A Big Push No Where?

So the positive. My workouts were good, though I only had two "twofers" ( a morning and evening workout ). Weight training was good. I learned that I can burn through a complete all body workout doing three complete 12 weight training exercise circuits, and two core/ab 5 exercise circuits in 45 minutes. We are talking minimal rest, almost going straight from one exercise to another, almost like super setting. Put another way I did 600 repetitions of exercise in 45 minutes. Mind you that factors in exercises like forearm curls, tricep extentions, and bicep curls, since each arm will do an equal amount of repetitions as the other. My heart rate was up.

I also made it a point to try to eat no carbs that consisted of white flour, or even wheat for that matter. Largely successful, save for some potato chips that I ate over the course of this past week.

Now the not so positive, I "pushed" this week in my waist measurements. Meaning I'm still at 48.75" inches as I was last week. Didn't gain any back but didn't lose any either. This is disheartening because I thought by going without bread products combined with exercise I would have lost between .66" to .75", and thus catching up or completely maintaining my average of .5" lost per week. As February stands I am now .75 inches behind this goal, having lost only .25 inches since the 4th.

Still in this endeavor it is important to look at this push positively. I didn't gain anything back, and I can maintain forward progress. As I tell my students when they are learning to shoot, stay focussed on the process of shooting and not the outcome. If you expect to hit a bullseye, but you aren't working the process, you'll be disappointed with the outcome. Likewise if you're tearing up the bullseye, but lose focus for one of your shots and miss the bullseye, there is but one thing to do, learn from your error, move on, (because you can't call, a mulligan recall the bullet back into the gun, and re shoot), and shoot to the best of your ability for the follow up shots, by working the process. Doing the latter, the outcome will likely solve itself.

So really I can only learn and work the process. Did those 500 calories of potato chips, (over 6 days) derail my efforts? Was there an overall reduction in calories because I wasn't eating any grain based products, and was my body just adjusting to this "change?" Was I not getting enough sleep this past week? Was my weight workout too fast? Did I not do enough non circuit training cardio? Is my body simply taking a break after shedding 2.25" from around my waist over the last six weeks? Honestly I don't know the answers to most of these questions. Obviously some things I can factor in and adjust for.

In the end I can only work my process and do mostly everything right, control what I can control, (can't really control if my body decides it needs a bit of a break from losing inches), and keep "pushing" forward, knowing with confidence that at some point I will achieve my goals of total inches lost around the waist, and better physical and emotional health. To do that I have to stay present in the moment, and "work the process" and let the outcome solve itself.

Best regards.

The Mediocre Bowl

Okay first things first. My workouts this week were good, but not stupendous. I did like Fridays, because I burned through my weight training circuit fast, about 45 minutes. Heart rate was definately UP. I am going to do the same thing again tomorrow.

So I lost a 1/4 inch around my waist, for a total of 2.25 inches lost since the beginning of January. I'm now at 48.75 inches around my waist. I'm happy that I did this despite my less than stellar eating schedule. This week was slightly "pizza heavy" i.e. too many white flour carbs. My stated goal is to lose 2 inches every 4 weeks, so an average of a 1/2 inch per week. Over the next three weeks I'll have to lose more than 1/2 an inch a week to maintain that goal.

So this week I don't plan to eat any wheat/flour based carbs, so no bread, pasta etc. My "diet" will be lean meats, low fat dairy, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. I'll be interested to see what happens next Saturday morning. By the way one other thing I'd like to mention. Since I've started this I have NOT counted any calories. I'm really relying on my ability to make largely good food choices, though it seems I'm still losing inches around my waist despite eating "clean" foods perhaps a little over 60% on average, versus my stated goal of 90%. This week I will aim for that 90%. I'm very interested in the results of next Saturdays "taping", after 5 days of being all in on my eating and exercise program.

