232.8 lbs--- up 2.6 lbs.
So yeah, the whole "workout weekend" thing didnt actually happen. And I ate fast food for 4 days, and I gained back almost all the weight I lost last week. Still a .4 lb net loss for the last 2 weeks. But damnit I was so close to finally breaking 230, looking forward to it soooooo much. Then I messed it up and regressed again. But maybe it will be a positive thing in the end.
With a little help from a certain very supportive blogette (thanks again), I've come to the realization that, on days that I work, even if I don't have the energy to go for a 3 mile run or a 45 minute lifting session, I can still manage to fit in a 20 or 30 minute workout. 30 minutes may not be better than 60, but even 20 is still way better than sitting on my ass all day. If all else fails, I can always make up some of the difference when I don't have work.
All that being said, I still managed to sit on my ass all day today. I love the internet because it gives me stuff to look at, but I hate that I tend to spend all day on it and my time just slips into the screen. I have to figure out how to keep it from taking up all my time. More importantly, I have to stop letting stupid shit get in the way of my workouts and the rest of my life.
Tomorrow is a new day, and a new beginning, and a new opportunity for me to get it going. It'll also be a pretty big test, because I think I'm gonna be pretty busy and have to scrape together some exercise time.
Well heres to building up some steam to get this fitness train rolling. (HAHA man can I come up with some cheesy shit, not literally) And heres to hoping that everyone was a good day tomorrow.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Routine
Unfortunately I've managed to stick to my routine for the last 2 days. In case you missed the post (it was in the last couple posts), over the last few weeks I've noticed that I haven't really had any energy to workout on the days that I have work. Its an energy thing, I'm just so damned tired after work that I dont feel like working out. So, true to form, I havent worked out for the last 2 days.
Arrrgghhh. Its annoying, and another reason why I dont like my job. But I seriously need to snap out of it tomorrow and Sunday if I'm going to finally break 230.
Alright, on my last post I mentioned some of the exercises I did in my workout. Remember? REMEMBER???? Lol, I mentioned the Standing Lat Pull Down, and that it was very difficult. Well lets just say, I dont remember my upper back ever being as tight as it has been the last few days. Neck, shoulders, between the shoulder blades, all hecka sore. But the thing that really surprised me was that my abs are sore. In my post I also mentioned that I didnt do any core work in my workout. And all the other exercises I did were the same as last time, so the only thing I can think of, is that the Standing Lat Pull Down worked my core pretty hard, I can still feel it in my upper abs, right around the bottom of my rib cage. Oh, and I didnt mention it because I didnt think it was particularly significant, but I did a lot of calf raises. I havent done calf raises in quite a while. And boy oh boy, my calves still hurt like hell 2 days later.
Oh well, I guess I should remember that pain is just weakness leaving the body. Or in this case, pain is just my body healing the micro-tears in my muscles that strength training causes and that it causes your body to continue to burn calories at an above normal rate for long after your workout ends. Good stuff, good stuff indeed.
Heres to having a successful workout weekend.
Arrrgghhh. Its annoying, and another reason why I dont like my job. But I seriously need to snap out of it tomorrow and Sunday if I'm going to finally break 230.
Alright, on my last post I mentioned some of the exercises I did in my workout. Remember? REMEMBER???? Lol, I mentioned the Standing Lat Pull Down, and that it was very difficult. Well lets just say, I dont remember my upper back ever being as tight as it has been the last few days. Neck, shoulders, between the shoulder blades, all hecka sore. But the thing that really surprised me was that my abs are sore. In my post I also mentioned that I didnt do any core work in my workout. And all the other exercises I did were the same as last time, so the only thing I can think of, is that the Standing Lat Pull Down worked my core pretty hard, I can still feel it in my upper abs, right around the bottom of my rib cage. Oh, and I didnt mention it because I didnt think it was particularly significant, but I did a lot of calf raises. I havent done calf raises in quite a while. And boy oh boy, my calves still hurt like hell 2 days later.
Oh well, I guess I should remember that pain is just weakness leaving the body. Or in this case, pain is just my body healing the micro-tears in my muscles that strength training causes and that it causes your body to continue to burn calories at an above normal rate for long after your workout ends. Good stuff, good stuff indeed.
Heres to having a successful workout weekend.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Yay for strength
Lame title, hahaha.
Okay, I did basically the same workout as last week. Made a few tweeks, and cut out the core work, because I want to be able to work tomorrow. But nevertheless, I got a great workout. Took like 40 minutes or so with warm up and some stretching during and after.
