Getting to the point (short intro)

I figured I would write this separately so it is clear and to the point rather than trudging through that massive introductory blog post below.

Mark commented that him and I are at very different points in our fitness goals. Mark started years early than myself and with different motivations. Though our end goal is the same (getting in shape), our motivations and reasons for doing so are slightly different, I feel. However, we both have lots of shared interests, basketball, for instance is something we passionately enjoy.

My blood and heart lies with my favorite player in the world, and the reason for my interest in the game in the first place: Allen Iverson. Mark may humorously poke fun at this at some point, but my adoration for Allen Iverson is often sickening, if not ludicrous all the time. I would delve into how angry I am at the NBA for blackballing him and essentially exiling him, but that would be a tangent deserving of its own blog.

What is my end game?
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Where does it end? Well, it never should end. Fitness, as I’ve realized, can’t be like getting in a car, driving, and reaching your destination;  instead, it’s an endless car drive. This analog is why it’s difficult for many people to get started…because the length of that “car drive” is often too big a monster to tackle. But, yes you need to work in small steps with pit stops along the way, and therefore, my end game is to achieve 165lbs (which if you must know, is Allen Iverson’s weight…and he and I are the same height – I think I am a little shorter).

Why drives me?

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One of the characteristics you will quickly learn when you read my posts is my insistence and affinity for making pop culture references (mainly to mainstream media and movies). Here is my reference (pointed out to you blatantly…don’t get used to this!). This question of “what drives me?” is reminiscent of Liam Neeson’s character Henri Ducard asking a young Bruce Wayne “What do you fear?” For those of you who have watched,  that question is eventually answered by stringing together the root cause of Bruce Wayne’s fear by viewing his childhood. Anyhow, before I confuse you all anymore…the question of what drives me is a complicated one. If you took the time to read my first post below (and I applaud you if you did), you saw (read) that my knee pain was the physical trigger (or *lightbulb* moment) that did it. But there are a bunch of other smaller, fundamental reasons for me to pursue further weight loss.

A.) One very important motivation is to be able to compete healthily in a basketball league at some point. Growing up, the answer to the popularly posed question “what do you want to be when you grow up” for me, was “playing in the NBA.” Well that never happened. I’d like to delude myself and say if I was in shape all my life, I could have ABSOLUTELY driven/pushed myself to be in the league. Imagine that. The NBA’s first Indian-American player. Drool. Well, the closest thing woul be to be in good enough shape to help a competitive basketball team out. To do this, I need to be in better shape, hence this fitness journey. This is a mutual goal (somewhat) that Mark and I share.

B.) Physical attraction. Another unique reason for this, and one that is not shared by Mark, mainly because of a difference in our personal relationships/experience with women is the realization that women need some level of physical attraction. Dating gurus, my other friends (both male and female) will criticize me for this statement, citing that attraction isn’t always physical. I say BS. Think about it. When you are out in public, as a woman, you don’t look at a guy and say, “Wow, from a distance, he looks like he has a good personality…” The first thing that catches a woman’s eye is…”Wow! “he is cute”. That one pre-requisite makes it infinitely easier for a guy to approach a woman in the game of dating. I lack this pre-requisite. So, my secondary goal in this fitness journey is to over-kill it. I want to be *that* hot attractive guy. I want the elusive six-pack that many men dream of. It’s just a matter of hard work. And it will absolutely pay off.

Recap
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Why put myself through the rigors of gym, sacrificing fast food (yummm), and effort?

-Long term health (avoiding injuries like that of my knee)

-Being able to play basketball without having “physical fitness” as a weakness

-Being a hot guy.

Personal Deadlines:

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Today is February 13, 2011. 2 months from now, I have a wedding to go to in LA (Laker land!). I want to reduce my current weight of 245 to 225, buy a new suit, and look good for it. Tomorrow, I will end my absence streak at Planet Fitness, and slowly return to gym schedule with the help of my guide, Mark.  I’ll also optimize my eating habits, which haven’t been terrible (like pre 2010 days), but I’ve definitely been more casual than I should be.

I know I can do this. It’s just that V₀ that I need (physics joke, lol).

And here…we…go!

Wish me luck J

-Raj

Alas, my formal introduction

About 2 months late with this post, but I say better late than never (Thought this is wayyyy beyond late). I’d like to introduce myself to start. My name is Raj. I am 24 years old, am 5’11”, and weigh 245lbs. I am a big science buff, studied Biomedical Engineering as an undergraduate , and my dream one day is to be a physician. That’s me in a nutshell. Oh. And I love the game of basketball above and beyond any other sport.

