Emoville in the Rearview

I feel like I'm finally putting behind me a really crappy mood that had settled over me the past few weeks. I felt unmotivated, bored, and hopeless. This didn't just relate to my fitness regimen, but overtook my entire life. I didn’t give up on any of my goals, which is a little surprising in retrospect, but I wasn’t as excited about the process. I wasn’t very excited about life. The most frustrating part was that I had absolutely no idea why. I just didn’t care about anything. I was losing weight, clothes were fitting better, weights were getting easier to lift, and I was feeling much better physically…and that was just the fitness stuff. I have the love and support of a wonderful family at home. We have a home, food, and everything we need. That’s a whole lot to be thankful for, yet I still just felt blah. Something must have changed, but what? The answer was a lot simpler than I could have imagined, and something that I (quite easily) may have never guessed.

The human body is an extremely complex network of systems and subsystems that work together in really amazing ways to keep us going every day. Science has come a long way in explaining exactly what it is that makes us tick, but there are some things that we just have to accept as true. I’m not going to break things down to a chemical level or give some detailed medical explanation here (mainly because I can’t), but what you put in to your body can have a huge affect on you. I’m not just talking about a purely physical affect either; your mental health can be just as affected by what you eat and drink as your physical health. Now I don’t have any fancy-schmansy book learnin’ or doctor’s degrees to back that up, but I HAVE sought solace in the occasional chocolate bar and felt the very soul soothing effect of a well prepared homemade meatloaf. The bitch of this is that there really is no formula for what foods are going to affect you in what ways. That’s just the price you pay for being a beautiful and unique snowflake, I’m afraid.

I know at this point you are just about pissing your pants to know what had me on the slow boat to Emoville. I’d be happy to tell you, but BAM….there’s a twist! It wasn’t just one thing. I’ll give the strong amongst you a moment to collect yourselves, as I am sure you are the only ones left after the heads of the weak literally exploded with that revelation. I’ve said before…countless times…to anyone that would listen or lacked the capacity to escape the sound of my voice…that I do not believe in diets or diet plans that exclude any foods or food groups completely. True, you should avoid some foods more than others but ignoring them completely just seems like bad news to me, especially if it’s something that occurs naturally in the world…like sugar. I’ve been so gung ho with all this new life stuff that I’ve started to naturally avoid anything sweet like it was some kind of dick-melting plague. That’s kind of good, I needed to eat less sweets but my body doesn’t react very well to not getting a little sugar fix every now and then. Sure, I’ve got my cheat days, but I use them mostly to go to restaurants or to eat pizza. Dessert has been completely neglected and my body and mind were pissed. I hit a small plateau with my weight loss during this time frame as well. I was still losing, but not at the same rate I was before. The same thing happened to me years ago when I was in boot camp and we were restricted from sweets. As soon as that restriction was lifted and my inner fat kid got to have a piece of cake one a week, the weight started coming off again. Same thing happened here. Had some cake and ice cream at a birthday party because my little “woah is me” kick was in full swing and I not only felt better but my weight loss got the kick in the junk it needed to get moving again. At this point I was feeling a little better, but something still wasn’t quite right.

To compensate for the lack of sweet, sweet sugar in my life I increased the amount of artificial sweetener I was ingesting. At first it was just two or three diet sodas a week, which didn’t seem so bad. As is generally the case with any bad habit, it started to creep up on me without me noticing. When I finally stepped back and took and objective look at it I was pounding two to three of these things a day. I was looking for excuses to go to the store at night so that I could pick one up and inhale it on the way home. I used to do the same thing with donuts…and years ago with cigarettes. Rule of thumb here, if you feel like you’ve got to hide it then you shouldn’t be doing it. There have been a lot of conflicting reports about the effects of artificial sweeteners which I think has a lot to do with what I said earlier about different people being affected differently by what they put in their bodies. For me it seems that large amounts of artificial sweetener make me a moody little bitch of a man and should probably be avoided in favor of black coffee, beef jerky, and rotgut whiskey.

