Resting this morning… strain from last nights heavy duty workout + sinus issues + somewhat dehydration early in the morning has come to kick my ass today.
I don’t think I’ll try the 20 lbs on the Power 90 again, at least for a very long while. Need to build up to that. I don’t need to give myself a hernia… (I hope I haven’t done that already)
56th day of the 1000 day challenge. This morning I didn’t work out 😦
However, I made up for it tonight a little. I did the Power 90 Level III-IV Circuit/Sculpt tape tonight just a few minutes ago, and I used 20 pound weights on half of the exercises!
This is the first time I’ve tried to use 20 lb weights. Up til now I was only using 10 lb weights as max on this workout. I probably will feel this in the morning, but maybe not. When I switched to the 10 lb weights on some of the more tough exercises it was like lifting paper, lol. I will probably stick with this strategy going forward.
I also upped the weights on the kettlebell to 30 lbs tonight. I have not tried any swinging with it but probably will in the near future.
The reason I was able to up the weights tonight is that a few days backmom and dad found some more of the old weights in the garage or basement from many years ago… so I had them in my trunk the last few days til today… It’s still not the best set in the world… Had to use some duct tape on a few of them where age was starting to break down the plastic around the edges, but it’s all good. I wish I had 4 of the ten lb weights to do the curls and stuff, but I made do with a couple of 5 lbs on one side and a 10 lb on the other to balance it out. It looks a little odd, but it works. I do have a couple of 8.5 lb weights I could use for curls, but no matching set for them so I could have one in each arm… would be sort of weird and unbalanced doing 17 lbs in one arm and 20 in the other… so I’ll stick with the two 10 lbs on one arm and a 10 lb + 2 of the 5lbs on the other arm.
Day 55 – Just a little workout this morning… so far 20 kettlebell swings + 20 passarounds on both arms with the kettlebell. Dropped it on accident near the end. Drinking coffee today and having a little more of the candy that we got the other day to hand out if it lasts that long, so heart rate is a little high. I probably will do more kettlebells every now and then today.
So far, Tekla has not started the Power 90. I was going to restart it with her to walk her through it, but so far she’s not been feeling too well the last couple of days. I think my weight loss through exercise will stop being so fast when we are doing that til she’s up to the iii-iv level… but that’s ok because we’ll be doing this journey together, so the chances of success will increase a lot for both of us.
———
this evening did another little round with kettle bell. Tekla’s decided to wait to start the Power 90 later this week…
Ate pretty bad today… more darn candy… urgh. Why did I buy that the other day when I went to the store to get Tekla some sprite?
Today is a rest day… Last night was kind of too. Tekla is still not feeling too well so we didn’t start the Power 90 with her and I doing it together yet. It’s probably a good thing though since the landlord shut off the water to the building yesterday afternoon without telling us about it before hand since there was some sort of maintenance issue they are going to work on later today… I really wish they’d tell us ahead of time when they do this kind of crap. We could have ended up working out and having no ability to take a shower afterwards, which would have been a very bad situation…
I missed work0uts yesterday. We originally were planning on having Tekla start the Power 90 Tape I-II yesterday, but that didn’t happen since she was not feeling too well… I should have worked out but did not yesterday…
Tonight, the plan is to start on that, and I’ll go with her through that process, so my intensity on the nightly workouts is going to go backwards as I’m going back to I-II level instead of sticking with III-IV… but that’s ok since I can still workout in the morning after she’s left for school or work. Also, It probably is a good idea for me to do that so as to get the moves right since some like the lunge run was not quite right so was causing too much pain. Those shouldn’t cause so much leg pain that it keeps me from doing the bunny hops and / or jumping jacks…
This morning’s workout:
I did eight minutes and 31 seconds of Zuzana’s Zwow #9. I did pause a little longer than she did for the water break between round one and two. I feel bad that I didn’t make it all the way through but this is tough High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) type stuff, something my body is definitely not used to yet. Over time I will get more used to it though. I’ll probably experiment and try various online workouts like this in the mornings for variety. I originally was planning on doing a more restrictive set of workouts that are more close to an hour long in the mornings, but I just don’t have time for that… We’ll save that sort of stuff for the evenings. Since Tekla and I will workout together now, we’ll need variety on occasion so that sort of stuff can work for the nights. Short bursts of powerful HIIT training like bodyrock and some other online tapes can work for mornings for now.
This morning I did 17 minutes of an hour long workout tape. I talked it over with Tekla a little and am thinking about possibly stopping these sort of workouts in the mornings since I just don’t seem to have enough time to do them in the morning before work, and even if I do, I think I might start be getting some level of burnout which is why there’s been a missed workout or two this week and last week.
I do like the extra calorie burn from working out twice a day, but if I’m not getting enough recovery time, it’s not going to work since the workouts will just break me down instead of building me up.
I will keep with the longer workouts in the evening… However, I might go backwards a step or three with the evening workouts since Tekla might be joining me, and she’s not ready for the III-IV tapes yet on Power 90 if we decide to workout together with that… so it’d be back to I-II or something similar.
