Oh woe is me, woe is me. I forgot to post on my blog last night. Whatever shall I do?! Meh, whatever. I was pretty tired so I called it a night early-ish. So here's my blog, a day late, but not a big problem.
So let's see, Saturday morning I went to Dixon (the gym/rec center on campus) to shoot hoops again with Nick, and let me say, I had a wonderful time. I bet you're wondering why it was wonderful. Well I weighed myself on a scale there, and found out something magnificient. First off, my scale at home is 5-10 pounds off (10 pounds as of checking today, but that was with a bit of food in my stomach, and when at Dixon, I had been shooting hoops for an hour, so possbily a bit of water loss). But I weighed in at 240 pounds, and the last time I weighed myself at home I was 255-260 (knowing the scale was a bit high), and now it tells me 250. BUT NONETHELESS, I now weigh 240 pounds as of Saturday at noon. Wonderful news that I actually weigh less than I thought, but I've already lost at least 5 pounds in the last two and a half weeks, and possibly up to 10 pounds (hard to tell, since I've weighed myself at different times on two different days). I'm making some great progress so far, and it's definitely exciting to notice the changes.
On Sunday, I went to the Civil War basketball game that was in Corvallis, and it was one of the best basketball games I've seen. Unfortunately, my Beavs lost by 1 point, but it was sure as hell fun to watch. I also went for my second run in early afternoon and it went really well. Same thing as I did for my first run (2 minute jog, 3 minute walk) and I took a similar route as well (included a hill, but I ended up walking up it this time, coincidently) - I ended up traveling 2.09 miles, which was an increase of 0.25 miles, which is nice. I actually ended up with an increase of energy on my very last jog, so I legitimately ran the last 2 minutes, which was awesome, really challenging myself; I was incredibly winded aftewards though. And on the topic of running, I then did my third run this morning, and it was tougher this time. But then again, it was raining the whole time, was quite chilly, and the second half of it (while heading South), I experienced a really strong head wind that really exhausted me. But I'm excited for Friday when I start up my second week.
I've been postponing a few of my P90X workouts, due to being busy or just too tired. I only have two more workouts to do, and I would have done one tonight, except that I came back home for the night, which I'll explain why in a second. I'll do them over the next two days, and then I'm free! I'm going to still be doing weights, but on my own schedule. I'll be doing a schedule similar to:
Day 1: Run
Day 2: Chest/Back or Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Day 3: Run
Day 4: Shoulders/Arms or Back/Biceps
Day 5: Run
Day 6 + 7: Rest, however I might throw in yoga or stretching depending on the week and how I'm feeling.
I will also be visiting Dixon more often, to shoot hoops, but also to throw in some cardio on the bikes or other miscellanious exercise to change things up. If I run into a day with horrible weather and I can't make it out for a run, I might postpone the run, but throw in something 'cardio-esque' from the P90X workouts like Kenpo for instance. Or go to Dixon, as I mentioned before. And then once I'm done with my podcast series, I'll start doing my own runs on my own time, and probably more often. I also hope in the future to start some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), but that's a long ways away. Possibly a summer kind of thing.
Oh, and as I mentioned before, I came home for the night, and will be here until tomorrow afternoon. I have my interview at the Oregon Zoo in the morning, and wanted to be home the night prior, just so I didn't have to drive straight from Corvallis to the Zoo. While here, my dad and I tried Senor Taco in Lake Oswego (just up the hill from the Lake along Hwy 43) and it turned out to be AMAZING. And of course, cheap, to make it even better. I highly recommend it if you happen to be in Lake Oswego and want a quick, cheap, Mexican meal. Well anyways, I ought to be heading to bed so that I can be up, bright and early.
I'll make sure to be fancy tomorrow for my interview, I hope you keep it that way as well.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
Just watched Gladiator last night. Had to.
