Well, this year I feel like I am ahead of the curve. I am in better shape (or so I think) now than I was last year after my de-fattening ended in Feb. . I have taken a bit of a differnt approach to my diet and exercise and yes, I hit it extra hard before my 30th birthday. Anyway, I feel like I am in really good shape, but tomorrow is the moment of truth. I haven’t done one of these in years….. so I don’t know what to expect. I’m doing a fitness analysis a the gym and they will tell me that I need to stretch more, and tell me what my body fat % is. I can pinch my sides, stand on the scales, look in the mirror all I want, but the info they will tell me tomorrow is actual hard data that will let me know where I stand.

Wish me luck!

*** Update: I went to the Gym today and Miss Melissa poked and prodded on me for a while and told me my body fat %.
16.5%
Not bad. According to the handy chart on the wall, I think it was about 2-3% above “athelete”, and I think I can get there pretty soon. After all, if I don’t I might have to change my myspace to “about average” instead of athletic…and we all know that “about average” is a myspace euphemism for tubby. just kidding. From having done this before, getting down below my current % is as much about adding muscle weight as it is about cutting fat.

So, from looking back at the posts from around this time over the past few years, it would seem that I do pretty much the same thing every year. The process seems pretty simple and one I think that a lot of you guys out there in the blogosphere can probably relate to. It goes something like this:
Step one: stay in good shape for most of the year.
Step two: give up on staying in shape starting around Thanksgiving through new years (due to all the food, parties, food, booze, parties etc.).
Step three: Realize how much tonnage has been added, and quickly start on a plan to solve the problem.

This year was a little bit worse than in years past in some ways, and a lot better in others. I started slacking off on going to the gym right before I bought my house because my life and free time was occupied with searching for a home, packing, and getting everything in order so that I could make my net worth go from a positive number to a negative one and become a homeowner. I still went to the gym, but it was maybe once or twice a week as opposed to 3-4 times every week. The first few months after I got the house I slacked off on the gym as well for several reasons including work and getting the house fixed up. So while I wasn’t in terrible shape, leading into Nov. I was a little softer than I like to be and about 4-5lbs. more heavy. Right about that time comes Christmas and Thanksgiving with countless parties, lunches, dinners, happy hours and other events that make eating healthy almost impossible. Well…. My first weigh in on Jan 1 was a bit of a surprise. I figured I’d be somewhere around 168 or 169 (about 6-7 lbs over where I like to be). Nope… Tubby over here tipped the scales at 174. I think I could hear the scale groan when I stepped on. 174!!!!! I’ve been that heavy before, even more heavy than that, but that was when I was lifting like a mad man and was real bulked up. This wasn’t a good 174. Time to come up with a plan and some goals.

Here are where things are better than before. I’ve done this a few times and have it down to an art, so I can put the wheels in motion pretty quickly and lean down. I also seemed to get back into better shape faster this year, thus allowing me to burn off the lard even faster.

The Plan:
Go to the gym at least 4 times a week, with a 70-30 or so ratio of cardio to weights.
Cut calorie intake to no more than 1200 per day.
Limit liquid calories (coke/beer/booze…ok ok ok…that really means mostly beer and booze) to no more than 4 drinks per week.

That’s it, a pretty simple plan.

This was a little bit tricky, because I set this goal when I thought I was going to be around 168-ish on Jan 3. So I set an aggressive goal based on those numbers, which means that when I almost broke the scale at 174…the goal got even more aggressive and difficult.
The Goal:
By Feb 3, be under 160lbs.
That’s 14 lbs. in 1 month. That would mean burning about a half of a lb. per day for the whole month.

