I also want/need to get back in to the daily exercise routine. After the hernia surgery I’ve been taking it easy. I need to get back in to it… It’s sometimes harder than other days. The timing belt went out on one of the cars the other day so we are carpooling now… Which means up extremely early and to work a couple hours earlier than normal daily… tough to be inspired when you are tired/exhausted physically and mentally due to looooooong days.
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…
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)
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…*)
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.
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.
Day 16 weigh in for this 1000 day journey:
276.5 Lbs.
That’s a weight loss of 16.1 lbs since 9/3/2012 when I started the 1000 days, and a loss of 20.00 lbs exactly since 6/24/2012 when I originally started the Power 90 workouts before being interrupted by the knife wound. It feels good to finally officially be able to say I’ve lost 20 lbs in less than 3 months! 🙂
Now, if I can just keep it up and stay focused til I get to the BMI goal weight, which is anywhere from 140-177 lbs roughly…. That means the goal is somewhere between 99.5 – 136.5 lbs more to lose. It feels fantastic to be able to say that the goal is less than 100 lbs away. I have not been able to say that for quite some time. I know I probably can’t keep up the speed of loss that I have been able to do so far since I probably will hit plateaus along the way, but if I can, I should hopefully be able to achieve the bmi goal far quicker than I originally intended. However, I’m not going to put too many hopes on that yet since I don’t want to push myself too darn hard. Just work it slowly off, working a little every day towards the goals.
Once I do get down to that bmi weight the main goal for this 1000 day thing will be met, but then will come the tough part of maintaining that weight. That’s one of the reasons I made this challenge at least 1000 days in length – to give myself enough time to stay healthy for a relatively lengthy period of time. I do plan to keep it up the rest of my life actually, but 1000 days is just sort of a way to mentally keep track of an obtainable end goal for now. Little 30 day challenges, crash diets, and stuff like the Power 90 by itself are short term goals, not ‘healthy living for the long haul.’ I’m in this for the long haul! 🙂 (that’s something I could not say a few years ago since I was always looking too much at short term goals, getting disappointed when the short term goals were not getting met, and then just gave up… no more giving up… )
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.
11th Evening of the 1000 day challenge. I wanted to up the ante a bit so Did the Cardio III-IV tape with the 8.8 lb weights. I made it through but my arms, neck, shoulder and legs are burning a little now from that strain… Moving from I-II to III-IV is never easy since they up the speed and lower the break time a lot. I was barely able to work in 15 reps on most of the exercises before they went on to the next one since I was still wanting to do the I-II speeds… I did make it through though.
Tomorrow is a rest day. I think I’m going to need it. It’ll also be a bit of an S day since my niece’s one year birthday celebration is tomorrow!
Day 11’s Morning workout is now complete. I did about half an hour on Wii Fit Plus. I didn’t get but about a handful or the activities done though since I forgot to use the plus and minus signs to find the flags in the radar on the bicycle course, so did about 3 more rounds around the track than I really needed to do, lol.
Evening 10 of the 1000 day challenge – just completed Cardio abs I-II tape just now. It was hard to get moving at first since this dreary rainy day is having an impact on my mood a bit, but once I got in to it it was not that bad and by the time the tape was done I was feeling great. I do feel this doing the workouts after work is difficult sometimes but if I push through it, it’s usually not that bad, and actually massively helps my mood, self esteem, and outlook on the world in a positive way.
