke, I don't drink often. I don't take any drugs. I've smoked marijuana maybe 5 times in my entire life. I wouldn't even call food a bad habit... it was more like not paying attention to it. I ate a bunch of processed food because it was the fastest way to stop being hungry. And if you don't pay attention to food it's easy to be in a caloric surplus. Now that I hover around 2k I don't really miss anything or have cravings. I don't feel tempted to order a pizza or anything like that. Because of that I suspect this cut will be fairly successful thou it might hit some bumps along the way (slow metabolism being the biggest one).

And yeah I'm vegetarian for ethical reasons.

@Stewart @Stewart Yeah injuries suck big time and though I probably won't play football again (might be possible now but too risky for my taste) I'm mostly ok right now. And thx for complimenting my choice when it comes to workouts. On paper, it should work fairly well and I'll try to ramp up the intensity when I feel I'm ready.

No vices? That is pretty lucky man and has always been my stumbling block. I like pretty much everything you said you didn't so mbn not wanting all of that stuff. Will help you a ton!

The vegetarian thing will always be a one way or the other type view but fair play to you. Do you find there is a lack of great things you can eat so you often have more snacks to make up for it? Obviously i know the world is full of great vegetarian foods and i could personally live off it but you may not enjoy certain things for example.

15.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2175
Workout: 8+8 HIIT Sets

I did some light workouts today more to build a habit than anything else. Tomorrow is a recovery day and I hope I'll be able to increase the volume next week.

@Jon-PokerVIP
What do you mean by "great things you can eat"? "Great" in terms of nutritional/caloric value or just "tasty"? In any case, I like to snack on fruits because they keep me hydrated and energized throughout the day but I could do without. You can prepare many substantial vegetarian dishes both in terms of taste and nutritional value and if you prefer to eat only 3 times a day with no snack it can easily be done. It's just a matter of preference in my case.

Week I Summary
Starting Weight: 145.5kg
Current Weight: 144.6kg

I lost almost 1kg which (assuming it was mostly fat and not muscle/water weight) is a good news. I hoped for a bit more and because of that I'll go slightly harder this week in terms of workouts. I'll also try to improve the consistency because the number of HIIT sets I was able to... hit (ha!) every day was all over the place ranging from 8 to 24. This week I'll go for 16 sets in the morning and 16 sets (24 when I'm not doing resistance training) in the evening.

17.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 1725
Workout: 16+16 HIIT Sets + 1h of RT

So today I went ham. Workouts were far more intensive than last week. My endurance is a lot better, my strength increased slightly and overall I feel great. There's a really high chance I'll be able to sustain this lifestyle change especially because it doesn't really interfere with my other goals and intersts.

18.08 Update
Calories Consumed: 2127
Workout: 16+24 HIIT Sets

Another solid day. Kinda weird nutrition wise. I ate monstrous dinner (1.2k calories or so, mostly clean but with very caloric dense carb source) and two protein shakes (one standard for breakfast and another one for supper was more of meal replacement than shake). This is by no means optimal and you're better of drinking no protein shakes if you can get enough protein from your diet, but today I didn't really had the time to worry about food. What's positive about this is that even on a day like this I was still on point when it comes to nutrition and exercise. It's going to be a long ride but so far so good:)

Do you weigh yourself at the same time of day?

That veggies + couscous looks well tasty. This thread defo needs more pictures.

Don't you think your calorie count is very low compared to your weight? I'd assume your maintenance to be around 3,000 or so given your height and current weight. I usually eat around 2,500cals and that keeps my weight stable @ 6'3 83kg.

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