Well, it’s not Feb 3 yet, but I thought I would give a status report. So far, I’m doing much better than I thought I would. As I noted before I think being in better shape last year than most of the years before really helped me get back into shape faster than ever before. My cardo health really got up to speed quickly and I can now really burn the calories at the gym. My 1 hour work outs right now are about 40 mins of cardio, buring 400-500 Calories, and about 20 mins of weights focusing heavy lifting on large major muscle groups. I also do lots of pull-ups. This morning I weighed in at 160. That’s just .1lb from my goal, and I have 7 days left. I’m pretty sure I can manage to lose one tenth of a pound. I’m in such a burning mode right now I think I’m going to keep going with it for the rest of the time and see if I can get down around 155. Over the next week or so I’ll start doing more weights, and also focus on more protein in my diet to build a little mass.

I like that I’m able to really get aggressive with this and get fast results. It makes it easy to stick to the plan when you see real and significant results every week. I’m not sure I could do this if this was going to take several months. It feels good having my pants fit right again, and my knees and ankles can tell the difference of just losing those 14 lbs. My clothes fit better, I feel better….all around it’s just a good thing to be back in shape. I never want to get to the point where I’m so out of shape that getting back into shape will take months. Keeping things in check like this will help me make sure that never happens.

**Update 2/4/2008**
The official weigh in yesterday was 159. Mission accomplished. I think I’m going to keep leaning down for another week or two and see what I can do.

I think this is going to be another one of those medley blog posts that tries to cover way to many subjects in an attempt to make up for the lack of time to write enough posts to keep up.

So where to begin? Let’s seeeeeeeee. I haven’t done a fitness update in a year or so and that makes a nice transition into my next subject, so here goes nothing. For the last year or so I’ve been maintaining my fitness pretty well. I haven’t really made any big efforts to improve anything, but working out I’ve been happy with my fitness and my health. In the last month or so I’ve been trying to kick it up a few steps and have been having good results. Keni keeps posting about her running and getting in shape for their wedding next week. On top of Keni and Blake being all sexy, I have to try to get in shape because my date for the rehearsal and wedding is about two to three times more pretty than I am handsome. I told Keni that if I don’t get in better shape, the little old ladies at the wedding will see us and assume that the pretty girl had to take her ugly little brother to the wedding….and that would be too much for my sensitive ego to handle! So I’m trying my best to not confuse the little old ladies and try to look respectable for the wedding. Last year I was biking like mad, and only doing some weights. This year is pretty much the opposite of that. I think I’ve ridden once and haven’t ridden with Blake or Rob at all (not sure I can even keep up now). But I have the weights and diet figured out pretty well by this point, and have been getting the results I’ve been looking for.

One week! Cinco de Mayo! Blake will no longer be a free man! He is going to forever be enslaved to the tyrannical dictator that is Kendra. His life will be forever changed. He will no longer play with the guys, he’ll have to ask permission to go out, and risks becoming Fuddy Dutty part Duex. Actually I’m not at all worried about Blake. Miss Keni is a pretty fantastic lady and I’ve never met anyone who could hope to be a better match for Mr. Blake than her. I’m confident that they will be happy and enjoy their marriage and new adventure down in the Ghetto of South Dallas.

I feel like I’m way behind on my pictures. For me this is a good problem to have because it means I’ve been taking lots and lots of photos. I’m just not used to falling so far behind on getting them posted. I’ll post a few in here as previews. Since my last post I’ve taken pics with Blake and Viv of the 65 Fastback Mustang, and 99 Viper GTS. I think there are some really good pics, but like the others I haven’t had time to go through them all.

I’ve also have been playing with some older pics like the ones below of Melissa and above of Jen. I want to find a day soon to just go through older pics and fix them up.

Finally I have done two recent shoots for Ally and Bend Studio. One was of the Bob Schneider and Dan Dyer show at Rock House Films in Dallas. The other was for a magazine that needed pics of her studio (flower pic at the top of this post is from that shoot). The Bob show was fun as always. It was a refreshing show at a cool little venue. If you ever need a really funny/entertaining music show, it’s hard to go wrong with Bob. I enjoyed Dan also; I’ve heard his music on the Bend benefit CD’s for a long time now, and have never had the chance to see him live. Very mellow and smooth. I think I got some good pics of Dan also, but have only looked through the Bob pics so far.