After work, I wrapped a big ‘clothesline’ rope I had in the trunk around the concrete block to make myself a little ‘ghetto bell’ — sort of the poor mans/redneck version of a kettle bell. I have no idea if I’ll use that thing too often, but might. I want to really nail down the two a day workouts and get through them with little/no pain before doing too much of that heavy lifting type of stuff or else I think I’ll overdo it and possibly burn out, which is definitely not something I’m wanting to do… I downloaded mp4 versions of all of the shovel glove moves the other day and finally put them in to plex last night so that I can watch them on the tv from time to time to practice. I probably won’t tonight, but might in a few days. I think doing some of that heavy swinging the pry bars and concrete block around will be something that will be good eventually, but I really don’t want to kill myself or overdo it or injure something by doing that stuff too often or too early… I have had a little taste of it, but need to build up some strength with the daily video workouts til I’m ready to move up to that as a regular part of my routine. Most of the shovel glovers, I think, use that as their primary exercise daily based on what I’ve read about it… I will probably be using it as a sort of secondary strength/power building part of my routine… a way to push myself a little harder… but right now since it’s hard enough to just push through pushing play every day I need to back off a little and not overdo it. I do feel strength gains after the other day swinging the brick around, but there’s no way I’m ready to do it everyday yet… I might eventually make it a once a week or every other day thing or something but it’ll take some time to build up to that. The rope handle probably is going to add a lot of weight to the brick since the cloth material likely will hold a lot of moisture since it’ll be in the trunk every day… I think it was most of a either a 50 or 100 foot of rope that was used. I just wrapped it around the brick creating a sort of handle up top, and then used some duct tape to sort of make the handle hold together. I think the handle may be too wide, but maybe not. I’ll have to adjust it if/when I get around to trying it again… The rope on the brick trick may leave it swaying too much and be dangerous, but I wrapped enough rope around the sides of the handle on both sides that I think it’ll help hold it in place enough that should not be too much of a problem. If it is, I’ll use more duct tape or find some more rope… I think I have some bungees I might have to use on it eventually… Back in college I remember hauling my huge portfolio around all over campus, and it was just a folio with small handles that I used a similar type of rope and tape contraption on (actually that wasn’t rope,… it was a book bag strap that I tied a rope on to), and it held up sturdy with huge amounts of oversized artists paper in it and most of my drawings from several years of school – and I walked all over campus with that, so I think this little contraption should work… I think biggest concern is that the brick may cut in to the rope over time, but hopefully it’s tied on tight enough that won’t be too big of an issue, and even if it is is, a little more duct tape can save the world, lol.
Tonight being the 9th evening of the 1000 day challenge, I pushed harder than I have up til now…
This morning – took concrete block out and put it in the trunk of the car…
At work, walked quite a ways to the car since I parked at the top of the hill on the back lot again today. On the way down the hill, used lunch box to do curls and shoulder flys… I’m actually making that a bit of a habbit these days… doing them on the walk down the hill in to the building and then down the long hall to my end of the building. I also do shoulder flys when I have lunch box going up and down the stairs at lunch to the cafeteria… about 5 shoulder flys on each of the 2 sections of the steps, switching arms in the middle. I then do about 5 or so curls on each arm doing that as I walk from bottom step to my cubicle in the cube cell hell down there (imagine the movie Office Space – I’m already in the basement, lol.. not quite as bad as the movie, but some times it feels like it..)…
After work, walked up to cafeteria and out the side doors next to the cafeteria that opens out to patio… (sometimes this is locked, but not when whether is ok)… from there, walked down the path that the boy scouts built there a couple of years ago. Something that many don’t realize that never explore back there… there’s gym equipment back there.. two inclined benches with bars to put your legs to do incline sit ups, and a shoulder fly machine that uses your own weight as the weight you are lifting… so I did about 10 situps, a few lifts with lunch box next to the bench and then did about 30 or so shoulder flys on the machine… then around the corner and up that massive hill… all the way around building all the way around perimeter of the parking lot did a walk. Finally near the end I got to the hill and climbed it, doing a few more curls, and shoulder flys..
