Since this whole hernia surgery thing is throwing my 1000 day tracking thing way out of whack… and since it’s been sort of weird trying to figure out a way to do a calendar I’ve been thinking about how to do things a different way… So here’s the new idea… which is sort of an old version of something I’ve been doing anyways but a little different and evolved…
Here’s the idea… Take a 8 and a half x 11 sheet of paper and use a ruler to break it down in to multiple columns… college rule is preferred.. Non-lined paper could work too, but you should have rows and columns… Now in each box you can do dashes in each of them… now work your way through each day of however many days you’ve put down doing one slash in each. Next go back after you complete and have a slash in every box and go through a second round, and continue through it every time like that… If you organize the first four times through as a star, then do have circles around it and edges of a square on the last go through like the following image, you can fit 10 iterations through the one page calendar. If you use a typical ruler, which is about an inch wide or so to break out the columns, there’s over 200 squares in one sheet of paper… 200 times 10 = 2000… in other words, you can fit 2000 days of tracking habits on one sheet of paper! Do this a different sheet for every good habit you want to form and you now have a bunch of years of habit tracking right on one page in front of you. Seeing the marks will tell you where you are doing well, not so well, etc. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue the 1000 day thing since this hernia surgery is probably going to have me on some down time for exercise, but I do plan on restarting something and sticking with it this next go through.. so probably will at very minimum have one tracker for 20 minutes of painting a day and another for a minimum of one workout a day. I might go back to two a day, but really, honestly that might be pushing too hard to do that every blasted day like I was doing before this hernia thing happened…
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?
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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)
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*)! 🙂
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 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…
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…
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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…
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…
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.
—
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.
—
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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… 😉 🙂
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.
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.
Jeff Thomann's Blog 