MVP FITNESS 365

DAY 33 of 365 – VACATION

Please excuse my absence over the next few days. 

I will be out of town at a HUGE nationals cheer competition.  That is how we roll for family vacations.  HA!  Although I intend to exercise while at the hotel, and eat “moderately well” while away from home, to think I will continue to lose weight is a silly notion.  I will likely gain a few pounds but rev that slowing metabolism back up again.  

Next week is going to be amazing.  I start back at the gym three days a week, and will be ready to correct any gain and then some.

Until then…  Eat.  Train.  Rest.  (I know, completely corny!  Almost sounded like an infomercial there.)

DAY 32 of 365

Ehhh.  I know that a big weekend is coming.  Even being careful, I will likely gain weight by eating out every meal while on vacation.  Whether the inevitable is from an increase of salt in my diet over the weekend or I simply misjudge portion size, it is a definite highly probable thing.

I think knowing that gave me the excuse I needed to continue slacking.  Why work hard today when I will just blow it later and have to work even harder again next week to correct?  Of course logic has not part of this discussion, thus the argument.  My mind knows but refuses to acknowledge.

So I did zero exercise and ate perfectly – until the turkey and cheddar sandwich right before bed.  Not the worst sin, but wayyyy off my plan.

I’m going to bed.  At least I won’t let a lack of sleep tonight make things worse.

February 1st – measurements

One month in…

Here are my stats for February 1, 2012:

CHEST   53.0″ (-1.0″)

WAIST   62.0″ (-1.5″)

HIPS   48.0″ (-1.0″)

Strange that yesterday I was really hoping for 2 to 3 inches lost, and this morning, after dropping 3.5 overall inches from my body, I find myself somewhat disappointed. 

Could I have done more?  In one month, I have dropped 15 pounds and 3.5 inches.  That’s a quality 31 days.  Perhaps I am just looking at how far I still have to go.  I try to remain focused on the day, on the NOW, but occasionally I catch a glimpse of the path ahead of me and realize that I am just starting this upward climb.  My end goals seem so far away and the process never seems to end (nor should it, I guess).

Is it the uncertainty?  I have been here before and failed.  What makes this different?  Can I do it?

I need to get past this week and back into the gym.  I feel stronger and more resolved when I am working out – even when I am dying in a puddled heap on the gym floor.  In the end, I know these are GREAT numbers.  Over the next 29 days, my goals are much less aggressive.  I want to lose another 8 pounds and drop 2-3 more inches. 

Bring on February… 

DAY 31 of 365

Cardio comes in all forms.  Most often, it is simply the treadmill in my bedroom.  Occasionally it is a hard bike ride, a workout video, or maybe even the elliptical at the gym.  Softball even.  I did not expect, however, the beating I took this afternoon from spraying the weeds in our front yard.

After 90 minutes hunched over the sprayer, I felt it.  BADLY.  Sweat was pouring off of me.  And don’t tell my lower back that I am taking the week off.  It would never believe you.  I am sooo sore that I could hardly stand afterwards. 

I debated whether to actually call weeding my cardio for the day, but after being unable to move for hours afterwards, I didn’t think getting another workout was even possible.  I am more hunched than Quasimodo right now.  A long HOT shower did wonders for me, but I still feel the tightness in my back even now.

Dinner was at Paradise Bakery.  Sigh!  We can’t afford to eat out as often as we do.  I also can’t afford the calories.  However, I let laziness get the best of me tonight.  No meat was pulled out, and I didn’t want to run for something at the store.  So we ate out – again.  Although I didn’t think it too joyful at the time, my wife did her part by confiscating my peanut butter cookie as plunder for the girls.  I had saved it till before bed when I was just dying for something sweet.  When I finally looked into the bag, it was gone.  I GUESS I am happy about it now, although I did wear my grumpy pants around for a while.  Oh well. 

Once again, I felt rather odd today.  A bit harder to breathe, out of breath doing the simplest of things.  Very foggy mentally as well.  When we were out tonight, I sat at one of those blood pressure machines at the supermarket.  (Are those things even accurate???)  It said I was 147 over 93 (with a 95 resting heart rate!).  That is HIGH for me.  Actually, I think it is the highest I have ever seen for me – and after exercising for a solid month.  I expected MUCH better.  It could be the Absolute Zero - Monster I had an hour earlier (caffeine can do that), or it could be a sign of something serious.  Kind of hoping it is the Monster.  I think I’ll retest in a few days and see what is going on. 