Got to the car and decided that since I had this brick I may as well use it. Put on my webbed work gloves and away I went…
Walked the brick and two pry bars over to the little grove of trees close to where I park. I like this area since it’s about 10 feet wide and surrounded by trees on all sides except on two that face where I park and where the road is… it’s sort of a spiritual little place of sorts.. Not so much in to eastern philosophy yet, but have played lots of rpgs back in the day like Ninjas and Superspies and Heroes Unlimited from Palladium… my wife might teach me some about chi and stuff like that since she’s learning massage therapy, etc. Anyways.. this little grove seems to be high in positive yang chi energy, or whatever if you want to think about it that way… if not, it’s just a nice little place for me to workout… good fung shui or whatever… I love the 5 o clock shadows when I am up there since I’m facing away from the sun and my shadow is following me through this workout… feel like I’m watching some sort of martial arts movie or something…
so… anyways, did several moves with this huge prybar… a few curls… a few overhead holds with both hands, one hand and then the other, a few swings now and then like a sword jab, a few swings around to increase the weight with centerfugal force…a few other moves… then arms were burning since that big pry bar is so heavy so switched to the small bar and did a few of the same moves with it… probably did about 15 reps on each little move… then… when I was really feeling arms starting to get sore… went ahead and went for the killer… grabbed the concrete block tried to do a few moves similar to what I’ve read are typical moves that some folks are doing with kettel bells… swing from between legs with both hand up to overhead. I have no idea how much that brick weighs but it’s not light… Did a handful of those… and then a few curls with the brick…
finally sat down on the brick and just relaxed a little while before hauling it all back to the trunk..
went home… and then did the Power 90 I-II circuit with the 8.8 lb dumbbells (two 4.4 lb weights on each bar).. Did all the moves with as many reps as I could… 15 on most of them, 12 on a few of the push ups where Tony moves on to the next thing before I can move on… Since I took the padding off of the bar that normally went to do leg lefts on bottom of the bench press at mom and dad’s house, I figured why not use it, so used it to balance myself on the stool I use to do the dips… that helped a lot since that stool is not really as wide as my hips so it’s hard for me to grasp otherwise… I might have to eventually tape that bar there so that there’s no chance it’ll slip and hurt me when I doing dips… but for now, will probably leave it loose so I can use it to practice some of the shovel glove moves so that I can get them down for the next time I get out the ol pry bar after work. Don’t want to put the real pry bar in the house since it’ll break something if I start swinging it around in here… the smaller bar from the leg lifts off of the weight bench should do ok for just helping me learn those moves… I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow… but I’m feeling great!
and the grand total for today… 276.9 lbs. Getting closer to 275. It’ll be nice to get below 270… If the calculations are correct, since 6.24.2012 that’s a loss of 19.6 lbs! 🙂
It’s Day 9 of the 1000 day challenge, and today I decided to do something a little different…
so.. Tonight I’ll do the Power 90 tape that I’ve normally been doing in the mornings up til now since I really ‘want’ to do that every day if possible, and my body is starting to get used to that workout so it’s nothing unexpected and too hard on me like the fit for duty was the other day. I think doing it at night will make me not give up the evening routine as much as I have been.
That leaves the mornings open to try something new… so I just completed a Martial Fusion Cardio Blast workout this morning on the All Fitness TV channel in the Roku. That was a nice slow paced cardio workout that was awesome. My back is a feeling a little pain since I’m not 100% used to the ‘horse stance’ yet, but it was light cardio and a nice sweat, so I think I might do more things like this in future mornings from time to time. Switching it up works more muscles and makes me work harder since it’s not the same movement every time, keeps me from getting ‘used to’ the same ol routine and also makes it a little fun to try something new now and then.
Well, it’s September 11, and my 8th day of the 1000 day challenge. The morning Workout was just completed.