Now let’s be clear, I’m not saying that you should eat a cupcake, ditch the diet soda, flush your Prozac down the toilet, and sing “tra-la-la” because everything is going to be peachy. There are a lot of factors involved in anyone’s mental state and what you put in your body is just part of it. If, however, you’re feeling down all of a sudden and you can’t think of anything that may be causing it, then it can’t hurt to take a look at any major changes to your diet that could be doing some weird shit to the chemical balance in your body. Or maybe you should just stop listening to The Cure so damn much.

Don't fight it

In life, I tend towards introspection. I often examine what I'm feeling, and why. Actually, I probably tend to over-examine. Perhaps it's a sign of some solipsistic tendencies, but I can only be sure of what I feel, so I spend a lot of time dwelling on that.

Yesterday, I had a sudden rush of "I'm back!". I was putzing around over the weekend, and decided to try shaming myself back into studying Portuguese by changing my gmail language setting to Brazilian Portuguese. Then I changed my whole computer's setting to the same. I came in to work yesterday and still felt pretty happy about making that small change, so I switched my phone to ptbr as well. Riding high on this wave of pseudo-accomplishment, I actually studied some Portuguese, if only to be able to pronounce the new words I was exposing myself to. Since I was actually putting in some time on a language-learning website, I checked out their Japanese section and did some studying there, too. Later, when a coworker asked if I felt like doing some stickfighting, I jumped at the chance.

This morning, after nearly two weeks off, I made sure to get my morning workout in. I lost a bit of progress, only managing 55 two-handed ghetobell swings in the first set, but I finished off with a bunch of rack and press of the 40lb kettlebell.

I don't know exactly what got me all motivated to get things going again. Normally, I'd push and prod at myself and try to figure out why I'm doing this, where the motivation came from. I'd look at it and see if it was likely to last or if it's just some weird momentary blip. This time, though, I think I'm just going to shut my inner analyst up and see where this takes me. There's no need to fight so hard when things are going your way. I'll save that energy for when the tide ebbs.

Know yourself...

Know yourself. Seems like really simple advice, especially when you're looking to make a life change. The problem is that we tend to get so caught up in trying to change who we are that we forget to take a look at who we are. This seems to hold true with every area of a lifestyle change, but most especially when it comes to diet. Diets, at least in the traditional sense, don't work. Sure, you can see short and even long term results from any number of "diets", but until you make a full on lifestyle change none of them are going to have any lasting effect. You can lose 50 pounds on a low/no carb diet, but as soon as you re-introduce carbs in to your life you are going to see every bit of that weight come back to you. If you can live the rest of your life that way then that's great, but I've got an inner fat kid that's always going to be there and if that little fucker doesn't get some cake every so often things get very unpleasant. Knowing and accepting these kinds of facts, as well as others relating to your day to day life, can mean the difference between lasting success or just another hurtful failure.

For those of you joining us for the first time, a quick recap. I'm a father of three, I have a pretty demanding full time job, and I go to school full time, add to that the fact that we have twins that will be making an appearance in a few months and we, as a family, stay pretty well busy all the damn time. When I find myself sitting around with what some people call "spare time" I always wonder what it is that I am am forgetting to do/neglecting. Basically, I'm really freaking busy all the time. As much as I would like to cut any kind of fast/pre-prepared foods out of my diet the sad truth is that I would likely be starving all the time. I pack a decent lunch and snacks before I leave for the gym in the morning. On nights I have school I even try to remember to pack dinner, but shit inevitably happens. I have to work late, forget to pack dinner, leave my whole pre-packed meal on the top of my car, realize that the apple I packed that morning that looked great in the four a.m. darkness has actually morphed in to some kind of sentient and angry hate fruit, etc. It's easy, in these situations, to just assume that there are not healthy and quick alternatives and run for the nearest mecca of saturated fat and shame. The worst part is, it's going to taste good. You're going to feel like eight pounds of shit fighting to cram it's way in to an extra small rubber, but dear god that sack full of grease laden shameburger was so....damn....good. So maybe next time you forget that lunch on purpose. Hell, maybe it's even a legitimate accident again, either way you're right back to the behaviors that got you all soggy around the middle in the first place. Kind of makes you feel bad for being busy all the time, doesn't it?