MEASUREMENTS TOMORROW.  I feel huge today, but it is what it is.  Hoping to see at least two, but preferably three total inches gone from my chest, hips, and waist.  I’m kind of paranoid that I won’t have lost anything, although I know that can’t be the case.  Just nervous, I hope.

~ putting on my shoes

Insanity did not happen.

Instead I sat in bed watching Caged on MTV.  It was still only 11:00PM when the show ended, so I decided to stop thinking about it and just PUT ON MY SHOES.

There’s a tip.  Remove as many obstacles from your path as you can.  Sometimes the easiest way to get started is by taking the tiniest of first steps.  Brilliantly simple and understated.  I still told myself that I was NOT going to exercise, but I allowed my body to be talked into just grabbing my shoes.  Obviously, that mere act of readying myself physically was enough to nudge me mentally. 

One thing led to another, and next thing I knew, I was walking on the treadmill.  Just a short walk.  Nothing difficult.  Well, when the timer kicked on for me to run, I pushed.  Four intervals later, I was cooling down and wiping the sweat away.  Cardio intervals?  CHECK.

I will say, however, that it was TOUGH tonight.  I had a real hard time breathing.  Very labored and plodding.  I ran much slower than normal.  I still poured sweat as much as any day and felt completely drained as if I had run the entire time.  I guess that happens.  That, or I am having a heart attack.  Let’s pray that it is the former.

Off to bed.  I have a long day ahead of me.  Pedometer is on tomorrow.  10k or bust.

DAY 30 of 365 – the week ahead

This is kind of an ODD week for me.

I am basically scheduled to stay out of the gym.  Zero resistance training.  I really don’t know how I feel about that.  Of course I like the idea of taking it easy, but I feel I have been a bit lazy recently, so part of me is ready to GO!  I was just starting to hit my stride while getting into a good routine of working out and staying active.  I WANT to be there, crawling away with that perfect jell-o like muscle fatigue.

I understand the reasons.  My muscle strength is getting ahead of my tendon strength.  I need to allow my connective tissue a chance to recover.  I also want to avoid peaking and becoming comfortable with my workouts.  From a psychological standpoint, it is far better to be away from the gym , wishing I could be there, than to be there, wishing I could get away (took that right from the book – NROL).

The downside is that weightlifting is the cornerstone of my program – of ANY good program.  So if I am to rely on cardio sessions alone to burn calories, to keep my body pushing forward, I may be in some trouble.  I mean, I try to get some running in, but I generally HATE cardio.  It really is mostly useless for fat loss.  That has been shown over and over again.  Intervals are a step in the right direction, of course, but I still disapprove on principle.  HA!  If I miss a cardio workout (which I have done quite a bit lately), I shrug my shoulders and move on.  I can’t do that this week and continue to lose.

To make things worse, I will be in Palm Springs this weekend to watch my daughter compete in a very huge, very important national cheer competition.  Every meal will be eating out.  There will be a small “gym” at the hotel, but that essentially means they threw a treadmill into a closet.  Good luck with that!  To keep me honest, I am packing my scale so that I can still get an accurate reading on Sunday morning.  I don’t expect it to be pretty, but perhaps with sheer will, I can limit the damage.

Another BIG EVENT on this week’s calendar is that of taking measurements.  I have two days to pull everything together and think smaller.  Inches lost.  That is all my focus before then.  I definitely lost some size, but I can’t wait to lock in those inches on my statistics page.

OK, I am off to eat dinner.  Breaded chicken and vegetables.  The breading is actually a corn flake mix, rather than flour and oil.  It is a healthier alternative and one of my favorite meals. 

CARDIO TONIGHT!!!  I’m thinking I might pop in the Insanity DVD and follow along.  That should sufficiently kill me.  45 minutes of, well… insanity.  I will check back later to confirm.

DAY 29 of 365 – POSTDATED (again!)

Laziness?  Complacency?  Or just the product of grinding out weight loss over 29 straight days?

I admit it.  I have struggled a bit, not only in keeping up with my blog, but in my workouts.  This is the third day in a row that I have posted late.  I haven’t worn my pedometer since last Thursday, and I have only completed a single cardio session all of last week.  Sigh.

Thankfully, the crux of my program is holding strong and the underlying strategy has continued to work well for me.  I have not missed a lifting workout and have followed my nutrition plan almost to daily perfection.  That has kept me on a path to continued weight loss.  

I am not sure why I didn’t exercise Sunday.  I wanted to.  I had planned on it.  It didn’t happen.  I ate well, but that has become the easy part.

The coming week will say a lot.  In my next post, I take a look at the week ahead. 