Whew, where to start?! Alright, I'll quickly cover the stuff that I missed in my last post due to being in a hurry. My knee started bugging me when I was doing my legs workout, however, it's better now. I'm glad I won't really be doing anymore leg workouts for a while, due to running. Also, something I'm adding a lot of into my diet is green tea. Last I had heard, it was filled wih antioxidants to help prevent cancer. I read more information the other day, and firstly found out it helps keep you satisfied, which will one, fill me up a bit more than the usual water, and two, help make my stomach realize that I'm not all that hungry. Also, I forget the name of it, but something in the green tea also boosts your metabolism. So it's great to have in the morning, as well as times when you're a little hungry, and need something to tide you over. But being more satisfied to prevent snacking, and raising my metabolism, from the tea that I prefer over other kinds? Sign me up.
Wednesday night, I went with Ryan and Nick to Dixon (Rec. center/gym at OSU) to shoot some hoops. It was too busy when we arrived, so we went out to the near field and played around with a soccer ball and football. After an hour, went in to shoot hoops for ~45 minutes. However, my ankles took a pretty hard beating, and my shins as well, due to the small amount of running I did, but also the kicking. It's been YEARS since I've played soccer, so it was doing something very different with my muscles. But it was all fun, and due to a very sore right ankle, I've been icing it a bit and stretching it. Much better now, that, or I'm just used to it by now.
Alright, I'm never going to get to this, since I always have plenty to talk about. So I need to go over what happened during the 2 months that I wasn't posting. Nothing big or exciting. Let's see, winter break, I did... Nothing. So that was fun. And then I got sick around January 8th and was pretty inactive until the beginning of February. However, I got some cool new gadgets from Christmas. The most exciting to me and relevant to the blog is my pedometer, which I love. I always have it on me, walking/biking (although I've only ridden my bike once since the start of the term), when I work out, always (okay, not when I sleep or shower). Also got an armband for my iPhone, which is great. I use it sometimes when I work out, but it'll mainly be for running. Then there's a bunch of irrelevant things like movies, ornaments, a boomerang, and the list goes on. But, I also got a book, The Hunger Games. At first I thought, alright, cool, another book to read, and luckily, it's in the genre that I prefer. I read the first 1/3 in a couple days, casually. However, then I went on a rampage and finished it by staying up until 7 AM one night. About 7 hours to read it all. And I LOVED it. Can't wait for the movie. So then, naturally, I read the second and third (from the library though) books in the series pretty damn quickly as well. And now I can't stop reading! I then got The Hobbit/LotR in a PDF file and read The Hobbit, which I finished a couple weeks ago, and last week I finished Redwall, and currently reading the prequel (but published after Redwall) called Mossflower. I bought a set of The Hobbit and LotR, as I prefer to read the books, rather than text on my phone or computer, so I will be starting The Fellowship of the Ring after I finish Mossflower. Books - who would have thought I'd like books.
Alright, almost done. This will be slightly longer due to me writing the previous paragraph. Well, today... I WENT RUNNING. YEAH, I KNOW! I ACTUALLY DID. As I had previously mentioned, I was going to get started as soon as P90X was finished, which is next Tuesday, but a few things happened. Firstly, everyone started talking to me about running. Hannah and Jourdan decided to start running together, and they went today (not sure how that ended up going), as well as Malika who started up using the same podcast as me today. Before I continue on, I got the podcast called 5k101, and you can read a bit about it on http://runningmatemedia.com/5k-101/ and it's pretty nice, encouraging, and has some decent music to go along with it. So that was my first bit of inspiration to start running today (Nick is an honorable mention, but he's been working on running for a little while now), but I had one more big piece, which would be thanks to Malika. iRun for kids is the site for more information. But I'm going to be participating in the 5k (still need to register, but will do that soon, possibly this weekend) on March 17th. I won't be racing it or anything, but I just want to go for fun, hang out with Malika, and run/walk it to see where I'm at currently. It'll be nice to compare the 5k in March, to the 5k that I want to race/run (I say that because I'll be running, but have no idea where I'll be at by then) and see how far I've come by that point. But anyways, I decided that if I were to wait until after P90X, that means I wouldn't get started until at least February 29th, and more likely, I'd procrastinate a bit and wait a bit until my body had completely recovered from P90X, which could be anywhere from 1-7 days after that point. And then that'd leave me with what, 2 weeks of running to get me going for this 5k? So I decided with everyone else starting today, I'd start as well. Also, since Malika is using the same schedule as me, I decided starting the same day as her would be better, that way we can motivate each other a bit more to make sure we keep going with it.
