My Progress

[____]

Looks like some solid progress, and for what it's worth.. you can ditch the shirt (check rule #4 - http://forum.tip.it/topic/249174-sports-fitness-rule-book/ ) given it would be for progress shots. Would be slightly "counter productive" given the 10month shot is with shirt, but you can always do it moving forward if you wish.

[jimmy_jim]

I think Rick just wants to see you with your shirt off :lol:

[Tim]

Bow-chicka-wow-wow.

 

Great progress so far! :thumbsup: I'll be starting to get into serious exercise like you suggested next month when I'm employed so i can afford a GYM membership, shakes etc to help build my body a bit better.

[Jeffwilson99]

You don't need a gym to start off, you could do some stuff by yourself so you have a decent level of fitness when you get a gym membership.

[fastortoise]

I think Rick just wants to see you with your shirt off :lol:

Yeah, I get that a lot :cool:

 

But seriously, I only post pictures with shirts because I don't have and old one of me without my shirt on, so I can't make a proper comparison. And I can already feel it would be sorta awkward to post a shirtless picture of myself when nobody else has and just be like "yeah hey, whatsup, this is me naked". (also, I have a third nipple)

 

Yeah thanks for the comments guys, I'll keep at it just for you :wink:

EDIT: Hey Dark, I just thought of something... try asking your parents to pay you a couple months of gym memberships. It'll kill you a little inside but just try, I'm sure my parents wouldv'e been happy to pay for me but I was dumb and now I'm paying 30 bucks a month on a gym membership instead of something cool... like a smartphone or something (or more likely, extra beer).

[Kriegsmier]

Nice results. Huge change from the start to now. Keep it up. I notice the most change in the shoulder area and bicep to forearm.

 

I think Rick just wants to see you with your shirt off :lol:

 

Lol.

[Dexek]

Nice job tortoise. The change in chest is quite noticeable, but it is a tighter shirt in the chest as I can see. Then I noticed the arms, a decent change no doubt and no shirt masking that. I've been doing a similar thing to this, but I'm not sure if I'll post pictures and all. I've personally noticed large changes, even without the use of supplements. Was there a point that you worked out without supplements before your current 10 month stretch that you feel they have helped you greatly?

 

Ohh, and take that shirt off!! Haha!! But seriously, good job and keep it up. I'm sure you feel a lot more confident and energetic.

[fastortoise]

Nice job tortoise. The change in chest is quite noticeable, but it is a tighter shirt in the chest as I can see. Then I noticed the arms, a decent change no doubt and no shirt masking that. I've been doing a similar thing to this, but I'm not sure if I'll post pictures and all. I've personally noticed large changes, even without the use of supplements. Was there a point that you worked out without supplements before your current 10 month stretch that you feel they have helped you greatly?

 

Ohh, and take that shirt off!! Haha!! But seriously, good job and keep it up. I'm sure you feel a lot more confident and energetic.

Thanks fellow Canuk :mrgreen: Yeah the shirt is the smallest I can find, I don't fill out all my clothes like that haha.

The protein question is a good one. I only started taking protein powder (rarely) recently (haven't gotten through my first tub yet) and so the middle picture is my progress without sups. And I personally think that supplements won't help you get THAT much stronger, they just put on weight. The main difference I noticed once I started taking protein was that my ribs disappeared and I'm now almost normal waist size.

[Dexek]

Kinda what I figured. I know I get all the nutrition I need, although that bit you mentioned about puttin on weight interested me. Thing is, when I think about it, I probably get way, way, way more protein than I should have so it might just be my body type keeping the weight minimal. Skin, bone, and muscle.. about all I have to offer lol

[Saru Inc]

Good job man :)

[Myweponsg00d]

Kinda what I figured. I know I get all the nutrition I need, although that bit you mentioned about puttin on weight interested me. Thing is, when I think about it, I probably get way, way, way more protein than I should have so it might just be my body type keeping the weight minimal. Skin, bone, and muscle.. about all I have to offer lol

 

A protein supplement is a dietary supplement. I would not call it an exercise supplement. When I hear the word "supplements" I think of stuff like Purple Wrath, White Flood, N.O. Ex-plode!, and other such stuff. While it is true that most protein powders contain added stuff like vitamins and amino acids, the major point of the product is just to provide protein.

