Day 27 of the 1000 day challenge

Day 27 workout is now complete. I did the III-IV circuit and then did about 20 foward ab wheels and 20 ab wheels on each side followed by a few more forward ones. I’m sweating buckets…

Day 26 of the 1000 day challenge.

I just got done with the III-IV Cardio Abs tape. I think this is the first time I’ve ever done the run lunge the proper way… Prior to now I wasn’t pushing my legs back far enough so it was more like just running with raising arms… that was tough on the legs so I had to the do modified bunny hops a little.

After the workout I grabbed the ab wheel and did about 20 rolls straight out and then 20 side ones changing sides every time.

Finally, upped the weight on the kettlebell to 15 lbs and did a few swings and exercises in the gold’s gym kettlebell workout.. Almost had to bend the pin on the thing since the hole for the middle part of the kettlebell adjustable weight thing isn’t lined up just right… it’s close, but just off a little. Finally had to use some plyers to get it to work.

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Unplanned for rest day…

Today I’m going to consider a rest day because the landlord re-caulked the pipe in the middle of the shower. It came out of the wall the other day… need to leave it time to dry so won’t be able to take a shower tonight so won’t workout because working out and not showering afterwards is just gross.

Also, took some rope in the trunk, a couple of Nature Made 100 pack bottles of fish oil pills that I emptied a while back, and some duct tape and made myself a home made jump rope tonight. I have a real jump rope somewhere but it’s boxed up in a corner somewhere I can’t get to at the moment, so for now this will work. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it looks like it will work. Left the blue part of the bottle cap on and ripped off the flip top, sticking some duct tape up around where the rip was so it won’t slice my hands since it was sharp edged. This looks like it really will work. The nice round shape of the bottle top should allow this to work nicely. I have a lot of extra rope wrapped up inside of the bottles and duct taped around itself so that they won’t come out of the bottle when I try to use it. Some duct tape is down at the bottom in the middle too to weight it a little and protect it from fraying. I never have been much of a jump rope person since I get shin splits, but after reading that jump rope is very high calorie burn like kettle bells, especially if you do doubles, it makes me think maybe I should look in to trying it out a bit. I really like these bottles since they are somewhat soft, but still sturdy so should be good on the hands for this type of thing… nice rounded edges everywhere except where I tore off the flip cap, and now with the duct tape, it’s soft too.

Day 24’s Workout…

Just finished Day 24’s workout… Did Level III-IV Cardio Abs and then tried to do a little bit of medicine ball workout with this little 54 minute video:

I only made it to 6:25 on the medicine ball workout since my back/abs are exhausted from the cardio abs tape. I really like this adding either kettle bell or medicine ball workout after the evening workouts like I’ve done the last couple of days, so might continue with it after I after I start doing the 2 a day workouts again, assuming I will have enough energy to do that… I think the kettle bell may actually be easier to handle than the medicine ball since it has a handle I can grip. Medicine ball tends to slip a little if it gets sweat on it since it’s made of plastic.

slept in..

slept in til 6 this morning since we were up pretty late last night. I’ll probably continue ahead with the sleeping in til the 30th day idea, despite the craziness from yesterday… give myself a break before heading in to the 2 a days for many, many, months after that…

94… sugar…

At 10:56 pm sugar level was 94… well somewhere between 90-94 since one test said 90, and the next said 94… so I’m having a banana, some deli meat and a couple of mini-tomatoes… I wouldn’t think sugar would be this low since I had such high carb snack after work, but with diabetes and exercise you never know what will happen… felt headache coming on so figured I’d better check. Glad I did now… also glad we didn’t go to bed earlier… might have to increase carb count or something to balance things out with these tough workouts.

Day 23 – workout…

Just completed my workout tonight on the 23rd day of the 1000 day journey…

I did the Level III-IV circuit…

then… I decided what the hell, lets try something different…

so after that I tried this gem of a 40 minute kettle bell workout I found on youtube…

Of course, I was only using the 7.5 lb weight on the kettle bell. If I ever get all the way through that tape, I’ll might eventually up it to 15 lbs, or go for the gold with 30 lbs someday… 40 minutes of that at 30 lbs would kill me after about 5 minutes at the level I am now, lol.

I got to 16:25 before I decided to call it quits. It wasn’t too bad til he started doing the get up off the floor maneuver… I could go a while longer since the caffeine from today is still rolling through my veins … had probably two 45 oz mixes of mt dew with about a shot glass of Tropicana Hawaiian Punch in there + two 30 oz diet mt. dews with a splash of cherry pepsi… I hate diet dew by itself since it’s kinda salty tasting… but… I got to not do this any more… it’s slowly killing me… got to go back to water… caffeine headache is killing me.

I think part of it is the weather… today was extremely gloomy and overcast all day long…

sleeping in and caffiene makes me irritable!

Slept in today since I was wanting to ‘go easy’ on myself before day 30 when I crank up the workouts to twice a day every day at least 5 days a week… but did something foolish the last few days and drank coffee, and diet soda… all that caffiene is just making me irritable… and cranky…. I need to make it a point to wipe caffiene out of my life. I was doing ok with that goal a while back but then let a little in, and it all snowballed in to addiction again… it’s a very vicious cycle… it’s a very dangerous cycle too, especially with exercise involved since it artificially accelerates heart rate way above where it should be, which is not good during workouts or during ‘rest’ periods…

Stuck some paper clips in the handle of the coffee cup I usually use at work again today and stuck it in the back of the locked file cabinet instead of in it’s usual location on top of the desk in hopes that that might help some…

I might have to ‘mummify’ the wallet again. I didn’t get around to that this week and having that card handy has been causing problems. Caffiene addiction is more than that though.. it’s tough to beat coffee addiction where I work because they have the coffee pot hooked directly up to a water tap, so no one even has to fill the pot up with water… and it’s one of those commercial pot systems that has 3 burners, so as soon as a pot is done, someone will move it to another burner and start up another pot, all day long… as if that’s not bad enough, there’s both sugar and sugar free sweeteners and hot cocoa packets there too, and it’s all less than 20 feet away from where I sit at my cubicle… so I have that smell all day even if I’m not drinking it…

but I’ve done this stopping caffiene thing before, so I know i can do it again…

Just a matter of exerting some willpower…

Also, I think some of the crankiness comes from not working out in morning. That early morning workout makes me feel more in control of life, and full of energy in a good way due to the endorphins, etc. it creates… as well as the weight loss it causes. (weighed in last night 2 lbs over last weigh in — mainly due to lasagna the last few nights as leftovers for dinners and due to Tekla making some yellow cake with chocolate icing a few days ago – very nice of her to do that, but that type of cake and pasta are my downfalls, so the weight comes on like a magnet when they are around…)

so… tomorrow I might reset clock to get up and workout in morning… but only time will tell if I actually work out or not.

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darn caffeine always put me in to an eat everything mood… so at the gas station after work I said to hell with it and had the 100 g carb gardettos and King size Kit Kat…

Why does this shit put me in to this overeating mode? Got to stop… got to control it… Damnit… headache from hell makes me want to make the pain go away… and food makes it go away, but only so temporarily… damn it… damn it… damn it… all this creates self hatred and feeling bad about it… which just causes even more vicious cycle from hell… and the cycle continues…

Might work out tonight, but might not.. need to… but…
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that’s the problem… butt… and gut… damn it…guilt, shame, self loathing, but why?… that just causes more of the same… got to smile… got the say no more, I can control this and stop… I can turn it around right here… right now…

…
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Day 22 of the 1000 day challenge…

Day 22 of the 1000 day challenge is now complete, and the Sweat tape was done today. I did a few more of the abs than I usually do since I didn’t workout this morning. Feeling great. Now off to take a shower.

