Fresh Start

Edit 5/27/2013
Got off of the workouts a few days the last few days and didn’t watch carb intake either. Going to try to get back in to it going forwards… Anyways, since it’s Memorial Day, here’s a video from this memorial day and one from last. If I remember, I’ll try to take one every year to show progress because I DO PLAN TO GET TO MY BMI GOAL WEIGHT BY AGE 45!!!

Memorial Day 2013:

Memorial Day 2012:

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Today is my birthday and I’ve decided that it’s time to restart the daily workouts after this weekend. I’ve had enough time to rest and recover after the surgery a couple of months ago. So.. here’s a new ‘before’ video…

Weigh in 2/8/2013: 277.5 lbs.

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Here’s a couple of Birthday Self Portraits. Many other artists do annual self portraits on birthdays, and I started this little tradition last year, so figure going forward I might try it more often.

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The self portraits got me thinking about things so I started some photo self portraits shortly after that…
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More photos:
http://halfwaytoseventyfour.shutterfly.com/pictures/187

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Today’s video:
2/8/2013
277.5 lbs

………..
The hernia issue happened October 29th, 2012. I overdid it on doing a Power 90 workout. Up til that point in time I was using 10 lb weights on each arm for most of the exercises. On that day I upped it to 20 lbs on each arm for the exercises, with was just too damn much… so I got hit with a hernia and had to have it repaired with a surgery. The doctor said that it was an odd type of hernia unlike one he’d seen before because it wasn’t a tear all the way through. Instead a very long piece of fatty tissue had essentially come out from the back area up through where it should not be and the overdoing it caused that to just strain all of it much worse than it should have been which caused the surgery to be needed. The surgery was in the early part of December and I was out of work a couple of weeks to recover from that. Then I went to work about a week and half and was on a scheduled Christmas vacation that was planned before the surgery thing came up… I kind of have not gotten in to the working out too much since then. I tried a time or two to do some of the workout videos, but the strain on the area where the surgery was for some of the kicks, crunches, etc. was just too much at the time. I am hoping that I’m now ready to re-start fresh now that I’ve had another few weeks of down time that I have not been doing much exercise.

Past videos and weigh ins on the weight loss journey up til this point in time:

10/2/2012:
273.6 lbs:

9/3/2012
292.6 lbs

I went up above 290 since the ‘rest’ I had to take to let the stab wound heal was days I gorged and ate extremely badly. That was a HUGE setback!… Hopefully junk like that won’t cause me to have setbacks again in the future.

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Video of ‘The stab wound’ the monring after it happened. Sorry for the crappy video quality. I was using a low resolution webcam since it was the only video recording device I had available on that day. I accidentally stabbed myself with a steak knife while doing dishes. It was in the rack drying with the point up, but our sink is very small so I just moved wrong while washing a dish and accidentally the knife went right in. I bled a ton when it happened. Very scary situation since Tekla was not home when it happened. Very hard to hold the phone and call 911 when one of your arms has to hold a towel to stop blood and the other is bleeding like crazy.

…

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
292.1 lbs

6/24/2012
296.5 lbs

Memorial Day
May 28, 2012

4/30/2012

4/10/2012

Weight Chart prior to the videos:

Just as a reference for this old chart…
135 kg = 297.624 Lbs
130 kg = 286.601 Lbs
125 kg = 275.578 Lbs

The chart sort of outlines my ups and downs… The time when I was at the heaviest was a very dark time. It seemed like death was everywhere I looked.

(https://jeffthomann.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/2189/ – list of most of the recent funerals in the family)

I think I was in a pretty deep depression at the time due to many family deaths those few years and various economic problems, as well as a lot of stressful political bullshit at work… One of my coworkers quit/got fired in a big huge spat that happened after several months of building up to it. They fought her getting unemployment checks, and that all ended us all in a courthouse type of setting in Jefferson City… one of the most nervous days I’ve ever had… It was a big fiasco. I’m not sure if she ever got her unemployment or not, or if she sued in a real lawsuit or not like she was planning to do… but anyways, in some of it I had to get sworn testimony in there about how the Associate CFO, who was sort of the head of our area had pounded fists on a table in a meeting a few years prior to this in some heated contractual negotiations, etc. (she was trying to argue something about a hostile work environment, etc.)… A few months after that whole fiasco, I was told that there just wasn’t room in the budget for me any more, and I was ‘reassigned’ to another department.