We might use some other form of exercise other than videos… may be long walks… maybe some other workout videos, etc. Not sure yet. There’s a bunch of opportunities to try a lot of different things.
If I stick with doing the morning workouts, I’ll probably go down to shorter more energetic ones like the 12 minute bodyrock videos. Those are really high intensity so they are still great workouts. However, I didn’t think I was at the level to do them, but just like with the Power 90 if I just do it a few times, I’ll get more used to it so it will get easier over time…
Hell, I may even stop blogging about this stuff, but on the other hand, the blogging is helping me stay focused, so I probably will keep with it for now.
It’s day 50… I did half of an hour long cardio tape this morning. I’m really finding it difficult to stick to it since sinus/allergy issues are hitting me along with barometric changes in the weather, etc. I think it’s partly a seasonal thing, partly a hay fever thing, and is partly a caffeine addiction thing coming to rear its ugly head with all of its side effects since I’ve been drinking diet sodas and coffee again regularly… got to stop doing that. All that stuff just makes me feel lousy, and causes inflammation and breaks me down artificially due to chemical changes, etc.
I CAN do this. I must do this, and I WILL DO THIS… no damn excuses…
decide… commit… succeed…
That commit part is where I am… got to keep up the fight!
feeling damn lazy today, so not working out tonight. Got home and Tekla had made an amazing meal for us… It was so nice. Put me in to a very good mood after a halfway bad day. Don’t want to break the mood with sore muscles and sweat… Tomorrow will be a better workout day. I MUST get back on schedule soon! Can’t allow this to continue. That’s what happened when that stab wound thing happened a while back… not gonna let that happen again. The rest of this week’s workouts will probably be fairly intense to make up for today’s laziness…
This morning I am zapped… I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I feel like crap. The reason is that last night I sweated a ton as I slept and there was at least twice during the night that I got up during the night after tossing and turning and didn’t manage to get the bipap mask back on… so a bad night got worse.
Yesterday, my parents were kind and took us out to eat at subway, where I foolishly had a foot long spicy italian on italian herbs and cheese… and that was followed by a very high carb trip to Orange Leaf next door to the subway.
That many carbs is always a mistake… and it makes me feel bad later… I’m paying for it now. High carb meals like that for dinners make me sweat a LOT when I sleep… the pillow and sheets are so wet with sweat that they are soaked. What’s bad about it is that since I became diabetic, bad sweats at night like that always reek somewhat later since there’s something in the chemistry behind whatever is causing it that makes it very acidic and almost smell like vinegar. All that icky sweat in the pillow and sheets make it very difficult to go back to bed after I awaken at various times during the night.
so.. needless to say, I’m feeling like crap today… so I’m not working out this morning… but I do plan on trying to work out tonight if I can… and hopefully this won’t happen again, and I can muster the courage and willpower to avoid overeating in the future in situations like last night… it is just so hard to fight the temptations when you are surrounded by people that are overeating at family get together type of things like we had yesterday (we had a big brunch at my Uncle and Aunt’s house earlier in the day, and mom and dad just stuck around in town afterwards. The brunch was not so bad… it’s the dinner that was.).
What’s really sad about it all… feeling this lousy in the morning, I’ll probably feel the need to eat wrong today and have a bunch of caffeine, and/or sugary type of foods, all of which just amplifies the problems and makes the vicious cycle get worse…
This morning’s weigh in: 272.3 lbs.
That is a weight loss of 20.3 lbs since 9/3/2012. It’s a weight loss of 24.2 lbs since 6/24/2012, and it means I’ve got somewhere between 95.3 – 132.3 lbs more to loose to get to target BMI weight.
This is the lowest weight I’ve been in many, many, many years, and it feels awesome. I’m honestly surprised it’s this low since I had big spaghetti meals at least twice this week and yesterday morning had two donuts for breakfast…
Today will probably be a rest day since I’m in a good place. I am not nearly as sore today as I was thinking I would be after that intense workout yesterday, so could workout today, but don’t really want to push it since I need rest from time to time to be able to continue this thing strong in the coming days.
The journey will continue again tomorrow.
I just did 11:15 mintues of the 40 minute Inpower Fitness Kettlebell workout. I was using the 22.5 lb weights on the kettlebell and had to quit now because of arm soreness and fatigue. Also, I hit my knee on one of the passarounds so it is hurting a little, but not nearly as much as my arms do right now. This is a GOOD workout, but it will take me a while to build up to doing it all the way through.
I will probably do some more working out later and edit this post when I do that. Not sure if I’ll pick up with the rest of the kettlebell routine or try something else.
==========
then I had 5 minutes rest… then… using 10 lb weight on one end of a three foot barbell…
10 Shovel Glove Levered Curls on each arm
and 10 Shovel Glove overhead Tricep Extensions on each arm
followed by
20 Shovel Glove Moulinets on each arm, counting one swing to both sides as one
————–
then 1 minute rest…
followed by 50 straight out ab wheel roll outs
————-
then 5 minutes rest…followed by 3 minutes of nonstop kettlebell swings.