So many more things I could ramble about like Militza and Sam moving into their house, the Byron Nelson and shoe show, or Momo’s 80th birthday…but this post is already too long and over done. I’ve been really good but just really busy. Almost every moment has been accounted for lately with work and fun. Everything is fantastic, but it still didn’t feel like I’m getting any rest. Sorry for the long rambling post. I’ll try to add enough pics to make up for the boring text.

Bend Studio

Melissa

Jen

Blake

Keni

Bob

Dan

The first class went pretty well. I felt like I was a little bit more flexible than I was giving myself credit for (but by no means “flexible”). I felt a little bit uncoordinated while dong some of the poses, but didn’t find any of them to be taxing on muscle strength. The one really strange thing that I didn’t expect was that I got an endorphin type head rush a few times. I think it was caused by all of the expanding and opening up of the chest/spine, but not sure. The last 10 mins of class in the “corpses” pose was worth the entire course fee! I left feeling so loose and relaxed….. Good stuff. My obliques were a little sore the next day, but otherwise didn’t notice anything.

The second class last night was a little bit more taxing. Some of the poses were more difficult, and the less difficult ones were harder on me because I was really trying to make sure I was doing them right (welll… let’s just say …. less wrong). I’m afraid that Ally might think that I was being rude or disrespectful because I laughed out loud several times during the session. I was laughing at myself because for some reason I felt stumpy and uncoordinated as hell last night! I know I’m my fathers son…and stumpy by nature, but I felt like someone cut off 8 inches from all of my limbs, and gave me the coordination of a little girl taking dance for the first time. I’d get my arms set up, and my legs would be all out of wack. I’d fix that and then something else would be messed up. At one point we were doing a pose that when it was demonstrated…. It looked easy. It looked as simple as someone saying : touch your nose with your finger tip. Then I tried…. It looked so simple but I couldn’t get my knees anywhere CLOSE to being together like they were supposed to be, and I had to cheat and sit on a blanket (not the floor as demonstrated) because I’m pretty sure I would have pulled a muscle if I went for the floor. I laughed because it was as funny as trying to do the simple task of touching your nose, and for some reason not being able to get more than 8 inches away from it. I was the downward facing dumbass!!! That’s why I was laughing. It was either get frustrated or laugh at myself…so I laughed!

I’ll keep you guys updated. So far so good. It’s very different for me and I’m enjoying it.

Sir Robert and I went on a 36 mile ride last weekend in the humid 100 degree heat. I think we might have pushed our limits a little bit further than we should have, but we made it back home in one piece. We got to see some really cool and beautiful parts of the city I’ve never seen before. Not only did we get a good work out, but it also gave 2 great friends a few hours to enjoy each other’s company (the golf effect?). We went on another shorter ride yesterday with Vivek. It looks like he might get a bike and come ride with us also.

Did you really read all that?

The guy at GNC talked me into trying some vitamins to help with my “well being”. I’ve never really taken vitamins, but thought I’d give them a try. HOLLY CRAP. Well, Holly piss is probably more accurate. I’m pretty sure that this stuff is radio active. I took a leak yesterday and it was like I was pissing a glow stick. That stuff was the brightest chartreuse, neon, crazy looking pee of all time. I’m going to wear my sunglasses the next time I use the restroom so that I don’t damage my retinas with the bright light and radio active glow. I’m pretty sure that it glows in the dark. If I got trapped in a dark cave I could just pee on the walls and I’d be able to see for a few weeks. Maybe that is why so many people take vitamins…. for the entertainment factor of neon pee.

Blake, Keni, John and I are all going to Mexico at the end of May for a nice beach vacation. This is my motivation to take my fitness stuff to the next level. You know, I want to be all sexy like while I’m on the beach. I guess this is a good time for a fitness journal update then huh?