There was quite a bit of hostility in myself after that retaliation for speaking up… which is exactly what I still think that was all about… add in that type of getting pushed around to depression, etc. and with my personality being to overeat when feeling down or nervous, and it was just a horrible situation all around… I was a walking time bomb and heart attack ready to hit. Luckily, my rationale side, and amazing better half kept me sane during these insane times – so I didn’t buy up big bulks of fertilizer to use as a weapon of mass destruction, and stuck with causing havock in video games like Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andreas, various old NES games, etc. Entropia Universe, the video game, was a part of the depression, etc. as you can read about in my other blog as the developers in that game love to make promises they can’t and just won’t keep… and the love to break expensive items and estates in game that you pay for with real cash after you pay for it, sometimes for months, or years (taming still isn’t back since version update 10, etc)… However, even despite all the bull shit with that game, it was something I had some control over in my life… sort of this little escape from reality that was always there since I started playing it in 2007. There was some documentary on Eminem I watched on youtube the other day that talks about how his alter ego existed vs his real name use because it was this sort of alter ego he went in to deal with reality sort of and have control over… the documentary said that lots of folks that grew up in some conditions similar to his had the same type of issues sometimes. I think my avatar in Entropia has sort of turned in to that type of alter identity for me. I guess, like Neverdie, I am my avatar.

(note – blog link in above paragraph is now on a private blog, so it won’t work… new blog for entropia can be found at https://entropiascams.wordpress.com/ – I had to start the new blog and make old one private (although backup does exist in xml file that you can find a link to over on the new blog if you use a password in one of the posts over there… hint: password is a simple name that most folks that have played entropia a long time should know… it starts with an M and ends in an O… 🙂 ))

(August 2015 update on the job issue… currently working as a Dual Rate First Responder/Security Officer at the Isle of Capri Casino in Boonville, Missouri.  I’ve held this job less than a month so far. Before that I was only a Security Officer a few months, and prior to that worked as a Steward at the Casino. I have a few updates to resume still needed.)

I have grown to love my new job… so sometimes the God(s) do have a plan. I actually kick ass at work now since I’m 3000% hyper focused. Also, I don’t have the constant man hating bullshit that I had to experience daily in my previous department. At one time back then my Supervisor back then actually hung up the phone and outloud gabbed about how the problems they were having was all his fault because he was a man. It was highly funny/ironic/sad at the time because the only other guy in the area we worked in and I had to go to a human resource training session the day before that talked a lot about how sexual discrimination was so bad to have in the work place, etc. In that department, at least at one time there was a massive amount of sexual discrimination of men in the department was happening by the female supervisor and boss… All the while chitty chatty brown nosing gossipy bitch who sat in the cubicle next to mine got a raise. They never really did this discrimination stuff openly. What they’d do is this stupid crap of creating a new position that did the exact same job of who they wanted out… then after they purposefully got the job duties overlapped enough they’d assign the old worker they wanted out the bullshit jobs like manually closing out 50,000 or so accounts in a huge database where a pulldown menu had to be selected to close it, and this backlog of unclosed visits existed because the brown nosers never did their job but did a good enough job of hiding that fact until months later that they were never reprimanded… and then after assigning the crappy job they’d say that due to the overlapping of duties, there just is no need for the person that was there longest, etc. It’s all political bullshit…

However, luckily the new position I’m in now has much less of that type of stuff going on. For the first time in my life I work for a Department Manager that actually gives a damn about what her employees think! Just the other day I had an hour long meeting with supervisor and department manager just to discuss a handful of emails I’d sent where I explained some concerns I had about processes in the office that I didn’t agree with. At no other job I’ve ever had in the past has anyone ever taken the time to care that much… That’s an awesome feeling. It’s nice to have control over your own real life world a little, and have coworkers that actually care about what you have to say and think. Also, even though I do have to listen to some coworkers and their phone conversations nowadays, it’s nothing like the hateful bullcrap I used to have in my old department where the brown nosing bitches like to slam phones down after the call, call names to the other party after that, and then repeat back the entire conversation they just had voicing out loud with as much hatred as possible why the other party was wrong, on every paragraph in the conversation, EVERY time they take a call or make a call, either on the office phone or on their own private cell phone… That type of venomous poison is easily spread as it’s yelled out daily. Kinda sad to say it but it’s almost too bad that rattlesnake they found in the hallway outside of my old department didn’t find it’s way in the mail slots. Might have adjusted some attitudes in that area, but I doubt it would have done any good. Hopefully some of the self-loathing venom being spewed from that old office can recede from that area in the future as it really just causes endless cycles of negativity to draw itself in more and more daily…

Hopefully, as I continue down a healthy past in the near future, this control over my own life can only get better and better over time. We are now in the age of Aquarius. Enlightenment that was just beyond grasp is now within reach! 🙂 😉

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workout and weird dreams…

Last night Tekla and I worked out with Power 90 tape for the first time. We are off to a nice start! Hope to keep it up. I’m really glad she’s working out with me. It is so much easier to stay on course when you have a great workout partner. Together we are going to Kick ass and take names.