Almost forgot to eat some ham during breakfast, so added that as a note to my daily excel tracker. It’s important to have protein after workouts according to many forums and blogs I’ve read since your body supposedly ‘absorbs’ the protein best within one hour after working out… so I probably will start snacking on a little ham, turkey or something similar after both the morning and evening workout. I don’t plan to do a lot of other snacking, but am considering this an important snack so won’t count it as an S on the No S diet that I’m starting to follow, but not as strictly as I probably should yet… I may even convert it in to supper after the evening workout if I feel the need to eat more since my wife doesn’t always get home til fairly late in the evening, and as mentioned in a previous post, I’m diabetic, so I don’t know if I can keep up waiting for her all the time for supper because I need my energy for the workouts and also to keep up sugar levels since my lunch is actually fairly early most days at work. We are trying to eat healthier… lots of salads, veggies, a few fruits, and stuff like mushrooms, spinach, etc. Lots of salads will probably be our near future.
My typical breakfast these days is a bowl of honey cheerios in milk with ginger sprinkled on it and a couple of teaspoons of milled flaxseed, and sometimes a little sprinkle of tumeric (the ginger and tumeric are supposed to help with inflammation, so in theory help keep pain levels down a little). My typical lunch is a ham, turkey, or some other type of meat sandwich with a slice of cheese, two slices of bread, a sprinkle of tumeric and sometimes some other sort of spice on it – curry, or garlic salt, or Italian, or just the tumeric and somedays not even that, just the turkey and cheese… sandwich has some spinach or lettuce on it most days, but not all days. Sides for lunch are usually some type of fruit – usually an orange, and some type of veggie or ligher version of fruit or light healthy food — peppers, mushrooms, mini-tomatoes, grapes, etc. Suppers vary from day to day, but I’m probably going to try more salads with some meat and light fruits in it.
Last night, after the ‘Fit for Duty’ workout I was fairly sore in back and calves. Luckily, my amazing wife is currently in training to be a massage therapist so she gave me a very nice calf rub last night that helped enormously. I also took a hot bath after that to help a little too. I haven’t had a ‘bath’ for years since I’m usually a shower person, but as I increase the intensity and amount of workouts I’m doing daily, I probably will start doing that more often since that hot water and steam is amazing for the leg pain. I think that I really need to start working bathes in more since my calves get so tight after some workouts if I really push it, and because my shins seem to be a magnet for shin splints if I overdo things too much.
In this mornings workout, I was able to do at least one and a half rounds of jumping jacks and bunny hops before I had to switch to doing the side steps due to the leg pain… so my endurance is definitely improving. I probably will try to stick with the I-II tapes for most of 30 days since I’m working in an evening workout when I can since I don’t want to overdo things and burn out… taking it nice and slow and easy on this round of Power 90 because I don’t have day 90 as my end goal… I have day 999 as being one day away from an end goal… actually, I don’t even really have much of a pre-conceived goal in mind because I think sometimes that type of thing, when it comes to weight loss and getting in shape is really counter-productive…
I do plan to get in shape, get healthy, and ultimately get to my BMI target goal someday… I do not plan on setting a day that I’ll get to that weight goal and then beating myself up if I don’t get there by day X. I just am enjoying the ride towards this healthier way of living… It’s an amazing new way of life! 🙂
Do whatever you must do – whatever it will be – it will be the right choice… No need to beat yourself up if you don’t always meet your goals 1000% of the time… You should be congratulated for at least trying since that’s 90% more than most people do. If you don’t get to where you want to be, just re-adjust, alter course, and head in a new direction unhindered by past failures… No need to beat yourself up for trying to do the right things! 😉
Afternoon/Evening accomplishments for today:
Did one Fit for Duty Cardio workout. Man, that is one hard work. I was expecting something to do with running since it is cardio, but no, it’s all pushups, crunches, squats and suicides!.. Suicides are where you squat down, put hands on ground, kick legs back, do a push up, pull feet back in, and then explode up, jumping as you go… crazy hard stuff that I’d consider power strength training, but that I guess the armed forces considers cardio…