For the most part I achieved my goal from the beginning of the year. I’ve kept all of my muscle mass but lost most of my body fat. Well, at least I’m lean by traditional standards. I can tuck my shirt in tight, have a flat belly and no love handles. All of my clothes fit and wear the way they are supposed to. But for the beach I don’t want to be lean, I want to be ripped!!!! I want a 6pack again! I’m not sure if I can pull it off in time but I’m trying. We’ll see how it goes.

***Fitness Myth: If one has a big belly, doing 9 million sit-ups will make their belly go away or will give them a 6-pack.

It always cracks me up at the gym (particularly around the first of the year) when you have all of the really heavy folks that come in and work out for 45 mins, and spend 30 of those min’s on the ab-machines at the gym. When your body burns fat, but burns it all over your body, not in the specific area that you are working out. So doing abdominal workouts will not target the fat around your belly any more than it will target fat on the rest of your body. It’s great to work your abdominals! Strong abs will help your back and make you feel better for sure. But it will not magically make your belly go away. If you want to spend a lot of time doing something to burn your belly off, I recommend doing cardo. You will burn a hell of a lot more calories (thus fat) on a bike or treadmill than you will on a crunch machine for the same amount of time. About the 6 pack. Everybody wants a 6 pack. They are always seen as the true test of how fit someone is and is thought to be uber sexy. The thing you need to know about a 6 pack: Having a six pack is more about being lean than it is about having strong abs. You can do a million crunches and have abs of steel, but if you have even half an inch of fat covering them….you wont have a visible 6 pack. To get a six pack you need strong abs, and to be lean enough that there isn’t anything other than skin covering them up.

24: Last nights show was kind of slow, and the Kim Bauer coming back in episode 5 rumor turned out not to be true. This is because I’m an idiot and because I’m an idiot I misread the IMDB report. It looks like she will be in season 5, episode 7-10, not episode 5. I think this will be an easy way to create yet another twist in the story and anohter awkward moment when Jack has to see someone who thought he was dead. The directors/producers last year said they wanted to bring her back to be another one of Jack’s last phone calls before he went underground (then ended up just going with Palmer). My guess is that she will come in at the end of Episode 7 as the cliff hanger. Hopefully next weeks show will speed back up. Click the headlines here for more 24 blog posts

Life: I’ve started to give up on girls in general. Friends, family and otherwise… I can’t seem to win lately. Need to move into the bayou into a little log cabin with a shotgun and a salty old dog. I’ll grow a beard and lose myself in a jug of moonshine.

When I started to learn about nutrition and what was necessary to burn fat, one of the first things I had to figure out how to do was how to cut calories out of my diet. I realized that I could work out like a madman, but unless I cut my calorie intake way back, the changes in my body would happen slowly over a long period of time. The obvious things that I did to lower my calorie intake: I learned the basics of how many calories were in a given food and where to obtain that information (almost all fast food places have this info published in their places of business as well as online). I tried to eliminate extra liquid calories that didn’t really give me anybenefit(when I was in Grad school, I was taking in close to 1000 calories in soft drinks and beer every day, and that was usually no more than 2 beers a day). I also learned to moderate the extras (junk food?) that I ate in accordance with how I was wanting to change my diet. If I was really trying to lean down (like now) I cut the chips, fries and that type of thing out of my diet all together. If I’m trying to maintain I still eat them, but try to keep tabs and make sure it’s not excessive.

One of the most important things that I learned when I started getting back into shape, was that I could train myself to only eat until I was no longer hungry, and not until I was full. I was surprised to find out that in most cases it did not take that much food to keep me from being hungry. This was a key point, because it meant I could eat just about anywhere I wanted to eat, and still lean down or maintain my weight. Instead of eating a foot long sub, bag of chips and soft drink at lunch, I learned that I could have a 6 inch sub, and large diet Coke and be totally satisfied. I can have the Big Mac, or the Chicken Selects or Whopper with cheese and be fine if I switched to diet drinks or water and didn’t eat the French fries. In doing this I could cut my meal from 1200 or 1300 calories down to 350-600 calories. It would take me 6 miles, and about an hour on the treadmill to burn of the calories that I saved just by eating smaller portions, cutting out the chips and going to diet (or unsweetened tea or water works too).