Oh, I was about to sign off, and then realized I didn't even talk about my run. So the beginning week of this podcast has us jogging 2 minutes and walking 3 minutes, and doing 4 total cycles (20 minutes, plus about 10 minutes of warm up and cool down). I ended up doing about 1.84 miles (I actually didn't make it out the door of my apartment until the warm up was basically over, so I did lose some ground there) which isn't a bad start, considering I haven't run in years. It was great though, albeit a tough beating on my ankles, due to being overweight and the fact that you're pounding your feet against the cement. But yes, I loved it, and can't wait for Sunday (hopefully decent weather, since it's pretty crappy outside right now). I also ended up running up this really steep hill on my third jog of the podcast, and it was a bad decision at the time, as I lost my breath pretty quickly, but I felt by the end, it was a good enough challenge to add in there. I only went up the hill because it was a part of the city I had never been to, so I thought I'd take a quick look around. But now, I'm just glad I got my first run in, and will be glad to be going out there again soon. And an update on this matter, my last blog post, I was at 3-4 notches on my belt (I could only do 4 on a good day for at most a couple of hours before it got too uncomfortable), and now I can go the whole day on 4 notches, meaning in just a few days, I lost just enough on my waist to get to the 4th notch. A good feeling.
I know that was long, but I had to talk about my time away from this blog, even just for a bit. They'll be a bit shorter in the future now. Well, I guess it's that time again, to stay fancy.
Wednesday night, I went with Ryan and Nick to Dixon (Rec. center/gym at OSU) to shoot some hoops. It was too busy when we arrived, so we went out to the near field and played around with a soccer ball and football. After an hour, went in to shoot hoops for ~45 minutes. However, my ankles took a pretty hard beating, and my shins as well, due to the small amount of running I did, but also the kicking. It's been YEARS since I've played soccer, so it was doing something very different with my muscles. But it was all fun, and due to a very sore right ankle, I've been icing it a bit and stretching it. Much better now, that, or I'm just used to it by now.
Alright, I'm never going to get to this, since I always have plenty to talk about. So I need to go over what happened during the 2 months that I wasn't posting. Nothing big or exciting. Let's see, winter break, I did... Nothing. So that was fun. And then I got sick around January 8th and was pretty inactive until the beginning of February. However, I got some cool new gadgets from Christmas. The most exciting to me and relevant to the blog is my pedometer, which I love. I always have it on me, walking/biking (although I've only ridden my bike once since the start of the term), when I work out, always (okay, not when I sleep or shower). Also got an armband for my iPhone, which is great. I use it sometimes when I work out, but it'll mainly be for running. Then there's a bunch of irrelevant things like movies, ornaments, a boomerang, and the list goes on. But, I also got a book, The Hunger Games. At first I thought, alright, cool, another book to read, and luckily, it's in the genre that I prefer. I read the first 1/3 in a couple days, casually. However, then I went on a rampage and finished it by staying up until 7 AM one night. About 7 hours to read it all. And I LOVED it. Can't wait for the movie. So then, naturally, I read the second and third (from the library though) books in the series pretty damn quickly as well. And now I can't stop reading! I then got The Hobbit/LotR in a PDF file and read The Hobbit, which I finished a couple weeks ago, and last week I finished Redwall, and currently reading the prequel (but published after Redwall) called Mossflower. I bought a set of The Hobbit and LotR, as I prefer to read the books, rather than text on my phone or computer, so I will be starting The Fellowship of the Ring after I finish Mossflower. Books - who would have thought I'd like books.