As a disclaimer to fellow readers,  my long-time friend since high school and co-contributor to this blog, Mark, is a far more exceptionally talented writer than I am. I will try to the best of my ability to piece together smooth and graceful blog uploads. 

So what is the purpose and value of this “WhereFitnessHappens” blogspot? Mainly, to serve as a locale for self-accountability. Perhaps in the future, when we [mainly I] reach our fitness and health goals, we hope to have a reading base that has similar goals to whom we could mentor and guide in their own ways based on our experiences. Let me begin by chronicling my recent steps to this health oriented mindset.

It started in summer of 2009 when I finally resumed playing basketball after about 5 solid years of not playing. It was mainly outdoor basketball pickup games, usually 3 on 3, with my college friends in Boston. I had weighed closed to 280lbs that summer, but still had the inclination and capability to play sports. But there were several big obstacles as a result. I refused to partake in full court pickup games because I knew full well I could not keep up with the running, would lag behind, and therefore be a liability on both offense and defense. I’d always use an excuse that I was fatigued from the previous 3 on 3 game. This was personally embarrassing. I was 22 years old and supposed to be capable of playing hours of day with no rest. It was demoralizing and emasculating, especially when my friends and other playground folk were thin and fit for their age. My co-writer Mark and I would always joke about how we still had the athletic “potential” to make it big (150% jokingly though) since our superstar age equivalents (Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Lebron James) were already doing the same things at our age (completely ignoring the fact they they have natural and developed athletic talents).

That same summer, in particular, after one 3 on 3 pickup game, I noticed my right knee started hurting pretty badly. I knew on one play, I had changed directions very suddenly, and my right leg went faster forward than it should have, and just shrugged it off as a minor and temporary basketball injury. I played another pickup game a week later, but the pain was still there, and it actually increased when I made quick, jerky motions. I got really concerned and decided I just needed more rest and cut down my playing time a lot.

During Fall and Winter 2009, the harsh and unforgiving weather conditions of Boston usually prevented us from playing basketball, at least outdoors anyway. The motions of going to work and returning home to my mundane serial television show watching resumed. What also continued was my right knee pain. Anytime I walked up and down stairs, it would be a numbing pain. When I pressed on the soft tissue area (better known as the patellar junction) it would REALLY hurt. I knew I had done something to it that summer and that it was time to get it looked at.

I worked as a research assistant at Orthopedics laboratory at Harvard. I had the convenience of having lots of orthopedic surgeons around me, so I asked a fellow doctor friend to check it out. On the physical exam and based on my symptoms, he suggested it was possible I had a slight tear of my meniscus (layer of cartilage coating the femur/patella/tibia bone intersections). I got really worried and then finally went through the steps of going through my physician who referred me to an orthopedist specialst. The x-ray imaging showed no structural damage, though it did show some joint space narrowing. He determined it to be a conditional known as “Patellar Femoral Syndrome” Scary sounding, huh? I actually thought it was cool, and that it would be a “quick” fix by getting some sort of surgery. This syndrome is caused by misalignment of the patellar bone in sliding from the top to the bottom in leg flexion and extension. The lack of proper “tracking” causes inflammation, which causes pain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patellar_Femoral_Syndrome). The solution? Strengthening surround muscles (Quads, Calves) while working on flexibility of the lower leg muscles in order to get the patella to track up and down properly.  This series of events was the impulse which triggered me to be more health conscientious . An individual of my age should not have this type of injury from what I consider relatively “weak” and “pathetic”  pick up basketball.  I knew I could no longer sustain my weight of 280+ lbs on my frame and that this would be only the beginning of other physical ailments if I didn’t change something in my life.

So began in December 2009 the beginning of my fitness journey. Weekly physical therapy visits to the hospital. We’d working basic exercises to strengthen my quadriceps while working on propioceptive motions (or simply…balance). At the same time, I knew I was not self-motivated enough to go to the gym and be “one of those people.” I knew a personal trainer would be necessary. Some Google searching and looking on Craigslist led me to one of the best [albeit costly] decisions ever. In hindsight, it was definitely worth it. I met Chris Nogiec, who is a great  Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist in Boston  (www.nogiec.com)

 Our evaluation session was embarrassing and awful. I went through what he called a typical set of exercises that we would be doing. I ended up vomitting out of nausea. It made me rethink whether I wanted to do that. Frankly, it was scary. Later on, I would realize that what he had done was advanced, and the purpose of it was to find my physical limitations. One thing we would also work on was extending the exercises I was doing in PT. So a two fold purpose – exercising to lose weight while simultaneously working on fixing my knee problem.

