I have not really been focused on eating right or exercising lately due to taking care of the baby, etc. (hard to avoid snacks and caffeine when you are up all hours of the night) so that new job I picked up a few months back has really been helping me lose weight more than anything so far lately… I did do a few kettlebell swings the last week or two from time to time, but nothing too serious…
Tomorrow I DO Plan to start working on a new workout schedule daily. I’m focusing on some Tai-Chi and yoga type stuff for now for flexibility since there are some aches and pains the job is giving me, and I’m hoping that type of stretching workouts will help with that type of problem. I’ll eventually go in to some other workouts that are more aerobic down the road, but for now this is what I’m feeling the need to do since I have to listen to my body…
Lost about 8 lbs this week alone. Amazing what happens when you work out every single day. I’ve started doing Leslie Sansone’s walking tapes daily every day this week… and then today, on Saturday I did 20 nonstop laps of the breaststroke around the outer edge of the pool this morning.
I’m going to try to use the walking tapes to keep me motivated to actually work out daily. When I was doing the Slim in 6 a while back I was having problems doing the workouts every single day so it wasn’t giving me the amount of calorie burn I crave since my body couldn’t keep up with the workouts as I just wasn’t quite at that ‘level’ yet in endurance/strength. I could do the workouts but I was pretty sore after some of them, etc. I’ll probably do the walking tapes til I’m comfortable doing at least 3 miles every day for 6 days a week before I try integrating in too many other workouts… then I might do Power 90 again or something… or use the walking as the cardio days on power 90 or something like that. Feeling great. It’s awesome that I’m below 260 lbs again. Hope to stay here and keep going with this!!! I’m well on the way to where I want to be.
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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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.
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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.
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. Â 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! 🙂 😉
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.
I missed work0uts yesterday. Â We originally were planning on having Tekla start the Power 90 Tape I-II yesterday, but that didn’t happen since she was not feeling too well… I should have worked out but did not yesterday…
Tonight, the plan is to start on that, and I’ll go with her through that process, so my intensity on the nightly workouts is going to go backwards as I’m going back to I-II level instead of sticking with III-IV… but that’s ok since I can still workout in the morning after she’s left for school or work. Â Also, It probably is a good idea for me to do that so as to get the moves right since some like the lunge run was not quite right so was causing too much pain. Â Those shouldn’t cause so much leg pain that it keeps me from doing the bunny hops and / or jumping jacks…
This morning’s workout:
I did eight minutes and 31 seconds of Zuzana’s Zwow #9. Â I did pause a little longer than she did for the water break between round one and two. Â I feel bad that I didn’t make it all the way through but this is tough High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) type stuff, something my body is definitely not used to yet. Â Over time I will get more used to it though. Â I’ll probably experiment and try various online workouts like this in the mornings for variety. Â I originally was planning on doing a more restrictive set of workouts that are more close to an hour long in the mornings, but I just don’t have time for that… We’ll save that sort of stuff for the evenings. Â Since Tekla and I will workout together now, we’ll need variety on occasion so that sort of stuff can work for the nights. Â Short bursts of powerful HIIT training like bodyrock and some other online tapes can work for mornings for now.
feeling damn lazy today, so not working out tonight. Got home and Tekla had made an amazing meal for us… It was so nice. Put me in to a very good mood after a halfway bad day. Don’t want to break the mood with sore muscles and sweat… Tomorrow will be a better workout day. I MUST get back on schedule soon! Can’t allow this to continue. That’s what happened when that stab wound thing happened a while back… not gonna let that happen again. The rest of this week’s workouts will probably be fairly intense to make up for today’s laziness…
That is a weight loss of 20.3 lbs since 9/3/2012. It’s a weight loss of 24.2 lbs since 6/24/2012, and it means I’ve got somewhere between 95.3 – 132.3 lbs more to loose to get to target BMI weight.
This is the lowest weight I’ve been in many, many, many years, and it feels awesome. I’m honestly surprised it’s this low since I had big spaghetti meals at least twice this week and yesterday morning had two donuts for breakfast…
Today will probably be a rest day since I’m in a good place. I am not nearly as sore today as I was thinking I would be after that intense workout yesterday, so could workout today, but don’t really want to push it since I need rest from time to time to be able to continue this thing strong in the coming days.
I just did 11:15 mintues of the 40 minute Inpower Fitness Kettlebell workout. I was using the 22.5 lb weights on the kettlebell and had to quit now because of arm soreness and fatigue. Also, I hit my knee on one of the passarounds so it is hurting a little, but not nearly as much as my arms do right now. This is a GOOD workout, but it will take me a while to build up to doing it all the way through.
