@niclas Probably the most inspiring progress post I've seen on this sub. I really appreciate your holistic attitude towards diet and physique. I've noticed in my own experience and by observing others that when physique becomes the focus, food anxiety and other neuroses take hold and make progress an unnecessarily painful experience. Another book to check out along this vein is "In defense of food" by Michael Pollan.
A couple things jumped out at me from your progress pics posture-wise that you might look into. They jumped out at me as I've dealt with some of these too.
Looks like you probably have anterior pelvic tilt. In your pics you can see the excessive inward rounding along lower back, and your belly is still protruding forward a bit even when got smaller. Also your knees are locked out while standing. These are all symptoms of APT. This has been one of the hardest things for me to correct, but I'm making progress. Likely culprits are super tight hip flexors, weak core, weak glutes. Try some hip flexor release exercises and definitely add some glute strengthening to your routine.
Starting in your first pic, it looks like you were standing with very externally rotated hips (causing feet to point outwards). You've been getting better over time, but you could probably try some exercises. This one is pretty easy to correct quickly. Look up some YouTube videos by GuerillaZen. Start with "hip mobility assessment" then check out the 2 "internal hip rotation" videos.
I'm not sure on this one but it looks like you have "rounded shoulder" posture a bit. If anything it's been getting worse in last few pics, coming slightly more forward as you've been working out more. Just make sure you're doing a healthy balance of chest to back strengthening, and maybe throw in some release exercises. Keep an eye on it.
In general, don't be shy about throwing in some dedicated mobility work (besides just warm ups). I think this can get neglected a lot until people find severe imbalances or limitations later on, but it's important to do from the beginning of your journey so you have better range of motion and fluid body mechanics in all of your movements. I like doing yoga as well, and would recommend to anyone, but its particularly good at helping you find your limitations and where you need to work on your mobility.
@ariel Posture is going to be my next goal. I've started trying to apply some fixes but haven't made huge progress yet. My biggest hurdle is that I don't want to add extra work and time to my routine as I'm already struggling a bit with my busy schedule.
You are absolutely spot-on with the APT. I've been trying to stretch my hip flexors everyday but haven't seen too much progress. Core has also always been pretty weak, relatively. It's why I've put in the 7-minute core workout, but I'm not sure it's enough. I'm also noticing an imbalance in left and right side of my core strength due to my ribcage being so diagonal (i can do a rotating situp to the left but not the right)
This is something I hadn't noticed before, thanks. I'll definitely look into it
I've been aware of this since the beginning so I sure hope it hasn't gotten worse. But you're right, there's no improvement either. I've been trying to focus on back muscles and stretching my pecs every morning. I think my row progression is keeping me down. I'm already training for pseudo planche with my chesy but still stuck on horizontal rows for pulling. I don't have the space for wide grip rows or archer rows, and front tuck levers are too hard for me and don't seem like they would work out the right muscles. I want to do facepulls but I'm limited to resistance bands. Any advice would be welcome.
I sometimes work on skillwork only on days that I don't workout, but maybe I might have to look into yoga and posture more instead.
@domnino I was wondering the same thing. For him to be 220+ lbs in the first picture, where he doesn’t look super big, he’d have to be pretty tall. 6’2 to 6’4 is my guess
@n4rfzoinkhttp://www.foodhourglass.com/
They have an amazon link where you can buy a kindle edition.
I've read the original in Dutch, but this link should be the English version.
Do note the book is not really about weightloss, but instead about preventing diseases and aging symptoms.
@jillmci I can assure you I've had scoliosis* before that too :^)
I think in that year-difference picture I was just putting more weight on my right leg. IMO it's most noticeable in the 3rd timeline pic, you can see my right shoulder is higher than my left.
@jillmci Not really. As far as I know there's not really much you can do beside strengthening your back muscles. I've mentioned it to physical therapists and doctors before but they didn't really suggest anything.
@jillmci It's definitely noticeable in the other pictures. You can also see it in this x-ray of my spine. It's not extreme but bad enough to be a problem.
I don't think you're supposed to train differently on one side, if you train normally your muscles should support themselves automatically. But I may be wrong.
@niclas I am super happy for you and congratulate you on your progress.. But it's kind of depressing to think about how heavy I was when every "1 year body transformation" post starts at the point that I reached after a year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