So, commencing with my new physical fitness schedule in January 2010, Wednesday morning would be 1 hour of physical therapy, followed by a brutal personal trainer session with Chris on the evenings. The first couple of weeks, I would be sore and would walk in pain because of the soreness. One of the beneficial things about Chris was that he was also a legit nutritionist. I knew that nutrition was one of my biggest issues. During and since college, I had been accustomed to eating 1 large meal per day. I never ate breakfast and never ate fruits. He suggested keeping a food log to start, and eventually, it morphed into an accountability system, where I would bring in a weekly food log for each of my sessions and we cross out and scold me for eating junk food, etc. Because I met with him once a week, I wasn’t “working out” enough on my own. So, I had to get my own gym membership somewhere. Within days, I signed up for a great deal new and upcoming gym Planet Fitness had. My fitness strategies for the next year were set and in order of priorities:

-Phyiscal Therapy to work on my knee

-Getting in physical shape with Chris and 1 a week personal trainer sessions

-Working on my nutrition with Chris’ advice

-Employing the above A, B, and C on my own (daily) at Planet Fitness.

In June 2010, my physical therapy sessions came to a close. I had become an “expert” at all the exercises Nancy, my physical therapist, worked on me with. I no longer needed them. At the same time, I had lost about 20lbs, and was around 260. I was seeing results and it was great!!! Chris decided to accelerate the process and we eventually increased our 1/week sessions to 2/week. Summer had come around, and my goal by the end of the summer was to reach 230lbs and be 50lbs lighter than I was when I started the year.

The fitness and nutrition all started coming together. Over Summer 2010, I played so many pickup games, moreso than I had done since I was 12 years old. I did not huff and puff down the court, and my cardiovascular health was impressive (Relative to how I had been the last 10 years of my life). Better was how my knee pain subsided and as of now, has disappeared! I could last a 5 on 5 game finally! A big improvement!

However, a bunch of personal life changing decisions happened involving me deciding to leave Boston to move back to Philadelphia in order to take the first steps in achieving my dreams of becoming a doctor put a crink on my fitness schedule.

By September 1^st, I was back in Philadelphia. I weighed an all time low of around 232 lbs and was noticeably thinner in all my photos. Friends who did not routinely see me saw how much better I looked. The positive feedback was great and it was encouraging to know that it was working. In addition, my knee pain was all gone. The worst part about my move (aside from saying good bye to my friends with whom I had been with the last 6 years of my life in Boston) was losing Chris’s training. I had gotten into such a physical groove with a 2 week sessions. Losing that hurt, and it would definitely take a toll.

I tried to replicate the intensity here in Philadelphia. I would go to Planet Fitness on my own here, but it was not the same. Nutrition would continue though. Through October 2010, I had maintained my weight, which I was blown away by. A voiced concern by both Mark and I was that I would revert to gaining weight. This did not happen, thank god.

But, I began a course to aid in preparing my MCAT exam in October, and the enormous amount of time I spent studying, combined with an equal amount of lack of personal incentive has led me to today, where I’ve gained about 15lbs and am thoroughly out of the conditioning I had 5 months prior.

I’m back to where I began, but am writing this finally to resume my training in pursuit of my goal of getting back to optimal shape for my age/height.

And so here my journey begins, and I hope my own path will help anyone in a similar [empire] state of mind/body.

Thanks for reading!

--Raj

GO! RUN! MOVE! POST! Eat?

Stan Van Gundy, dress code instigator and a favorite motivator.

                    I wish I had posted more often before this, as that might make posting seem less like an epic endeavor and something that was more an autopilot behavior. But as this now slightly less corpulent, but no less invested and intense man above us often has barked, yelped, and shrieked: "YOU WANT THIS TO BE EASY! IT'S NEVER EASY!" And so here we are, back on the blog because nothing that's worth doing is ever easy. Before I continue, props to Coach Stan for his own fat loss (Orlando Sentinel with the story), and probably fitting into a smaller size shirt, since Commissioner David Stern and his lackeys forced coaches to wear collared shirts on the sidelines. 

               January was a pretty solid month after the holiday blowup, even with having to fight off some illnesses that forced me to rest up and take more days off than I would have liked. I'm more than eager to share the past month of my training, but right now I want to highlight the fact that my nutrition plan was nearly spot on everyday starting from January 3rd. Not saying I was on some Bernard Hopkins haven't eaten a donut in decades tip or approaching a Steve Nash level of intuitive eating. (Definitely a must read on his diet here from NBA.com.) For simplicity's sake, I mean to say that this past month I maintained a caloric deficit all those days, consumed enough protein to maintain lean body mass, and averaged a healthy daily intake of vitamins and minerals.