I’m feeling exhausted extremely now… so I think I’ll call it quits for today’s workout but might sit here a few more minutes and ponder if I should do more here or not. My back is telling me to stop, so I’ll probably listen to it and take a shower here in a few minutes.
Even though I was planning on working out tomorrow to make up for that rest day a couple of days ago, I might just use tomorrow as a rest day if I’m still sore after today.
————-
ok… one last edit… about 20 minutes or so later.. I just completed 50 kettlebell swings. Now it’s really time to shower.
It’s the 46th evening of the 1000 day challenge.. and I’m feeling the burn tonight…
I did a full one hour intense cardio workout and then afterwards did approximately 3.5 minutes of nonstop kettlebell swinging as quickly as possible without breaking good form.
Sweating a ton and muscles are screaming with some level of pain head to toe… but not extreme pain… good type of pain.. the kind that will get me strong as my body repairs itself. 🙂 😉
It’s the 46th day of the 1000 day challenge. This morning I did a 20 minute cardio workout followed by 30 kettlebell swings with 22.5 lb weights on the kettlebell. The swings are starting to get comfortable enough that I should probably up it to 30 lbs, but I’m not ready for that yet since I don’t want to overdo things yet… That and I’m thinking I might try that 50 minute kettlbell tape again someday soon… So far I’ve only been able to do half of that tape and that was at the 15 lb weight level… have never tried it at this weight level yet.
Last night I didn’t workout. At a meeting at work they had cake, so since I messed up the morning I figured I’d just count yesterday as ‘rest day’ for this week – so I made spaghetti and garlic toast out of some bread last night and we had that for supper. I’ll probably try to do at least one workout each day this weekend to make up for the rest day yesterday. I’m trying to get away from rest days in midweek since they work better on Sundays when I do laundry and other household chores, run errands, go shopping, etc. but sometimes the situations just call for rest in the middle of the week… and as long as I do try to get back on schedule I’m not going to beat myself up for those times… I am human and part of this process is learning to listen to my body’s needs – including the need for rest from time to time.
Resting this morning because I’m a little sore in my neck, and upper back due to fighting with the pillows all night as I tossed and turned and also because I’m extremely tired this morning… Some idiot was using the laundry room near our apartment at 1:00 in the morning! I think it was the guy upstairs from us since I think I heard the alarm go off right before I heard him fumbling around in the laundry room making a ton of noise. There’s a big sign on the door that says that the laundry room is only to be used between the hours of 8 AM – 10 PM but idiots around here still sometimes use it after those hours. I called the landlord’s office and left a suggestion on the voice mail that they install a lock on the door to the laundry room, but don’t think it’ll do any good because the landlord doesn’t give a damn sometimes….
The stupid washers over there in the laundry room aren’t hooked up right anyways and any time someone does a washing machine load the pipes start throwing water all over the floor creating a huge amount of mold to build up on the walls over time… Tried to call the landlord on it last year and nothing happened. Went a step or three further and reported it to the city… all that resulted in was landlord painting the molded wall, not fixing the root problem, so the wall that was painted a few months back is now just full of mold again… we need to move to a new place one of these days…
It’s the 44th evening of the 1000 day challenge. Tonight I did the Power 90 Cardio Abs III-IV Workout and then after that, when I was exhausted and “sweating like a dog” as Tony calls it, I did 20 kettlebell swings followed by 20 Kettlebell Passarounds. I’m not sure if passaround is the official name for it, but that’s what I call it… where you hand off the kettlebell from left hand to right hand while swinging it all the way around your waistline. I did 10 of those to the left and then 10 to the right.
This morning’s cardio routine is now complete. After the cardio I did 20 Kettlebell swings. Burning tons of calories and sweating a ton… feeling great.
Tonight’s workout is now complete. I did the III IV Power 90 Circuit, and then when I was feeling completely wiped out at the end, grinned and gritted my teeth, then did 20 kettlebell swings with the 22.5 lb weights. Feeling exhausted but great now.
We had dinner before the workout tonight since my sugar was 96 after work. Any time it’s below 100 I feel like I need to eat since I start feeling light headed, weak and wobbly in my extremities sort of, and get a weird headache in my forehead.
This mornings cardio routine is now complete. It was very tempting to go back to sleep after getting up this morning since my bipap mask was not on all night, so it was not as restful of a sleep as it should have been… and I also had nightmares about having to kill a rattlesnake and a python that had gotten inside… but I didn’t go back to sleep… and got through the workout and feel great now!…
42nd evening of the 1000 day challenge. Tonight’s Cardio Abs III-IV tape is now complete. I sadly had a handful of candy corn before this workout, so the workout was harder on me than normal since heart rate was crazy high and sweat level was too… sweating like a faucet. I don’t think the tee shirt that I used as a sweat towel has been that wet outside of a laundry machine ever… but I managed to get through the workout… candy corn reason was sugar of 91 after work… I overdid it and hand candy corn, ok… maybe it was 1.5 handfuls instead of one… and then had some sunflower seeds and a slice of ham and cheese with it.. probably should not have eaten all that before the workout… but I did… tomorrow is a new day. At least I got the two workouts in today.