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ok, before the shower I ended up doing a medicine ball workout… that was very tough on lower back. Next time.. will use the mat… full sit ups with medicine ball going from laying down position with ball on floor, arms extended to full sit up position holding ball hovering about a foot above your lap is extremely tough… that was just the start of the workout… did most of the exercises listed on the tutorial sheet that came with the ball. All I can say is I’m very glad I have a nice water heater because that shower really helped on the back a lot… just sort of stood there with feet near the drain, arms extended towards opposite wall and let the hot water hit lower back for pretty long time.. still a little stiff and sore but that helped enormously. No pain, no gain.
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now ready to hit the sack, and the rain and thunder are just starting… going to be shorter night than I want to be with the pain and rain I think.

day 22 – half rest

The bungees last night gave me a pretty hard workout, and then after last night’s workout I went ahead and did several medicine ball exercises. I love that thing. It’s so much like a little toy, but it’s heavy enough you get a workout with it.

We were up pretty late last night, and my back is a little sore today

so.. today is a half rest day and I slept in. I will do a workout tonight though. I think I need this morning as a rest to allow muscles time to repair/heal…

also, I think I might do half rest days the next few days til day 30 since after that I’m going to definite two a days as much as possible on the workouts… don’t want to burn out, so figure I’d better allow myself this little reprieve for the next few days so I don’t regret not giving myself this little rest before starting it up hard on day 30 with two a days every day… I am human.

21st evening of the 1000 day challenge

Well, it’s the 21st evening of the 1000 day challenge. I just completed a pretty hard power 90 routine using the bungee cords as bands. They are very nice for working out because you can control the tension much more than with weights… if it’s not enough weight, pull tighter.. if too much, ease up. It doesn’t make it any easier… if anything, it makes it harder on some of the exercises…

Nice workout.

It’s a little over a week til day 30 since I started this 1000 day thing (quite a while after that if you count when I originally started the Power 90 before I had the week or two off to heal up from the knife injury… started the 1000 day counter after I could workout again because I am after long term goals, not short term goals, and some little incident like that shouldn’t get in the way of goals, but if I was just strictly going for 90 days of power 90 it would have messed with the goal a lot since 3 months is really not a heck of a long term thing, especially if you have to be down and out at least a week due to injury).

I plan to take it up a notch or two after day thirty and really get in to being strict with doing two workouts a day, at least 5 days a week. Since there’s so many various videos online and that we have in our dvd/vhs collection, I might still occasionally link to the video I’m doing that day, but other times, maybe just do a short quick one liner here and there. I’m probably going to switch it up a little here and there… I do plan on doing 2 workouts a day, but one day it may be something super hardcore, and others maybe something light and easy. I am still listing stuff in the diet and exercise workout video online link as I come across it (just added a few more links in there today)… It’s amazing how many various videos there are out here in this wild internet.

If you haven’t been following this blog long…

Here’s where you can find out what this 1000 day thing is all about… and you can follow it here. Basically, it’s a series of 30 day challenges which snowball in to one another… I’ll continue with the first 30 day challenge – working out once a day at least 6 days a week in to the second month when I make the next big 30 day challenge to work out a second time during the day in addition to the first time I’ll already be doing it.. and just slowly add in more and more good habits, adding one new ‘big goal’ habit per month… 33 months is approximately 990 days give or take since there’s roughly 30 days in a month most months… so I just rounded it up to 1000 days for easy counting reasons. Also, I did that so that I have reachable goals that are long term, but not super long term… basically it’s three and a third years… that should be enough time to reach a secret goal that’s sort of hidden in the first two month’s challenges and why they are the first two month’s challenges, and that is to get to my recommended bmi weight by the end of the 1000 days. It’s really sort of a long term plan to get healthy, and improve my life in various ways that I should be doing anyways, but have not the last few years for various reasons… laziness, addiction to snack foods, addictions to soda, addictions to tv, addictions to video games, etc. It’s all about flipping everything around to get myself in to habits/addictions for healthy things instead of the opposite of healthy things. It is about setting reachable and obtainable long term and short term goals and actually achieving them one by one to drastically change my life for the better – something I should have done a long time ago, but couldn’t for various reasons up til recently.

Day 21 – crazy hard morning workout

This mornings workout was Fat Slaughter Real Time Sweat from Bodyrock.

I got up to the last round of star pushups at 14:15 or so out of this 17 minute workout before I had to quit because I was beyond exhaustion and could not continue. It’s only 17 minutes, but it’s 17 minutes from the pits of hell! It is a good workout though. If you can complete it – kudos to you! I might try it again another day at some point in the future.

Day 20 of the 1000 day challenge

Just completed Cardio III-IV tape. Used the camping mat. That enormously helped with the ab ripper… much, much less pain/strain on the back with that… Put a tee shirt down under the back so I didn’t get suction cup action going on with the back like happened last time I used the mat for this… that helped a lot. I use a tee shirt as my sweat towel instead of regular towel since it dries a lot quicker and does not trap the sweat for a super long time causing mold/mildew. I just used that tee.

Probably won’t workout tonight since I’m sort of only doing one workout a day on Sundays since it’s really a weekend. Not sure if I’ll change the rule or not after the first 30 days or not… but might not since I am human and a weekend is a weekend… (goal for first month is to workout at least once a day, 6 days a week – met that goal pretty much so far except for the day after I had that incident with the dips where the bar slipped on me. Goal for second month is to do two workouts a day – was going to make it 6 days a week too, but might just do 5 days a week on that to be easy on myself on weekends… )

also did a little bit of shopping with the few bucks left on the gift card and a little extra out of our own account and got some bungee cords to use as elastic stretch bands. I think bungees work better for that than rubber/latex bands because plastic/rubber bands will break eventually (partly what happened to the bands that I got with the original p90 set). A good, strong bungee should not break as easily… I strung a few bungees together to make a couple of longer cords… Tied them together so it should work nicely when I get around to using them. Also didn’t cost nearly as much as the latex/rubber bands… 9 or so bucks for a full set of 23 or so bands (well handful of them wouldn’t be strong or long enough to work, but most of them are) vs about same price for one latex band that can/will break after a month or two of use…

Day 19 – Rest.

Today is a rest day, but I did do a few Kettle bell swings. I decided to lighten the load to one of the 7.5 lb weights for now since I’ll probably do more reps and focus on weight loss/learning correct form vs muscle gain for now. Also, spent a few hours this morning watching youtube videos and linking to some of them in the little Diet and Exercise Video section of this blog. I am starting to get a quite a few little links in there. Will add more over time. If I get a ton of them eventually I’ll probably try to organize it a little more so it’s a little easier to understand what’s what etc.

Tekla’s going to be starting an Eat to Live diet in a few days. The book just came in the mail yesterday… Seems like an interesting diet plan… have not had time to read all of it myself yet, but based on what she and I have talked about in the first few pages and various pages she’s jumped around to in it it seems a little like a vegan version of an Atkins diet sort of, with focus on veggies instead of meat. I’m not sure I can do that myself much since I need protein I think, and lean meat has the best form of that.