              Maintaining a caloric deficit is the only way to lose weight besides maybe severing limbs; you can drink nothing but protein shakes and eat Papa John's, but if you consume less calories than you burn, you will lose weight, and maybe find yourself some new health problems. Conversely, you can eat completely organic food found naturally in the earth, eat lean meats and fish, and if you consume more calories than you need, even from these sources, you will eventually become a fat human being, albeit probably a healthy one. There is a difference between eating for health, and eating to cut body fat/lose weight. Last month I think I did yeoman's work in doing both. I do count my calories (tip of the hat to caloriecount.about.com) because it works for me: it reinforces accountability, lets me know my macronutrient and micronutrient breakdown, and if I really am maintaining a caloric deficit. Quick mental shorthand: macronutrients are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, and micronutrients are vitamins and so called trace minerals that we need small amounts of. This is becoming an early theme, but I'll or we'll probably discuss counting calories vs. not counting them/eating intuitively a la Nash in later posts.

              There was a time, however, when I didn't know the first thing about the energy in vs. energy out equation regarding energy expenditure, and I still lost weight. The summer of junior year in high school I topped out at about 220 lbs, close to 225. My sister was going to try something called the "Six Week Body Makeover" from Provida Life Sciences, and we ended up trying it out together. I recall answering a battery of multiple choice questions and eventually learning what body type I was so the program could prescribe an eating plan. Although I didn't know this then, what this type of nutritional plan does, just like any of the latest fad diets or miraculous as seen on TV breakthroughs, is that it makes you eat less calories than you burn, even if you aren't being told it (in fact, the whole not counting calories becomes another selling point.)
              
                    Armed with willpower and, really, a wtf not attitude, I remember eating egg whites, oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, and a lot, a lot, a loooot of chicken breast. If you've read about Steve Nash's diet, he'll probably tell you that it's pretty damn difficult to gain body fat (i.e. enter a calorie surplus) from eating those types of minimally processed, whole foods. Ironically, in the early stages I distinctly recall feeling stuffed, because I was eating every 2.5 - 3 hours. My compliance was helped in large part because of my sister who supported me, prepared everything, and mixed it up so it wasn't always the same flavors. We did have "cheat snacks" or maybe even a day off every now and then, but I remember the regimented, routine nature of that time. It was almost like Ray Allen shooting off a screen--automatic. Ultimately, I think I got down to around 170-180 lbs when it was all said and done. And the only muscles I consistently used were probably the ones in manipulating a Super Nintendo or PSOne controller, and the ones that lift food from a plate or container to my mouth. (pause)

                Well, this is from memory, and it is getting late, but if that summer was like most summers, then I probably at least helped out with my father's volleyball camp, so that's at least one day a week where I got to engage in some physical activity, but I definitely didn't consistently strength train or do cardio, and still lost the weight of a young child. Unfortunately for me, I got satisfied with that at the moment, didn't really learn much that would shift the paradigm of weight loss through "dieting". Basically, my mindset was, that was tough, I'm glad I did it, but now I'm going to go back to eating like I was used to. A "diet" was not a lifestyle change, but more of a phase. And I would pay for that in college and beyond. But again, that's maybe for another time.

                 Back to a successful January--on the 3rd day of the month I weighed in at a bloated 151.2 lbs with a body fat percentage of 23.1% and body water percentage of 52.8% using the same scale I've had for the longest. (I don't know how accurate it is, but if you use the same device to track anything, even if it's not completely accurate, you can still use it to track change given it's always making the same mistake.) This morning, February 5th, I weighed in at 137.2 lbs, 18.2% body fat, and 56.1% body water. Undoubtedly a lot of the weight was water weight, but 5 percent body fat is 5 percent body fat. If you look at my food log from the month, you would find a lot candy (definitely not healthy, I know, and I don't encourage it even if you can afford to eat it calorie-wise), Ferrero Rocher (too classy to be called candy), trips to KFC, Johnny Rockets, and Nathan's. Yet on all those days I still remained in caloric deficit.

               You would also see a majority of of "clean" eating: I live off of vegetables, fruits, chicken breast, ground turkey, whey protein shakes, and sweetpotatoes. I did enjoy a lot of steak looking back, but that's also because it was on sale a lot, and obviously, it fit into my calorie budget too. Stan the Man knows that worthwhile accomplishments do not come easy, and for many the nutrition/"calories in" aspect of fat loss is incredibly difficult. I'm not overly prone to use war metaphors, but in the fields of athletics, fitness, and fat loss, it's often stated that war shifts in one's favor if you win the battle in the grocery store. As an old web mentor once wrote: "Eat Less/Move More is not a 50/50 Proposition." You cannot outrun, outlift, outGOHARDORGOHOME a caloric surplus, if you are trying to lose weight and cut body fat. The following video provides a nice illustration of that point, and conveniently, also features the man whose exercise program I just completed today.