This morning’s cardio workout is now complete! Feeling great. I hate that my schedule was off a little over the weekend due to being sick, but hopefully all of that is past me now and it’s time to start fresh on this beautiful Monday morning.
Day 41 – Rest day.
I think when I finally get to day 1000, I’ll probably at least add in one extra day for every day of rest before I count it as a real 1000 days… that way it will be a true 1000 days.
I plan to keep up the good habits after that 1000 days, but might take a few days off after the 1000 days before starting the next big thing, which might possibly be a second 1000 day challenge.
Day 40… still taking it easy a bit…trying to rest to get better a little… but… I did swing the Kettle bell a little this morning… upped the weight to 22.5 lbs and did about 20 swings and then 10 pass-around-the-waists each way… then a couple of snatches on each arm.
I might try to do that again in a few more hours… If I can get 2-3 sessions of that in it’s a little more than nothing… IT’S A BIG JUMP adding 7.5 lbs to the weight that I was using last time…
…
edit… ok… it’s about 15 minutes later… and I just did another set of 20 swings… will probably continue this on and off throughout the day.
—-
edit… lower back pain a little after that set… so now lowering weight back down to the 15 lbs.
—-
about 15 minutes later… another 20 swings… much easier with the 15 lbs… don’t feel like I’m going to kill my back.
———
an hour or two later… 20 more swings.
sticking with this weight for now because I probably need to work on form more… even though it seems like I’m doing it right… I have a mirror and watch myself in it… might be time to use webcam to record it to study where the form is wrong.
———-
This evening I just did another 20 swings… on this go round I upped the weight to the full 30 lbs and focused on form more so than anything else… Back does not hurt too bad this time… form is definitely important. Can I do 17 minutes with this 30 lbs on that 40 minute tape like I did the other day with the 15 lbs?… probably not, but I can work on form and slowly build up to that the right way so that I hopefully don’t learn a bad form and injure myself…
Kettle Bells are not my primary workout for now… more of a weekend and add-on workout during the week… However eventually that might become my main workout… just not quite yet.
Since I did some form of exercise today even though most of the rest of the day was fairly restful, I won’t feel so bad about making tomorrow rest/chore day… I probably need another day of rest anyways since I’m still not feeling 100% better since that sickness hit… people say you can’t get sick from the flu shot, but I still think that’s the cause of it.. that and allergies… there have been other sicknesses going around too… who knows, maybe I caught something from someone who was standing in that long line with me to get that blasted flu shot?
=========
edit…
ok, back did not hurt during the 20 swings with 30 lbs, but it did a sting a little about half an hour after that… so it’s back to 22.5 lbs… and one more 20 swings tonight… (I think… may work in more but probably not)
I was not feeling well today so ended up taking the day off as a sick day at work. As a result, I’m not working out today, and might not this weekend… at least not on Saturday… We’ll see how I feel on Sunday… probably will take both Saturday and Sunday to rest though… It’s a little after 2 PM now… I got up this morning to call in to work, see Tekla off to school and then went to bed and just recently got up less than an hour ago, and still feel not so hot.
I’m achy, have a headache, and am sore everywhere. My guess as to what is happening is that all of these two a day workouts is sort of acting like a mild form of chronic cardio, which weakened my already weak immune system (I have diabetes, allergies – and it’s currently prime time allergy season), and then I through that flu shot at it, and this is the side effects of that mixture coming back to kick me in the ass… Hopefully things will return back to normal later this weekend or early next week.
To those that say I am not doing enough work to have chronic cardio – you might be right… but on the other hand, are you the weight I am personally and doing the amount of workouts, with the workouts being various routines of either high intensity, circuit or cardio, that I’ve been doing recently (roughly one hour of workouts twice a day, 5 or 6 times a week?)… Didn’t think so. If you are, good for you. Keep it up.
=========================
Flu Shot Q&A:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm
Why do some people not feel well after getting the flu shot?
The most common side effect of the flu vaccine in adults is soreness at the spot where the shot was given, which usually lasts less than two days. The soreness is often caused by a person’s immune system making protective antibodies to the killed viruses in the vaccine. These antibodies are what allow the body to fight against flu. The needle stick may also cause some soreness at the injection site. According to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), rare symptoms include fever, muscle pain, and feelings of discomfort or weakness. If these problems occur, they are very uncommon and usually begin soon after the shot and last 1-2 days.