18th Evening… Went shopping! ;)

Today was staff appreciation day at work so I got a nice bbq lunch for free! Also, the boss decided to hand out ‘incentive cards’ today… We don’t work on a commission, but do work on a system that is somewhat similar to that sort of, where we have monthly audits done, and if you do so well in an audit you are eligible for an incentive card. There’s been a few months before now that I was not getting cards since our section was not eligible for them because of a joint team agreement to not have audits done for a few months due to a massive change in job duties (we wen’t from a single payer per patient account rep system to an alpha split based on patient’s last name so we all had to learn one another’s payers websites, phone numbers, contact info, special billing procedures, etc. inside and out and have been doing that the last couple of months)… The max incentive is $100.00, and we get a percentage of that based on audit scores. This round – I got the full one hundred bucks… so I decided to go and spend it…

Went to Wal-Mart with the intention of buying a doorway pull up thing that I saw a few months back… but ended up getting a 7 in 1 system that included that from Gold’s Gym. This thing has the door way pull up system, a ab roller (which basically is a lawn mower tire with an axle on it), and something very similar to the ‘perfect pushup’ infomercial item that is always blasted on late night tv these days… UNFORTUNATELY I won’t be able to use the pull up bar for a while until I get below 250 lbs since the Walmart employee at Wal-mart that I asked about the weight max on it (since it didn’t have it on the box, just on stuff inside of the box in manual, etc.) lied and said that the max weight was 300 or more lbs… I should take it back based on that premise alone, but won’t… It’s just an incentive to get down to that weight. I’ve come so far… hopefully a few more months and I’ll be there. I can still use the other parts in this kit for now… Also got a neat little tool in this gizmo… comes with a gizmo that has screwdriver and little hex wrench and hex screwdriver thingy too.
(there was another combo set from Gold’s Gym there that didn’t have the ‘perfect pushup’ gizmo but had something similar to the ‘shake weight’… after watching the South Park Episode on Shake Weight a few weeks back, and also after feeling how much strain is on my wrists doing the close pushups in the Power 90, I figured I definitely wanted the pushup gizmo instead of the shake weight deally bopper, lol)

Then decided to look around at Walmart for a few other things while I was in the exercise equipment aisle…

Found a nice little 8 lb medicine ball… Its a lot softer than most medicine balls I’ve seen… it’s like a plastic ball with sand inside of it… the plastic is soft. I hope it holds up. Seems like it’s very much more ergonomic than most medicine balls I’ve seen before that are made from hard plastic that is more like a basketball… this thing is more like a volleyball/kickball type of material… and it’s nice design… looks like a bowling ball from a distance.

Then… found a nice little dumbbell set that comes with a adjustable kettle bell handle so went ahead and picked it up too. I figure I better learn how to do the swings on this lighter adjustable system instead of trying to use that heavy ol ghettobell/concrete block and rope monster I put together a few days ago. There are four 7.5 lb weights there so there’s a max of 30 lbs if I use them all (unless I mix and match with some of my other weights that I already own). I’ll probably start with just two of them – or 15 lbs since that’s a fairly light weight amount, but enough that it’ll be a challenge at the start of learning this thing… I’ve read and heard on various kettle bell instruction videos in various places online that if you are going to get in to it, you need to use a weight that’s not too heavy but not too light because too light of a weight (which I suspect 7.5 lbs would be for me) will teach you bad form… which is bad news for when you go up in weight…

Well, about 75 bucks out of the hundred is now gone… but this is some stuff I’ll be using for years from now, and the benefits of having it will be enormous. I will still keep the ghetto bell in the car for now, but won’t probably approach it for a while til I’m ready because I think the last couple of times I tried it my back/neck was really strained afterwards much more than they should have been. Need to build up to that…

The other 25 bucks will probably go doing something fun with Tekla tomorrow… (on rest/s day). We are thinking about going to see a movie, but the only one that looks like it’d be worth spending money on that’s playing is Judge Dredd, which I’m not really sure if either of us wants to see or not… if we don’t do that we’ll do something else.. maybe go out and eat or something.

18th morning of the 1000 day challenge…

I decided to go light on the exercise a little this morning since my upper back/neck was still hurting a little from the Ghetto Bell and Circuit last night, so went with this little cardio workout from exercise tv… It’s a little dance-ish in places, but is more of a walking tape than anything.

17the Evening…

It’s the 17th evening of the 1000 day challenge. I just completed the level III IV circuit. It was harder than normal since I did a few of the ‘ghetto bell’ swings and flys before this workout after work, as mentioned 2 posts ago… Neck and back is a little sore so I probably won’t do the ghetto bell stuff for a while til I build up to it. I did have to use the 5 lb weights on the shoulder flys during the Circuit tape, but stuck with 8.5 lbs (plus whatever the weight is of the concrete filled bars they are on) through most of the rest of the workout. I did use the mat and do some ‘girl pushups’ on the 777 push ups and max push ups. I probably will continue to use the mat for those since I really don’t like the strain on the wrists that the close handed pushups give you, and also I can do more reps with the max pushup part this way without giving out completely. What don’t kill ya will heal ya.

various ghetto bells online…

My own personal ghetto bell:

In the post before this one where I first showed the above image I mentioned that I’d seen various ghetto bells online in various locations… so without further ado, here’s a little gallery of ghetto bells I’ve seen online (may add more as I come across them in the future)

 

 

 

 

Ghetto Bell

Inspired by various other ‘ghetto bells’ I’ve seen in various places online, and various blogs and websites that talk about how great of an exercise the kettle bell is, the other day I decided to create my own ghetto bell. A ghetto bell is a home made kettle bell substitute…

Here is this lovely beauty:

I will probably use it after work since I keep it in the trunk of my car. It sits next to my ‘Samurai crowbars,’

which I plan to use to do workouts that are similar to the Phayze’s Shovel Glove Moves:

I tried the ghetto bell out today and did about 10 kettle bell swings from between the legs to over head and it is very nice movement and weight, and then did a few shoulder flies with it and it works very nicely. Back was not used to that load, but as I practice it more I will get more and more used to it I think. It’s tough staying with your shoulders far enough back to not hurt your back like you are supposed to do with these sort of heavy swings, but it’s far from impossible. Trick is keeping tailbone and lower back tucked in somewhat, and shoulders back.

Day 17

The morning workout for Day 17 of the 1000 Day Challenge is now completed. I started out doing Live Exercise’s Kick Boxing routine, only using 5 lb weight instead of bands… then the roku stalled on me, so I had to abandon that and move on. I see that there’s a bodylastics channel on youtube, so I might try to get some videos from it on the plex channel in roku instead of going through the regular live exercise channel on roku since it seems to stall a lot. I might try to get some bands someday, but for now, the weights should be ok I think.
http://www.youtube.com/user/bodylastics?feature=watch

Moved on to 12 Minute Madness workout from Bodyrock. That is a tough workout. I had to pause it about one minute before the end to catch my breathe because I was breathing so hard. It’s only 12 minutes, but it will hit you hard if you try to do it all the way through.