So rant time. Just finished watching the Superbowl. The New England Patriots with a regular season 13-3 record, vs. the New York Giants with a regular season record of 9-7. The latter was the wildcard team. So many of you have heard me rant about this before but it absolutely pisses me off that a wild card team can squeak into the playoffs with single digit wins and play well enough to win 3 playoff games on the road and the Superbowl. I am not convinced we are seeing the BEST teams play. That is my point. I would have preferred that the Patriots had won, but if they were going to lose at least lose to a team such as the San Francisco 49'ers that had a 13-3 season. To me in my non nuanced understanding of the game we are looking at numbers. Numbers tell us who won the game, (team with the most points). So to me in football the regular season has to count. In the present system a team could possibly have a losing record, (say 7-9), and still win their division and possibly make it into a wildcard slot, win three more away games, and then take the Supebowl, say against a team that had a 12+ win season. I am not convinced as a fan, that the BEST teams, the ones with what I would say have at least a 10-6 season, are fairly being represented. So I would like to propose a few rule changes.

1.) Any team eligible for the playoffs must have a minimum of a 10-6 regular season wins, thus this becomes the minimum number to be the wildcard. If your team has less than this number, well your season is over, thank you for playing, we'll see you next year.

Some have said to me that the above isn't "fair" because some teams have harder schedules than others. Someone told me that the Patriots wins this season, came from teams that were below .500 in wins for their season. To this I say SO. It's not like the Patriots asked to play against these teams. They had the same opportunity to have better records, but blew it. Man up and play football, and get your wins.

2.) It should take a monumental effort for the wildcard team to go all the way and win the Superbowl. More than just playing 3 playoff games on the road. The difficulty for a 10-6 wildcard team should be palpable. Preference for advance should be given to the teams that have had a better record in the regular season "Any given Sunday" in the regular season is okay, but in the playoffs it is too random. So here are a couple of rules that wildcard teams advancing through the playoffs should have to abide by:

a.) On ALL 4th down plays they must go for the down, or a touch down. They are not allowed to punt. This rule gets really dicey for said wildcard team if they blow a 4th down, and are DEEP in their own territory. This rule remains in affect throughout the playoffs, but not the Superbowl.

b.) If they make it to the Superbowl then the above rule is replaced with the following rule, the wildcard team can ONLY score through touchdowns, and punting for the extra point. They are not allowed to kick field goals for 3 points at all.

c.) These rules are only for wildcard teams with a 10-6 regular season record, but become null en void if two teams are equally matched in regular season wins, say within a 1 game difference in wins during the regular season.

To me these crippling rules will almost guarantee that a wild card team will be knocked out early on, leaving the teams with solid double digit wins in the regular season to move on, thus assuring fans that they are seeing the best teams in the league compete, and one of them becoming the BEST by winning the Superbowl.

However if a wildcard team overcomes the playoff games on the road with the 4th down rule, and overcomes their Superbowl opponent, despite not being able to kick field goals, and scoring solely through touch downs, and extra point kicks, then too me that is a true David vs Goliath story, and despite all of those obstacles, that perhaps this wildcard team is the BEST in the league. As a fan I it would be easier to root for an underdog wild card team in the Superbowl. I think these rules changes would preserve the integrity of the game, make the regular season mean more, an almost guarantee to the fans that the trully best teams are being represented in the playoffs and the Superbowl.

I suppose if I was relying on pro football as a source of income, thus the more teams in the playoffs, the better, then I probably don't like these ideas. NFL are you listening?

Rant off, until next week.

You're In The Army Now!

So here it is Sunday 1/29/12. This is really the record. The month of January 2012 has as many posts, as were made in 2009. Another milestone has been reached. Speaking of milestones I was successful with my goal of two inches every four weeks. On Saturday morning, (yesterday) I was down another 1/2 inch, which brought my total number of inches around my waist lost at well two inches. My waist is now 49 inches in circumference, (that's me on the left, tell me if you notice a difference). Or put another way, the height of the little person around my waist id now only 4 feet, 1 inch. I think a goal is to have the circumference of my waist to equal half of my height. Since I'm 5 feet, 7.5 inches tall, (67.5 inches), I would like my waist to be 33 inches. A worthy goal, considering that when I left Army basic training back in December of 1986 I weighed 170lbs, (down from 193lbs) had a 34 inch waist and I was 19 years old.