Every once in a while I like to use the opportunity that this blog affords me to offer people some tips on working out. This is one of those times: I did two of the most challenging and complex (in muscle usage, not performance) exercises that I've done in quite a while. Here they are:
1) Straight arm lat pull down-- At the lat pull machine, stand up, grab the bar and back up far enough that your arms are straight. Pull the bar down, keeping your arms straight, in an arc until either just before the weight stack hits the top of the machine or as far as your strength and flexibility will allow. Focus on keeping your arms straight and keeping your body from rocking back and forth with your movements. The move uses your chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs and back. Take it from me, start out with light weight to make sure that you maintain good form and are able to perform the lift correctly.
2) Lunges with twist-- I used a stability ball, but you can use medicine balls, dumb bells, milk jugs, anything that ha some weight, or if you can just use empty hands. The important part is that you keep your arms extended fully in front of your body. Perform a traditional lunge, keep your knees roughly in line with your ankles at about 90 degree ankles, a little bit of leeway is okay, but injuries can happen if your knees get too far in front of your ankles. When you get to the bottom of your lunge, with your knee just above the floor, or as far as you are able to go, rotate your arms as far as you can in one direction, rotating your torso, keeping your legs still. Return to the middle, then repeat the movement in the opposite direction. Then return to the standing position and repeat with the other leg. This is a very exhausting and difficult exercise. Make sure that you perform the same number of repetitions with each leg. Remember to only do as many reps as you can with proper form, for this type of exercise stop as soon as you can no longer use proper form.
Okay wow, those were kind of long winded descriptions, lets just say, I'm better at demonstrating than at describing, haha. Regardless, those are still two completely kick ass exercises.
I just got an idea. Would any of you be interested if I were to record myself demonstrating exercises and post them on here. That could be an interesting new feature to this blog. But I'm only going to do it if my readers like the idea. So now is the time when I'm asking you guys to give me a little feed back.
On a bit of a different topic. I really like strength training, weight lifting, olympic lifting, all of it. I've enjoyed it ever since I started doing it in high school. Actually, thats probably the thing I enjoyed most about being on the football team. God knows it wasn't because we were particularly good, and I barely even got to see the field. But I've always loved lifting weights. And to be perfectly honest, throughout this whole process of getting back in shape, over the past few months, the most athletic I've felt has been tonight, and last Wednesday night, when I was getting in a really good lift. It gives me a nice little confidence boost too, which is freaking awesome, and always helpful.
Okay, I did basically the same workout as last week. Made a few tweeks, and cut out the core work, because I want to be able to work tomorrow. But nevertheless, I got a great workout. Took like 40 minutes or so with warm up and some stretching during and after.
Every once in a while I like to use the opportunity that this blog affords me to offer people some tips on working out. This is one of those times: I did two of the most challenging and complex (in muscle usage, not performance) exercises that I've done in quite a while. Here they are:
1) Straight arm lat pull down-- At the lat pull machine, stand up, grab the bar and back up far enough that your arms are straight. Pull the bar down, keeping your arms straight, in an arc until either just before the weight stack hits the top of the machine or as far as your strength and flexibility will allow. Focus on keeping your arms straight and keeping your body from rocking back and forth with your movements. The move uses your chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs and back. Take it from me, start out with light weight to make sure that you maintain good form and are able to perform the lift correctly.
2) Lunges with twist-- I used a stability ball, but you can use medicine balls, dumb bells, milk jugs, anything that ha some weight, or if you can just use empty hands. The important part is that you keep your arms extended fully in front of your body. Perform a traditional lunge, keep your knees roughly in line with your ankles at about 90 degree ankles, a little bit of leeway is okay, but injuries can happen if your knees get too far in front of your ankles. When you get to the bottom of your lunge, with your knee just above the floor, or as far as you are able to go, rotate your arms as far as you can in one direction, rotating your torso, keeping your legs still. Return to the middle, then repeat the movement in the opposite direction. Then return to the standing position and repeat with the other leg. This is a very exhausting and difficult exercise. Make sure that you perform the same number of repetitions with each leg. Remember to only do as many reps as you can with proper form, for this type of exercise stop as soon as you can no longer use proper form.
Okay wow, those were kind of long winded descriptions, lets just say, I'm better at demonstrating than at describing, haha. Regardless, those are still two completely kick ass exercises.
I just got an idea. Would any of you be interested if I were to record myself demonstrating exercises and post them on here. That could be an interesting new feature to this blog. But I'm only going to do it if my readers like the idea. So now is the time when I'm asking you guys to give me a little feed back.