16th evening of the 1000 day challenge…

Tonight’s evening workout has been completed! 🙂 I just got through the the Level III-IV Power 90 Cardio/Abs video. The abs were definitely tough but I got through all 20 of every exercise somehow! I used a camping mat that I bought a few years back as a yoga mat and I think that helped a little but it’s sort of made out of foam, so my back was constantly sticking to it with suction cup tightness… might need to get a real yoga mat someday. I think I will use this mat a lot more in the future since I think part of my past leg and knee problems earlier in this 1000 day challenge was due to knees on our floor.. we have carpet on the floor but it’s a concrete floor in a basement so it can’t be that great on the knees and back.

Day 16 of the 1000 day challenge – Moira kicked my A$$

Decided to try something a little challenging this morning and did the Week 4 Interval training from the Efit 6 week boot camp cardio. Oh my God. Moira really hit me hard with this workout… Just when you think it’s about over, time for another round or two!… Burpees are not as tough as the suicides on the Fit for Duty podcast since there’s not a pushup in the middle, but there’s more endurance needed for this thing because there’s so many rounds of that and the other workouts in it, and very little time to rest in between, which is why it’s called interval training… I did have to pause it in the middle during the water break to actually have time to drink some water, lol. Sweated hard and had heart rate going very intensely in this little tough freebie online workout. Have fun.

Day 16 weigh in.

Day 16 weigh in for this 1000 day journey:
276.5 Lbs.

That’s a weight loss of 16.1 lbs since 9/3/2012 when I started the 1000 days, and a loss of 20.00 lbs exactly since 6/24/2012 when I originally started the Power 90 workouts before being interrupted by the knife wound. It feels good to finally officially be able to say I’ve lost 20 lbs in less than 3 months! 🙂

Now, if I can just keep it up and stay focused til I get to the BMI goal weight, which is anywhere from 140-177 lbs roughly…. That means the goal is somewhere between 99.5 – 136.5 lbs more to lose. It feels fantastic to be able to say that the goal is less than 100 lbs away. I have not been able to say that for quite some time. I know I probably can’t keep up the speed of loss that I have been able to do so far since I probably will hit plateaus along the way, but if I can, I should hopefully be able to achieve the bmi goal far quicker than I originally intended. However, I’m not going to put too many hopes on that yet since I don’t want to push myself too darn hard. Just work it slowly off, working a little every day towards the goals.

Once I do get down to that bmi weight the main goal for this 1000 day thing will be met, but then will come the tough part of maintaining that weight. That’s one of the reasons I made this challenge at least 1000 days in length – to give myself enough time to stay healthy for a relatively lengthy period of time. I do plan to keep it up the rest of my life actually, but 1000 days is just sort of a way to mentally keep track of an obtainable end goal for now. Little 30 day challenges, crash diets, and stuff like the Power 90 by itself are short term goals, not ‘healthy living for the long haul.’ I’m in this for the long haul! 🙂 (that’s something I could not say a few years ago since I was always looking too much at short term goals, getting disappointed when the short term goals were not getting met, and then just gave up… no more giving up… )

Day 15 evening — not so hot…

This afternoon I’m not working out. I started the Power 90 tape a few minutes ago and then had to stop it after a few stretches since Tekla needed some help in the kitchen. She’s home tonight. She’s decided to only work on the weekends for now til her school is over in a year. Up til now she was working weekends and on the days she was not going to class during the week too… big changes…

anyways, the reason I’m not working out is not that… it’s that I let myself have coffee today and overdid it with two 16 oz cups of coffee with sugar free hot chocolate mixed in there… The truth of the matter is I had coffee and/or diet sodas the last few days… which is bad. Over the weekend one night we stayed up til 12:30 and that really started it all off since the next morning I was tired and that caused me to crave caffeine a little… and then once that bad addiction started up it just snowballed… Coffee in the amounts I had today makes me have a massive headache that runs from temple to temple and also have a lot of sore muscles if I do workout since it tenses me up and winds me up very tightly… the muscles are tight… the heart rate is up… the ears feel weird which causes imbalance issues since the hairs on the inside of the ears tend to stand up due to all of the crazy caffeine side effects… I need to back off of the stuff… I like the roller coaster that it causes but really hate the coming down side to it… I also hate that it just makes me so damn irritable and anxious for way longer than it should…. but it’s hard to get off of it in the middle of the week like this since tomorrow I can almost guarantee I’ll be tired as heck in the morning like I was today…

Oh well, at least I got this morning’s workout in, and am still in the first 30 days of the 1000 day goal and the ‘real’ goal for this month is to do at least one workout a day, so I’m getting somewhere, and making big accomplishments even if it doesn’t feel like it… 😉 🙂

Day 15 of the 1000 day challenge – Kick Boxing…

Courtesy of Youtube and Bodyrock, here’s the stretching I did this morning before my workout:

Courtesy of Youtube and Adrienne White, here’s the thirty minute workout I did itself right after the stretching:

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it’s really amazing how many free workout tapes there are online if you just know where to look! 😉 🙂

No walking/Shovel Glove for a long while…

Today, they found this little guy behind our building at work:

Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be walking out in the peremeter of the parking lot and in the trail out in back of the building where the exercise equipment is that I was on the other day for a while. The woods out there is thick. I have heard rustling in the leaves when back there but assumed it was just squirrels up until now. I guess I’ll focus on the video workouts more for a while. After the knife injury a while back, and the dip injury yesterday, I don’t need to add poisonous snake bite to the list…

List of artists… http://listofartists.wordpress.com/

I almost forgot that the List of artists blog is connected to this blog until I saw someone subscribed to it today in a notification… I have not touched that blog in a while. I might start making adding to that a new ‘goal’ in this 1000 day journey also…
http://listofartists.wordpress.com/ (linked in over in the side bar over there –> )

DAY 14 – FORCED REST

It’s Day 14 of the 1000 day challenge… I’m taking it easy today and not working out because my back is hurting badly. I think I must have done a little more damage with that dip accident yesterday than I thought I did. However, I’m really hoping it’s just muscle strain and that a day of rest will make it all better. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I really hate accidents.

If the pain does not go away, I might eventually have to see a chiropractor? http://en.allexperts.com/q/Neck-Injury-2727/2009/9/Upper-pain-dips.htm… either that or have my wife work on me some more with her massage techniques. She helped my hip/legs a bit last night after the accident. Might have to have her work on my neck/upper back. Neck is feeling similar to the guy’s injuries mentioned in the above link.

Day 13 of the 1000 day challenge..

It’s Day 13 and I just completed the Circuit III-IV tape. I sweated a lot more than normally because I’ve been drinking coffee this morning as my parents gave me some sugar free hazelnut flavoring to put in to coffee last night… Tekla does not drink coffee much so I don’t make pots of coffee any more, and use the little individual packets that come in tea bag type of things. The bleach flavoring or whatever they use in those filters on that stuff is extremely bitter but with a tad of flavoring like this hazelnut stuff it’s tolerable. I basically microwave a cup of coffee with the packet in it, drink it, then refill the water and zap it again without changing the bag. One bag can make about 4 or 5 cups of coffee, that are progressively weaker every cup, but still tolerable. I don’t do that sort of thing much except on weekends, and when I get special little ‘treat’s’ like this flavoring…

I did the Laundry this morning… That’s somewhat of a cardio workout I guess… if you include taking several loads over to the machines across the hall, and then load/unload/fold, etc. Add in a few chores like vacuuming, etc. and it’s sort of cardio. I think I’ll probably make Sundays the dedicated laundry and cleaning day and that way I can count that as one workout sort of and just do one of the workout videos so that I don’t have to take two showers on the weekends. Saturdays will be more sort of default rest/S day.