I'm sure we'd all like to have more free time to take care of our health in the best possible way, or to play golf and swill cheap scotch...I'm not here to judge. Being busy, however, is not an excuse to let things get out of control. Part of the problem seems to be rooted in campaigns to make us more aware of good eating habits. We've lumped all fast food in as the enemy, so the assumption becomes that it doesn't matter what you get, if it's fast food it's crap so you might as well just get whatever the hell you want. That's not at all accurate. Taco Bell has a "fresco" menu that is fairly reasonable health wise, 7-11 carries a really tasty Turkey Combo on brown bread that's under 300 calories, Wawa has several pre-packaged sandwiches that are under 300 calories (they even include a side of apple slices), Hardee's (aka, Carl's Jr.) has a turkey burger that is under 500 calories, and the list goes on and on. As a matter of fact, if you resist the urge to make it a combo at any of these places you save yourself about 500 calories just by ditching the fries. All of these places offer healthy alternatives, you just have to accept that they are there and make an effort to order them instead of typical fast food gut grenades. It's interesting to note that in a lot of cases these healthier alternatives actually taste better than the garbage that you used to shovel down your pie hole as well, and eventually you will come to prefer a chicken salad on whole wheat over a bacon cheese-burger dripping with barbeque sauce. Okay...so not every time. Sometimes you've just got to be bad, but you'll actually find yourself wanting the healthier alternative more often. You've just got to retrain yourself.

It's not easy to stay healthy when you have to grab a lot of meals on the go. Ideally we would be able to eat ever meal at home made from fresh ingredients and shared with our families. Unfortunately, that ideal is not possible for most people living in modern society. Being busy has become a way of life for most of us, but it's no excuse to toss your health down the crapper. Just know yourself and adjust accordingly.

Discouragement...

This morning was rough from the start. I didn’t want to get out of bed so I hit the snooze one extra time. Since then I’ve just kind of been dragging. Got to the gym and got started 20 minutes late. I didn’t so much attack things this morning as just went through the motions with my weight training. The cardio work out was outright tough and even the episode of Married with Children I watched on the little TV attached to the elliptical machine was lackluster. With all said and done it was just a blah workout, and that feeling has followed me throughout my morning so far. The weather is a perfect complement to the glum feeling too. Grey clouds are hanging low in the sky, bringing with them wind and occasional, completely random, smatterings of rain. It’s enough to make you put on some Morrissey and look for the nearest razor blade to remind yourself that you can still feel. That’s right, I said Morrissey, and you little EMO kids can take your My Chemical Romance and your Fallout Boy and piss right off. Okay, feeling a little better now.

The feelings themselves aren’t really the issue. Everyone has off days, and the weather outside can have all kinds of ill effects on a person’s mood. The problem is the discouragement that comes along with it. Personally, I’m at a very tenuous point in my life change here. I’ve started to see some results and not just a few tenths of a pound difference on the scale. My clothes fit better, I can see muscle definitions in places that I thought muscles feared now to tread, I feel much better in general, and my energy level is much higher. I’m still pretty far from my goal. To be fair, I had quite a long way to go, but I can’t tell myself not to get discouraged because I just got started. I also can’t fight it off by convincing myself that the end is in sight. I think that makes this a really hard time for a lot of people, you’re kind of at this middle ground where it’s just as easy to give up or cut back (the first step to giving up, truth be told) as it is to move forward. Days like today make that even harder. With everything being so blah, and the specter of a major gluttonous holiday looming just a day away what’s the point? Cutting back to just going to the gym three days this week isn’t going to hurt, right?

Wrong.

Admittedly you won’t see some huge negative impact the first week you decide to slack. Hell, you may not see any negative difference at all. As a result, hitting it so hard next week doesn’t seem like a big deal either. The week after that? Well, Christmas is only a few weeks away so I’ll get back on it after that. Maybe after New Years. All this sound familiar? If you’re actually reading this, then you’ve probably played out this little glutton’s drama more than once, undoing any progress you’ve made and making all your hard work a complete waste. You also know that with each week you put things off getting back on track is going to get harder and harder. So you’re going to have to be doing this every day for your entire life then, right?

0 for 2.