I will probably do some more working out later and edit this post when I do that. Not sure if I’ll pick up with the rest of the kettlebell routine or try something else.
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then I had 5 minutes rest… then… using 10 lb weight on one end of a three foot barbell…
10 Shovel Glove Levered Curls on each arm
and 10 Shovel Glove overhead Tricep Extensions on each arm
followed by
20 Shovel Glove Moulinets on each arm, counting one swing to both sides as one
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then 1 minute rest…
followed by 50 straight out ab wheel roll outs
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then 5 minutes rest…followed by 3 minutes of nonstop kettlebell swings.
I’m feeling exhausted extremely now… so I think I’ll call it quits for today’s workout but might sit here a few more minutes and ponder if I should do more here or not. My back is telling me to stop, so I’ll probably listen to it and take a shower here in a few minutes.
Even though I was planning on working out tomorrow to make up for that rest day a couple of days ago, I might just use tomorrow as a rest day if I’m still sore after today.
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ok… one last edit… about 20 minutes or so later.. I just completed 50 kettlebell swings. Now it’s really time to shower.
It’s the 46th evening of the 1000 day challenge.. and I’m feeling the burn tonight…
I did a full one hour intense cardio workout and then afterwards did approximately 3.5 minutes of nonstop kettlebell swinging as quickly as possible without breaking good form.
Sweating a ton and muscles are screaming with some level of pain head to toe… but not extreme pain… good type of pain.. the kind that will get me strong as my body repairs itself. 🙂 😉
It’s the 46th day of the 1000 day challenge. This morning I did a 20 minute cardio workout followed by 30 kettlebell swings with 22.5 lb weights on the kettlebell. The swings are starting to get comfortable enough that I should probably up it to 30 lbs, but I’m not ready for that yet since I don’t want to overdo things yet… That and I’m thinking I might try that 50 minute kettlbell tape again someday soon… So far I’ve only been able to do half of that tape and that was at the 15 lb weight level… have never tried it at this weight level yet.
Last night I didn’t workout. At a meeting at work they had cake, so since I messed up the morning I figured I’d just count yesterday as ‘rest day’ for this week – so I made spaghetti and garlic toast out of some bread last night and we had that for supper. I’ll probably try to do at least one workout each day this weekend to make up for the rest day yesterday. I’m trying to get away from rest days in midweek since they work better on Sundays when I do laundry and other household chores, run errands, go shopping, etc. but sometimes the situations just call for rest in the middle of the week… and as long as I do try to get back on schedule I’m not going to beat myself up for those times… I am human and part of this process is learning to listen to my body’s needs – including the need for rest from time to time.
It’s the 44th evening of the 1000 day challenge. Tonight I did the Power 90 Cardio Abs III-IV Workout and then after that, when I was exhausted and “sweating like a dog” as Tony calls it, I did 20 kettlebell swings followed by 20 Kettlebell Passarounds. I’m not sure if passaround is the official name for it, but that’s what I call it… where you hand off the kettlebell from left hand to right hand while swinging it all the way around your waistline. I did 10 of those to the left and then 10 to the right.
This morning’s cardio routine is now complete. After the cardio I did 20 Kettlebell swings. Burning tons of calories and sweating a ton… feeling great.
Tonight’s workout is now complete. I did the III IV Power 90 Circuit, and then when I was feeling completely wiped out at the end, grinned and gritted my teeth, then did 20 kettlebell swings with the 22.5 lb weights. Feeling exhausted but great now.
We had dinner before the workout tonight since my sugar was 96 after work. Any time it’s below 100 I feel like I need to eat since I start feeling light headed, weak and wobbly in my extremities sort of, and get a weird headache in my forehead.
This mornings cardio routine is now complete. It was very tempting to go back to sleep after getting up this morning since my bipap mask was not on all night, so it was not as restful of a sleep as it should have been… and I also had nightmares about having to kill a rattlesnake and a python that had gotten inside… but I didn’t go back to sleep… and got through the workout and feel great now!…
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.
It’s the 38th morning of this 1000 day challenge… This morning’s cardio workout has now been completed. I was fairly tired this morning since my bipap mask was not on all night, but a little cardio has completely energized me… 🙂
It’s the 37th evening of the 1000 day challenge and tonight’s III-IV Circuit workout is now complete. Feeling Strong. I’m still questioning if I am giving myself enough rest, but I seem to be progressing and not being in ‘pain’ really… at least not no more than I would expect in a workout… after the showers it’s all good usually. Not sure if I’m loosing weight, but I can tell I’m definitely gaining muscle.