On a bit of a different topic. I really like strength training, weight lifting, olympic lifting, all of it. I've enjoyed it ever since I started doing it in high school. Actually, thats probably the thing I enjoyed most about being on the football team. God knows it wasn't because we were particularly good, and I barely even got to see the field. But I've always loved lifting weights. And to be perfectly honest, throughout this whole process of getting back in shape, over the past few months, the most athletic I've felt has been tonight, and last Wednesday night, when I was getting in a really good lift. It gives me a nice little confidence boost too, which is freaking awesome, and always helpful.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
This is gonna be long
Workout first: running, 3.357 miles, 52 minutes, 592 calories, avg speed 3.88 mph
Pretty freaking awesome workout. My farthest run yet, by like 1/4 mile or a little more. And if I'm not mistaken, I think thats also my "fastest" avg speed as well. I'm thinking that, in the near future, I need to time another mile to see how much I can take off the 11:30 and change I did a while ago. I think I've definitely improved my endurance, and thats really the only thing thats holding back my mile times. So, I'll have to give that a shot.
As I promised last night, I really don't know how I managed to lose 3 lbs last week. I got 2 good workouts in, really good ones, and spent 2 or 3 hours walking around the Vancouver Sausage Festival, which by the way is really cool, on Saturday. I guess a big part of it was that I took food to work most days, which cuts back my calories a lot.
Anyways, after the 3.2 lb loss, I'm currently .2 lbs from hitting my first weight loss goal, which is totally awesome. So I'm going to build on my awesome workout today, keep it going for the rest of the week, and (hopefully) the wall will finally be brought down.
I've noticed lately that I've been having problems maintaining workouts on the days that I have work. Its most likely because the crazy sleep schedule zaps my energy, and the last couple weeks have been pretty busy which also can make my job physically tiring. So, I'm definitely going to have to get a handle on the whole work thing if I'm going to be able to stay on the weight loss train.
I also wanted to mention the Biggest Loser premiere tonight. For the most part it was awesome. I'm worried for the one lady, I think her name was Tracy, the one that collapsed during the first challenge. To my non-medically trained eye, it looked like she had a stroke, so I hope she ends up being okay. This brings up the point that what the hell were they doing having these people, I think 5 people are over 400 lbs, running that much on their first day. I've been watching the show for several seasons, and thats really the only beef I have, other than the fact that someone can lost 15 lbs and go home, they make the contestants do stuff that they really have no business doing. I realize that it is a TV show, and they need to do entertaining and dramatic stuff to keep people watching, but there has to be some kind of happy median they can come to that would make it interesting and safe. Considering that the trainers are supposed to be world class, not to mention the team of doctors and exercise scientists advising, they have entirely too many big injuries, in my humble opinion. I guess this is probably debatable, but like I said, I absolutely love the show, thats just the issue I have with it.
As I said, this is pretty damn long. So I'm gonna grab a bite and go to bed. Hope you all had a successful day.
Pretty freaking awesome workout. My farthest run yet, by like 1/4 mile or a little more. And if I'm not mistaken, I think thats also my "fastest" avg speed as well. I'm thinking that, in the near future, I need to time another mile to see how much I can take off the 11:30 and change I did a while ago. I think I've definitely improved my endurance, and thats really the only thing thats holding back my mile times. So, I'll have to give that a shot.
As I promised last night, I really don't know how I managed to lose 3 lbs last week. I got 2 good workouts in, really good ones, and spent 2 or 3 hours walking around the Vancouver Sausage Festival, which by the way is really cool, on Saturday. I guess a big part of it was that I took food to work most days, which cuts back my calories a lot.
Anyways, after the 3.2 lb loss, I'm currently .2 lbs from hitting my first weight loss goal, which is totally awesome. So I'm going to build on my awesome workout today, keep it going for the rest of the week, and (hopefully) the wall will finally be brought down.
I've noticed lately that I've been having problems maintaining workouts on the days that I have work. Its most likely because the crazy sleep schedule zaps my energy, and the last couple weeks have been pretty busy which also can make my job physically tiring. So, I'm definitely going to have to get a handle on the whole work thing if I'm going to be able to stay on the weight loss train.