Oh, I was about to sign off, and then realized I didn't even talk about my run. So the beginning week of this podcast has us jogging 2 minutes and walking 3 minutes, and doing 4 total cycles (20 minutes, plus about 10 minutes of warm up and cool down). I ended up doing about 1.84 miles (I actually didn't make it out the door of my apartment until the warm up was basically over, so I did lose some ground there) which isn't a bad start, considering I haven't run in years. It was great though, albeit a tough beating on my ankles, due to being overweight and the fact that you're pounding your feet against the cement. But yes, I loved it, and can't wait for Sunday (hopefully decent weather, since it's pretty crappy outside right now). I also ended up running up this really steep hill on my third jog of the podcast, and it was a bad decision at the time, as I lost my breath pretty quickly, but I felt by the end, it was a good enough challenge to add in there. I only went up the hill because it was a part of the city I had never been to, so I thought I'd take a quick look around. But now, I'm just glad I got my first run in, and will be glad to be going out there again soon. And an update on this matter, my last blog post, I was at 3-4 notches on my belt (I could only do 4 on a good day for at most a couple of hours before it got too uncomfortable), and now I can go the whole day on 4 notches, meaning in just a few days, I lost just enough on my waist to get to the 4th notch. A good feeling.
I know that was long, but I had to talk about my time away from this blog, even just for a bit. They'll be a bit shorter in the future now. Well, I guess it's that time again, to stay fancy.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Let's Get Down to Business
To defeat the huns!
Sorry, little Mulan moment. Best song ever, by the way. So the title? Well it's time to buckle down. After writing up my blog post 3 days ago, I decided I am really dedicated to losing weight now. I think it has to do with me putting down an actual number goal for my weight - it makes me more motivated. So since then, I've restarted my food log (kind of got bored with it and forgot haha) and I'm counting calories. I'm usually pretty accurate with it, but if I'm not sure of a number, then I will overestimate. Now, I calculated how many calories my body burns each day (without working out) and it came out to be 3,100 currently at my weight. So as long as I eat less than that, I lose weight. But at the same time, I don't want to get in the habit of always eating just under 3,000 every day. I want to be used to eating less, for when I do lose the weight, I don't gain it back. So instead I'm aiming for 2,000-2,400 calories per day. 2,400 calories is what my body would burn at my goal weight, so I should aim to get used to 2,400 a day. Realistically I aim for 2,000, because I'm gauranteed to throw in a few extra calories from random tidbits (say I grab a small handful of peanuts on my way out the door and don't write it down, for example). It also accounts for if I end up underestimating calories. I'd rather go a few less than a few over.
Now currently, I'm eating less than 2,000 calories a day (over the last 3 days), more around the numbers of 1,500 on average. Although I should really eat more than that, I also want to stop tempting myself of big portions and bad snacking habits. So I'm trying to train my stomach to be comfortable with feeling satisfied, rather than completely full as I've always been used to. If I get used to being satisfied for a couple hours before I eat again, that's better than eating until I'm stuffed, and feeling that way for hours and hours. However, if I ever end up feeling as if I haven't had enough food and am lacking serious energy, then I will make sure to eat some extra food. It can be very risky eating so few calories with such a high metabolic rate (due to sex/height/weight), so I want to be cautious. But so far, everything has been fine. The first day I was hungrier than I wanted to, but I survived. Today I had a problem, and that was that I didn't have enough calories in me prior to my workout, specifically little to no protein and not too many complex carbs either, so because of that, halfway through my workout I actually had to stop due to fatigue. So I took a short break and actually ate a little sandwich, about 175 calories worth. And that did the trick. So now I need to make sure I have some food in me prior to my workouts. I have some low fat granola with raisins (decent in fiber and protein as well), and add in some vanilla greek yogurt and some berries. That'll help get me some servings of fruit in my diet, as well as get me some protein and carbs which is what I need.
