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.

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.

After Care? More like AFTER FUN!

Okay, reading that title, makes me realize that someone might be lead to believe that whatever occasion we're discussing, is taking place after the fun occurs. Well that, my friends, is certainly not what I mean! To anyone reading that doesn't quite know what after care is, it allows campers in Zoo Camp to be picked up later than the end of camp, so that parents who work later than 4 PM can pick them up at a more convenient time. During that time, the campers get to do a various number of activities. Anyways, I'll be involved with that over the course of Winter Camp this break, and I'm going to put the FUN in AFTER FUN.

Well crap, I had meant to update this when I got home from Corvallis, but alas, it just didn't happen. No worries though, not much has been happening, but hopefully I'll post once a week.

Unfortunately, I haven't been working out much lately. I think it's just the aspect of being back home for the holidays that have made me increasingly lazy. But luckily, I've gone out for a couple of walks and have been doing a few workouts. I'm hoping to get more into a rhythm of doing my workouts this next week. Now on top of that, I need to start working on a better sleeping pattern, for realz. I'm hoping that having to wake up early today (7:30) will help me get started. I'm going to be going to bed shortly after typing this up, as I'm writing this up and watching a bit of SNL, but I don't need to stay up until 1 to finish it. I just have to face that going to bed at 4 and waking up anywhere from 8-12 hours later is just not the way to get through life; I really want to be on a semi-regular sleeping pattern, and so it begins.

That's really all I have for now. Pretty tired and not really in a creative mood at the moment to keep writing. Christmas coming up in 8 days (or 7 I guess, since it's after midnight now), today is my dad's birthday, Zoo Camp starting tomorrow, and I still have 3 more weeks of break. Ah, it's the sweet life.

So I guess it's the time, to stay fancy.

Procrastination at its finest

Bah. I haven't updated my blog in quite a while now. Everyday I think to myself, alright, tonight, right before bed, just sit down and write it out. I really do enjoy writing up these things, but it's been a combination of forgetting and just procrastinating, thinking I'll do it first thing the next day or something along those lines. but oh well, who cares? Because I'm updating it right now, and that's all that matters.

So let's see, where did I leave off? Whew, 16 days ago, crap. So I finally made it to Thanksgiving weekend, which was a blast. Firstly, Thanksgiving was great, I thoroughly enjoyed company of family, as well as being able to eat a bit more than usual, and I allowed myself a little bit of sweets. Piece of pie, some small muffins for breakfast, and a couple cookies. It was pretty basic, but glad that I didn't go overboard. I did have quite a bit of sparkling... Mango spritzer? I forget what flavor it was, as well as sparkling apple cider, which I have no idea how much sugar those things have in them, since it's not labeled, but I'm hoping it wasn't too bad. Nonetheless, I finished up the month, and I'm very proud of myself. In about 2 months, I've lost ~10 pounds, which isn't too bad, since I've put on a lot of muscle as well. I can tell, because after doing a workout today, I was able to increase my reps by about 30-50% depending on the exercise. I definitely feel better overall, but I still need to take it up a notch. I also did enjoy some Du's Grill and Blast Burger (great burger place in Lake Oswego that opened up recently), but did not make it to Killer Burger. Oh well, Winter Break for that.

I got a little behind in workouts, as I wasn't feeling all that great over Thanksgiving break, and am not feeling all that well right now actually, speaking of it. It hasn't gotten awful like I have gotten in the past, but I'm still not 100% healthy at the moment. But yes, I did get a bit behind due to a lack of energy during my break, however, I was able to start up my third phase (last 5 weeks of the 90 days) today, the first of December. Well I guess it's the second now, but whatever, I'm still awake. Which I need to work on going to bed earlier... Ugh. Oh, and on top of the 10 pounds, I've also lost about an inch on my waistline so far, which is always nice; just remembered that.

I'm excited for these 90 days to be over, because I'm going to really take my workouts to a new level during Winter Term, as I'm going to start more cardio on top of my workouts. So I'll be starting to run, oooo ahhh. I'm going to start it off very easy, as I don't have much experience running, so half walking, half jogging to begin with basically, and I'm hoping to be able to run 3-4 miles without stopping by Spring Break. SPEAKING OF SPRING BREAK, my family might be going to Hawaii for the week! Not guaranteed yet, but it's a possibility that we're looking into. I loved going to Hawaii 2 years ago. Was fantastic that my roommate at the time, Nick, lives there (when not at school obviously), so I got to hang out with his family there. Anyways, yes, one of my main goals is to be able to and to start running on a more regular basis by summer, so what better way to do it than, to start running?! I hope it'll go well. But I'm planning on just doing up to about 30 minutes of walking/running 3 times per week (probably same days I do weights), and obviously increasing my duration of running each week until I can run 3-4 miles. I'd love to be able to do a ten mile run by the end of summer, even if it's slow as hell, just to say that I can do it. But that'll happens when it happens; I need to take baby steps.

