Day 28 - Phase 2 Diet and Last Day of January

Not much to report today. I feel great, much better than I did before the 3 day vacation from supplements. This is the last day of January and I've lost 17.6 lbs of weight and 19 lbs of fat! I'm halfway to my goal.

Day 27 - Phase 1 Diet and Back from 3 day break

I took Friday, Saturday and Sunday off of supplementation. I took Friday off of the diet but I didn't take any time off of the exercise (I exercised normally during the 3 day period). On Friday I didn't really cheat that much. I hadtuna and salmon sushi with white rice and soy sauce. I'm allowed to eat white rice but I ate a lot more of it than I'm normally allowed. I also had a can of chicken soup on Friday. That's it, no pizza, french fries, apple pie etc. With this minor change in diet my weight spiked 8 lbs. on Saturday morning (215 lbs.). That's why I decided to go back on the strict diet for Saturday and Sunday. My weight's come back down to where it was last week now.

The Day 26 pics are from Friday morning. These pics are from Tuesday morning (today).

Day 26 - Phase 2 Diet and Taking a Break

I'm feeling like I need a break from the strict diet and the supplementation. I'm going to take this entire weekend (including today, Friday) off. I'm still going to do the exercise and I'm going to mostly follow the diet but I'm going to be in more a "maintenance" mode for the diet. I'm going to take no RIPPED supplements for 3 days.

Day 25 - Phase 1 Diet and Running on Empty

It's hard to explain how I'm feeling the last couple days. I'm not hungry in the normal sense. I'm eating more than I want actually. I just feel like my body's cleaned out but not in as good a way as that word implies. I feel like my tank's empty. My mood has definitely been really blah lately. I don't feel physically tired at all though. My workouts are great. My mood is just moderated, no peaks and valleys.

May's really been supporting me on this and I couldn't have done it without her.

Day 24 - Phase 2 Diet and Lost Muscle

I'm tired today. The two Phase 1 diet days at the beginning of the week always kick my butt. Today's a low exercise, high carb day. Just what I need.

This is the first day that my muscle "gain" has actually gone negative. So (according to my scale) I've lost muscle since I started. The trend is what counts so let's see what happens later in the week. I always seem to hit a low weight, high fat, low muscle period in the middle of the week (according to the scale).

Day 23 - Phase 1 Diet

Not much new to report today. Still on track and losing a lot of weight the last couple days.

Day 22 - Phase 1 Diet and Week 4 underway

Week 4 is underway. I've lost 14 lbs. and feel great but I have a long way to go. The weight loss is only going to get more difficult.

Day 21 - Phase 2 Diet

3 weeks done and I'm almost on track. I definitely feel great and following the plan is getting easier every day.

Day 20 - Phase 1 Diet and Retaining Water

I allowed myself to have some soy sauce yesterday (with tuna sushi). It was my phase 2 diet day so I was allowed to have white rice. Anyway, as I thought the salt in the soy sauce caused some water retention. It looks like I gained a ton of muscle (the scale equates water with muscle) and lost fat. This is false but I'm going to show the measurements anyway.

(You'll notice my dog Soda sticking his nose in my business.)

Day 19 - Phase 2 Diet - Energy Level Increasing

The last couple days I've definitely felt my energy level increasing, even on low carb days. I find it hard to sit on the couch for more than 10-15 minutes at a time without getting antsy. I took Soda out for a long walk last night (a low carb day). At the start of the program I barely had the energy to stay awake on low carb days. Now the low carb days don't really effect my energy at all (except right after my late afternoon workout but that can be expected).

I'm feeling great and definitely a lot thinner. It's hard to believe that I'm not even halfway done. I feel like I've changed so much already.

Day 18 - Phase 1 Diet

Nothing much to report today. I'm still making progress. I'm really looking forward to having a real meal in a few weeks!

Day 17 - Phase 2 Diet and Lost more weight

My scale finally registered some weight loss after a couple days of almost nothing. I've completely adjusted to the low carb/fat diet now. I felt great all day yesterday after two straight days on the Phase 1 diet.