It’s not going to be like this forever, just until you reach your goal. Right now you’re trying to undo what are likely years (at least) of bad habits and poor decisions in regard to your health. Once you get where you want to be then all you have to do it maintain. Unfortunately there is no maintenance plan that includes watching Netflix and eating Cheetos for three hours a night, however maintaining weight and health is a lot easier than getting there to begin with. This part is hard, that is a no shit honest assessment. It’s a frustrating road and there are going to be loads of times where you just want to pack it all in and drown your sorrows in a pint of ice cream and deep fried don’t give a fuck, but even that serves a purpose. You are retraining yourself to make good health an ingrained part of your lifestyle. You also get the satisfaction of knowing that even though the weather was shit, you were tired, and the ghosts of turkey day delights to come are pole dancing around in your head like some kind of culinary porn you still dragged yourself though it and got yourself one step closer to where you want to be. You can’t be on it 100 percent every day, no one can, but you still made the effort and did what you had to do. You kind of kick ass like that.

Unless you didn't, in which case you can go join the EMO kids crying it out over there in teh corner.

Partial Success?

It's been a rough year, for a couple very personal reasons. Let's gloss over all the massive failure, though, and focus on the positive.

Back in early July, I got food poisoning. Seriously, that's about as positive as things get this year. Because, you see, that was the catalyst that got me started on some actual weight loss. I spent about 2 days puking my guts out, which naturally caused me to lose a little weight. Normally, one would gain it all right back. It also managed to shrink my stomach a little, so I got full faster. I made a conscious decision to stick with with small meals, in hopes that I could at least keep my sick weight off.

Also, around the same time, my work schedule changed to nights. I was working from 2pm to midnight, 4 nights a week. There's a lot more slack in the night schedule, so I was able to carve out some time to work out. Since my martial arts training had been getting stagnant, I decided to work out on the heavy bag in the dance studio downstairs. Starting with 5 two minute rounds and 1 minute of rest between rounds, I managed to work my way up to 6 two minute rounds, then to 5 three minute rounds. I was starting to feel strong and fast again, like the old days. Then, suddenly, the heavy bag disappeared. I guess it was getting in the way of people actually dancing in the dance studio.

Disheartened, I started using the elliptical machines in the gym at work. I stuck with the 5 x three minute format, walking slowly for the rest period and running as fast as I could for the work period. The elliptical machine just didn't have the same entertainment value as beating the stuffing out of the heavy bag, though, so I eventually got bored with it.

This was about the time I decided to try the Slow Carb diet from "The 4 Hour Body". I also decided to pick up kettlebell lifting, since it's something I'd long been interested in. The diet seems to be more or less working. When I can stick to it, I lose some weight. Even when I go off the rails a bit, I don't gain any weight, and I'm eating quite a bit more than I did over the summer when I lost ~10kg. At this point, I'm about 13kg down from my July 4th weight. I probably still have another 20kg left to go, but the kettlebell work has also been packing on some muscle.

I've only been doing the two handed kettlebell swing, as recommended in 4HB. It's quick, and the form is not terribly difficult to learn by yourself. Especially if you've ever deadlifted. As I have not done a deadlift since my senior year of high school (has it really been over 15 years?), I took the first few days slowly. Since I didn't want to shell out big money for a real kettlebell when I wasn't even sure I'd stick with it, I made a ghettobell out of some weight plates and some parts from Home Depot. The first two weeks, I made slow progress, concentrating on my form. I had a difficult time hitting 50 reps, even in two or three sets. Then, suddenly, gains starting happening faster and faster. On my last workout, I hit 80 reps in the first set, then another 25 in the second set. My current goal is to be able to do 100 reps in one set. Once I get there, I'm going to add another 10lb plate to the bell and work my way back up. I also just rewarded myself with a real kettlebell, this one 40lbs, so I can do some one handed exercises.

All the kettlebell lifting is doing wonders for me. My thighs, calves, and forearms are noticeably more defined than they were before I started lifting. It's also helped straighten out my posture. Like most computer geeks, I tend to hunch over a lot. Now my shoulders naturally pull back a bit more, straightening out my spine when I sit and walk.