It’s the 36th evening of the 1000 day challenge and I just got done with the Cardio Abs about an hour ago tonight. Unfortunately, I let myself have coffee at work again, so the workout was kinda tough. The jumping jacks and run lunges are still hard on the shins, calves and ankles for me and the caffeine just makes that worse… it tightens up the muscles much more than they should so during the workout it’s more pain… but sometimes, it’s really just hard to avoid that cup of java, especially like at work where it’s free, not far from my cubicle, and there’s sugar free cocoa to mix in with it to make up something similar to a cappuccino now and then… Need to back off of it though…
I am liking the two a day workouts, but I do feel the difference in the intensity I am able to do between these days and the days when I do the one a days… with one a days, I always feel like I’ve got enough energy to pick up the kettle bell and give it some swings after the main one a day workout… on these two a day days, there’s no way that is gonna happen… I can barely make it through the workouts near the end sometime… but usually the workouts do loosen up some muscles by the end.. and then after a nice hot shower, I’m feeling great later in the evening…
It’s the 35th evening of the 1000 day challenge. Tonight’s Circuit III-IV tape was kind of tough since my heartrate was already up a little due to drinking coffee at work today. I probably should not have had it since it always does this to me and increased possible muscle pain since it tenses muscle fibers, but I did get through it…
After some experimentation, I got the clips off of one of the dumb bells, put them on the longer pole that used to be used as leg lift on my old hand me down weight set from many years ago… (the same pole that I took the foam pad off and cut to allow it to act as handles for the dumbbells…)
and I put a 10 lb weight on the end. This will work as my tool to do shovel glove moves in our apartment. I love this since it’s an adjustable weight system, which means it’s really more adaptable, and more importantly, economically smart than just buying a real sledge hammer. It also negates the need for the ‘glove’ part of shovel glove… with that they were putting towels, sweaters or other cloth materials on the sledge hammers so as to not damage anything… a rounded weight on a bar shouldn’t hurt much unless I really hit it hard straight on or something on purpose.
If I need the weight to go down, I just will swap the 10 lb weight down to 5 lb, etc. If I want to go for the gold, I can add tons of weight to it eventually… probably won’t ever go past 20 lbs but you never know… Not sure what the weight capacity for this bar is? It wasn’t really intended for this sort of quick movement in these type of angles, but for now it will do well…
The bar is about 3 feet long or so, so it’s around the same size as a sledge. Only thing I’m not too sure about is if clips might slip with a lot of movement… but I have some heavier clips that I can use if I really need to. This is a bar off of an old school weight set, so it’s made of fairly thick metal – much more solid I think than the light weight metal used in the dumbbell set I recently bought… Between the kettle bell for lower core/leg strengthening and this thing for upper core and arm strengthening there’s lots of potential here…
Cash saved from this – used to buy Just Dance 3 at a used cd store today… 🙂
If you don’t have an old school weight bench available that has a leg left/curl thing on it at the bottom… you can probably cut a full sized benchpress bar in half or something to get a bar that’s about the same length.
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edit – added some duct tape to the end of the bar at the very end just before the clip to help so clip won’t slip off… I don’t think it would have anyway, but little extra precautions like this can help keep big accidents from happening.
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Also, reading around on some forums… thinking the next time I have some free cash to spend on exercise stuff, I might get this thing http://www.gymboss.com/… looks like it would be useful if/when I get in to doing a lot of my own routines instead of using videos to time things.
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.
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.
I just got done with the III-IV Cardio Abs tape. I think this is the first time I’ve ever done the run lunge the proper way… Prior to now I wasn’t pushing my legs back far enough so it was more like just running with raising arms… that was tough on the legs so I had to the do modified bunny hops a little.
After the workout I grabbed the ab wheel and did about 20 rolls straight out and then 20 side ones changing sides every time.
Finally, upped the weight on the kettlebell to 15 lbs and did a few swings and exercises in the gold’s gym kettlebell workout.. Almost had to bend the pin on the thing since the hole for the middle part of the kettlebell adjustable weight thing isn’t lined up just right… it’s close, but just off a little. Finally had to use some plyers to get it to work.
Today I’m going to consider a rest day because the landlord re-caulked the pipe in the middle of the shower. It came out of the wall the other day… need to leave it time to dry so won’t be able to take a shower tonight so won’t workout because working out and not showering afterwards is just gross.