Day 16 - Phase 1 Diet and Frustrated

I'm a little frustrated today. I've had two days in a row with minimal weight loss. It's hard to make sense of it. I've taken in less than 2000 calories/day and those calories have been extremely low fat and low carbs calories. I've also been exercising a ton. 1 hour of total cardio yesterday along with 1 hour of intense weight training. It just doesn't add up.

Last week I saw a similar thing at the beginning of the week. We'll see what happens come Thursday (it's Tuesday today).

I've decided to stop my leg workouts until my knee is completely better. I'm going to change the leg workout to an intense ab workout. Injuring my knee further would mean I'd need to stop doing cardio too. Don't want that.

Day 15 - Starting Week 2 and Feel a lot thinner

I've made it through two weeks and I've really adjusted to the diet. I still feel a little groggy in the late afternoon though (but who doesn't?). :)

I've lost just over 10 lbs. of weight so far and over 13 pounds of fat!

My left knee injury is much better and I should be able to do my leg workout tomorrow.

Day 14 - Phase 2 Diet and Back on track

I think the creatine effect is over now. I had a pretty normal weighing this morning. I'm definitely feeling a lot thinner now.

I hurt my left knee doing step-ups yesterday. I was doing step-ups on my weight bench and it's just too high up. I'm going to hold off on any leg exercises until it's feeling better, I'll still do cardio though. If I need to miss a leg workout I'm going to replace it with an upper body workout instead (better than nothing).

Day 13 - Phase 1 Diet and Creatine Effect is Over (I hope)

This morning my weight dropped quite a bit (1.6 lbs) but my body fat was basically the same. So (according to the measurements) I lost 1.6 lbs of muscle yesterday. Obviously this must be due to some measurement error. As you can see from the "lean body weight" graph there's a pretty large hump right after I stopped taking creatine. Hopefully the effects of the creatine on my measurements are over now.

Day 12 - Phase 2 Diet and More Fluctuations

You can see that my muscle/fat measurements are fluctuating a bit. I guess the scale's not perfect. That's okay, I'm not concerned with day to day fluctuations as long is it's accurate over the long term.

Back to Phase 2 diet today and my only exercise is sprints in the afternoon.

Day 11 - Phase 1 Diet and Fat, Muscle Fluctuations Due to Creatine

My overall weight went up today for the first time. However, my body fat went down and my lean body weight went through the roof. I'm skeptical that the measurements are completely accurate but I think the increase in muscle mass measurements is related to me stopping creatine two days ago. We'll see.

This is why it's crucial to measure body fat on a program like this. Even though I gained weight overall since yesterday, it's actually a positive thing since I gained muscle and lost fat. This is the first time I've done serious weight training in a long time and so I'm bound to gain muscle pretty easily at the start. I think that's what I'm seeing now.

Today's a "Phase 1" day.

Day 10 - Phase 2 Diet and Off Creatine

This morning my scale registered a huge drop in body fat. I measured myself 3 times and the measurements were consistently around 28%. This number is just too low (and too good) so I adjusted it back up to 29.5% for the graphs. We'll see if it was a one day anomaly related to water retention or something.

I also stopped taking creatine yesterday. I had a free one week supply that I took the first week and it's done now. I might have been retaining water because of this.

Day 9 - Phase 1 Diet and Feeling Thinner

Today is the first day that I honestly feel thinner and I look thinner in the mirror. I feel great.

Day 8 - Phase 1 Diet and Falling Behind

Although I lost weight, lost fat and gained lean body mass during my weekend in Edmonton I didn't meet my goals in any of these categories. Overall I'm falling slightly behind. Since both days in Edmonton were "Phase 2" days without much cardio I guess it's not as bad as it sounds. We'll see how much improvement I can make today and tomorrow (Phase 1 days).

Day 7 - Phase 2 Diet in Edmonton

No pics today since I was in Edmonton. I managed to go the whole trip without cheating on the diet at all. I even gave up dim sum on Sunday (that was really tough). We'll see what the scale says in the morning.