The bar that I put on top of the stool to do the dips slipped on me while in the middle of the dips today, and I fell down to the floor, giving me a little bit of a back ache in addition to normal aches from lifting the 8.5 lb weights and doing the pushups… so I won’t be using that any more… it’s too dangerous. I was lucky to be on the lower part of the dip when it happened instead of at the top part… or else I might be in the ER right now.

an interesting idea…

Someone should create a laundry washing machine that includes the dryer in the same machine. In theory, it should be possible to do… and do so cost effectively and efficiently…

Odilon Redon’s “habitual state of melancholy”

I was reading a contemporary art book just a few minutes ago… In it was mentioned that Odilon Redon considered himself to be in a “habitual state of melancholy” and the book attributed that to being one of the reasons he was not suited to be in the Academy. That is a very interesting phrase… It is something that my ‘old life’ involved all too often I think… it actually describes me in a lot of ways from the past… not really ‘depressed’ all the time, but in a negative state that bordered on it and may have led to depression at times… Negativity breeds negativity. However, on the other hand, catharsis is a good thing, so not necessarily all things negative should be avoided. Without shadows light cannot be used to see anything…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon

Painted a little…

I went in to the ‘art room’ and painted a little today for an hour or two. I will probably do more of this in ‘spare time’ from time to time. It’s going to take a little while to get my skills back up to speed, but I can do it. I also have decided that eventually I probably will add learning to play my midi keyboard as a goal/challenge for myself. I’ve had the thing for years, but never have done much with it. The first few months I had it I got to the point I could play jingle bells, and then quit. I pound a few keys on it here and then, but haven’t done much. I have ways to record it to the computer that I didn’t have a few years back due to low computer specs/speed even though I had the software and connectors to make it happen. I originally got this thing thinking I’d go in to making my own music for animations I put together, but I let that goal of making animations die slowly and let the goal of making the music sort of fade away over time. Now that I’m challenging myself to live better, I want to make these goals a little more of a reality in my life. I may never become Mozart or whatever, but I would like to learn the basics a little more than I can do them now. Even if I never do an animation, the background music for still images in videos and/or slideshows could have some potential. Closest thing to doing some artsy video like that way back several years ago was this little thing I threw together… not very good, but it’s catchy tune, at least to me, lol…

and these little annoying things…

In the future, I might try to do more of this type of stuff… I wanted to back then but didn’t have the time, nor really the computer power that would allow me to do much since putting this sort of stuff together would max out cpu/gpu back then and/or ultimately cause computers to crash if the machines got too hot. Nowadays, this sort of stuff is nothing on the cpu usage… so more can be accomplished. Now just got to get myself to work towards the ‘work’ part of making those accomplishments become accomplished realities.

Art Challenges Links

I might possibly try some various Art Challenges eventually in the 1000 day challenge. I’m not sure about which ones, but I’m posting some challenges that I know about here for future reference. Even if I don’t take up the challenge, I feel these links might be helpful to any fellow artists reading this…

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=577284 – Weekend Drawing Events on WetCanvas Forums

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=197 – Mini Challenges on CG Talk Forums

http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?22-Speed-Modeling-Contests – Blender Speed Model Challenges

http://forums.newtek.com/group.php?groupid=7 Newtek Speed Model Challenges

http://shootandpaint.blogspot.com/ – Shoot and Paint Blog Challenge

http://www.3dm3.com/forum/f82/3dm3 Challenges

http://www.united3dartists.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=20United 3d Artists forum challenges

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewforum.php?f=291 – Sketch U Cation Forum Challenge

I think Spindquad.com has challenges too, but won’t put up link now since google is telling me there is malware on that site at the moment…

http://www.good.is/post/the-good-30-day-challenge-art-every-day/ – interesting ideas how to add art to your daily life…

NanoWrimo – National Writing Month is in November. This challenge is to write an entire Novel in November of any given year.

http://www.julieduffy.com/creative-challenge/ – list of various art challenges online

Day 12 – Rest Day

Day 12 – Rest Day/S Day

11th Evening – Feeling Strong!

11th Evening of the 1000 day challenge. I wanted to up the ante a bit so Did the Cardio III-IV tape with the 8.8 lb weights. I made it through but my arms, neck, shoulder and legs are burning a little now from that strain… Moving from I-II to III-IV is never easy since they up the speed and lower the break time a lot. I was barely able to work in 15 reps on most of the exercises before they went on to the next one since I was still wanting to do the I-II speeds… I did make it through though.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I think I’m going to need it. It’ll also be a bit of an S day since my niece’s one year birthday celebration is tomorrow!

11th Morning of the 1000 Day Challenge

Day 11’s Morning workout is now complete. I did about half an hour on Wii Fit Plus. I didn’t get but about a handful or the activities done though since I forgot to use the plus and minus signs to find the flags in the radar on the bicycle course, so did about 3 more rounds around the track than I really needed to do, lol.

Day 10 Evening…

Evening 10 of the 1000 day challenge – just completed Cardio abs I-II tape just now. It was hard to get moving at first since this dreary rainy day is having an impact on my mood a bit, but once I got in to it it was not that bad and by the time the tape was done I was feeling great. I do feel this doing the workouts after work is difficult sometimes but if I push through it, it’s usually not that bad, and actually massively helps my mood, self esteem, and outlook on the world in a positive way.

After work, I wrapped a big ‘clothesline’ rope I had in the trunk around the concrete block to make myself a little ‘ghetto bell’ — sort of the poor mans/redneck version of a kettle bell. I have no idea if I’ll use that thing too often, but might. I want to really nail down the two a day workouts and get through them with little/no pain before doing too much of that heavy lifting type of stuff or else I think I’ll overdo it and possibly burn out, which is definitely not something I’m wanting to do… I downloaded mp4 versions of all of the shovel glove moves the other day and finally put them in to plex last night so that I can watch them on the tv from time to time to practice. I probably won’t tonight, but might in a few days. I think doing some of that heavy swinging the pry bars and concrete block around will be something that will be good eventually, but I really don’t want to kill myself or overdo it or injure something by doing that stuff too often or too early… I have had a little taste of it, but need to build up some strength with the daily video workouts til I’m ready to move up to that as a regular part of my routine. Most of the shovel glovers, I think, use that as their primary exercise daily based on what I’ve read about it… I will probably be using it as a sort of secondary strength/power building part of my routine… a way to push myself a little harder… but right now since it’s hard enough to just push through pushing play every day I need to back off a little and not overdo it. I do feel strength gains after the other day swinging the brick around, but there’s no way I’m ready to do it everyday yet… I might eventually make it a once a week or every other day thing or something but it’ll take some time to build up to that. The rope handle probably is going to add a lot of weight to the brick since the cloth material likely will hold a lot of moisture since it’ll be in the trunk every day… I think it was most of a either a 50 or 100 foot of rope that was used. I just wrapped it around the brick creating a sort of handle up top, and then used some duct tape to sort of make the handle hold together. I think the handle may be too wide, but maybe not. I’ll have to adjust it if/when I get around to trying it again… The rope on the brick trick may leave it swaying too much and be dangerous, but I wrapped enough rope around the sides of the handle on both sides that I think it’ll help hold it in place enough that should not be too much of a problem. If it is, I’ll use more duct tape or find some more rope… I think I have some bungees I might have to use on it eventually… Back in college I remember hauling my huge portfolio around all over campus, and it was just a folio with small handles that I used a similar type of rope and tape contraption on (actually that wasn’t rope,… it was a book bag strap that I tied a rope on to), and it held up sturdy with huge amounts of oversized artists paper in it and most of my drawings from several years of school – and I walked all over campus with that, so I think this little contraption should work… I think biggest concern is that the brick may cut in to the rope over time, but hopefully it’s tied on tight enough that won’t be too big of an issue, and even if it is is, a little more duct tape can save the world, lol.