=====================
Chronic Cardio Links
http://fitnessforfunction.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/chronic-cardio/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/chronic-cardio-2/#axzz2979kFXvU
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread63751.html
http://paleohacks.com/questions/81844/what-is-chronic-cardio#axzz2976c86fS
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread67113.html
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/chronic-cardio/#axzz2979kFXvU
Taking it easy tonight… I tried to start doing the Cardio Abs tape but was starting to feel woozy and dizzy… When I was doing the stretches where you hang down with arms between legs I really started feeling room spinning and thought that I better quit while I’m ahead before I really hurt myself..
checked the sugar level and it’s 96. Any time my sugar level is below 100 I start getting a headache… I am really surprised its that low since I had a few chips this morning after breakfast..
Yesterday afternoon I got a flu shot since it’s a mandatory requirement where I work now… Every time I have that done I always feel like crap the next day… guess what it’s the next day…
sinuses are also bothering me… It’s allergy season and when the weather does like it has been lately, it just makes things feel miserable…
HOWEVER, I WON’T GIVE UP… In past years I would have after feeling this bad. I can’t let seasonal issues and a little virus that my employer infected with me on purpose keep me down…. tomorrow is a new day and it’s going to be better than today (i hope *gulp*)! 🙂
I will come back to this post at a later date. I’ve added a category just for this post to be all by itself… I have some interesting ideas on what to put here in the coming days, months, years… However, I don’t have time to put it all together right this second… will come back here to add more later…
ARTIST STATEMENT… (note today is 10/11/12 :))
——————————–
PET PEEVES/REAL WORLD MANIFESTO
Credit/refund issues (DRG too) – BANKS, INSURANCES, HOSPITALS, AND ANY OTHER SERVICE ORGANIZATION…
Treating others with compassion…
GET RID OF PATIENT RESPONSIBILITY ALREADY!
MAKE LAWS, EMAILS, VERBAL STATEMENTS AGREE IN ALL AGENCIES, COMPANIES, ETC.
——————————-
VIRTUAL WORLD MANIFESTO…
It’s the 38th morning of this 1000 day challenge… This morning’s cardio workout has now been completed. I was fairly tired this morning since my bipap mask was not on all night, but a little cardio has completely energized me… 🙂
It’s the 37th evening of the 1000 day challenge and tonight’s III-IV Circuit workout is now complete. Feeling Strong. I’m still questioning if I am giving myself enough rest, but I seem to be progressing and not being in ‘pain’ really… at least not no more than I would expect in a workout… after the showers it’s all good usually. Not sure if I’m loosing weight, but I can tell I’m definitely gaining muscle.
It’s day 37 and this morning’s cardio workout is now complete!
It’s the 36th evening of the 1000 day challenge and I just got done with the Cardio Abs about an hour ago tonight. Unfortunately, I let myself have coffee at work again, so the workout was kinda tough. The jumping jacks and run lunges are still hard on the shins, calves and ankles for me and the caffeine just makes that worse… it tightens up the muscles much more than they should so during the workout it’s more pain… but sometimes, it’s really just hard to avoid that cup of java, especially like at work where it’s free, not far from my cubicle, and there’s sugar free cocoa to mix in with it to make up something similar to a cappuccino now and then… Need to back off of it though…
I am liking the two a day workouts, but I do feel the difference in the intensity I am able to do between these days and the days when I do the one a days… with one a days, I always feel like I’ve got enough energy to pick up the kettle bell and give it some swings after the main one a day workout… on these two a day days, there’s no way that is gonna happen… I can barely make it through the workouts near the end sometime… but usually the workouts do loosen up some muscles by the end.. and then after a nice hot shower, I’m feeling great later in the evening…
36th day of the 1000 day challenge and the morning cardio workout is now complete! 🙂
It’s the 35th evening of the 1000 day challenge. Tonight’s Circuit III-IV tape was kind of tough since my heartrate was already up a little due to drinking coffee at work today. I probably should not have had it since it always does this to me and increased possible muscle pain since it tenses muscle fibers, but I did get through it…
Today’s morning cardio workout is now complete. 🙂
Taking a Rest day today on day 34. I feel kinda sad about this since I took a rest day the other day due to being up too late the night before… but hopefully I can change that sleep pattern going foward to do better in the future. Neck was a little sore/stiff due tot he kettlebell and shovel glove routines yesterday so I’m thinking I need to rest/recover today and then start back at the workouts strong tomorrow.
Today’s workout is now complete… I did 17 minutes of the 40 minute kettle bell workout. I still was exhausted at the get ups stage like I was last time I tried this video…
but… unlike last time, I was using 15 lbs on the weights this time whereas last time it was only 7.5.
So then I took a 5 minute breather/ water break, got out the 10 lb one sided weight bar (shovel glove) and then did several shovel glove moves, doing 10 or so reps on each arm for each exercise. Exercises I got through were aim the spear, giant wrench, levered curl, tricep extension, levered overhead press and finally moulinet.
I really liked todays mix because the kettle bell works legs/lower core/back and the shovel glove works the upper body/arms/upper core… so it’s a combination that pretty much tackles the whole body with a pretty good workout… and since there is variety you are not working one muscle group to exhaustion…
The shovel glove bar has a couple of bolt holes in the center of it. I really like the whistling sound it makes when doing the moulinet…. sort of a low pitched whirring sound… I got myself a silver lightsaber thor hammer, lol.