WEEK 4 WEIGH-IN – 327.2 pounds

Ehh, whatever.  Average week. 

I expect a lot of weeks to look just like this one.  Intense workouts in the weight room, hit and miss cardio sessions, and very little deviation from the nutritional plan.  That works for me.  Another 2.6 pounds lost for a nice SOLID 15 pounds lost in January.

STARTING WEIGHT: 342.2

PREVIOUS WEEK: 329.8

CURRENT WEEK: 327.2 (-2.6)

TOTAL POUNDS LOST: (-15.0)

I am 7.7% complete and down 15.0 total pounds.

DAY 27 / DAY 28 of 365 – POSTDATED

Whew!  Crazy weekend.  I missed two days of posting (and almost a third), so let me jump back a few days and fill in the gaps.

DAY 27:  The plan was to get in a good hour of cardio after my daughter’s cheer practice.  She finished at 7:00PM, but a minor emergency derailed everything.  Ashley apparently sprained her wrist tumbling at practice.  We really thought it was broken for a while and debated strongly whether to run her to the hospital for an x-ray.  All this, the night before a big local competition and a week before a HUGE competition in Palm Springs.  In the end, we opted for Ibuprofen, kineso tape, and a brace.  Fingers crossed!

Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick – for now.  At least she was able to bear weight on her wrist again, albeit with some pain.  It was enough to get her through the routine the following day, and now we have a week off from tumbling to heal for Palm Springs.  Back to Friday night… by the time we had worked through everything, it was closer to 11:00PM, so I just slacked.  We had an all-day cheer competition the following morning, and I opted for sleep instead.  I don’t regret that decision at all.

DAY 28:  From the moment I woke up at 8:30AM until the time I went to bed at 3:00AM, the day was all about cheer.  We drove a half hour away to Cricket Pavilion and had the perfect day supporting Ashley and her team. It was so long and totally exhausting, but I’d have rather been nowhere else.    When we got home at 7PM, I got to work on posting the videos from the day online.  Although I was up until very early in the AM working on it, I did find enough time in-between edits to jump on a treadmill. 

I was able to really push my intervals last night.  Despite the mental exhaustion, I cranked up the intensity until it almost hurt to run.  Ahhh, side stitches!  Welcome back.

It was difficult to eat healthy in a venue that didn’t allow food to be brought in and only sold hot dog and nachos fare.  With a little creativity, however, we were able to sneak in a few snacks and then just toughed it out.  A small serving of cashews and half a sandwich helped tide me over for most of the day.

It was a good end to the week.

DAY 26 of 365

Thursdays, by rule, are not much fun.

Don’t get me wrong.  I LOVE my kids.  But when my wife works from 7AM to 7PM, and I am left to tend to the girls for every need, I kind of go insane before the day is out.  Get them both up, dressed, fed, and out the door to school.  Then pick them up, feed them again, get them off to cheer, and generally tend to every whine, complaint, and need in between…  Ahh, I am just being negative. 

Candy says I am too negative on here.  Perhaps that is because making losing weight my singular focus DAY AFTER DAY begins to take its toll on me.  I worry about every bite I eat, every step I take (or lack thereof), and every workout.

I apologize for the extra negativity today.  Just a looooong day.

Cheer practice was closed to parents, so I spent a wonderful two hours with my 5 year old wandering aimlessly around the mall to kill time.  It helped get in my steps, but did nothing for my mood.  I actually enjoyed most of it, but I am just exhausted from being on my feet most of the day.  Despite that, I am sitting at 8,000 steps and heading to bed.  No exercise.

I ate well except for the trip to Paradise Bakery for half a walnut sandwich, cup of broccoli cheddar (with roll), and a chocolate chip cookie (Yummm!).  So good.  Maybe it will help to rev my metabolism up like it seems to do some weeks.  Or perhaps it will grind my week to a halt.  I would have liked to have gotten on the treadmill, but it didn’t happen.

No real dent to my program.  I know these days will come, and I don’t feel like giving up in any sense.  I’ll be back tomorrow.

I need to push hard these last two days into the weigh-in on Sunday.  That will be difficult with another cheer competition all day Saturday, but if I managed it last week, I can do so again. 

I REALLY want another down week, because the following weigh-in will be much more difficult.  It will be my week off from the weight room, and the week ends with an out of state trip to Palm Springs for a huge national cheer competition.  Zero home cooked meals.  High stress.  Busy schedule.  Such a fun weekend, but potentially deadly to my program.  At least I don’t have to survive a super bowl party instead.