I'm going to keep this post shorter, due to having some other plans that I want to deal with here, so I want to wrap things up. In my next post I'll talk about my 2 months between my blog posting, and if I haven't talked too much in it, I can go over my plan for after next week (I start my 13th and final week of P90X on Thursday). But I've decided I will update my blog every 3 days, and I'll try hard to keep it to that. I might go 4 days on ocasion if nothing has gone on, but I want to make sure that I'm consistantly writing, even about nothing. It'll help with my writing in general for school and what not, so that's always a good thing, even if it is just a blog. Oh and before I sign out, when I started this blog, I was on my first notch of my belt, and sometimes on my second (a little uncomfortable, but it worked), and now I'm using my third and fourth notches. Always a nice sign. Definitely means if I've only lost ~5 pounds since this blog started, that I've gained a lot of muscle, due to losing at least 2 inches on my waist (you know, since muscle weighs more than fat).
That's all for now, I'm sure I missed something. I'll try to write down things in between blog postings so that I don't forget. Well I guess until next time, you ought to stay fancy.
Sorry, little Mulan moment. Best song ever, by the way. So the title? Well it's time to buckle down. After writing up my blog post 3 days ago, I decided I am really dedicated to losing weight now. I think it has to do with me putting down an actual number goal for my weight - it makes me more motivated. So since then, I've restarted my food log (kind of got bored with it and forgot haha) and I'm counting calories. I'm usually pretty accurate with it, but if I'm not sure of a number, then I will overestimate. Now, I calculated how many calories my body burns each day (without working out) and it came out to be 3,100 currently at my weight. So as long as I eat less than that, I lose weight. But at the same time, I don't want to get in the habit of always eating just under 3,000 every day. I want to be used to eating less, for when I do lose the weight, I don't gain it back. So instead I'm aiming for 2,000-2,400 calories per day. 2,400 calories is what my body would burn at my goal weight, so I should aim to get used to 2,400 a day. Realistically I aim for 2,000, because I'm gauranteed to throw in a few extra calories from random tidbits (say I grab a small handful of peanuts on my way out the door and don't write it down, for example). It also accounts for if I end up underestimating calories. I'd rather go a few less than a few over.
Now currently, I'm eating less than 2,000 calories a day (over the last 3 days), more around the numbers of 1,500 on average. Although I should really eat more than that, I also want to stop tempting myself of big portions and bad snacking habits. So I'm trying to train my stomach to be comfortable with feeling satisfied, rather than completely full as I've always been used to. If I get used to being satisfied for a couple hours before I eat again, that's better than eating until I'm stuffed, and feeling that way for hours and hours. However, if I ever end up feeling as if I haven't had enough food and am lacking serious energy, then I will make sure to eat some extra food. It can be very risky eating so few calories with such a high metabolic rate (due to sex/height/weight), so I want to be cautious. But so far, everything has been fine. The first day I was hungrier than I wanted to, but I survived. Today I had a problem, and that was that I didn't have enough calories in me prior to my workout, specifically little to no protein and not too many complex carbs either, so because of that, halfway through my workout I actually had to stop due to fatigue. So I took a short break and actually ate a little sandwich, about 175 calories worth. And that did the trick. So now I need to make sure I have some food in me prior to my workouts. I have some low fat granola with raisins (decent in fiber and protein as well), and add in some vanilla greek yogurt and some berries. That'll help get me some servings of fruit in my diet, as well as get me some protein and carbs which is what I need.