So, that's what I've been up to. Not anywhere near the big plans I had at the beginning of the year. I don't see me getting to the 60 or 70% mark on my goals this time around. But, and this is the important bit, I have made some progress. I feel a lot better physically, and that's having a positive impact on my mental health too. Maybe I'll feel good enough by New Year's to put up new goals, or even re-tackle the goals for this year that went nowhere.

Reflections...

I used to read this Men’s magazine. Not the nudey kind, but one of the one centered around health and fitness. I had a subscription, frequented their website, and read their advice about how I should work out, what I should eat, and how I should bang my wife. It all sounded great, and the payoffs seemed amazing. Shit, just looking at the magazine editor himself was enough to make you feel like you were being handed the recipie from ambrosia from the hands of one of the gods made flesh. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but the guy is in shape. Why wouldn’t he, and his team of crack writers, be an excellent source when it comes to how to whip my fat ass back in to shape? I was jazzed. I was psyched. I was going to DO this. I was going to start right NO-…wait…no....that’s not going to work. I’ve got to get a gym membership first. That’s going to have to wait until payday, BUT RIGHT AFT-. No..wait. The diet in here is pretty specialized, that’s going to take a trip to the grocery store. Not Food Dog either, I’m going to have to go that really expensive one that the stuck up parents from my daughter’s middle school talk about. That’s probably going to have to wait until the NEXT payday since I’ve got to get that gym membership. But right after THA-. Oh, I should probably work with a personal trainer when I start to make sure I don’t hurt myself working with the weights. Ummm…I guess I could shuffle some money around, but where the hell am I even going to find the time for this. I’ve got work, school, three kids, a wife, and a dog that all need my attention and what’s left of my paycheck. Well. Fuck.

Surprise! The guys who write these articles and edit these magazines get paid money to do this stuff for a living, and far more than I do. So they have more money and they don’t need to pry the time out of the cold, dead fingers of a load of other obligations. They talk about the time and money that it takes to accomplish these things like they are nothing, when in reality they are they are the most precious of commodities to most people. Not only do they get paid to do this shit so they can write about it, but they have people falling all over themselves to give them free stuff in hopes that they will plug them in some article. Gym memberships, supplements, gym clothes, specialized equipment, etc. Being fit and telling you how they got there is literally their JOB. It’s super easy to tell people how to get as fit as you are when all that crap is just handed to you. If you’ve got the money and the time to follow along with these guys, then I really hope you have something better to do than listen to me bitch; if you’re like me me, however, and have a job, family, and a real life to worry about then you just can’t live life like these guys.

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Six minute this, and lounge that, and electrocute-the fuck-out-of-yourself quick solutions that will give you big results with a minimum amount of time and effort. Tons of now hot women can’t wait to tell you how big a difference it’s made and how much it turns them on that you want to try it too. Buff guys standing next to horrific “before” pictures flexing and showing you the kind of man you want to be. All of these people standing there without a flaw, stretch mark, or fat flap even though they’ve lost over eighty pounds. So not only will you lose a ton of weight with these diets/pills/programs/torture devices/masturbatory aids, but they are old magic that can completely violate the laws of physical science. Fuck yea! I’m sure those people aren’t paid, right? They just believe in the product so much that they’ve just got to get up there wearing next to nothing and give you physical proof of this mind-blowing awesomeness, right? Right? You were so busy with your head full of thoughts about where you’re going to buy all your new clothes and how you’re going to fight off all the ladies that you missed the part where they said “combined with diet and exercise” or “has been known to cause cramping, tarry stools, and erectile dysfunction or asshole cancer or something” or my favorite, “results not typical”. What. The. Hell. You mean I can’t really get kick ass results without devoting some time, effort, or money in to what I’m doing? You suck. I don’t like your answers.