I think I'm going to wind this down now, as I really ought to be going to sleep now. But, I finished my month of little to no sweets, and limited sugar, but what to do for December? Well, it won't be a challenge, however, it still has to do with food. I have two big eating habits; I eat big portions (and sometimes lots of portions), as well as I snack a lot. So I want to work on my snacking habits. And there are three reasons why I snack a lot. One - I sometimes don't eat complete meals, or eat meals at irregular hours and times, so I end up snacking to make up for meals, sometimes healthy food, usually, not so much. Two - I snack because I still feel hungry, due to not having enough time to digest and not feeling full yet; this leads to eating more than I should and feeling too full later on, meaning I ate more than I should have. Three - I snack because I'm bore; I hate that one. Luckily, I don't do the last one that often, but it will happen, I'm bored, and just get the munchies and eat a bunch of random food around the house/apartment. So the best way to combat this is to write down what I eat. I'm not going calorie counting, I hate that. But I want to be conscious of what I eat, and when. So firstly, don't eat because I'm bored, drink some water instead, or get un-bored. Secondly, after I've eaten something, snack-wise, or even a meal, make sure I wait before consuming more food, to make sure I'm really hungry or not. If I'm not sure yet, drink some water in the meantime, maybe it'll go away. And finally, make sure I eat enough meals, and don't eat all my food as snacks. Actually make or have something that isn't snacking, and actually meal-worthy. So like I said, I'll be writing down what I eat and when, just so I can think to myself, do I really need to eat that? Or could I at least wait? I also want to get in the habit of drinking more water, plus it could end up filling me up, to prevent me from snacking.

On top of that, I want to watch how much fat/cholesterol/dairy I consume. I've been eating a lot of greek yogurt recently, and I just realized HOW much I'm eating. That, plus about 1 cup of milk a day, can really stack up. I'm also drinking protein shakes (about 1-1.5 cups after a workout as a recovery drink, as well as to get a little extra protein in my diet, but without adding in a bunch of simple carbs (sugar), such as chocolate milk does. One problem with the shake is that 1 scoop of the powder gives 65 mg of cholesterol, and if I drink 1.5 scoops worth, then that's a lot of my daily cholesterol right there. Plus if I add in greek yogurt to either my meals/snacks or to my shake (I tried that the other day), that's adding in another 15-25 mg of cholesterol, coming in at around 40% of my daily recommended cholesterol (or at least that's what the back of the carton says! Either way, I don't want to go overboard on cholesterol). Anyways, I need to watch those catagories of my diet.

Alright, that's all for now I guess. 'til next time, stay fancy.

Paradise

Paradise - Coldplay

What an amazing song. When I listen to this specific playlist, I always start off with this song; very relaxing. And so I start off this blog post whilst listening to Paradise and eating a few tortilla chips with salsa. Not the healthiest of snacks, but one of my guilty pleasures with food. But I limit myself by only serving myself a limited amount of salsa. Nonetheless, a bit of a relaxing moment right now.

You know, it wasn't until Friday that I realized it had been a little while since I had posted to the blog, and every time I was thinking of writing something up, I got busy with something, whether it be sporting events, working out, or reading (yes, reading). So here I am, writing this up just before heading to bed.

Nothing too special recently, UNLESS YOU WERE TO BRING UP THE FACT THAT I OWN MODERN WARFARE 3 AND THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE ERAGON SERIES, INHERITANCE. No big deal. The game is pretty awesome, and have spent around 12 hours on it or so. And I've actually spent more time reading my book than playing the game, surprisingly.  Over halfway through, actually about 5/8 through it right now. It's a pretty awesome book, and I love the whole series. But I will be a bit disappointed when it's all done. Oh well.

Still doing well with sweets and sugar. I still have the carton of OJ, meaning I haven't drank it all, and haven't had any sweets this month, so the juice has probably been the worst so far. I realized today, as I was craving a mocha from Dutch Bros, that alas, I couldn't get it. I could have gotten other coffee, without sugar, but come on, the only coffee I ever get are like mochas, which have chocolate in them, meaning sugar. Oh well. I feel better that I didn't end up getting one, as I wasn't even thinking about it having sugar in it prior to my realization. I will be glad when I can have the occasional sweet though, like dessert every so often, or a few M&Ms here and there, etc.

I got a bit behind in my workouts as well, just a couple of days, so I'm going to try to catch up, but I won't stress about it. Will only catch up on days that I have plenty of energy on. For instance, today should have been my rest day, but since I skipped a couple days, I ended up doing my 5th day of the week (Legs/Back) today. Tomorrow I'll do my Kenpo which would be my last workout of week 6, but I'll probably just go straight into week 7 - day 1 on Wednesday. And eventually, I might do a double workout, but like I said, only if I have the energy. Maybe combining my yoga with another workout for instance. Whatever I do, I plan on completing the end of my second month before November is over, just to make sure I'm not losing too much ground.