Before that workout, did some walking/exercises at work. We have a tilted bench to do incline crunches on and a machine that lets you pull your arms together by raising your own body weight outside of the building. I did about 20 crunches, and 20 of the arm pull in things… Also did some ‘lunch box’ shoulder fly and curl exercises as I walked down to that equipment and up from there around the building, around the parking lot, and up the hill to where I park now. I have no idea on how far the distance is around the building but basically between going down there, around outer perimeter of the lot, and up the hill, it’s probably about a 10 minute walk or so… I used to walk the lots with my Aunt on breaks in morning and afternoons, but can’t do that any more since she’s probably going to retire in a couple of years, and I never know when my breaks are going to be since I’m always on the phone with insurance companies and may be on hold, or end up in some last minute meeting that was called 10 minutes beforehand that seem to get called more and more these days so scheduling a regular time to take breaks is hard where I work. Same with lunches… Somedays it’s 11, other days it’s 12, sometimes even 12:30 or 1, depending on the meetings that day.. which those calling the meetings never ask the other folks involved when they prefer to take the meeting, etc.. irritating, but that’s the way it works there…
At the car, before coming home, after climbing that hill, I took this long pry bar out of the trunk that I got from my Granny’s house earlier this year and used it to do a mini-workout. Granddad passed away several years ago, and Granny finally had to go to a retirement home, so the kids and grand kids cleaned out what we could this year so that the house can be sold… If you need a great house in Columbia Area, this place is really nice…
Since I’ve been doing this No S thing, the ‘shovel glove’ exercises over there got me interested in figuring out how to do something like that, but since I don’t have a sledge I just used this prybar… It’s less like a barbaric hammer to work out with, and more like a bo staff… pulling a Donatello from TMNT instead of Thor, lol. I have no idea how much the pry bar weighs, but it’s solid steel, and I’m guessing it’s about did 12-20 lbs or so… It’s about the size of a good walking stick… maybe 3 feet long or so… I did about 15 ‘chopping’ type of swings with it on both sides, but since it’s not really weighted like a hammer or axe, it seemed more like extremely heavy baseball swings, so by the end I think I was treating it more like those than like an axe. Then I did about 15 sort of jab moves where I held it up and just sort of jabbed it forward like a sword type of thing… Did that on both arms… then did about 15 moves that were like stirring a witches cauldron in both direction, with hands placed in different positions and holding the thing up to where the top of it was about even with my shoulders… then I did about 20 or so curls with it, and a few one hand curls in each arm too. My hands were all read after that due to callouses that are starting to come up and because the red paint from the thing was coming off like crazy. I’ve got some webbed work gloves that I picked up and put on my lunchbox after I got home so that I can use those if I do that sort of thing again. All this weight training… I’m probably going to sore in the morning… I actually am already there a little. Those suicides are tough on your back if you are not ready for them, and probably are even if you are ready for them…
It’s day 7 and the workout for today is done! 🙂
I did the I-II Circuit. I upped the weight a little today. Over the weekend I finally found a way to get the little dumbbells to work since I couldn’t use them up til now due to no sleeve on the middle (these are ancient weights from way back when I was in high school, so not all of the parts are there, lol)… Took the foam sleeve off of the leg bar that used to go on the bottom of the bench press for leg lifts and cut it in half, using half for each little bar. Works perfectly on the little weights! Surprised I didn’t think about this up til now… I used 4.8 lb weights on there, so 9.6 lbs on each arm + weight of bar itself, probably makes it close to 10 lbs each. Amazing how much better real dumbbells with bars work than just lifting a 10 lb weight by itself with my middle finger or index finger going through the hole in the middle. This was tough. First time I’ve done this type of workout with ‘real’ bars like this and did it with more than 5 lb weights. I felt the burn. I did end up using the little open handed 5 lb weights on the shoulder fly, but all the other exercises today were using the bars. I’m thinking about possibly doing a workout tape tonight, but we’ll see. If I do, I’m thinking about possibly trying a Fit for Duty podcast or something similar. I’m not sure if my arms are going to be ready for that or not. Will just have to try it and see where I am pain-wise.
Jeff Thomann's Blog 