Truth is, you’re going to have to part with something. Anything worth having is going to require some level of sacrifice on your part, but you shouldn’t have to quit your job and sell a kidney (but if you want to, I know a guy) just to make it happen either. The only time I have that I’m not nuts in a vice busy lately is when I’m sleeping, so when I finally made a decision to do something real about my ever-expanding ass that’s where I stole the time from. 4 am is a bitch of a time to have to get up every morning, but looking in my closet and seeing that I can’t wear over half of the clothes I own any more is worse. So were the test results from the doctor saying that I am on a collision course with diabetes. Time isn’t the only thing that you’re going to have to sacrifice. Eating healthy can be more expensive than eating crap all the time, and if you’re like me trying to exercise at home just isn’t going to work for you. You don’t need a membership to some mega-gym and a personal trainer. We have a membership to an organization that offers a lot for the whole family to do, as well as an initial consultation to give you some guidance with your workout plan, and you’re going to need guidance. I thought I was pretty well versed in health and nutrition from all the reading I had done and one good health kick a few years ago that lost me about 30 pounds so I didn’t bother with the whole free fitness orientation thing. The first three weeks went by and I had lost exactly dick.5 pounds. I got a little frustrated and went to the orientation. Two weeks later I’m down five pounds and feeling better than I have in ages. If you think you know what you’re doing, you probably don’t. That’s fine, not a lot of people do, just get some help.

It’s not easy, but seeing the progress makes it easier. Food is a whole different topic all together, and while I’m sure that each and every one of you is completely enraptured by what I have to say I’m going to have to save that one for another day.

Getting back on track...

I've managed to make it up and make it to the gym the last three mornings in a row, well on the way to becoming an actual habit. I've tried this a few times before and I always go after it pretty hard for the first few days and then make some excuse to take a day off...then another one...then another one. I've done the same with food. Make good choices for a day or two and then "reward" myself right up to a shocking and unacceptable weight. I think the problem with my approach in the past has been that I try to do too much to start so I get tired of it really quickly. I do this because I'm results driven and impatient. If I don't see a change within a few days I'm ready to throw my hands up, say "What's the point", park my ass in front of the TV and chase a chocolate eclair with a margarita. This time it has to be different.

I gave myself a week to mentally prepare and to start to incorporate better health in to my daily life. I've subscribed to a few mailing lists and have actually been reading the things that I get from them. I took the time to accept the fact that I may not see immediate results and that I needed to start slowly to keep from burning out. I started Monday with 40 minutes of light cardio. Tuesday was light weights for the upper body. Today was another light cardio session. It seems kind of weak, but it's an immeasurable improvement over what life was like for me last week. Baby steps. I don't want this to be something I do temporarily, like means to an end. I want to make permanent changes to the way that I live my life in general. Hopefully taking the time to establish all of this and prepare myself for a slow transition that will make for a healthier me and a better quality of life. I like that the thought of that quite a lot.

Whoa

Kanji

I think I just time-traveled. I don't remember much between my last post and this one, yet it's almost February. Shit.

Immediately after my mom went back home, my laptop died. I'm sure the events are completely unrelated, but it still made it really difficult to post. Sure, I could have done it with my phone, but that's still no fun for writing anything of substantial length.

With no ability to post, and thus, no public shaming for missing my goals, it was too easy to slack off. I mostly managed to keep up with kanji and Portuguese, but even those slipped a little. My exercise routine suffered most. As in, I never got back to it after that first 4 day cycle. *Sigh*. Okay, I'm back, I promise this time. Laptop is in fine working condition, and my wife is losing weight like crazy. It's time to get to work.

The ray of sunshine has been my martial arts training. It looks like I might be hosting an official Atienza Training Group session sometime in the spring. I'm pretty excited, but now I have to get people to attend. I've already got two definite yes's at work, and I'm going to force Kyushu-Taka to attend, whether he can pay or not. I've put some money away so I can make this happen with or without enough attendees, but more attendees means a better chance of a second one of these happening later this year.

I've also expanded my training schedule. We now do a knife session on Sundays at work with a couple of the guys I work with. Thursdays we train in the parking garage behind the building Kyushu-Taka works in, while my youngest son is in preschool. Yep, that makes a whopping four days a week of training now. They're not full hour sessions, and since they're almost all at work, we can't go hard enough to get all sweaty and tired, but I haven't trained with this frequency since before I had kids. It feels good to be able to train this much again.

Day Two...