I had a weird dream about 3:30 or so this morning. I journaled about it… Then tried to go back to bed since REM time was broken by it, but laid in bed about an hour and a half never fully falling asleep. I did have the bipap machine on though so got some rest, just could not sleep too deeply after that.

Lots of odd bits and pieces to that dream… I might write more about it someday, but for now, I’ll just say part of it involved “G-I-N-G-WHORE” being sung to the tune of B-I-N-G-O in reference to someone named Ginger…

I did a little more writing this morning, but am not doing the midi keyboard practice this morning since I feel like I need a full night of good rest to take that on.

Day 2

We didn’t do the Power 90 last night… and I also didn’t do any art. I did go in to the ‘art room’ last night… which is our second bedroom which is currently used as a storage room in half of it and I have a few tables set up for art in the other part of it. It was extremely cold as we have it blocked off to keep the cold air from the rest of the apartment to save on heating costs, etc. I tried to set up an encaustic painting area, but got a major headache. I played around with taking the feet off of a skillet in there since they are partly broken. I re-arranged quite a few things… However, after that I think the stress from being in there mixed with the cold and the thoughts of how little I’ve been in there, etc. just sort of gave me a migrane headache… I was in there a couple of hours probably, just re-arranging things… shortly after I left the room Tekla got home since she worked last night. After that we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet across from Golden Coral. It’s a nice place… and it’s fairly cheap. I think it’s usually about twenty bucks between the two of us. I was really feeling ill during the meal. I think it was the cold from the room mixed with some sinus problems I’ve been having as well stress from being back at work the first day in many days dealing with very complex system issues (adjusting some hold bills are tricky – have to queue claim, print to screen to create an Account Receivable Counter on the Plan, then manually adjust off the balance, and note the visit – a very multi-step process that should only take 30 seconds but really takes about 5+ minutes per claim, and I had quite a few of those to deal with the last hour of work… among the many other things I did the rest of the day – have to jump through hurdles to just get the system to do what it should do automatically but never does as it was not programmed to do things the right ‘smart’ way of handling EVERYTHING… )… Tekla rubbed my head to try to help the migraine a bit, but it only helped so much. Needless to say after the dinner we pretty much went directly to bed shortly after that… Today, I did write some more in morning pages. I also did practice midi about half an hour, but only about 15 minutes of it got recorded since the computer ran out of memory or something as some error message popped up about virtual memory running out. Not sure why it worked yesterday in recording half an hour, but not today?.. Here’s today’s recording. I tried to practice more of the C-scale. It’s very difficult to get my left hand to do the transition when heading back down the scale. My middle finger just doesn’t seem to land on E all the time since it’s such a complex wrist movement… It also doesn’t help that the keyboard is probably on a desk that’s a little too high compared to where the office chair is at maximum height. Elbows are probably about even or a little below the keyboard, and they should be above for optimal use… might have to get a new desk or chair someday down the road?… might need a new keyboard too someday as this one has a lot of static in the sound coming out of the speaker in the earphones (I use earphones since it’s so early morning and I live in an apartment)… so here’s the short version of what did actually record. I was hoping it would be the full 30 minutes, but the computer thought otherwise.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5pC9Gwr9zBIOEgxbVlpdzA2aXM

day 57 – restful morning.

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…

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…

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.

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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?

44th evening of the 1000 day challenge…

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.

43rd evening of the 1000 day challenge…

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.

43rd morning of the 1000 day challenge

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…

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.

42nd morning of the 1000 day challenge…

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.

Sick Day…

I was not feeling well today so ended up taking the day off as a sick day at work. As a result, I’m not working out today, and might not this weekend… at least not on Saturday… We’ll see how I feel on Sunday… probably will take both Saturday and Sunday to rest though… It’s a little after 2 PM now… I got up this morning to call in to work, see Tekla off to school and then went to bed and just recently got up less than an hour ago, and still feel not so hot.

I’m achy, have a headache, and am sore everywhere. My guess as to what is happening is that all of these two a day workouts is sort of acting like a mild form of chronic cardio, which weakened my already weak immune system (I have diabetes, allergies – and it’s currently prime time allergy season), and then I through that flu shot at it, and this is the side effects of that mixture coming back to kick me in the ass… Hopefully things will return back to normal later this weekend or early next week.

To those that say I am not doing enough work to have chronic cardio – you might be right… but on the other hand, are you the weight I am personally and doing the amount of workouts, with the workouts being various routines of either high intensity, circuit or cardio, that I’ve been doing recently (roughly one hour of workouts twice a day, 5 or 6 times a week?)… Didn’t think so. If you are, good for you. Keep it up.

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Flu Shot Q&A:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm

Why do some people not feel well after getting the flu shot?
The most common side effect of the flu vaccine in adults is soreness at the spot where the shot was given, which usually lasts less than two days. The soreness is often caused by a person’s immune system making protective antibodies to the killed viruses in the vaccine. These antibodies are what allow the body to fight against flu. The needle stick may also cause some soreness at the injection site. According to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), rare symptoms include fever, muscle pain, and feelings of discomfort or weakness. If these problems occur, they are very uncommon and usually begin soon after the shot and last 1-2 days.