Day 10 of the 1000 day challenge.

This morning, I did a Fit for Duty kickboxing routine. It’s was a pretty light workout, but it’s a nice way to get the heart rate up and sort of ‘wake up’ to the day…

Last night I didn’t do so hot on the dieting thing… After that hard workout, I had a salad with a full orange, some mini tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and some leftover meat… then Tekla got home and wanted to go out, so at Denny’s I had a half order of the cranberry chicken salad. I avoided the bread there (had a small corner of it, but that was it…) After we got home, and ready for bed, I was still a bit sore from the workout and was feeling odd so checked sugar at it was 100 at 9:30 pm, just like it was at 3:30 pm… so I then had a couple of cinnamon graham crackers with hazelnut jif as a snack. That jif stuff is fairly low carb but it’s high calorie… Hopefully today will be a better dieting day. It’s hard to remember that salads, meat, and cheese type of stuff isn’t all that I should eat since they are all fairly low carb, so have little impact on blood sugar level… so if I eat meals based on those, I need some form of carbs to balance it out since I need 45-55 carbs or so per meal.

I think my screw up yesterday was that I took an orange along with a ham and cheese sandwich and some mushrooms and a few mini-tomatoes to lunch, but didn’t eat the orange, so carb level was too low after lunch and it impacted me the rest of the day.

Day 9 Evening workout…

Tonight being the 9th evening of the 1000 day challenge, I pushed harder than I have up til now…

This morning – took concrete block out and put it in the trunk of the car…

At work, walked quite a ways to the car since I parked at the top of the hill on the back lot again today. On the way down the hill, used lunch box to do curls and shoulder flys… I’m actually making that a bit of a habbit these days… doing them on the walk down the hill in to the building and then down the long hall to my end of the building. I also do shoulder flys when I have lunch box going up and down the stairs at lunch to the cafeteria… about 5 shoulder flys on each of the 2 sections of the steps, switching arms in the middle. I then do about 5 or so curls on each arm doing that as I walk from bottom step to my cubicle in the cube cell hell down there (imagine the movie Office Space – I’m already in the basement, lol.. not quite as bad as the movie, but some times it feels like it..)…

After work, walked up to cafeteria and out the side doors next to the cafeteria that opens out to patio… (sometimes this is locked, but not when whether is ok)… from there, walked down the path that the boy scouts built there a couple of years ago. Something that many don’t realize that never explore back there… there’s gym equipment back there.. two inclined benches with bars to put your legs to do incline sit ups, and a shoulder fly machine that uses your own weight as the weight you are lifting… so I did about 10 situps, a few lifts with lunch box next to the bench and then did about 30 or so shoulder flys on the machine… then around the corner and up that massive hill… all the way around building all the way around perimeter of the parking lot did a walk. Finally near the end I got to the hill and climbed it, doing a few more curls, and shoulder flys..

Got to the car and decided that since I had this brick I may as well use it. Put on my webbed work gloves and away I went…

Walked the brick and two pry bars over to the little grove of trees close to where I park. I like this area since it’s about 10 feet wide and surrounded by trees on all sides except on two that face where I park and where the road is… it’s sort of a spiritual little place of sorts.. Not so much in to eastern philosophy yet, but have played lots of rpgs back in the day like Ninjas and Superspies and Heroes Unlimited from Palladium… my wife might teach me some about chi and stuff like that since she’s learning massage therapy, etc. Anyways.. this little grove seems to be high in positive yang chi energy, or whatever if you want to think about it that way… if not, it’s just a nice little place for me to workout… good fung shui or whatever… I love the 5 o clock shadows when I am up there since I’m facing away from the sun and my shadow is following me through this workout… feel like I’m watching some sort of martial arts movie or something…

so… anyways, did several moves with this huge prybar… a few curls… a few overhead holds with both hands, one hand and then the other, a few swings now and then like a sword jab, a few swings around to increase the weight with centerfugal force…a few other moves… then arms were burning since that big pry bar is so heavy so switched to the small bar and did a few of the same moves with it… probably did about 15 reps on each little move… then… when I was really feeling arms starting to get sore… went ahead and went for the killer… grabbed the concrete block tried to do a few moves similar to what I’ve read are typical moves that some folks are doing with kettel bells… swing from between legs with both hand up to overhead. I have no idea how much that brick weighs but it’s not light… Did a handful of those… and then a few curls with the brick…

finally sat down on the brick and just relaxed a little while before hauling it all back to the trunk..

went home… and then did the Power 90 I-II circuit with the 8.8 lb dumbbells (two 4.4 lb weights on each bar).. Did all the moves with as many reps as I could… 15 on most of them, 12 on a few of the push ups where Tony moves on to the next thing before I can move on… Since I took the padding off of the bar that normally went to do leg lefts on bottom of the bench press at mom and dad’s house, I figured why not use it, so used it to balance myself on the stool I use to do the dips… that helped a lot since that stool is not really as wide as my hips so it’s hard for me to grasp otherwise… I might have to eventually tape that bar there so that there’s no chance it’ll slip and hurt me when I doing dips… but for now, will probably leave it loose so I can use it to practice some of the shovel glove moves so that I can get them down for the next time I get out the ol pry bar after work. Don’t want to put the real pry bar in the house since it’ll break something if I start swinging it around in here… the smaller bar from the leg lifts off of the weight bench should do ok for just helping me learn those moves… I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow… but I’m feeling great!

day 9 weigh in..

and the grand total for today… 276.9 lbs. Getting closer to 275. It’ll be nice to get below 270… If the calculations are correct, since 6.24.2012 that’s a loss of 19.6 lbs! 🙂

Day 9 – switching it up

It’s Day 9 of the 1000 day challenge, and today I decided to do something a little different…

so.. Tonight I’ll do the Power 90 tape that I’ve normally been doing in the mornings up til now since I really ‘want’ to do that every day if possible, and my body is starting to get used to that workout so it’s nothing unexpected and too hard on me like the fit for duty was the other day. I think doing it at night will make me not give up the evening routine as much as I have been.

That leaves the mornings open to try something new… so I just completed a Martial Fusion Cardio Blast workout this morning on the All Fitness TV channel in the Roku. That was a nice slow paced cardio workout that was awesome. My back is a feeling a little pain since I’m not 100% used to the ‘horse stance’ yet, but it was light cardio and a nice sweat, so I think I might do more things like this in future mornings from time to time. Switching it up works more muscles and makes me work harder since it’s not the same movement every time, keeps me from getting ‘used to’ the same ol routine and also makes it a little fun to try something new now and then.

sore and tired…

I’ve been very sore and tired this afternoon. I think the lactic acid from the overdoing it yesterday afternoon is catching up to me again. Going to not do a workout tonight to let my body repair itself a little before starting it up again tomorrow… eating supper right now right after work… I was feeling famished this afternoon… not sure if it’s really a physical need for food, or a mental thing that is compensating for the lactic acid. Either way… sore, tired, hungry… going to go finish eating now…

Day 8 Morning…

Well, it’s September 11, and my 8th day of the 1000 day challenge. The morning Workout was just completed.