One has to be careful with that comparison. Even though the Army taught some good habits that I've stuck with haphazardly, It's not the end all be all of fitness. We ate A LOT of food, I'd say the better part of 3000 to 4000 calories daily, if not more. And we ran, almost daily. The other things we did were mostly calisthenics, and basic conditioning exercises, like PUSH UPS jumping jacks, (the Army calls the latter side straddle hops), squat thrusts, sit ups, leg lifts. We also did a lot of walking with lots of gear. We did a road march at night from one bivouac sight to another, wearing full gear, at a speed pace. We covered 12 miles in less than 3 hours. As a short guy in the rear I did not appreciate the tall guys in the front stepping it out beyond the authorized 30 inch steps we're all supposed to be taking. Yeah right!

So what I'm saying is that in during basic we did LOTS of cardio. There was not a muscle building component. We did not have access to a weight room, and even if we did we wouldn't have had enough calories to build muscle. With all of the cardio and conditioning we were doing, just to add muscle we would have needed to double our caloric intake at the very least. Believe it or not muscle bound guys are not what the Army is looking for at least not basic. Any body builders who had come to basic because of the restricted calories, and the emphasis on cardio and body weight conditioning they would have lost muscle as well as any fat.

You see in my MOS, (military occupational specialty), which was infantry, they wanted us lean and tone, and not "weighed down" by too much bulk, be it fat or muscle. Though I hate to make the comparison, but physically they wanted us to be more like Mel Gibsons character from Lethal Weapon, as in toned and defined with little fat. If you've seen Lethal Weapon, or even Lethal Weapon 2 you might understand some of the scenes I'm referencing.

In some ways what I started out to do with this post is to debunk the idea that perhaps for me a 33 inch waist is unattainable. My point to this is that now at 44 years old I know far more about nutrition then I did at 19. My diet now consists of mostly limited amounts of whole wheat carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. Had I known just to do that in basic, (limiting my bread/white flour carbohydrate intake), then perhaps I would have left basic training weighing 160lbs, with a 32 inch waist. And maybe I would have been spared one of drill sergeant Hinson's last remarks, after successfully completing my last physical training test, by which he stated, "damn Brown, after all this and you still have a bit of a gut!" Interesting what sticks with you, even 25 years later. He and drill sergeant Gibbs either left the Army awhile back, or if they've stuck it out, then they've got well over 30+years in, and are probably about to retire as command sergeant majors. Just reflecting a little.

Until next week.

My "Cheating" Heart And Mouth

So actually I think this post represents my record number of posts in a row on this blog, the grand total of four continuous posts. I think that was my total in 2009 or 2010. I'll fact check that later.

Well this week, where to start. Oh yes I was "successful." I completed 3 days where I went to the gym twice, and 5 days where I went to the gym daily. I lifted three times this week. Thank G-d! My other "success" was when I taped the circumference of my waist. I lost another 1/4th of an inch, to bring my three week total to 1.5 inches lost. I should be happy, as my stated goal was to lose 2 inches around my waist every 4 weeks. I am maintaining that. However as I reflect on the amount of working out I did versus the poor food choices I made, that number could have been more. If I was lucky I ate well about 60% of the time last week. A far cry from the stated goal of 90% of the time.

I'm happy to have still lost, but the effort to do so was clearly sabotaged because I didn't stop cheating last Saturday night. It carried over into Sunday, (twice), Monday, and probably Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Here's a sampling of my diet for those days.

Saturday: The biggest sandwich they have at Jimmy Johns with a Coke, and a bag of chips. Now to my credit I ate this sandwich over the course of 5 hours while at my part time job. Later on that night I stop at this barbecue place called Bone Daddy's and had the pulled pork sliders (4), with fries, and 2 very large Sprites.

Sunday: I ate breakfast with my friend Melissa, and her husband Shane. I ate a HUGE apple pancake, a specialty of the Original Pancake House chain.

Monday: Tried out a place called Big Racks or Large Racks. They serve racks of ribs, and I believe it's a play on words in that the female waitstaff is supposed also be sporting "big

racks." Not so much. I guess "Big Bedonkadonk", or "Sweet Buns" wouldn't have had the same ring. Anyway while there I destroyed the half rack of 8 ribs, with onion rings, and rosemary mashed potatoes, and two large cups of root beer.