Feeling pretty good about today. Did thirty min on some machine at the Y this morning that can only be described as the bastard child born of a four way between an elliptical machine, a cross trainer, a StairMaster, and the great Satan herself...but it had a TV built in to it so it wasn't too bad.

Tonight was the Cardio and Ab Ripper sections of Power90. The cardio seemed easier than the sculpting. The Ab portion left my Abs feeling less "ripped" and more "pummeled with a hammer" but it's obviously doing it's job.

Today was easy due in part to the fact that I had the day off. Now that I'm heading back to a normal work schedule tomorrow I'm a little worried I might fall off track.

Gonna pick the Brazilian Portuguese back up tomorrow morning too.

Late to the Game

The end of 2010 and the start of 2011 have been a study in busy. Lots of good changes have unfortunately also been used as "good" excuses. Time for all that to come to a close. Tonight my wife and I started the Power 90 program. Originally we had been talking about doing P90x, but thanks to some quality advice from Chops we went with the intro program. This turned out to be a very good thing. Truth be told, I want to think that I never stopped being in the shape I was in six or seven years ago. Hell, even if I'm not quite where I was then I can snap right back in to it, right?

Wrong.

I know better. I think we all do, but somewhere in our minds we are all still super heroes just waiting for that metaphorical spider bite to come along and make us ripped and ready to climb walls. It's just not going to happen that way. Don't get me wrong, I think we've all got the power to do it. It's just going to take a lot of hard work and support.

My journey starts here. When it's all over we will be the super heroes we've always wanted to be. I call Wolverine...and I will fight you for it.

Looooong Weekend

Portuguese

As mentioned, my mom was in town visiting this weekend. I didn't workout. I didn't do kanji. I ate too much. I didn't listen to Portuguese. I also got up a 5am to drive her back to the airport, so no workout today either. I'm super sleepy. But I did manage to listen to portuguese during my commute today, so that's something.

Back to regular programming tomorrow.

Yay

High Intensity

TFW Warm Up: RPE 3, RPT 6, RPD 1

TFW Lite: RPE 8, RPT 7, RPD 2

TFW Cool Down: RPE 4, RPT 7, RPD 2

Until I hit the fifth exercise, I was going to score my RPE today in the 6-7 range. I was trying to push the pace, but I was actually limited in some of the exercises by my muscles. I simply couldn't do enough reps to run my RPE up any higher. Then exercise 5 came, and I was able to push nearly into RPE 9 territory. This all caused me to have the epiphany that RPE isn't just a measure of cardio distress. If I'm working as hard as I can and my muscles are refusing to cooperate, that's also a measure of Exertion.

I did have a bit of discomfort in my shoulders during the last exercise, and this persisted to through the warm up. Also, I did the workout at about 9am, and I'm already sore. I'm going to have a hard time walking tomorrow, I think.

I didn't have a chance to do any Portuguese, nor any Kanji. I've got family in town still.

While it's fresh in my mind...

TFW Medium Intensity Day:

TFW Warm Up: RPE 4, RPT 7, RPD 1

TFW Lite: RPE 6, RPT 6, RPD 1

TFW Cool Down: RPE 3, RPT 7, RPD 2

My RPE on the workout spiked up to 7 a couple of times, but since I was specifically watching for that, I took measures to bring it down when it happened. I kept to a slow pace throughout the whole thing, which tends to be difficult for me, so I'm proud of that. I mainly wanted to work on my form for the various exercises. This is the entry level program, so the movements are not that technically challenging, which is good. I'm still having problem with the Camel Sidebend in the Cool Down, and another exercise that's similar to the Warrior pose from yoga. Other than that, my form is improving nicely.

I'll do Kanji flashcards later, but as I mentioned, probably no Portuguese today.

Chugging Along

Kanji Flashcards

Portuguese in the car

I didn't skip today's workout, I'm pushing it back 12 hours so I can shift my schedule to morning workouts. I'm going to do Medium Intensity on Thursday morning, and High Intensity on Friday morning. I was thinking about doing some Intuflow tonight, but now that I've decided to be lazy, I'm not feeling like getting up out of my chair. I did get some stickfighting in with the guys at work again today, so that's something.