Almost forgot to eat some ham during breakfast, so added that as a note to my daily excel tracker. It’s important to have protein after workouts according to many forums and blogs I’ve read since your body supposedly ‘absorbs’ the protein best within one hour after working out… so I probably will start snacking on a little ham, turkey or something similar after both the morning and evening workout. I don’t plan to do a lot of other snacking, but am considering this an important snack so won’t count it as an S on the No S diet that I’m starting to follow, but not as strictly as I probably should yet… I may even convert it in to supper after the evening workout if I feel the need to eat more since my wife doesn’t always get home til fairly late in the evening, and as mentioned in a previous post, I’m diabetic, so I don’t know if I can keep up waiting for her all the time for supper because I need my energy for the workouts and also to keep up sugar levels since my lunch is actually fairly early most days at work. We are trying to eat healthier… lots of salads, veggies, a few fruits, and stuff like mushrooms, spinach, etc. Lots of salads will probably be our near future.

My typical breakfast these days is a bowl of honey cheerios in milk with ginger sprinkled on it and a couple of teaspoons of milled flaxseed, and sometimes a little sprinkle of tumeric (the ginger and tumeric are supposed to help with inflammation, so in theory help keep pain levels down a little). My typical lunch is a ham, turkey, or some other type of meat sandwich with a slice of cheese, two slices of bread, a sprinkle of tumeric and sometimes some other sort of spice on it – curry, or garlic salt, or Italian, or just the tumeric and somedays not even that, just the turkey and cheese… sandwich has some spinach or lettuce on it most days, but not all days. Sides for lunch are usually some type of fruit – usually an orange, and some type of veggie or ligher version of fruit or light healthy food — peppers, mushrooms, mini-tomatoes, grapes, etc. Suppers vary from day to day, but I’m probably going to try more salads with some meat and light fruits in it.

Last night, after the ‘Fit for Duty’ workout I was fairly sore in back and calves. Luckily, my amazing wife is currently in training to be a massage therapist so she gave me a very nice calf rub last night that helped enormously. I also took a hot bath after that to help a little too. I haven’t had a ‘bath’ for years since I’m usually a shower person, but as I increase the intensity and amount of workouts I’m doing daily, I probably will start doing that more often since that hot water and steam is amazing for the leg pain. I think that I really need to start working bathes in more since my calves get so tight after some workouts if I really push it, and because my shins seem to be a magnet for shin splints if I overdo things too much.

In this mornings workout, I was able to do at least one and a half rounds of jumping jacks and bunny hops before I had to switch to doing the side steps due to the leg pain… so my endurance is definitely improving. I probably will try to stick with the I-II tapes for most of 30 days since I’m working in an evening workout when I can since I don’t want to overdo things and burn out… taking it nice and slow and easy on this round of Power 90 because I don’t have day 90 as my end goal… I have day 999 as being one day away from an end goal… actually, I don’t even really have much of a pre-conceived goal in mind because I think sometimes that type of thing, when it comes to weight loss and getting in shape is really counter-productive…

I do plan to get in shape, get healthy, and ultimately get to my BMI target goal someday… I do not plan on setting a day that I’ll get to that weight goal and then beating myself up if I don’t get there by day X. I just am enjoying the ride towards this healthier way of living… It’s an amazing new way of life! 🙂

Do whatever you must do – whatever it will be – it will be the right choice… No need to beat yourself up if you don’t always meet your goals 1000% of the time… You should be congratulated for at least trying since that’s 90% more than most people do. If you don’t get to where you want to be, just re-adjust, alter course, and head in a new direction unhindered by past failures… No need to beat yourself up for trying to do the right things! 😉

Day 7 Evening…

Afternoon/Evening accomplishments for today:
Did one Fit for Duty Cardio workout. Man, that is one hard work. I was expecting something to do with running since it is cardio, but no, it’s all pushups, crunches, squats and suicides!.. Suicides are where you squat down, put hands on ground, kick legs back, do a push up, pull feet back in, and then explode up, jumping as you go… crazy hard stuff that I’d consider power strength training, but that I guess the armed forces considers cardio…

Before that workout, did some walking/exercises at work. We have a tilted bench to do incline crunches on and a machine that lets you pull your arms together by raising your own body weight outside of the building. I did about 20 crunches, and 20 of the arm pull in things… Also did some ‘lunch box’ shoulder fly and curl exercises as I walked down to that equipment and up from there around the building, around the parking lot, and up the hill to where I park now. I have no idea on how far the distance is around the building but basically between going down there, around outer perimeter of the lot, and up the hill, it’s probably about a 10 minute walk or so… I used to walk the lots with my Aunt on breaks in morning and afternoons, but can’t do that any more since she’s probably going to retire in a couple of years, and I never know when my breaks are going to be since I’m always on the phone with insurance companies and may be on hold, or end up in some last minute meeting that was called 10 minutes beforehand that seem to get called more and more these days so scheduling a regular time to take breaks is hard where I work. Same with lunches… Somedays it’s 11, other days it’s 12, sometimes even 12:30 or 1, depending on the meetings that day.. which those calling the meetings never ask the other folks involved when they prefer to take the meeting, etc.. irritating, but that’s the way it works there…

At the car, before coming home, after climbing that hill, I took this long pry bar out of the trunk that I got from my Granny’s house earlier this year and used it to do a mini-workout. Granddad passed away several years ago, and Granny finally had to go to a retirement home, so the kids and grand kids cleaned out what we could this year so that the house can be sold… If you need a great house in Columbia Area, this place is really nice…

Since I’ve been doing this No S thing, the ‘shovel glove’ exercises over there got me interested in figuring out how to do something like that, but since I don’t have a sledge I just used this prybar… It’s less like a barbaric hammer to work out with, and more like a bo staff… pulling a Donatello from TMNT instead of Thor, lol. I have no idea how much the pry bar weighs, but it’s solid steel, and I’m guessing it’s about did 12-20 lbs or so… It’s about the size of a good walking stick… maybe 3 feet long or so… I did about 15 ‘chopping’ type of swings with it on both sides, but since it’s not really weighted like a hammer or axe, it seemed more like extremely heavy baseball swings, so by the end I think I was treating it more like those than like an axe. Then I did about 15 sort of jab moves where I held it up and just sort of jabbed it forward like a sword type of thing… Did that on both arms… then did about 15 moves that were like stirring a witches cauldron in both direction, with hands placed in different positions and holding the thing up to where the top of it was about even with my shoulders… then I did about 20 or so curls with it, and a few one hand curls in each arm too. My hands were all read after that due to callouses that are starting to come up and because the red paint from the thing was coming off like crazy. I’ve got some webbed work gloves that I picked up and put on my lunchbox after I got home so that I can use those if I do that sort of thing again. All this weight training… I’m probably going to sore in the morning… I actually am already there a little. Those suicides are tough on your back if you are not ready for them, and probably are even if you are ready for them…