I don’t think that you have to be a health nut in order to change your diet so that you can lose weight. I don’t’ think you should have to eat grilled chicken at every meal, salad or tofu, avoid all fried foods and fear restaurants and fast food. If you understand what is in all of the food, do a little research to learn what you are eating, come up with a general goal for how many calories you want to take in per day or per meal, you will find that there are lots of foods you can eat and still achieve your goal. Like I’ve said before, I’m a real guy with a real life. I work behind a computer like many of you do and can’t maintain a diet that doesn’t allow me to eat where normal people eat.

Ok, I’m a little bit more than a week into this thing, and and here are the most recent numbers. Currently I’m down about 6lbs, and 2 inches off of the belly. I thought that my weight might be a few poulds less at this point, but I think some of that is the added weight in my legs. If the rest of the muscles in my body grew as easily as my legs, I’d be huge. So even though the weight loss numbers are a few pounds less than I expected, I’m still happy with the results based on the 2 inches of belly that are gone. My strength is still improving and I’m not seemingly losing any muscle mass.

More to come soon.

For the other journal entries, Click Here

Right now I’m trying to burn fat, and burn it fast for the first 2-3 weeks. I’m also trying to do so in a way that I don’t lose any of the muscle mass that I have. Once I lean down, I will change my diet again to help promote muscle growth. My basic strategy right now is low calorie and high protein. The low calories help me create the deficit I need to burn fat, and the high protein will help me keep from losing muscle mass. My goal is no more than 1200 calories a day, with at least 120 grams of protein. I am supplementing with protein shakes (give me about 50 grams of protein per drink, and 350 or so calories), and trying to keep each meal to 350-500 calories with at least 25 grams of protein per meal. That may sound complicated but it’s really not. In general I eat just the main portion of a fast food meal (like the burger, or sandwich) no sides and no soft drinks. Make sure and cut out all extra calories like snacks, soft drinks, beer (thank god for liquor!). I eat fast food almost every day, and soon I’ll write another post on how you can eat like a normal person (fast food and such) and not gain weight. For lunch today I will probably have a burger from McDonalds, diet drink and no fries McDonalds Nutritional info . Or I may go to Subway and get a 6 inch sub, water or diet drink no chips.
Subway nutritional info. We’ll see.

So I don’t eat much, and have to pay attention to everything I eat to make sure the calorie/protein balance is where I need it to be. I’m not counting carbs, but checked last night and was actually in Ketosis without even trying. This might be an added bonus if you believe in the Atkins philosophy. This is not a diet that I can maintain long term. It’s too much work, but very effective for short term results.

Exercise: I’m trying to work out at some level every day, and go to the gym at least 6 days a week. Again, this is short term and not something I can maintain. My workouts are cardio intensive, but also have a lot of heavy lifting. I’m starting off with at least a mile on the treadmill, then going to the weight room and doing a heavy set of 1 or 2 muscle groups. Heavy meaning I try to lift so that I can only do 6-8 reps at a time, for 3-4 sets. After I finish my time in the weight room, I go back for more cardio on the elliptical (20-30 mins). I have a bench and dumbbells at home, and I try to do a few workouts at home every night also(curls, tricep press, shoulder press etc.). I’m also doing push ups and sit ups every day. Man I hate sit ups.

The early numbers are looking good. I’m down about 4lbs and my strength is holding strong. Four lbs. is good considering I started creatine again and that usually adds a pound or two of water weight for me. The only measurement I checked was my gut, and it’s down an inch already. Not bad for 4 days! I’m happy so far. I’ve never done this combo of trying to lose fat and also maintain/gain muscle weight. Just losing fat is a lot more easy!! Same low calories, dont’ worry about protein. Do more cardio and don’t worry so much about the weights.

For the rest of this thread, Click here