 

Whey protein powder is just dehydrated whey. Think of it as dehydrated milk. If someone was drinking dehydrated milk instead of regular milk, would you say they were using "unnatural" methods? Bodybuilders like to use whey because it has a high biological value, which basically means that it is available to your muscles really quickly. This is why you should always take whey post workout, and possibly in the morning aswell. Both of these times, your body has depleted a lot of its available energy and you need to feed your muscles some quick protein before they start to eat themselves.

 

How much protein DO you eat per day? If you are wanting to build muscle you might need more than you think...If you wanna have an in depth discussion about this you can shoot me a PM so that we dont flood the thread with this.

 

@tortoise: are you still doing the same routine? And how often do you do that routine? I noticed that it is somewhat lacking in the back department. The only thing you really have is chinups. If you have acess to free weights I would probably be doing some deadlifts. Theres some other back stuff you could add too.

[Dexek]

I'm actually building muscle at what to me seems to be a fast rate lately. I've always been quite muscular, and it seems to be coming on even quicker as of late. I was just curious if there were any other huge differences that supplements could offer. When I mentioned putting on weight, I just meant fat I guess lol. Not actualy weight itself, as I have been gaining it at a decent rate with the muscle gain. I'll try to find time to record my protein intake over the course of a week. Not sure if it will be this upcoming week or some time later, but I am sure my intake is enough as is. I'm kind of curious as to the level in which it becomes unhealthy.

[Myweponsg00d]

I'm actually building muscle at what to me seems to be a fast rate lately. I've always been quite muscular, and it seems to be coming on even quicker as of late. I was just curious if there were any other huge differences that supplements could offer. When I mentioned putting on weight, I just meant fat I guess lol. Not actualy weight itself, as I have been gaining it at a decent rate with the muscle gain. I'll try to find time to record my protein intake over the course of a week. Not sure if it will be this upcoming week or some time later, but I am sure my intake is enough as is. I'm kind of curious as to the level in which it becomes unhealthy.

 

Theres no real way of knowing how healthy it is at this time. We like to think that we understand most things very well, but when it comes to food, there is a lot of scientific debate still waging... Some studies will tell you that over 100 grams is unhealthy. Others will tell you that your body wont bother doing anything with protein if you have too much--it will just turn it into waste. Pro body builders do up to 400 grams per day. I find that you should eat as much protein as you want to have in lean muscle mass. For example if you weigh 130 lbs with very little body fat but want to weigh 150 lbs, you should eat 150 grams per day. If you weigh 200 lbs and are fat, and you want to weigh 180 lbs when you are skinny, eat 180.

 

One thing is for sure. If you eat a diet that is especially high in protein, you should always make sure to consume around a gallon of water per day, spaced evenly from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. When protein is digested it creates harmful waste products. If you dont have enough water, your body wont be able to expel that waste.

 

As far as "huge differences" are concerned, I would say that a protein supplement is a huge part in my fitness regimine. I find it is an amazing tool to have for breakfast and for post work out. I'm not saying that every day you need to have your protein shake at the exact same time. Sometimes I eat lots of egg and breakfast meat for breakfast. Sometimes I eat chicken, turkey, or egg whites after my workout instead of a shake. But a protein powder is a great way to make sure you get the nutrients you need every day. You might not feel like cooking up some eggs one morning, but it takes about 5 seconds to throw some powder in a bottle and shake it up. Think of it as a multi-vitamin almost. If you had constant availability of every type of produce on hand and you made sure to eat the same foods every day, you could get all your vitamins from food. But most people cant do that, and it would be very hard to do so. Similarly, I would find it unnecessarily difficult to maintain my protein intake if I didnt have a powder.

 

Plus you can throw the powder into some other stuff also. Protein pancakes or protein oatmeal is FTW \:D/

[fastortoise]

Dear professor weapons,

the point of this thread is to show what EXERCISE can do. I probably have the worst diet in the world and *hardly* take any protein powder, because for my entire life I have not gained weight even though I would try consuming more. I'm trying to show people like me that if they simply have to hit the gym 3-4 times a week for a few months and they can get pretty jacked.