I think this combination of kettlebell/shovel glove is probably going to be my one a day workout on the weekends… probably done once on Saturdays since Sunday is chore/laundry/rest/s day… I still might grab kettlebell or shovel glove to do a few swings after some other workouts during the weekdays, but not a full workout like today…
Eventually, someday I will conquer that kettlebell tape and do the full 40 minutes, even if it’s the last thing I do – it will get done someday, lol.
Here’s an interesting article I found yesterday about someone else doing mix of sledge and kettlebells:
http://www.mikemahler.com/online-library/articles/fat-loss/maxwell-sledgehammer-workout.html
————-
note – about an hour after posting this I did another little session with the shovel glove… and about an hour after that did another little session with about 20 kettlebell swings, and 20 pass around the waists both ways.
After some experimentation, I got the clips off of one of the dumb bells, put them on the longer pole that used to be used as leg lift on my old hand me down weight set from many years ago… (the same pole that I took the foam pad off and cut to allow it to act as handles for the dumbbells…)
and I put a 10 lb weight on the end. This will work as my tool to do shovel glove moves in our apartment. I love this since it’s an adjustable weight system, which means it’s really more adaptable, and more importantly, economically smart than just buying a real sledge hammer. It also negates the need for the ‘glove’ part of shovel glove… with that they were putting towels, sweaters or other cloth materials on the sledge hammers so as to not damage anything… a rounded weight on a bar shouldn’t hurt much unless I really hit it hard straight on or something on purpose.
If I need the weight to go down, I just will swap the 10 lb weight down to 5 lb, etc. If I want to go for the gold, I can add tons of weight to it eventually… probably won’t ever go past 20 lbs but you never know… Not sure what the weight capacity for this bar is? It wasn’t really intended for this sort of quick movement in these type of angles, but for now it will do well…
The bar is about 3 feet long or so, so it’s around the same size as a sledge. Only thing I’m not too sure about is if clips might slip with a lot of movement… but I have some heavier clips that I can use if I really need to. This is a bar off of an old school weight set, so it’s made of fairly thick metal – much more solid I think than the light weight metal used in the dumbbell set I recently bought… Between the kettle bell for lower core/leg strengthening and this thing for upper core and arm strengthening there’s lots of potential here…
Cash saved from this – used to buy Just Dance 3 at a used cd store today… 🙂
That game is going to have a high calorie burn I think… http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/447589-just-dance-3-wii-game
If you don’t have an old school weight bench available that has a leg left/curl thing on it at the bottom… you can probably cut a full sized benchpress bar in half or something to get a bar that’s about the same length.
—
edit – added some duct tape to the end of the bar at the very end just before the clip to help so clip won’t slip off… I don’t think it would have anyway, but little extra precautions like this can help keep big accidents from happening.
————
Also, reading around on some forums… thinking the next time I have some free cash to spend on exercise stuff, I might get this thing
http://www.gymboss.com/… looks like it would be useful if/when I get in to doing a lot of my own routines instead of using videos to time things.
It’s Friday, but I’m going to probably use today as a rest day because I was up a lot later than we should have been last night. We went out last night to celebrate Tekla’s passing the final in her technique class with final test score that was actually over 100% due to a couple of bonus questions!… We ended up having to go all over town to find a place to eat since the first try or two the places were super crowded…. that’s what you get during football season in a college town in the SEC I guess, lol.
We finally settled on the Pasta Factory, and that was nice, but diet soda and pasta that late at night was a lot of carbs and caffeine too late in the night… so I got to bed a lot later than I should have… so got up later than normal this morning with a slightly sore neck/upper back.
I’m not sure if I’ll use one of the weekend days tomorrow or Sunday as a rest day too or not, but right now I think I’ll probably try to aim to workout once a day on both of those days since today will be a rest day… and then next week is a new week, so I can try to aim to get back to normal rest day on the weekends then.
Tonight’s workout is now complete. I did the Cardio Abs III-IV tape. It was tough. My sugar was 101 after I got home tonight… my sugar levels seem to be getting more stable since I’m working out more. I worry that the two a day workouts like this might not be giving me enough rest and recovery time for my body, but so far the workouts have not been too painful. I suspect that as long as I focus on only cardio in the morning and do circuits or cardio type workouts at nights it shouldn’t be that bad. It’s going to be interesting seeing what future weigh ins look like since I’m doing these two a days now.
Oh, and at work, it’s three days in a row of writing at lunch… but it is still tough to work it in… I might get about a half page or page of free-thought writing done… It’s not the three pages a day the Artist’s way calls for, but it’s a start. I might try to work in some in evenings too eventually… for now I just want to stay with this level and this level of workouts for this month’s focus… one thing good habbit to develop at time… got to stay focused and keeping it simple since doing more will just jumble things up and screw up the progress.
