So, the semester is officially over here at Cornell. Doesn’t mean the Great Ab Race is over but its as good a time as any for an evaluation point. First up, me. As of today, I weighed in slightly below 247, about 246.5 lb. Hell, I’ll take it! To my estimates, I am hovering in that 10-12% body fat range right now, and its exactly where I want to be. This from a start of 280 lbs in January, and a total weight of 370 lbs about 3 years ago. Needless to say, alot has changed. I am continually getting stronger, and just worked my push press (like a military press with leg drive) to 245 lbs. I’ve broken my own personal records over and over. I’ve expanded the site, with awesome links for information, recipes, article tags, and such. And I turned my own personal race into a team of people, dedicated to gettting more and more fit.
As for the core 5 members of the team… well, as a team, we have probably lost over 120 lbs collectively. Brandon has surpassed his expectations, and now we are pushing the training hard to build strength while still dropping weight. One thing he’s discovering, as we all do, is that whatever you think you need to lose to get your abs to show, add 10 lbs to that… its surprising how much body fat we tend to carry around. That being said, he’s reach that sweet spot. Check out his progress pic (better than mine: http://youngsmash.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/update-picture/).
Natalie is still pushing along, and though we’ve had stops and starts, she has shown great progress and resolve, so much so that certain special people are commenting on the changes she’s made to her physique in a few short months (I may get hit for that sentence). She is currently in a little slump, fat loss wise, but we have to keep three things in mind here: 1. fat loss is never linear, as much as we’d like it to be 2. She is really good at endurance training… she does spin class and runs all the time. 3. She is currently training for a half marathon (OH YEA!). We’ve had to tweak /cut down her strength sessions for this, as the half marathon is most important (from a coach standpoint) we have only a few months to get her up to it. All in all, I’m proud to have introduced her to weight training, and glad I helped her cut some of the weight that would have only held back her training for this half marathon… doesn’t mean we’re done yet!
Courtney unfortunately, recently had surgery, and will be out of commission for about 2 months. Not worried though, her ability to push herself was pretty much second to none out of everyone on the team. She showed great progress, having only joined the team 2 months ago, and in that short time, getting to a near body weight deadlift, and pushing up 40 lb dumb bells on the dumbbell bench. It was pretty awesome to watch her progress, as she really took to strength training with a fervor that I still use for inspiration. Nizeet has been improving greatly as well. It almost brought a tear to my eye when I tricked her into performing a 155 lb deadlift, a deadlift that puts her many, many pounds beyond her bodyweight. That being said, she’s also lost over 10 lbs since joining the team a little less than 2 months ago. Holy Crap, thats progress!
Which reminds me, we have all been dropping weight, but getting much, much stronger building muscle mass, and creating leaner, sexier (yes, I said it!) physiques over the past 4 months! This is what most people dream of, and relaly, I think it came down to support and our dedication to the Iron and each other.
More than anything, though, I think we have all learned alot (and hopefully passed that info on to those of you that read). As a team, we discovered and implemented primal eating, different forms of strength and endurance training, different supplements (2:1 bars and Fish oil for the win!), and helped each other through sticking points. We rubbed off on friends close to us, and everyone around us is getting in shape, eating better, and spreading the knowledge.
My team inspires me to keep getting stronger, staying tough, and learning more. I feel as though I couldn’t have been this successful without them. And I’m glad that we dropped some knowledge on those closest to us, and maybe people we haven’t even met with our series of blogs.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
The Great Ab Race 
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