I'm going to keep this post shorter, due to having some other plans that I want to deal with here, so I want to wrap things up. In my next post I'll talk about my 2 months between my blog posting, and if I haven't talked too much in it, I can go over my plan for after next week (I start my 13th and final week of P90X on Thursday). But I've decided I will update my blog every 3 days, and I'll try hard to keep it to that. I might go 4 days on ocasion if nothing has gone on, but I want to make sure that I'm consistantly writing, even about nothing. It'll help with my writing in general for school and what not, so that's always a good thing, even if it is just a blog. Oh and before I sign out, when I started this blog, I was on my first notch of my belt, and sometimes on my second (a little uncomfortable, but it worked), and now I'm using my third and fourth notches. Always a nice sign. Definitely means if I've only lost ~5 pounds since this blog started, that I've gained a lot of muscle, due to losing at least 2 inches on my waist (you know, since muscle weighs more than fat).
That's all for now, I'm sure I missed something. I'll try to write down things in between blog postings so that I don't forget. Well I guess until next time, you ought to stay fancy.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Two Months Later...
Oh wow, just wow. So it's been two entire months since I last updated my blog. Now to be fair, I haven't had much to talk about until a few weeks ago, and then the procrastination sunk in. Just never got around to it. So now that I've remembered, it's time to write.
Where did I leave off...
Ah yes, that's right, my father's birthday, a week before Christmas, about to start Zoo Camp, and just relaxing during my break. Well, that's exactly what my break was like, relaxing. So relaxing, in fact, that I never worked out after the first week. I just needed a rest, and it was good. I feel as if my knee is doing better now (I believe I've mentinoed this, but not sure - my right knee has some sort of joint problems, and it's uncomfortable when working on my legs), thanks to my long break from working out, which is great. It still has problems when I first start to do squats and lunges, but I don't experience discomfort outside of my workouts (and after a few minutes it warms up pretty nicely and doesn't have many problems). But then...
Then I got sick. And not just the common cold, mind you... Well, except that it was the common cold; but this wasn't ANY common cold, this shit lasted for a month. Probably the longest cold I've ever had, it got to a point where I could go on living life again, but it lingered forever. Well, because of that, I could never start working out, because I just didn't have the lung capacity, nor the energy to handle an intense workout (even if I did half of a workout, it'd be difficult). However, I finally started back up on February 1st, after 7 weeks of inactivity (inactive as in working out wise - even then, still quite inactive due to being sick and on break). My last workout in December was a Yoga day, which was the 4th day of Week 10. I decided to start back up from the beginning of Week 10. I had made a lot of progress over the first 9.5 weeks that I was working out during, but I lost a lot of my strength unfortunately. Now, that's expected; my first workout with weights, I had to drop 5 pounds on all my exercises to be able to do the same amount of reps, and even then, it was hard to keep up with my previous workouts. But now, 2 and a half weeks later, I can tell I'm just about where I left off in December, which is fantastic news for me.
Further more, I do still have a bit more work to do to get to where I was previously, but I'm very close, and I can tell I've slimmed down on my waist just a bit more than before, so I've at least made that progress. My weight is still around the same, but I'm hoping by Spring Break to finally have made a dent in it. I never lost much due to a lot of muscle gain, and then over break I stayed about the same, losing a tad bit of muscle and gaining a bit of fat again (winter weather plus being back at home is really bad for my health). But, I'm finishing up Week 12 of P90X in the next 3 days, and then I have my last and final week of the program (yeah, with a 7 week break, but I don't care about that - just lost a bit of momentum). After that, I begin to run. Oh this should be fun. I need to get some new running shoes, but I figure I'll probably do that during Spring Break once I've started a bit and make sure that I actually get into it (don't want to waste money on shoes I won't use!); until then, I have some cross training shoes that are a bit uncomfortable for long distances or running (great for exercise, but the fit is slightly off for me), but they'll do fine for now.
Just a little bit more to write for now - I'll write up something in a couple days to go on about what else has been happening.