Well, it’s the 31st day of this 1000 day challenge, and today I decided to do a little kickboxing… The workout was Fitness Blender’s Cardio Kickboxing. Be careful if you do this one after doing Power 90 like I have been… the punches are much quicker than in P90, and if you are not careful you can overextend arms or legs and hurt yourself.
Tonight’s Cardio Ab III-IV tape is now complete. I had a little problem and had to start it later than normal because sugar level was 96 when I got home… I’m definitely going to have to keep an eye on carbs vs energy burn to keep this up from here on out… eventually I may even have to have my doctor cut me back on some meds… tomorrow is a new day. Didn’t miss much by doing the workout in prime time though because all that’s on right now is the Presidential Debate, lol.
It’s day 30 and the morning cardio session has been completed. Today is the first day I’m going to try to do a workout twice a day. I’m hoping to do this every day. This morning’s sugar was 99 though so hopefully it doesn’t go too low today. I’ll definitely need to keep a close eye on it.
Well, it’s the 29th day of the 1000 day challenge. Tomorrow is day 30, the time of no more taking it easy…
Tomorrow I will start the 2nd month’s challenge, which will be doing that second workout every day, at least 5 days a week – 6 if possible. I will keep doing the one workout a day in the morning, and then do this second workout after work. I expect to see some major calorie burning going on since I’m basically going to be doubling the number of calories burned daily through exercise. Because of that I probably will need to keep an eye on my blood sugar a lot more than I have up til now because going low on sugar can be a big problem for me since I’m diabetic. It’s never been an issue too much up til now since I never really went to my max on exercise, but doing two hard workouts daily might put me there…
Today I also tried doing a little writing at lunch. I’m going to try to make that in to a habit over time.. I’m using the habit tracker from the LDS that was linked to from one of the first posts about the 1000 day challenge. I’m using that tracker for stuff like that instead of the main ones because it lets me track a little easier than the regular one that tracks day by day… since it’s a cross off tracker. I’m also using that tracker to start tracking my times of going to the gas station and paying at the pump (instead of going in, and likely picking up some diet soda and snacks in the convenience store while at as I typically have done in the past – a bad habit I’m trying to start to break…)
I decided to go ahead and shoot the video for this ‘month’ tonight since it’s still afternoon so the light is good…
Plus I really just kind of want to see where I am visually with the video comparisons so that I know where I need to go as that sort of gives me inspiration about what level I need to aim for tomorrow and going forward. The videos take a little while to upload and link to, etc. and this blog posting takes a little while to put together so I’m probably going to not exercise tonight, or on other month ends when these types of videos get posted.
Today’s weigh in weight is 273.6 lbs. That’s 19 lbs down since 9/3/2012, and 22.9 lbs down since 6/24/2012. That puts my goal of ‘getting in to my BMI target range’ at somewhere between 96.6 lbs -133.6 lbs more to lose. It’d be nice if I reach that goal in the next year or so, but if it takes longer, it takes longer… That’s why I’m making this is a 1000 day challenge, not a 30 day challenge, not a 90 day challenge, but 1000 day challenge… In the past I’d have seen this sort of progress and just quit after that… not this time… going all the way to that 1000 days, exercising and doing other things to live a better life than I ever have in my entire life. It will be so nice to actually get to the ‘BMI’ weight that Doctors are always talking about… that weight where people can’t say you are obese any more… where you can look at them and say I got down to my goal weight, why aren’t you there yet?… 😉
Here’s the video I shot this afternoong, Day 29 of the 1000 Day Challenge (10/2/2012)
273.6 lbs:
Here’s the video from Day zero of the 1000 day challenge (9/3/2012) – 292.6 lbs
…
…
…
….
…..
…
…..
Below are the videos and weight ins from before the 1000 day challenge when I tried to do the Power 90 but had to quit around day 60 because of an accidental stab wound… which caused me to have to ‘rest’ 2 weeks which really was not good on the weight loss thing, but that’s the past… I’m looking forward now… Just looking at the videos for comparison purposes… Even though the past is the past, it’s good to know where you came from so that you can tell where you are going…
8/21/2012 – 284.6 lbs
8/16/2012 – 285.3 lbs:
8/9/2012 – 281.8 lbs
8/1/2012 – 284.8 lbs
7/24/2012 – 286.2 lbs
7/17/2012 – 289.2 lbs:
7/14/2012 – 288.6 lbs
Before then
6/29/2012 I was 292.1 lbs
6/24/2012 I was 296.5 lbs
Memorial Day – May 28, 2012 –
4/30/2012
4/10/2012
I have to thank my amazing wife, Tekla, for being behind me all the way in this crazy 1000 day challenge thing. Sorry I wake you up so early darling but now you can start to see the progress…
This is only the beginning…
Much more to come. 😉 🙂 :p
(*note – if some of the videos don’t show yet, it’s probably because they are not done uploading yet… Currently uploading the oldest ones and they are only at 5% upload progress so far in youtube at the time of this posting… if you really have to see the vids, come back and look again tomorrow…*)
Day 28 of the 1000 Day Challenge.. Just did half of the III-IV Cardio Abs tape tonight since supper’s almost done. I should have done the workout earlier in the evening but didn’t. Tomorrow is a new day. Not sure if I’ll workout in the morning, but might just to try to get a few more calories down before day 30 weigh in… but maybe not since after day 30 it’s morning and evening workouts every day from here on out as much as possible.