The rest of the week involved eating foods at school I shouldn't be eating, such as a sleeve of Girl Scout Doe Si Doe peanut butter cookies, 10 cookies at 75 calories each. Or indulging in the various soups, stews, and rolls the PTA had prepared for us for lunch on Friday.

And through all that combined with a record workout regimen I still lost 1/4th of an inch from my waist. I am grateful but I need to remind myself that I was not "all in" this past week. At least as far as the food goes. Workout wise I am quite happy with myself. However I really should have limited my "cheating" to two, maybe even three of the aforementioned meals. So the point is that I know myself, and I know what I must do, however knowing and doing may not go hand and hand, but being "all in" for my personal transformation requires that they jibe with one another. I know there are going to be times when my waist will not have registered a loss, however I want to be able to reflect back on those weeks, and KNOW that I was all in with my eating, and my working out, and that despite myself I did my best. I don't want to produce another list of meals like the above, as a causation as to why I wasn't successful that week. Lesson learned? I'm inclined to say yes, however the proof will be in the pudding, when I measure myself next week.

So enough of me. My sister Stacey had lap band surgery done a couple of weeks ago. I am proud to say that she has lost 22 pounds so far, since I spoke to her about it this past week. I'm very proud of her. Keep good thoughts going out to her as she continues on her journey. Good job Stace. I can't wait to see less of you in May.

So my mother recently bought a car. A dark blue Dodge Charger with a Hemi V8. Like a 65 year old, soon to be retired woman needs that! She took me for a ride. It's like a planes cockpit for her. She can just see over the dash. The ride was pretty cool, just up and back along I35 in Lewisville Texas. She is NOT afraid to hit the gas pedal. Still she's a pretty good driver, unlike my dad who is downright terrifying behind the wheel! I think given some time it's only a matter of time before she is racing Camaros, Challengers, and Mustangs, as well as some of the higher speed European and Japanese cars. Just stay out of her way, you've been warned.

I think that's it for tonight. I'm hearing the siren song of prepping for tomorrow, and going to sleep.

Best regards.

The "Endo" Be All Of Lapband

Three in a row. I think this is truly a first for my blog. Woo hoo! So as usual, (you know, all three times usual), I'll start off with my success with my body by Jabba the Hutt challenge. This week through a dedicated effort of weights, swimming, stairmaster, and eating mostly right I shaved another half inch off my waist. I went from 50.25 inches last week, to 49.75 inches this week. So in two weeks I shrunk my waist by 1.25 inches. Very nice!

Let me address some things. First I was not completely successful in reaching my goals this week. Food wise I probably ate 70% healthy. Now yes I was successful, but in some ways the ends can't justify the means. It's a path to complacency and then set back. Maybe next week I only eat 60% healthy and I lose a 1/4 of an inch, then maybe the following week I back off on the gym, but eat at that 60% ratio, and don't add inches, but don't lose any either. Then I get discouraged, or some stressor is blamed for me staying away from the gym and eating properly, and the advances that I've made vanish. No bueno, because in my head I've been defeated again. And that's followed by the negative talk, the lack of trust in myself to complete something, and the lack of confidence in myself for not having completed something and trusting myself to do it.

The latter is not "all in." All in is a committment to what I set out to do, eat right 90% of the time, and workout rigorously in methods previously described, to reshape my body, tune my metabolism, and overall trust myself to do those things, because I CAN do them. In the end, and the beginning, the motivation has been extrinsic, something I wanted outside of me as a factor of weight loss, and body re shaping. Nearly all of it having to do with how people, and women especially, see me. Well the problem with extrinsic motivation is that eventually it ends. After I reach my goal waist size, some where in the low 30 inches, and I maintain that as planned, well eventually everyone that matters to me will have seen me, and just come to expect "thin and healthy Dave." What then? Oh yeah that's right the desire to be thin and healthy has to begin and and end with me INTRINSICALLY. Enthusiasm for the process will not carry the day here. I've been down that road many times before. It is a commitment to the process, as a lifestyle choice, that will seal the deal.