Day 6 - Phase 2 Diet in Edmonton

Today is a great day, we're celebrating the birth of Kirsten Phang (May's brother's daughter) in Edmonton. However, it's a tough day to stay on the system plan. I've swapped Day 5 and Day 6 of the program so that I only have to do sprints today and tomorrow (no lifting or other cardio). I've brought along most of the food I need to maintain my diet. We're really busy so it's tough to find the time to prepare and eat the proper food but I'm doing a pretty good job so far. The big challenge will be the celebration dinner tonight. I'm going to eat some of it but only the stuff that's on the diet plan (i.e. chicken breast, brown rice and vegetables).

I won't have any pics or measurements for Day 6 and Day 7 since I'm not at home. There's no point in weighing myself on a different scale so I'll just wait until Day 8 (Monday).

Day 5 - Phase 1 Diet and Body Fat Measuring Scale

I bought a body fat measuring scale last night. When I use this scale I consistently weight about 1.2 lbs. heavier than my old scale. So I'm increasing my earlier weighings by 1 lb. to compensate.

I'm swapping Day 5 and Day 6 due to my trip to Edmonton for Day 6 and Day 7. I'm doing this since Day 5 and Day 7 are higher carb days with less exercise. It'll be easier to follow this while in Edmonton. So I'm getting the hard day (Day 6) out of the way early.

Day 4 - Phase 1 Diet and Called NxCare

Lost another pound yesterday, at 219lbs. now.

I'm back to the low carb diet phase. I'm still not sure about whether the oatmeal amounts are supposed to be before or after it's cooked (after cooking oatmeal it expands about 2.5x so it makes a big difference). I called NxCare and they said that the amounts are *before* cooking but I don't think the rep I talked to knew what she was talking about. It's just way too much oatmeal for any human to eat in one sitting (and I'm only using the 175 lb. meal plan). I'm treating the amounts as "cooked" today which means I'll be eating quite a bit less oatmeal. I still haven't been able to eat all of the food that the diet dictates (it's just too much).

I'm also increasing to two RIPPED tablets twice a day (this is what the program dictates for the 4th - 6th days).

Diet - Phase 1 / Option 1
Cardio - 30 minutes in the morning before eating at target heart rate
Weight Training - upper body / high rep
Cardio - 30 minutes in the afternoon after weight training

Day 3 - Phase 2 Diet and Cooked vs. Uncooked food weight

No cardio this morning. Yeah! Today's my "higher" carb day. Compared to my normal diet before RIPPED it's still very low carb though.

I weighed 220 lbs this morning.

Diet - Phase 2 / Option 1 - I finally get some carbs today. I could literally my mood and energy elevate as I was eating breakfast. Mostly from just one banana.
Cardio - High Intensity Sprints - These absolutely kicked my ass. I did 12 reps of 20 second sprints followed by 1 minute of "walking" on my exercise bike.
Weight Training - today is an off day.

It's really amazing the effect the extra carbs are having on me. I'm sore but I feel really alert and have tons of energy. I just finished meal 2 so the main difference is a banana and a potato.

I just realized that I've probably been following the diet incorrectly. I've been taking the given measurements as "uncooked" instead of "cooked" for oatmeal and rice. This significantly increased the amount of food I've been eating. That's probably the reason why I feel like the 175 lb. diet plan is enough for me and also why I find I'm not hungry for the 6th meal. The diet plan is a little unclear for rice and completely unclear for oatmeal. I'm going to play it safe and use the cooked weight from now on (I'm having meal 3 right now).

Day 2 - Phase 1 Diet and Too Much Food

I had some trouble getting to sleep last night (3:00 am) and I slept in until 8:15am. I think this was mostly due to the fact that I've been staying up late quite a bit during the holidays and I haven't adjusted to normal hours and timezone yet (i.e. I just got back from Hawaii for Christmas). The Methyl Lean might have been partly to blame, it made me feel really warm but I didn't feel "wired" at all.

When I woke up this morning I weighted 221 lbs. That's 3 lbs. dropped in one day. It could easily be due to normal weight fluctuations, we'll see.

Today I went to bed at 9:30pm. I was completely exhausted and definitely feeling the low carb diet.

Diet - Phase 1/Option 1 - switching to the 175 lb. diet plan since 200 lb. seems like too much food for me.
Weight Workout - Workout 2
Cardio Workout - Low intensity (30 minutes on bike at target heart rate of 144)