Let me tell you something about how I think.

There was a guy in the gym tonight. He was a little guy, maybe five foot six or so, and heavy set, probably about two hundred pounds, give or take. He was right next to me for most of my workout tonight; we weren’t following each other or anything, but we happened to in the same areas. He was pretty obviously new; he wasn’t moving big weights, his technique was sloppy, and his exercise selection could have used some attention.

But damn if he wasn’t working hard.

He was attacking the weights. Not in the obnoxious was some guys do, slamming things around for no good reason, but he was going after his lifts with focus and intensity. You could see the determination in his eyes, and every once in a while, maybe just a little bit of anger.

And that’s why I think he’s going to succeed. Everyone is the new guy when they start. We all suck, we all do ridiculous stuff we saw in some in some trash magazine. We all have a lot to learn, and a lot of progress to make.

Some people get intimidated. Some people get discouraged. But some people put their head down and do whatever they need to do, to achieve whatever it is they want.

Those are the people who win.

As for me, I made it through the weekend without any setbacks, which gives me confidence that I’m going to hit my goals for this phase. I celebrated by drinking my protein shakes, picking up a few heavy things, and enjoying my post-workout protein bar.

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Today was an off day, but I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went to the gym. I did an eighty minutes on the recumbent bike, though the last twenty was because I got caught up talking to a girl.

A week into this, I’m down ten pounds, from 280 to 270, so everything is right on track. I’m glycogen depleted at this point, so my weight loss should settle down to about a pound a day from here on out.

I’m in a terrible mood today, so I’m going to go drink a protein shake, brood, and fantasize that alcoholism is a part of my diet.

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For me, the biggest challenge of any diet is always the first weekend. If I can make it through the first weekend, I’m golden, pretty much guaranteed to hit my goals. But if I screw up, I might as well toss out everything I’ve done over the previous week.

Pretty much every successful diet, like Atkins and South Beach, include a two-week induction phase. Two weeks is about how long it takes for your body to adapt to a new diet, and to start burning fat as its preferred fuel source. You can be a little less careful after you’ve made that switch, but for the first two weeks, your diet has to be like a laser beam.

But the weekend is hard. I have a lot of free time, at least compared to the rest of the week, and I tend to eat when I’m bored. I see my friends, and pretty much everything we do involves food of some kind. The weekend is when I relax and reward myself. It’s just habit.

But you can’t do that, not on the first weekend. You have to decide ahead of time that you’re not going to do that. And then you have to follow through.

So, even though I went to the movies, I didn’t get any nachos. I turned down an invite to dinner, because I doubted that they wanted to watch me drink protein shakes, and when we got together later in the evening, I politely declined their offer of nachos and salsa. Even though I would murder your mother for something crunchy and salty right now.

That’s the key to making a change, I think. Learn what you need to do, decide that you’re going to do it, see yourself doing it, and don’t even give yourself the option of not following through.

It’s hard to do; lord knows I’ve screwed up plenty of times in the past. But when I’m on, I’m on, and right now, I’m on. I wish I knew how to make that mental jump reliably, because it would make me more successful, and because I’d be a millionaire if I could put it in a bottle and sell it.

Exercise-wise, I spent an hour on the recumbent bike, and donated even more of my money to Barnes & Noble, adding to the library I’m keeping on my nook. And then I did five chin-ups, because I can.

Actually, I still remember the first time I did a chin-up. I was never able to, in high school. I was always the fat kid. Strong, yes, but not strong enough to haul myself off the ground. Now I can knock out fifty reps in a session. But the first time… I still have the training journal from that session, can still read where I scrawled “I did a pull up!” on the page. That was proof to me that something was changing. That I was changing.

That I could change.

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Today was upper-body, heavy pull day, which means chin-ups. Lots of chin-ups.

Diet-wise, I added a couple of capsules of fish oil and a couple of capsules of essential fatty acids, because my joints were a little sore yesterday. I also added an extra potassium pill (I’m taking four 99mg pills a day now) to deal with some muscle cramping.

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I slept about three hours last night, which always makes getting out of bed the next morning a joy. Regardless, I dragged myself out of bed and spent thirty minutes on the recumbent bike. And did a set of chin-ups, just because.

I’m reading The End of Overeating^{B&N, Nook, Amazon}, by David A. Kessler. It’s an interesting discussion on the psychological and biochemical reasons we eat – and overeat – and touches on some evolutionary aspects, as well. The short version is that combinations of sugar, fat, and salt stimulate dopamine and opiate production, which leads to habitual, reward-based behavior.

Identifying the reasons that underlay a behavior is an important step toward changing that behavior, and so far, I’m enjoying this book. I do sort of wish he wouldn’t go into such graphic detail when describing the way processed food is meant to play on our senses, though. The term “food porn” has never been so appropriate.

When you’re doing something difficult – dieting, training for a marathon, whatever – it’s helpful to immerse yourself in the culture associated with that task. Reading books like this when I’m cutting down, or books on training when I’m bulking up, helps me keep focused and on track.

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“And considering that [the story of Atlantis] was passed down several times before Plato recorded it, we can assume that it has some inaccuracies.” -Answers in Genesis

Today was lower body day, which means deadlifts. I love deadlifts. I was built to do them, literally. My body structure – long limbs, long trunk – is ideally suited for this lift. I suck at squats, but I can deadlift like nobody’s business.

I added the leg presses to DeFranco’s routine, but I’m still not sure I’m getting quite enough leg work. I probably could have hit 50 reps per set at 400 pounds, maybe more. I need to get upwards of 500 pounds before I really start feeling it, but it takes forever to load the sled, so I stuck to the machine this morning.

The chin-ups weren’t actually on the schedule today, I just happened to be bored when I walked by the bar.

My diet was fine today, except AJ felt the need to link to this on Facebook this morning. These were on the front page. Dammit.

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“Have you heard about this strange new web service, Chatroulette? It makes webcam connections between random pairs of people with the idea that it’ll spark interesting conversations. I like the idea, but I haven’t tried it yet myself because a) I’ve heard that mainly what you get is pathetic exhibitionist men who aim the camera at their crotch, or b) people who want to chat about sex and flick past anyone who isn’t pretty enough.” -PZ Myers

Today was a cardio day. I hate cardio with a burning passion. It isn’t that it’s hard, it’s just so boring. If there’s a ball or a frisbee involved, I’m fine, but just running for no reason sucks the life out of me. Fortunately I’ve got my nook to keep me company. I’m burning through books like they’re going out of style. Which, actually, they are. Dammit.

Anyway, I spent ten minutes on the elliptical, and thirty minutes on the recumbent bike. I’m doing low-intensity cardio – keeping my heart rate at around 50-60% of my max – first thing in the morning. This is meant to burn lipids without spiking cortisol too much, which can lead to muscle loss. When the weather improves, I’ll start adding a day of sprints.

My diet continues to be an uninspired blend of protein shakes and fond memories. I’m going to have to buy some sugarless gum, just so my mouth has something to do. The only problem today was that I forgot to add my creatine to the first couple of shakes I made, so I doubled up on the next two. Creatine, it turns out, does not taste good. C’est la vie.

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I didn’t have any problems with my diet today, even though my gym, for some reason known only to god or the devil, decided to pass out free pizza tonight. But the first week is always easy; it isn’t until about week three that people start looking like talking ice cream cones.

Here’s my gym routine for the night:

I can no longer raise my arms above my head, which made showering an interesting challenge. When I push a weight, my deltoids do almost all of the work. It’s kind of frustrating.

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