 

It's well and good to discuss what the healthiest diet for your lifestyle is, but I'm reading the same stuff in every thread here and it's making me snore. Go do some push ups.

[Myweponsg00d]

Dear professor weapons,

the point of this thread is to show what EXERCISE can do. I probably have the worst diet in the world and *hardly* take any protein powder, because for my entire life I have not gained weight even though I would try consuming more. I'm trying to show people like me that if they simply have to hit the gym 3-4 times a week for a few months and they can get pretty jacked.

 

It's well and good to discuss what the healthiest diet for your lifestyle is, but I'm reading the same stuff in every thread here and it's making me snore. Go do some push ups.

 

purepure asked about supplements so I thought I'd answer his question. I said in my post that if he wanted to talk any more about it we should PM.

 

I asked you about something that I think you skipped over. I wanted to know if you are still doing the same routine that you posted awhile ago? And also I wanted to know if you are aware of the lack of lower back exercise that was in that program.

[speakoN]

Very nice progress!

 

Your observation about gamer's elbows is a bit.. scary and true! :)

 

Keep up the work!

[OwnagePie]

How tall are you? You look like you're 5'9" or something to have filled out so well in under a year.

[fastortoise]

Sorry for super late reply but yes - I'm 5'8"-5'9" thanks :)

 

Well, it's been a year and a half, folks. Time for an update!

 

Between the 10 and 18 month marks I've gained only about 5-6 lbs, but it's pretty much all muscle. I've gotten a lot wider and thicker, which is what I was really hoping for after all. Even I can recognize there isn't a huge difference since the last update picture but thats partly because I switched my training to more free-weight based exercises, so I've been training a lot of muscles you can't really see with a shirt on. Overall I am super happy with my results thus far, even though gaining weight is a lot harder and slower than I thought it would be.

 

Thanks for your continuing support offtopic'ers

[Bloodstain]

Looking good, great job! Big improvement, you have little swole worms now too :thumbsup: Your forearm now is bigger than your whole upper arm/bicep area used to be. Any idea how much you've put on total/ how much you weighed when you started vs now?

Overall I am super happy with my results thus far, even though gaining weight is a lot harder and slower than I thought it would be.

It's definitely hard, a lot more than losing weight

[obfuscator]

Actually, I saw a pretty big difference between the last two. Not so much in the chest but definitely in the arms. Keep it up man :thumbup:

 

Oh, and you are actually allowed to post shirtless pics here now if you so choose....

[fastortoise]

Thanks for the compliments guys <3:

Bloodstain; i've gained roughly 15 lbs since I've started.. I can't saw how much of that is just by growing naturally or by gaining muscle mass though.

Y_Guy; thanks, I think I was pulling my shirt with my left arm in the 10 months picture which is why my chest looked bigger than it was. And I don't think i'll ever post a picture without my shirt, first of all because I still have a bad body image of myself and second there aren't enough girls for gushing purposes :wink:

[Dexek]

Been waiting to see an update on this. I wish I wasn't too lazy to take pics myself when I started because it's real interesting seeing the difference in your pictures over the months. Keep up the good work man. :thumbup:

[Tim]

Gross, It's all sweaty and stained-like.

[obfuscator]

Thanks for the compliments guys <3:

Bloodstain; i've gained roughly 15 lbs since I've started.. I can't saw how much of that is just by growing naturally or by gaining muscle mass though.

Y_Guy; thanks, I think I was pulling my shirt with my left arm in the 10 months picture which is why my chest looked bigger than it was. And I don't think i'll ever post a picture without my shirt, first of all because I still have a bad body image of myself and second there aren't enough girls for gushing purposes :wink:

Fair enough. Just fyi in case you wanted to change your mind :P

 

@purepure...I'm just too lazy to work out :P

[muggiwhplar]

awesome, my long-term bodybuilding goal is bench 2x my bodyweight as well. I'm at 125 lbs, benching 150 right now.