One of the things that I pride myself with is not giving up, and with the successes and failures that I've had with this over the last 40+ years the idea of giving up gets tempting. My sister Stacey has had similar successes and setbacks with her weight over the years. As I've mentioned before we are endomorphic people, of Ukrainian peasant stock, on my dads side of the family. That means we have larger than average bodies that stored energy (fat) for all the back breaking labor of pulling wheat out of the ground by hand, and for the women, the need to produce several little Ukrainian farmers as well. We have worker bodies, that were programmed to accumulate fat quickly, maybe in defense of those times when the harvest wasn't so bountiful, and eating daily was not guaranteed. This is an endomorph. Out of shape we look very round and puffy. The upside is we gain muscle very easily, again possibly programmed from all of the physical work this type is predisposed to. My dad gains muscle easily. His arms and calves are big, and he's 64. He started working out regularly about 10 years ago, and eating very little sugar in his diet. Well the pounds came off and his muscles became well defined. He tells me he never uses a dumbbell heavier than 25 lbs. Go figure.

Some food for thought Russel Crowe is considered and endomorph, as is Beyonce'. We've seen what happens to Russel when he doesn't workout and eat right, he puffs right up in the movie "State of Play." When he works out well it's more like Gladiator. Recently the "gladiator" returned when Crowe dropped 60+lbs with a regimen he started last June. Endo women are curvy like Beyonce'. She probably just dances too much to actually gain weight. Kate Winslett is another curvy and attractive endo female. This type are not your sprinters, we're not built like that. We require diets, low in fats, sugar, and probably salt, with A LOT of body movement to keep in shape. Similarly we will never have the waif like look of appearing in desperate need of a sandwich or three.

I think the latter is what Stacey and I spoke about this past week, and that is an acceptance of who we are, what we have as far as bodies go, and what we need to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle for ourselves. Over a week ago this acceptance has caused her to undergo lap band surgery. I think this is wonderful. Anything that is healthy and can't harm you in achieving physical health is good to go by me. I don't know what she started out at, however I plan to post her progress weekly, starting next week. She's gonna be pissed when I tell her about my blog, and she starts to read again. ; ) Hopefully she'll realize that I love her, and am extremely proud of her in this step she's taking.

Until next week.

Swimming in Jello

So I'll get right to it. I taped myself on Saturday January 7th, 2012. Good news, I was down 3/4's of an inch from last week. I went from a 51" waist to a 50.25" waist. So here's roughly what I did to accomplish that.

1.) I chose to eat mostly clean, no refined sugars, sodas, you know crap. I should say not much crap. There were some cookies left over from our Christmas party. It's actually an abundance of garbage sitting in our 5th grade work room, that we are "saving" for next months Valentines party. And I did eat a double whataburger with cheese, fries, and a rather large coke yesterday afternoon. I also stopped by Tilted Kilt in Lewisville last night, quickly becoming one of my favorite places. I had some grilled wings, potato skins washed down with a ridiculous number of Arnold Palmers, (lemonade and sweet tea mixed). The latter of which would contribute to my not being able to sleep well. Still it was kind of worth it, food was good, waitresses are really good looking, and the Saints won. Oh almost forgot about dessert, a partially baked chocolate chip cookie, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. I usually don't order dessert in a place like that, especially if I'm at the bar, or close to it, but I had to give pause because this is the Kilts signature dessert. So with assurance from my waitress that I wouldn't have to turn in my man card, supported by the fact the three guys at the far end of the table ordered dessert I went for it.

So yes Saturday was a "cheat" day for me.

2.) I made it to the gym "six" times last week. I say six because to of the days were twofers, meaning I went once in the morning and once at night. The routine for both those days was swimming in the a.m., and weights at night, with the second twofer reversing that schedule. The other day was more swimming, and the another day was the stairmaster.

I have a routine for lifting that works the entire body. It's a circuit from the ABS Diet by Mens Health that I do three times. The first circuit for nearly all of the exercises is a lighter weight done at higher reps, right now 12. The exceptions are Squats using one dumbell, and calf raises using no weight. The 2nd and 3rd sets are done with heavier weights at 10 reps. Also on Mondays and Fridays I'll do the abs portion of the workout by sprinkling the abs exercises between exercises in the warm-up circuit. And last but not least there is about 30 seconds of rest between individual exercise. The heart rate is elevated.