Did my Kanji flashcards again today. I'm still in the stuff I remember from last time I tried to keep up with Heisig, but it's getting a little more difficult. I'm going to have to dig up my copy of Remembering the Kanji, which I'm sure is still in a box somewhere from last time we moved. I wonder if Google Books or Amazon has it in ebook format. That would make this easier.

Listened to Portuguese in the car on both sides of the commute again, too. It's definitely easier to pay attention in the morning. After a long day at work (we're on 10 hour shifts currently), it's pretty difficult to concentrate on listening and responding. I find my mind wandering a lot on the drive home. I'm off work for 3 days now, too, so my Portuguese practice will probably lapse during that time. Meh, whatever.

Already?

Today:

Low Intensity Day

TFW Warm Up: RPE 4, RPT 6, RPD 1

TFW Cool Down: RPE 4, RPT 5, RPD 1

Kanji Flashcards

Portuguese in the car

Yesterday:

Kanji Flashcards

I haven't been sleeping much. I think I'm averaging 3 hours a night lately. It finally caught up to me yesterday. I actually fell asleep in the middle of playing with my 4 year old, at noon. Sooooo, I went to bed early last night instead of exercising. I was asleep by 9:35 PM. Part of me wants to feel bad about not exercising, but mostly, I'm glad I got some sleep. I'm still really tired, but I feel much better than I did yesterday.

I did manage to get in a round of Kanji flashcards yesterday while in a waiting room. I did another round today at work, so I'm still going strong there. I didn't even listen to anything in Portuguese yesterday, but I did follow along with the lessons in the car on the way to and from work today, so I'm good there. I even managed to watch a couple of videos on BBC's learning portuguese pages.

I abbreviated tonight's workout. I was supposed to do the Warm Up, Cool Down, and the Stress Conversion program. Instead, I just did the Warm Up and Cool Down for a total of 13 minutes. I know I used to workout at night all the time, but I think that's part of what kept me up on Sunday. I'm going to *try* waking up early enough to get the Medium Intensity workout done before getting the kids ready for school, but we'll see. What I really need to do, I think, is find a secluded place at work for this and take a half hour workout break.

Anyway, I'm kind of bummed that I already fell off the wagon as far as my workout program goes, but at least I'm back on it already.

Day 1 (all over again)

No Intensity
Tacfit Warrior (hereafter abbreviated TFW) Warm up: RPE 4, RPT 5, RPD 1
TFW Strain Prevention: RPE 4, RPT 6, RPD 1
Kanji flashcards
Portuguese

Well, off to a great start this time. I started off the morning at work searching the internet for Brazilian Portuguese videos and audio to stream in the background while at work. I found a site that lists a couple dozen Brazilian TV stations that offer streams, so I left one of them on all day so I could let my ears get used to the sound of the language. Later, I listened to part of lesson 1 on the drive home. I think I remember how to say "Excuse me". That's about it.

I also spent my break time in the afternoon getting my kanji flashcard situation squared away. I got Anki installed on my desktop and the alpha version of AnkiDroid installed on my phone. I then found some awesome flashcards that follow the Heisig method, more or less, and made sure they synced properly between my various Anki installs. I went ahead and reviewed the first 20 on the stack, which was mostly stuff I remember anyway.

Finally, after the kids went to bed, I did the first day of the first Tacfit Warrior cycle. It starts with a No Intensity day, so I the warmup and the Strain Prevention routine. The SP routine is a TFW specific version of Intuflow, basically. I think I might end up throwing regular Intuflow sessions into the mix, just to make sure I'm getting all the mobility I need. Anyway, since I haven't worked out in forever, the RPE was much higher than it should have been for a No Intensity day, but that'll come back down pretty quickly. I didn't break a sweat or anything, but it was close. Also, a lot of the specific movements are brand new to me, especially for the warmup, which explains the poor RPT. The only discomfort was in my neck, which was stiff in some planes of movement. I caught myself trying to push through it and stretch it out, which of course is the wrong thing. Once I noticed it, I stopped doing it.

Anyway, Day 1 is in the books, and I managed to make some progress on almost all of my goals. Not a bad start at all.