Also, took some rope in the trunk, a couple of Nature Made 100 pack bottles of fish oil pills that I emptied a while back, and some duct tape and made myself a home made jump rope tonight. I have a real jump rope somewhere but it’s boxed up in a corner somewhere I can’t get to at the moment, so for now this will work. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it looks like it will work. Left the blue part of the bottle cap on and ripped off the flip top, sticking some duct tape up around where the rip was so it won’t slice my hands since it was sharp edged. This looks like it really will work. The nice round shape of the bottle top should allow this to work nicely. I have a lot of extra rope wrapped up inside of the bottles and duct taped around itself so that they won’t come out of the bottle when I try to use it. Some duct tape is down at the bottom in the middle too to weight it a little and protect it from fraying. I never have been much of a jump rope person since I get shin splits, but after reading that jump rope is very high calorie burn like kettle bells, especially if you do doubles, it makes me think maybe I should look in to trying it out a bit. I really like these bottles since they are somewhat soft, but still sturdy so should be good on the hands for this type of thing… nice rounded edges everywhere except where I tore off the flip cap, and now with the duct tape, it’s soft too.
Just 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.
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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.
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.
In the post before this one where I first showed the above image I mentioned that I’d seen various ghetto bells online in various locations… so without further ado, here’s a little gallery of ghetto bells I’ve seen online (may add more as I come across them in the future)
Inspired by various other ‘ghetto bells’ I’ve seen in various places online, and various blogs and websites that talk about how great of an exercise the kettle bell is, the other day I decided to create my own ghetto bell. A ghetto bell is a home made kettle bell substitute…
Here is this lovely beauty:
I will probably use it after work since I keep it in the trunk of my car. It sits next to my ‘Samurai crowbars,’
which I plan to use to do workouts that are similar to the Phayze’s Shovel Glove Moves:
I tried the ghetto bell out today and did about 10 kettle bell swings from between the legs to over head and it is very nice movement and weight, and then did a few shoulder flies with it and it works very nicely. Back was not used to that load, but as I practice it more I will get more and more used to it I think. It’s tough staying with your shoulders far enough back to not hurt your back like you are supposed to do with these sort of heavy swings, but it’s far from impossible. Trick is keeping tailbone and lower back tucked in somewhat, and shoulders back.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 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! 🙂
I’ve been exploring the wide world of the internet from time the time the last few months, and have found quite a few nice online workout videos and diet advice in various locations such as youtube, podcasts, etc. I’m going to start a list here of some of the places to find these awesome resources…
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Please note: I take ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY for any of the content linked to below… I’m just linking to various videos and exercise links I’ve found online… I didn’t upload most of this stuff. If there’s some copyright violation or whatever, please don’t come knocking on my door with a court order or something like that. If you are a copyright owner and some of the stuff below is violating your rights, just leave a comment and I’ll try to delete the link as soon as I get a chance to read your comment.
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nice calorie counter thingy – http://www.fitclick.com/calories_burned?At_Home_Training&oc=729&page=11
Here’s why I’m tempted to do the Bodyrock videos as ‘the morning’ workouts…
Here’s an awesome tip… Use Google Video search!
Do a search for something in Google’s video search like a keyword for workout, or cardio, interval, etc. and then in the left column pick the option for results that are 20+ minutes in length. Blamo, you just found yourself a bunch of 20+ minute workout videos! 🙂 😉
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HOME MADE JUMP ROPE:
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Ryan Magin’s Youtube channel – He explores how various actors workout. http://www.youtube.com/user/RyanMagindotcom?feature=watch (warning – he’s trying to sell you something)
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nice long workouts here for medicine ball, etc:
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Walking 1-2-3 miles:
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Sword Workout – finally something I might be able to use to workout the crowbars besides the shovelglove stuff.
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Some nice little tools/plugins/Hardware to help with your home theater system (i.e. getting videos like the ones listed in this post to play on your tv or other type of monitor, etc.)
Streaming video needs a way to get to it’s end location (tv, hdmi monitor, etc.). Some hd tvs have hdmi ports that can just send video directly to a digital tv, using the tv as a second monitor…
For older tvs, some little gizmo is handy… For xbox and stuff like that xmbc might be the solution…
Some smart tvs now can do some video streaming… but some content providers block that when they can, so results can very depending on the hardware/software and what you are trying to stream.