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Chronic Cardio Links

http://fitnessforfunction.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/chronic-cardio/

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/chronic-cardio-2/#axzz2979kFXvU

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread63751.html

http://crossfitmeanstreets.com/2010/09/08/chronic-cardio-is-forcing-your-body-to-kill-you-and-how-you-can-save-yourself/

http://paleohacks.com/questions/81844/what-is-chronic-cardio#axzz2976c86fS

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread67113.html

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-you-shouldnt-burn-more-than-4000-calories-a-week-through-exercise/#axzz2979kFXvU

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/chronic-cardio/#axzz2979kFXvU

taking it easy this 38th eve…

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*)! 🙂

38th morning of the 1000 day challenge…

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… 🙂

37th evening of the 1000 day challenge

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.

37th Morning of the 1000 day challenge

It’s day 37 and this morning’s cardio workout is now complete!

36th evening of the 1000 day challenge

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…

Day 36

36th day of the 1000 day challenge and the morning cardio workout is now complete! 🙂

35th 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…

Day 35 of the 1000 day challenge

Today’s morning cardio workout is now complete. 🙂

REST day – day 34

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.

31st morning of the 1000 day challenge…

Well, it’s the 31st day of this 1000 day challenge, and today I decided to do a little kickboxing… The workout was Fitness Blender’s Cardio Kickboxing. Be careful if you do this one after doing Power 90 like I have been… the punches are much quicker than in P90, and if you are not careful you can overextend arms or legs and hurt yourself.

30th evening…Let the two a days begin!

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.

Day 29 – (warning: there’s a weigh in and video)

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

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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

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…

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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.

Day 27 of the 1000 day challenge

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

Day 26 of the 1000 day challenge.

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

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

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

Day 24’s Workout…

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

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

slept in..

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

Day 23 – workout…

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

I did the Level III-IV circuit…

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

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

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

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

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

Day 22 of the 1000 day challenge…

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

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

Day 20 of the 1000 day challenge

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

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

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

18th Evening… Went shopping! ;)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17the Evening…

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

16th evening of the 1000 day challenge…

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

Day 16 weigh in.

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

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

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

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

DAY 14 – FORCED REST

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

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

Day 13 of the 1000 day challenge..

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

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

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

Day 12 – Rest Day

Day 12 – Rest Day/S Day

11th Evening – Feeling Strong!

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

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

Day 10 Evening…

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

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

Day 10 of the 1000 day challenge.

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

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

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

Day 9 Evening workout…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

day 9 weigh in..

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

Day 8 Morning…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 7 Evening…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 7 of the 1000 day challenge

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

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

Day 6 of the 1000 day challenge

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

day 5 of the 1000 day challenge …

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

P90X scam…

http://naturalbias.com/why-the-p90x-exercise-program-is-overrated/ – another interesting take on this stuff…
———
Read an interesting post over at the following forum today:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=135061811&page=1

Even though it’s over a year old, I do have to sort of agree with him… The MLM side of Beach Body is pretty disgusting, and the informercials are too. I remember when I got my tapes, I bought the first one and thought all was well, then the next month, blamo a new hit on the credit card when the III-IV tapes came in… We cancelled after that, which is in part, part of the reason I never got back in to it til recently… I DO think the tapes are awesome, and definitely worth the investment, but do not think that the hype is all that great. It is a good system, but it’s not the only system, and there are lots of hidden costs if you buy in to it 3000%, like the pricy nutrition stuff, shakes, etc.

My wife and I have been bitten with MLM scams for many years. You name it and Tekla probably tried to sell it at one point in time (never sold the beachbody, but knew some folks that did)…

Thinking back to all of the stuff we got in to over the years… There was Nikken Magnets, Avon, Fruta Vida, Tupperware, One Sole, and a few others…

I’ll have to come back to this post later when I have a lot more time to go in to detail about ‘the evils’ and ‘pros’ of network marketing… or maybe it’ll get put in to a future post by itself…

but for now, just know companies want your money, even if they sell great products, and if there’s any MLM side to the business it likely is going to be overpriced since you are paying for middlemen salaries… as a result, I think if you do want to get in to Beach Body tapes and stuff, use credit or debit cards that are prepaid, or that have one time numbers for security so that you cannot be billed with recurring costs… that way you won’t get burned too badly… the real ‘problem’ with that sort of stuff is when you end up with recurring costs because of fine print when you are not really aware that the cost is recurring because the fine print was too darn fine or was hidden entirely through scammy trickery (something companies like Beachbody are definitely known for).