Haitus Recap: Project Jason

Project Jason is my attempt at getting more muscle. Too long have I been a sack of organs barely held in by a thin membrane of skin. I've slowly noticed changes like my arms getting slightly bigger, clothes not fitting properly, and I say to myself, yeah, I think it's working.

And then I take a look at myself from a picture from before I started working out and THEN the differences become truly noticeable.

Those gains...

I guess it's because I see myself everyday so the changes aren't all that apparent. Hence the importance of progress pictures. I know I didn't take a picture back in August when I first started because of how embarrassed I was. But the closest thing I have is a picture from November and that was when I gained about 20 pounds.

And since November I've gained about another 15 pounds. It scares me to think of how thin I used to be. In fact, browsing various online fitness boards has lead to a startling realization. After all my hard work, I am only now considered "skinny".

Let that sink in for a moment. Almost 10 months of going to the gym has finally allowed me to be promoted to skinny.

So what was I considered before? Well, they have a lovely term for men who have noodle limbs and visible ribs: "Auschwitz mode".

Other acceptable terms include "hungry skeleton".

No matter, I'm still going to keep pushing to reach what they call "Ottermode" or the body type most associated with swimmers. For the first time ever, I'm at a healthy BMI at 165 pounds. My goal is to be around 200 pounds of muscle.

But this goal also puts me in an awkward position. Ideally, you want to be able to bench/overhead press your own body weight and squat/deadlift DOUBLE your bodyweight. Over the last few weeks I've finally been able to squat/deadlift 1 plate (45 pounds each side) and I can bench/overhead press maybe half of that.

I'm proud of myself, but I have a long way to go.

What's also funny is that I've developed somewhat noticeable pecs. And I can't stop touching them. Seriously, I'll be standing around and I'll poke them to make sure they're still there. What can I say? They're nice.

I imagine that it's similar for women when they first start developing breasts.

Ok, they're not that impressive yet, but maybe one day.

I'm still with my original trainer Eli, and things are going well. My other trainer (simply named Trainer D) finally had me lifting weight and not nitpicking over form before he disappeared. Yep. High turnover rate for trainers at that other gym.

So they slapped me with another trainer who we'll call Trainer E. He's nice, I like him but he doesn't have the technical knowledge or training that Eli or Trainer D had. I only have 2 dozen sessions left and after that, I'm just going to workout with Eli non-stop for the rest of the summer.