I’m going to also try to take a concrete brick with me to put in the trunk along with the pry bar tomorrow… because it might work as a neat little workout piece of equipment…

Look out world, the Vigilante known as the Bare Footed Midnight Moon Runner is about to raise from the grave like a Phoenix, lol.

gaS does have an S in it.. but…

Gas does have an S in it, but I need to stop treating days like today when I filled the tank as S days on the No S diet…

What I need to really do is pay at the pump so that I’m not tempted by what’s inside of the gas stations… but ol habbits are hard to break.. so today, I had a 44oz mix of diet mt. dew with a splash of tropicana hawaiian punch to flavor it since dew is too bland by itself… then foolishly had a ‘smoke stack’ — which is a beef jerky type of thing with cheese sticks, and crackers and cheese on top…

then still had the wallet at work, so at lunch overate by having 3 cookies in the cafeteria as well as a 32 oz mix of mt. dew and wild cherry diet pepsi…

What I must do… or need to do… not treat the days I need my wallet (and don’t have it mummified where it takes me 5-10 minutes to unwrap it as a means of keeping myself from having too easy of an access to cash/debit card) as S days, and/or only fill up on gas on the weekends on S days so that way I’m not tempted to overdo it like I did today, and have more control. I wanted to do that over the weekend, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday all three, I managed to say I was going to fill up with gas and did not… part of that saying it might have caused subconsious type of rebellion that caused today’s actions?… also, I think the harder workout today with the dumbbells than I’m used to might have caused some pain or sense of deprivation that caused that rebellion to scream and release itself from the subconsious… old habbits are hard to break, and new ones are hard to establish, but working through it like I’m doing here in this post is one small way I can accomplish just that… now it’s acknowledged, time to move on, and not harp about it anymore, which just causes more negativity snowballs that cause pain and misery. Time to smile in a mirror and move on happily, brush off the dust from this slam on the ground, get up, and move on with even more determination than I had before! 🙂

Day 7 of the 1000 day challenge

It’s day 7 and the workout for today is done! 🙂

I did the I-II Circuit. I upped the weight a little today. Over the weekend I finally found a way to get the little dumbbells to work since I couldn’t use them up til now due to no sleeve on the middle (these are ancient weights from way back when I was in high school, so not all of the parts are there, lol)… Took the foam sleeve off of the leg bar that used to go on the bottom of the bench press for leg lifts and cut it in half, using half for each little bar. Works perfectly on the little weights! Surprised I didn’t think about this up til now… I used 4.8 lb weights on there, so 9.6 lbs on each arm + weight of bar itself, probably makes it close to 10 lbs each. Amazing how much better real dumbbells with bars work than just lifting a 10 lb weight by itself with my middle finger or index finger going through the hole in the middle. This was tough. First time I’ve done this type of workout with ‘real’ bars like this and did it with more than 5 lb weights. I felt the burn. I did end up using the little open handed 5 lb weights on the shoulder fly, but all the other exercises today were using the bars. I’m thinking about possibly doing a workout tape tonight, but we’ll see. If I do, I’m thinking about possibly trying a Fit for Duty podcast or something similar. I’m not sure if my arms are going to be ready for that or not. Will just have to try it and see where I am pain-wise.

Day 6 of the 1000 day challenge

I somehow managed to get a workout in today. I was a bit rushed and barely had time to do it since we went to Grandparent’s day for Granny this afternoon, but today’s workout did get done! 🙂

weird weigh in…

Weigh in weight today: 278.9. measured twice… Maybe last weight in was wrong… had to be? I really think my scale is off, but I’ll trust if for now since it’s all I have to go by. Doesn’t make me feel so bad about the last weigh in if it was wrong. Batteries had to be changed in the scale today, so maybe last weigh in was high because of the battery problem? If last weigh in was right, that’s 13.7 lb change in weight in just a few days. I guess if it’s all water weight, it might be possible… just seems odd. I’m going to guess last weight in was wrong?

day 5 of the 1000 day challenge …

Well, it’s day 5 of the 1000 day challenge. I’ve decided to make today a ‘rest day.’ I’ll also probably consider this an S day of the No S diet, so will give myself a little slack. I was originally going to make Sundays be the S day, but Saturday seems more logical since it’s the day after a long work week.

ok… No S might not work for me…

I was trying to do the No S diet, but am not sure if it’s going to work for me 100% of the way. I’ve been on the forums for that for a few days, and reading other’s experiences, etc. I was trying to stay strictly to the “no snacks, no sweets, no seconds” rules even though I wasn’t as strict with some of the modifications (mods) I was doing to it so far as it was not my ONE THING to focus on this month in the 1000 day challenge. In other words, we went out to eat twice this week. It’s been hard to not do that because Tekla gets home so late after commuting back and forth from St. Louis to go to classes. She’s been getting home after 8 PM some days, and by that time, if we don’t have a meal ready at home, we need to go out to eat to get something fast since we are both diabetic and have had many hours since lunch time when we last ate…

Last night when we were at Steak and Shake for dinner we were discussing this issue a little. (No, we did not have a shake, which was awesome because in the past we might have given in to that temptation) My sugar was 95 according to my meter before the meal. That may have actually been lower than that because a few months back I did a ‘study’ with the exercise science branch of the University in which I had to use another meter at the same time that I was using my own meter. That meter consistently read about 10 points above my meter… and it was supposedly calibrated since they were using it to study a lot of different people for various studies… so that 95 may have actually been 85… Before dinner last night I felt weak, had a headache… from temple to temple across my forehead felt like a ‘dried out sponge’… with a lot of holes in it… it was definitely a low sugar moment… I hate those. Honestly, since the time I became diabetic, I really start feeling that sort of way any time my sugar level is below 100 according to my meter. Supposedly, if you sugar drops to 83, you are in severe need of sugar immediately… If Tekla is experiencing this same sort of thing when she’s on I-70 coming home from school by herself, it’s a very life-threatening issue. There’s been at least one or two times she’s been in that sort of situation… and it scares the hell out of me… It also scares me about my own sugar too since she’s getting home so late, and I am home by myself til that point in time…. so if I passed out, no one would be here to call 911 or do anything about it until she gets home, which may be too late…

so we talked about this all a little, and we’ve decided that she’s going to start packing a lunch and dinner to school (she was just packing lunch up til now) and I’m going to have to start eating either a snack or a ‘dinner’ by myself here at the apartment by myself after work before she gets home so that we don’t risk this problem every day… I was trying to only eat when she got home, but it’s clear now that that just isn’t going to work for either of us, at least for now until her schedule changes to when she can be home earlier.

I’ve been trying to eat healthy when we do eat at home… typically something like a spinach salad with some fruit and meat in it and/or some mushrooms, etc. Not sure if I’ll eat full meals after work or go back to the snacking on stuff like crackers and cheese, sunflower seeds, sugar free cookies, or other fairly low-carb snacks like I used to do…

right now I’m still in a little bit of an intermediary stage since I’m gaining back my endurance on the daily workouts and am doing them once a day instead of twice a day. When I get back full swing in to doing them twice a day, I’ll probably need the extra earlier food/snack anyways to keep up strength in managing to do that. Supposedly your body is most willing to absorb carbs/protein one hour after a workout anyways, so I guess it makes sense to eat earlier… just kinda sucks that I won’t be able to eat dinner with my wife like I’ve been trying to do the last few days. 😦