So I'm going to finally put down in writing, goals of mine to accomplish by my birthday (which is what I recognize as the beginning of Summer), June 15th. My biggest goal, is to lose 30-35 pounds (my weight fluctuates a lot, especially since I found out my scale at home isn't calibrated correctly! One moment it'll rest at 4 pounds (nothing on the scale) and the next it'll be 1 pound). To be more specific, my average weight (since it fluctuates as I mentioned) is between 250-255 depending on the day/week, and I want to weigh 220 pounds by my birthday. That's a big goal, 30+ pounds. But, at my weight, it can also be easy to accomplish at the same time (30 pounds of 250 is a 12% reduction, which would be the equivalent of losing 18 pounds at 150... Okay that seems like a lot still) due to the fact that I already weigh quite a bit. I really need to buckle down with my eating - my main problems are snacking, and portion size (moreso snacking). I need to work on eating less and resisting temptation; as time goes on, my stomach will shrink a bit and I'll be used to eating less. But until then, it's rough. My other goals are - running a 5k race in July (and actually "racing," by which I mean running without stopping, and actually going for a decent time, personally), and to be able to do 50 consecutive push ups. Yup, that goal I just started up.
The weight loss will come with time, eating less, starting to run, etc. I'll be focusing more on cardio, but still put in resistance training and anaerobic exercise so I'm not only doing one thing, and that will really help with my weight loss. One big reason is that I won't be working as much on muscle gain. My resistance training will be for three reasons - mixing it up by cross training, maintaining my muscular strength, and increasing muscular endurance (so being able to do more reps). On top of that, I have this new 50 consecutive push up goal. Now, I came across a site just last night about a planned schedule to get you up to anywhere from 50-100 consecutive push ups, in 6 weeks. Well, I realized I've never been good at push ups, NEVER. I can do 15 on a good day, and I struggle with it a lot. I usually do knee push ups actually. But I want to reach at least 50. It's a great chest workout, and I've always been envious of people who can do so many in comparison to me. So with some weight loss and working on push ups 6 out of 7 days in the week (might decrease how many days per week - for now while I'm doing fewer reps, I'm doing it every day besides my rest day), I figure it should be a pretty easy goal to accomplish, especially by Summer. I could probably push it to 100, but I really only care about 50 for now. So today I started out easy - 4 sets of 3 push ups (no knee, as I want the real deal) and then for my last set, maximum, which was 10 today. Doing that every day, and slowly increasing, should do me just fine.
(that's the site that I came across, onehundredpushups.com)
Alright, I've talked enough - this has taken me pretty long to write up as well. I still have more to discuss, but that will come in a couple of days. Until then, I'd prefer it if you stayed fancy.
Where did I leave off...
Ah yes, that's right, my father's birthday, a week before Christmas, about to start Zoo Camp, and just relaxing during my break. Well, that's exactly what my break was like, relaxing. So relaxing, in fact, that I never worked out after the first week. I just needed a rest, and it was good. I feel as if my knee is doing better now (I believe I've mentinoed this, but not sure - my right knee has some sort of joint problems, and it's uncomfortable when working on my legs), thanks to my long break from working out, which is great. It still has problems when I first start to do squats and lunges, but I don't experience discomfort outside of my workouts (and after a few minutes it warms up pretty nicely and doesn't have many problems). But then...
Then I got sick. And not just the common cold, mind you... Well, except that it was the common cold; but this wasn't ANY common cold, this shit lasted for a month. Probably the longest cold I've ever had, it got to a point where I could go on living life again, but it lingered forever. Well, because of that, I could never start working out, because I just didn't have the lung capacity, nor the energy to handle an intense workout (even if I did half of a workout, it'd be difficult). However, I finally started back up on February 1st, after 7 weeks of inactivity (inactive as in working out wise - even then, still quite inactive due to being sick and on break). My last workout in December was a Yoga day, which was the 4th day of Week 10. I decided to start back up from the beginning of Week 10. I had made a lot of progress over the first 9.5 weeks that I was working out during, but I lost a lot of my strength unfortunately. Now, that's expected; my first workout with weights, I had to drop 5 pounds on all my exercises to be able to do the same amount of reps, and even then, it was hard to keep up with my previous workouts. But now, 2 and a half weeks later, I can tell I'm just about where I left off in December, which is fantastic news for me.