I also wanted to mention the Biggest Loser premiere tonight. For the most part it was awesome. I'm worried for the one lady, I think her name was Tracy, the one that collapsed during the first challenge. To my non-medically trained eye, it looked like she had a stroke, so I hope she ends up being okay. This brings up the point that what the hell were they doing having these people, I think 5 people are over 400 lbs, running that much on their first day. I've been watching the show for several seasons, and thats really the only beef I have, other than the fact that someone can lost 15 lbs and go home, they make the contestants do stuff that they really have no business doing. I realize that it is a TV show, and they need to do entertaining and dramatic stuff to keep people watching, but there has to be some kind of happy median they can come to that would make it interesting and safe. Considering that the trainers are supposed to be world class, not to mention the team of doctors and exercise scientists advising, they have entirely too many big injuries, in my humble opinion. I guess this is probably debatable, but like I said, I absolutely love the show, thats just the issue I have with it.
As I said, this is pretty damn long. So I'm gonna grab a bite and go to bed. Hope you all had a successful day.
Monday, September 14, 2009
CRAP
Totally got distracted by America's Got Talent and the new Jay Leno Show, which was really good by the way, and forgot to post.
Uhm, real quick, weight in, 230.2 lbs, down 3.2 lbs. Completely surprised by it, happy, but surprised, hope it doesnt come back and bite me this week, lol. I'm going to bed, so I'll elaborate on everything tomorrow. Crap I hate not posting on here, tomorrow I'll make up for it. Stay tuned. Hope life is going well for all.
Uhm, real quick, weight in, 230.2 lbs, down 3.2 lbs. Completely surprised by it, happy, but surprised, hope it doesnt come back and bite me this week, lol. I'm going to bed, so I'll elaborate on everything tomorrow. Crap I hate not posting on here, tomorrow I'll make up for it. Stay tuned. Hope life is going well for all.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Well
Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to find out any information about how training on an elliptical relates to running, just a bunch of people saying ellipticals are better. I did manage to stumble onto one amazingly scientific and interesting discussion board about the difference between running on treadmills and running on the ground. Apparently, there are people, and even scientific researchers, who believe that running on a treadmill is significantly less effective than regular running. Not to get into boring sciency stuff, but they say that the treadmill, among other things, eliminates wind resistance (which it does), and utilizes different, and smaller, muscle groups then does running on the ground, which in turn makes it less efficient of an exercise, meaning you'd burn about 3% less calories. Okay, I guess I did get into the nerdy science part, lol. But I found it interesting. I'm am absolutely intrigued by science, but thats a story for another day.
Anyways, today I didn't get a work out in. Instead, I decided to focus on doing some stretching and relaxing and trying to loosen up my still tight and sore muscles. I made it through work okay, but it would sure be nice to not be so damn sore, haha. Tomorrow I'll have more time and be able to get in a nice hard workout, which will be good. Hasta Manana.
Anyways, today I didn't get a work out in. Instead, I decided to focus on doing some stretching and relaxing and trying to loosen up my still tight and sore muscles. I made it through work okay, but it would sure be nice to not be so damn sore, haha. Tomorrow I'll have more time and be able to get in a nice hard workout, which will be good. Hasta Manana.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Ah My Old (New) Friend
The elliptical.
30 minutes, 3.1 miles, 300 calories, avg speed of 6.3 mph.
Whew I'm freakin exhausted. When I stepped off the machine my legs were wobbly. Thankfully, after a bit of a cool off and stretch they stopped doing that.
Quick hit, does anyone happen to know how elliptical speed/distance relates or translates to actual running???? I'd be very interested to find that out. If no one knows I might actually have to google it and see if I can figure it out on my own.
And in case any of you are wondering, I'm still pretty sore from last night. Nice and stiff and tight. I thought working out would help, but it really didnt. Oh well, hopefully it'll get better by tomorrow, it'll be pretty hard to do my job if my arms are still this sore, lol.
Now I'm gonna go pass out. Hope you all had a pleasant day and evening.
30 minutes, 3.1 miles, 300 calories, avg speed of 6.3 mph.
Whew I'm freakin exhausted. When I stepped off the machine my legs were wobbly. Thankfully, after a bit of a cool off and stretch they stopped doing that.
Quick hit, does anyone happen to know how elliptical speed/distance relates or translates to actual running???? I'd be very interested to find that out. If no one knows I might actually have to google it and see if I can figure it out on my own.
And in case any of you are wondering, I'm still pretty sore from last night. Nice and stiff and tight. I thought working out would help, but it really didnt. Oh well, hopefully it'll get better by tomorrow, it'll be pretty hard to do my job if my arms are still this sore, lol.
Now I'm gonna go pass out. Hope you all had a pleasant day and evening.
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