Boot Camp Update

So I've completed my second session of boot camp. You can read about my thoughts from the first session here. Now as all four followers of my blog probably already know, I really only did boot camp because I was in "biggest loser" contest with Lori Higa. The contest started at the beginning of the year and concluded on Easter Sunday. We bet $20 on who could lose the most overall weight (not percentage as I suggested) over those 14 or so weeks. I'll admit that I didn't try very hard for the first month and a half because I just figured that as an overweight guy I wouldn't need to try very hard. I could probably just exercise during the last month and beat Lori.

But still, I wanted to make sure I won so I enrolled in boot camp. After the first six week session, I did see some very real, tangible results so I set a goal to do at least three six-week sessions. Now I've completed two sessions and here are my results.

This is the previous measurement from March

As you can see, I was around 210 lbs (which was lighter than I have been in a long time) with a body fat percentage of 26.5% (which equates to around 56lbs of fat). Since the average male should be carrying around 20 lbs of fat I could still could stand to lose around 36 lbs of fat.

Here is the latest measurement.

Notice anything different?

So seven weeks later my weight has dropped to around 200 lbs (I actually got down to 199 lbs for a brief while which is lighter than I was in high school!) and my body fat percentage dropped to 19.1%. Also since I can carry around 20 lbs of fat around I now only need to lose 18 lbs more.

So to recap, boot camp is great! It's hard, but great. I would recommend it to anyone. In the 14 weeks that I've been a part of this program I've lost around 20 lbs of overall weight and roughly 32 lbs of fat. If I can do it (remember I was the guy who was passed out upchucking on the side of the parking lot during the first class) anyone can!

For more information about boot camp leave me a comment. Classes for men are on Tuesday nights from 7-8pm and Saturday mornings from 9-10am. The coed classes are Tuesday nights from 6-7pm and Saturday mornings from 8-9am. The cost is $60 per six week session. It's totally worth it.

Stop Feeding Your Fat Face

So a while ago one of my friends had lost a lot of weight. I mean, noticeable weight. In a completely straight kind of way, I would say that he looked pretty darn good (I wouldn't go as far as to say he was handsome, but you know what I mean). So after complimenting him I asked him what the secret to his weight loss was. He simply replied, "It's call the stop-feeding-my-fat-face diet". So simple yet so hard. It kind of reminds me of a sketch that I saw on my friend John Au's blog about not spending more than you have. But I digress.

Six weeks ago I started this fitness program called Boot Camp (I didn't originate it, I started attending it). There was this guy at our church who does fitness training and he approached me with a proposal to start a fitness program at our church. Of course he came to me because I am the fittest pastor at Hope Chapel (or maybe because I'm the sports director) with a plan to get guys into shape. At first I was skeptical because I hear many pitches from people who have ideas and enthusiasm, but based on a recommendation from Rob McWilliams, another pastor on staff who does the program in town, I decided to hear him out and hear his proposal.

I must say, when I met with Marty, I was impressed at his vision and passion. He firmly believes that health should be one of our top priorities (number one is God, number two or three is fitness) because we can't serve God if we're dead. I like the way he thinks.

So with that we started Boot Camp. It's a six-week fitness program designed to help us get in shape. Our first week we took measurements to see what we're starting with. This was my starting fitness reading:

Starting weigh-in

The numbers you really want to look at are the fat weight (mine was 70.8 pounds), the lean weight (149.2 pounds) and the number circled on the top (50). According to Marty you want around 20 pounds of fat on you so if you do the math 70-20=50. That means I could stand to lose 50 pounds of fat. That's a lot of fat that I'm carrying around (it's about half of Ted for goodness sake!). Well that's why I'm in Boot Camp I guess.

So over the six weeks it's been tough. People ask what a typical class is like and here's what we do. We do 40 minutes of calisthenics followed by 20 or so minutes of running (so an hour total) twice a week. We don't use weights but rather just use our own body weight (as Marty is fond of saying, "you brought it in here, you lift it!).

The calisthenics consist of various non-stop exercises. And by "non-stop" I mean there isn't rest time between. It's this, followed by this, followed by that for 40 minutes. He also does that military type counting where they go "one-two-three-ONE, one-two-three-TWO, one-two-three-THREE, etc" so every count is really doubled. So if we do 25 jumping jacks it's really like doing 50 of them.

So last night we did 25 jumping jacks (in reality 50), followed by 25 push-ups (in reality 50), followed by 25 more jumping jacks (you get the idea), then 25 more push-ups (on our knuckles), then 25 more jumping jacks, then 30 crunches, then 20 diamond push-ups and on and on for 40 minutes.

I must say the class is definitely not getting easier, but it is getting more manageable. I mean let's be honest, I wasn't in very good shape to begin with and the first night I couldn't even do the running portion. I literally had to lie down in the wet parking lot because I was so out of breath. I could probably do only 30% of the exercise portion as well. I thought I was going to die and don't get me started on the pain I felt the next morning. And to top it all off, Carl decided he would mention my little mishap to the congregation during his sermon (but God is a good God and the very next week Carl was the one throwing up on the side of the road...hee hee).

But the good news is that I could gradually feel my strength and wind improve. I would say I can almost do 60% of the exercises (I'm still probably a little behind the class average but I'm still trying hard) and I can at least finish the run.

The fun thing is seeing improvements from everyone. Mikey, Carl, Dural, Grant, Clinton and my brother are all in the class so it's really fun and motivating (because no one wants to quit first). I think we're all signing up for the next six weeks as well.

So do you want to see the results of the last six weeks of pain?

After the first session

So after the first six weeks I've lost about 10 pounds (I've gotten as much as 13 pounds down but I figured much of that was water weight) and my fat weight went from 70.8 to 55.7 a loss of about 15 pounds of fat. I gained around 5 pounds of lean weight which is good too. So now I only need to drop another 35 pounds of fat weight. I'll let you know how I do after the next six weeks. If only I could figure out how to "stop-feeding-my-fat-face" I'd be perfect!