Further more, I do still have a bit more work to do to get to where I was previously, but I'm very close, and I can tell I've slimmed down on my waist just a bit more than before, so I've at least made that progress. My weight is still around the same, but I'm hoping by Spring Break to finally have made a dent in it. I never lost much due to a lot of muscle gain, and then over break I stayed about the same, losing a tad bit of muscle and gaining a bit of fat again (winter weather plus being back at home is really bad for my health). But, I'm finishing up Week 12 of P90X in the next 3 days, and then I have my last and final week of the program (yeah, with a 7 week break, but I don't care about that - just lost a bit of momentum). After that, I begin to run. Oh this should be fun. I need to get some new running shoes, but I figure I'll probably do that during Spring Break once I've started a bit and make sure that I actually get into it (don't want to waste money on shoes I won't use!); until then, I have some cross training shoes that are a bit uncomfortable for long distances or running (great for exercise, but the fit is slightly off for me), but they'll do fine for now.
Just a little bit more to write for now - I'll write up something in a couple days to go on about what else has been happening.
So I'm going to finally put down in writing, goals of mine to accomplish by my birthday (which is what I recognize as the beginning of Summer), June 15th. My biggest goal, is to lose 30-35 pounds (my weight fluctuates a lot, especially since I found out my scale at home isn't calibrated correctly! One moment it'll rest at 4 pounds (nothing on the scale) and the next it'll be 1 pound). To be more specific, my average weight (since it fluctuates as I mentioned) is between 250-255 depending on the day/week, and I want to weigh 220 pounds by my birthday. That's a big goal, 30+ pounds. But, at my weight, it can also be easy to accomplish at the same time (30 pounds of 250 is a 12% reduction, which would be the equivalent of losing 18 pounds at 150... Okay that seems like a lot still) due to the fact that I already weigh quite a bit. I really need to buckle down with my eating - my main problems are snacking, and portion size (moreso snacking). I need to work on eating less and resisting temptation; as time goes on, my stomach will shrink a bit and I'll be used to eating less. But until then, it's rough. My other goals are - running a 5k race in July (and actually "racing," by which I mean running without stopping, and actually going for a decent time, personally), and to be able to do 50 consecutive push ups. Yup, that goal I just started up.
The weight loss will come with time, eating less, starting to run, etc. I'll be focusing more on cardio, but still put in resistance training and anaerobic exercise so I'm not only doing one thing, and that will really help with my weight loss. One big reason is that I won't be working as much on muscle gain. My resistance training will be for three reasons - mixing it up by cross training, maintaining my muscular strength, and increasing muscular endurance (so being able to do more reps). On top of that, I have this new 50 consecutive push up goal. Now, I came across a site just last night about a planned schedule to get you up to anywhere from 50-100 consecutive push ups, in 6 weeks. Well, I realized I've never been good at push ups, NEVER. I can do 15 on a good day, and I struggle with it a lot. I usually do knee push ups actually. But I want to reach at least 50. It's a great chest workout, and I've always been envious of people who can do so many in comparison to me. So with some weight loss and working on push ups 6 out of 7 days in the week (might decrease how many days per week - for now while I'm doing fewer reps, I'm doing it every day besides my rest day), I figure it should be a pretty easy goal to accomplish, especially by Summer. I could probably push it to 100, but I really only care about 50 for now. So today I started out easy - 4 sets of 3 push ups (no knee, as I want the real deal) and then for my last set, maximum, which was 10 today. Doing that every day, and slowly increasing, should do me just fine.
(that's the site that I came across, onehundredpushups.com)
Alright, I've talked enough - this has taken me pretty long to write up as well. I still have more to discuss, but that will come in a couple of days. Until then, I'd prefer it if you stayed fancy.
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