Let myself have caffeine the last couple of days – coffee on weekend and diet dew after that… that has blood pressure way up and the really doing the run lunges right is hurting shins/calves… May need to go back to my ol modified way that I was doing without even thinking about it to continue… a few of those and I can’t do the jumping jacks since it’s too much lower leg pain… got to listen to my body…
=========
edit – did a couple of sets of 10 kettle bell swings and 10 pass arounds with it both ways for a total of 20 per set for each of the two sets.
Came across an interesting thread over at conceptart.org today…
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-35391.html
One poster in there indicates that he draws 4-8 hours a day. Currently since I’ve been focused on working out/loosing weight, I have cut back my own personal time to do art… but I want to get back in to it.
I also might possibly try writing during lunch/afternoon/morning breaks at work to make more time for ‘morning pages’ but maybe not… because I rarely have a bunch of free time at work even on breaks…between going up stairs, to bathroom, to cafeteria, then back down stairs, etc. there’s rarely more than 5-10 minutes of ‘free time’ during breaks… I could possibly get up earlier, but am not sure if that will work or not since plan of going to be bed at 10 only gives 7 hours max when getting up at 5…. been going to bed much later than 10 lately… one night during the weekend I was up til 2 AM I think… luckily next day I could sleep in since it was weekend… sleeping in on weekends is something I need to do away with eventually.
Goal for second month of the 1000 day challenge (which starts in two days on Wednesday) will be to do a second work out a day in addition to the one a day I’ve been trying to get in this first month. I originally was going to make doing the NO S diet the third month’s goal and possibly doing one page of ‘morning pages’ in the evening a goal for the month after that but may make drawing/painting the goal for the third month. I might try to do it some little bit during second month to get used to it more…. working it in might be tough but should not be too hard since I have all of my color pencils next to the couch now all organized by colors… light reds/earth tones, dark reds/earth tones, light blues, dark blues, light greens, dark greens, neutral/black/white/silver/gold, and yellows… I also have some room set up in the art/storage room on a few tables to do paintings/drawings… now just need to make the time.
Honestly, the first few weeks of the working out twice a day will probably be tough on me due to sore muscles/etc… so it’s probably a good thing it’s not the second month’s goal to draw/paint right at the first…
Now for the third month I need to think about how long to draw/paint… and how much time to set aside for each. Paintings typically take me a very long time to do since I’ll rework an area over and over and over and add new layers later, etc. then there is drying time, which for acrylic is not as long as with oil painting but it still is time…
In theory evening workout time should be from about 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm by the time I get shower etc. done. That leaves from 6:30 – 10:00 to try to work in some art, assuming Tekla and I are not spending quality time together, etc. 20 minutes of drawing, either in one session or like four 5 minute speed drawings mith work… maybe alternate between those two, and/or ten 2 minute drawings to fill the same space maybe… then after that 20 minutes go on to longer work.. either with acrylic or color pencil for an hour or three… and then 10 minutes or so cleanup time to get brushes clean, etc. might work. Not sure if I’ll be able to do that every night, but want to make it a goal to get to that level, give or take a little… and then work in art on weekends too. Saturdays being the ‘rest days’ on workouts should be best day for art in theory… but on Sundays being laundry day might be better as a ‘rest day’ instead of Saturdays since gym shorts can’t be dried so have to be hung dry, and are not always dry all the way through before I want to workout if I work out on Sundays… I alternate between shorts and then wash them at the week’s end so that way I don’t have to have a 6 or so pairs. I used to only use one pair but working out twice a day, that’s not acceptable since they are typically still sweat soaked by the time the next workout rolls around. I might need to buy more gym shorts with the next incentive money, if more comes in in the future… and also might get at least one more kettle bell set so that I can do two arm kettle bell workouts eventually, or so there will be one set for me and one for Tekla if we start working out at the same times regularly.
Right now, I’m thinking maybe 2 hour minimum of drawing after month 3 starts might be a good low aim, and any more than that is just nice little extra. that way I’m not kicking myself with negativity snowballs from hell if I don’t get in a full 3 hours a night…
Eventually I’ll need to get the scanner going again… laptop needs to be used for that since main computer doesn’t have a driver for it… laptop is on it’s last legs I think, but it is still useful for that and a few other oddball tasks that I don’t have drivers for on the latest version of windows… Just wish Linux, which is what I use on laptop, had a driver for US-RR 360 sound recorder… becuase i really don’t want to have to reinstall windows xp or drag out an old computer from storage that has it to be able to use the sound recorders again…
Jeff Thomann's Blog 