September pics

Using a different camera platform, so there's less of an upward angle. One or two of the pics are a bit off-rotation though.


Front flexed


Front relaxed



Side relaxed


Side flexed


Biceps (no change, as I haven't hit the curls too hard)







I think the side flexed picture shows my progress the best.

Getting there

Still on

Pics and measurements for September should be coming within the week. I'm making progress. There's nothing dramatic, but my chest is tighter and I can see a difference. I may have to change my weight goal by the end of the contest due to my build but I'll wait at least another month before I do anything official. The ultimate goal of how I want to look isn't changing.

Today was a heavy workout day (I guess it makes up for yesterday). Thirty dips, thirty sit-ups, thirty curls at 20lbs (9kg) on each arm, and maybe some push-ups before i go to bed. Yeah, it's not really heavy, but it's a big jump from just doing the dips. Over the past few days I've been doing push-ups in addition to the dips to work the whole pectoral area rather than what feels like just one muscle. With any luck I'll keep on exercising more

Food is staying pretty much the same. Whole wheat bread, turkey, baby spinach, and mustard on sandwiches; salad with olive oil and apple cider vinegar; carrots, apples, and applesauce for snacks; lighter fare with fruits and veggies at restaurants. There's other stuff in there, but nothing too far one way or the other. The big thing is that I've eliminated most of the empty calories in my diet

Continuing

Well, the diet is going well. I'm sticking to it for the most part, including cutting back on Friday nights. Yesterday I picked up two apples, some turkey cold cuts, and 100% whole grain wheat bread. Now I have sandwiches for a few days. There's brown rice and whole wheat spaghetti in the pantry now. I find myself eating a lot of cheese now and it's very suprising how little meat I've had in the past few weeks.

Baby spinach goes well with everything.

I'm not back to 30 dips per day as I'd like to be yet. I realized I should be supplementing them with regular push-ups to develop my triceps and the chest muscles the dips miss. So maybe I'll work my way up to 50 dips and 75 push-ups per day by the end of the contest

Restarting

Well, I kind of let myself get off track for about a week I think. Going to Grandma's house over the weekend didn't help, as the word "moderation" doesn't quite exist there at mealtime. I allowed myself to stop doing the push-up dips for two days.

Today I'm restarting. I plan to do 30 dips today. I may start doing curls. I rode my bike up to Kmart to retrieve some breakfast. I picked up some bagged salad and spinach, a couple of apples, and some carrots. Breakfast today was a bowl of salad with spinach, banana peppers, and olive oil, one apple, three small carrots, and about 4oz. of cranberry juice mixed with about 12oz. of red tea. Not a bad combination.

I have been drinking a lot of water and I'm not drinking any non-diet pop. The only things I plan on drinking that have notable calorie counts are the cranberry juice cut with tea and Grandma's homemade grape juice (best I've ever had) cut with Vernor's.

I may post new pics sometime soon, but don't expect much of a change yet