I am also doing swimming. I do nine full laps, (up and back) about a 1/4 mile, of breast stroke in the Olympic sized pool. I kind of do two lap sets where the first lap is sort of a warm-up, then the second lap I'm going all out, as much I can significantly raising my heart rate. The swimming is essentially an interval workout which my research indicates is really good for burning fat. I enjoy the swimming for a few reasons:

a.) easy on my joints, my knees and ankles never being anything to write home about

b.) it feels like it works my whole body, especially the upper body

c.) I sort of envision the water steadily wearing away the fat, and naturally sculpting my body, though I'm not sure I really like the word sculpting, seems somewhat cliche

d.) when I step out of the pool I feel like Daniel Craig walking onto the beach, out of the surf from Casino Royale. I know I don't look anything like him presently, but the thought of reaching that level of fitness is motivating.

e.) I feel like I have accomplished something significant when I'm done

So my whole plan is to reduce the size of my waist while keeping my muscles toned. You can't realistically add muscle AND lose fat at the same time. It really is one or the other. You couldn't eat enough calories to build muscle and lose fat, at least my body type which is likely endo/meso, which means I can gain weight easily if I don't watch what I eat and do lot's of cardio, on the flip side I can probably add muscle a little easier than most. I'll go into somatotypes later.

So overall not bad for this past week. My goal for this week is to get in a 3rd twofer, as well as a third weightlifting day. It would be nice to keep that 3/4" lost from around my waist each week as a standard. I'd love to have my suit re tailored smaller in time for the 5th grade "graduation" on June 1st.

So next week I'll post, talking about my successes and set backs, as well as mentioning my sister Stacey a great deal, as she to started a similar journey as me. That's about it for now.

Thanks for reading.

The Fit Strikes Back

Hi,

So after a two plus year hiatus, I'm back. In my last post around Thanksgiving of 2009 I spoke of buyers remorse over trading in my Honda Fit for a Honda CR-V. I'm happy to say that my cool little car is back as of last May and I couldn't be happier. This time I'm riding in style because the Fit is sporting NAVI, not that I use it.

So I really want to make a serious go of this blog. I think one of the things that the troubled me was that the blog, what little of it, lacked focus. I'm changing that.

The focus of my blog will be primarily about my body re-shaping challenge. The long and the short of it is that my self image has really limited what I think of myself and what I can accomplish. The reality is that when I'm fit the world and myself are filled with more opportunity, and when I'm not I find myself retreating from the world. Case in point my attendance at iai, (my sword class) over the past year is abyssmal. It has largely, (good word) to do with the increase in my girth, the fact that I can't fit into my uniform, my refusal to purchase another, and the difficulty in keeping said uniform on while practicing said techniques. I want to spend this year changing a bunch of those things.

My goal is to really live what I call the "Men's Health Magazine" lifestyle. Real simple, eating right and training right, in order to have a more fulfilling life. I want to be "ALL IN" and not half assing it, as I've been doing for the better part of 25 years. So here goes.

As of today January 1st 2012 I have a 51" waist. Put another way my waist is 4 feet, 3 inches around, the size of a little person. Seriously I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and said "you have grandad Browns belly!" My grandfather died in his early 70's, (We don't know for sure how old he was), from a heart attack, complicated by diabetes, the latter exacerbated by the aforementioned huge belly. I would prefer to live longer with a greater quality of life, and not shut in.

I don't particularly care about getting on a scale. The numbers are entirely too random, however inches off my waist are inches off, no matter how you slice it, and it is likely almost all fat, and a tiny bit of water.

My goal is for a loss of 2 inches per month. It's going to require a serious focus of gym time, (lot's of cardio, mostly swimming), lots of weight training, (to maintain, and maybe build muscle, while increasing my metabolism), and eating cleanly 90% of the time. Look for weekly updates. I think I'm done for the day.

Best always.