For those on a little more of a budget or that are not in to gaming, streaming devices like the Roku or WD TV Live are fantastic. Take the time to evaluate and think about things before you decide to pick one streamer over another… they are very different beasts… for example The Roku 1 has good ol component out ports for audio/video to go to tvs whereas Apple TV doesn’t seem to have that, nor does later versions of the Roku… as with all gizmos and gadgets, you have to juggle what features you want vs what features will work with the gizmos and gadgets you already own since some things may not be compatible… and some folks try to scam the masses that are not aware of this sort of thing too much (like folks selling junk on ebay to convert hdmi signals in to component signals for regular old school tv ports without letting the buyer know that that won’t work without some other little gizmo that has to be purchased separately, etc.. buyer beware!)
Sometimes computers are needed as ‘middlemen’ of sorts to get some streams to tvs, etc. For this, great software like Plex and Playon Exists among many other various software packages, some of which is free, some of which is not so free…
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another little tip… if you find a video somewhere online that you can’t download for whatever reason, but you want to download, use a screen scraper that will record what’s on your monitor. The best/easiest one I’ve found for this sort of thing is bandicam. The free version lets you record 10 minutes at a time and it puts a little watermark on it… If you don’t mind the watermark that shouldn’t be a big deal. The free version of fraps doesn’t let you record 10 minutes at a time, even though some say fraps is better for this sort of thing, especially for recording online gaming, etc. What I like about bandicam vs fraps is bandicam makes it just a little easier to record areas on screen with a little box, or record one window… fraps it’s more hard to record one window or one area… there’s a few other screen scrapers out there like these two tools, but these two are probably the best ones…
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as far as with bandicam, etc. goes… it records avi files… if you do need videos more than 30 minutes there are ways to put several avi files in to one video file. Easiest way to do that is with a little command line thing:
What is the best way to join multiple DVD VOB files? Using the Windows copy command: Because the VOBs are simply split files created from previously contiguous larger file, you can reconstruct the larger file using the window copy command. To do this:
a) Open a cmd window using the Windows run command.
b) cd to the folder containing your VOB files.
c) At the command line, enter a command similar to:
copy /b vob1.vob + vob2.vob + vob3.vob outputFile.mpg
This will concatenate multiple VOB files into one output file. Note: Please don’t forget the /b switch.
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Avidemux works too… but not as well… it can rip up the area between the two avis or mp4s that are joined making screen unseeable as it’s all pixelated to hell.
Virtual dub is ok too…
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if it’s just avi files, windows movie maker or some cheap software like Magix Video Music maker work too.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=120677201&page=1 – Another Cinder Block workout
============== http://thetumblrgym.com/workout – nice little list of workout and diet videos on youtube (won’t mention most here since most are 3 minutes or shorter – great for info, but not so great for being your ‘online workout’)
============== http://www.youtube.com/user/MensHealthMag?feature=watch – Men’s Health Videos on Youtube
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Adrienne White mentions in some of her youtube videos (see link below) that her cardio workouts have 150 beats per minute, and some other workout and fitness folks have similar type of suggestions… so how do you find out how many beats per minute a song is? There’s various ways, but one website that used to rock for this was djbpmstudio.com, however, it went offline quite a while back and nothing has replaced it with the amount of stuff it had listed in my humble opinion… BUT, we are still in luck because there’s an archive of it in the internet archive’s way back machine! 🙂
There’s also a few blogs and forums I’ve read about it lately… interesting idea… the idea is that if you overwork, you will get hurt… seems logical. Makes me think maybe my wanting to do workouts twice a day is a mistake?… Not sure on what is the most appropriate stance on that issue yet since working out this intensely is still a fairly new way of life for me.
============= http://omniworkout.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/befit?feature=results_main = Be Fit Channel on Youtube has quite a few free workout videos, some even from the popular folks like Jane Fonda, Jillin Micheals, etc. Very nice treasure trove there.
http://www.bodyrock.tv/ – Body Rock TV has a lot of great workouts on youtube. There’s multiple contributors to it, so various multiple channels on youtube… that’s why I’m linking to the main website… You’ll have to explore a bit yourself if you want subscriptions to all the youtube channels related to this.
Also, if you have a roku or some other way of playing video from internet on tv, both All Fitness TV channel, and Live Exercise seem pretty interesting as well as a few podcasts like Yoga Today, Hillary’s Yoga Practice Podcast, Yoga with Les, and Fit for Duty.
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Fit For Duty on Youtube… (if you have problems finding it in itune podcasts)
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now for something a little bit different…
Here’s a video about why exercise is bad for you…
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If like me, you find the ‘live exercise’ channel on roku to not work well, you might try getting their videos via youtube…
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A few interesting videos
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Zuzana’s Zwow workouts
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Zumba Nation:
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I’m sure there’s many more out there on the internet. Will update the list with more eventually. Have fun. Happy exercising! 🙂
Jeff Thomann's Blog 
