Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

I wore a vegan shirt at the gym the other day. I'm not completely vegan yet but wanted to let others know that I'm doing a weeklong vegan challenge starting on Sunday. I want to challenge the notion that a lot of body builders have, that you have to eat animal products to get muscle.

I was recently reminded from Facebook that the last time I did a vegan challenge was two years ago. I thought it was time to do another challenge. So why a vegan challenge again? I don't think consuming too many animal products is good for you. I want to prove that eating a plant-based diet can build muscle.

I met with my personal trainer on Monday. He measured my body fat with the 3 site skin fold caliper test. This was the best reading yet, close to 11 percent! My weight has been holding steady for a few months now, which is what I want. I weigh on average between 191 to 195 pounds... just trying to build muscle!

My trainer gave me a new workout that focuses on building bigger muscles for my legs, exercises that should target the lower abs and other exercises that will continue to build muscle for my arms, chest and back. The areas that have the most fat on my body are my abdominal area (obviously) and my back. My chest, arms and legs have the least amount of fat.

For a brief moment the other week, I thought about getting an abdominoplasty, otherwise known as a tummy tuck. I went to a consultation a few weeks ago and learned about the procedure, how much it would cost and what recovery would be like. But I've decided against it and here's why...

There are signs of improvement! Every consultation I get seems to suggest my abs are improving. The first consultation I did back in 2014, the doctor said I would need a full body lift, essentially removing skin from both my front and back around the abs. No way would I consider that... there must be a better way. I went to another consultation and the doctor told me she thought my muscles looked good and wouldn't need any repositioning. People who have tummy tucks often have to have their muscles repositioned because of how stretched they get from the extra weight. This last consultation I had a few weeks ago, the doctor told me he can see some definition starting to show (of course much of it is still hidden under the extra skin). This made me think, why rush into a tummy tuck, there's still room for improvement.

I've been maintaining my weight for about three and a half years now. I think so many people are used to me at this weight, I thought I would remind people how far I've come.

The picture on the left I barely remember looking like. When I showed a doctor my before picture last week, her reaction was I look nothing like that. She never would have recognized me from my fat picture.

I've been building up to 200 crunches. I was doing the Greater Waterbury YMCA ab challenge last month and the last day of the challenge stopped at 160 crunches. I thought to myself,, I'd like to do an even 200 of them. So I kept going, increasing 5 per day until I reached 200 today.

In addition, I'm doing their other ab challenge, a planking challenge. It's five different kinds of planks, increasing by 5 seconds each day. There's only 2 days left of this challenge. Today, I held the planks for 50 seconds each.