Time is flying by! Specifically about my workouts, but also the year in general. I can't believe I'm finishing up week 6 already, felt like just a few days ago I was in my recovery week (week 4). I'm about halfway done with the complete program! Now, I'm not stopping after the 90 days (13 weeks), but I will definitely feel accomplished after this first bit is done. I'm re-evaluating some of the workouts, and want to see what the 'Cardio video' is like. I may replace my Plyometrics with it, as I really need to work on getting my knee in better condition, and the constant jumping/squats/lunges in Plyo is getting hard on it. My legs workout is alright, because I need some work on legs, not getting bulkier, but specifically leaner. Hell, I can leg press around 800 pounds or so (I forget what I maxed at, I want to say 790 (just in added weights, the actual platform you push is about 45 pounds I think, pushing it over 800), because I think I added 16 - 45 pound weights and 2 - 35 pound weights), I have the power, but need endurance there still. Plus you can't neglect your legs.

And of course in general, Thanksgiving is coming up! I can't wait. I'm not sure why, as I usually don't get so giddy about Thanksgiving. But this year seems different. I miss Portland and home, more so than usual, which is odd. I think I'm mainly missing family and friends that aren't here at OSU. Oh well, will be soon enough. Lots of fooooood with family, my first dessert like food that I'll be able to have as well. Plus of course, good ol' Portland. I think a trip to Killer Burger is in order. Just because I'm trying to eat better doesn't mean I can't spoil myself every so often.

By the way, I want to formally advertise Killer Burger. By far, the best burgers I've ever eaten, and at a good price. And that's saying something, since I freaking love burgers. My favorites are the Epic and the Jose Mendoza. The Fatty Barnyard (double patty) is fantastic as well, if you're really hungry (we're talking about a couple pounds of food on that one though), and the Peanut Butter Pickle Bacon Burger is amazing as well. All burgers come with bacon too, so what's not to like? Well, sorry if you can't eat meat... But nonetheless!

God I want Killer Burger. When I go to Portland I either have to get Killer Burger, Du's Grill (awesome teriyaki place, hole in the wall kind of restaurant, ask me if you haven't heard of it), or sometimes, both.

Okay, I need to stop thinking about food.

Ladies and gentlemen - stay fancy.

Remember Remember the Fifth of November...

Woops, a little late on the title.

So I've been wanting to type up this blog post all weekend, but honestly, have had no idea what to talk about. Guess I'm just going to cover what's been happening. I guess there is one thing I'll talk about though, so that's good.

Been working out as planned, never got around to doing my yoga on Friday night, so I did that yesterday morning, and then did my legs/back workout in the evening. Was a bit tired, but I managed to finish it all. Although I had to cut some of the difficult yoga out as I wasn't feeling well yesterday. Going to basically finish up my 5th week tonight with some Kenpo. Would have done it earlier, but I got pretty hungry and I'm now just waiting for the food to settle after replenishing my food supply. Tomorrow will be my rest day, which is technically the last of week 5, but tonight is my last workout of week 5. I have to say that I kind of like the change in weights this past week, just rearranging on which days I do which weights. Day 1 - Chest/Shoulders/Triceps and Day 3 - Back/Biceps. The C/S/T is a pretty hard workout, and the B/B workout definitely makes me push myself a lot from how I experienced things this week. Was a nice change from the usual stuff though.

I am proud to say that I've been pretty sugar free so far in the last week. Now, I have to confess I've had a little bit of Orange Juice, which I just realized is pretty damn sugary, but as long as I drink it in moderation, I'm okay with it. It's mainly sweets that I'm preventing, and just a general cut down and moderation of sugar. I really need to cut down on my late night snacking still, I've only down it a couple nights, but it's mainly because I end up doing a late workout, and need a few calories/carbs in my body, but then I start snacking, and I stay up because of it, making me go to sleep late. So, I'm going to try to limit what I eat after dinner. If it's a post-workout snack, but before bed, I'll just try to have a glass of chocolate milk, or maybe like, half a PB&J sandwich or something. Other than that, all I can say is that I've been getting plenty of cravings for fudge, peanut M&Ms, and strangely some pie today. Oh well, no problem, I can make it 24 more days...

Oh right, so what I was going to discuss. I'm going to be getting into a bit of isometric exercise on top of my pre-existing workouts. For those who don't know, isometric exercise is working your muscles, without any motion. Such as pushing against a wall for 5-10 seconds. Pros are that this type of exercise can greatly increase body strength and can help improve your weight lifting. It's also a bit easier in the sense that you aren't trying to match a certain weight for a certain number of repetitions, and it's also easy to simply put less effort into it (less strength or for a shorter period of time) if you don't have the energy/strength. Cons are that it doesn't work your muscles the way that lifting does. The isometric exercise only works the muscles in that particular position that you're in. And it can also increase blood pressure, but as long as you're not at risk of that, you're fine. I'm using the isometric exercise to help enhance my lifting, as well as general body strength. I came across a very cheap product that supports this type of exercise ($13 in total), very similar to the bull worker if you're at all familiar with it. I could do this type of exercise on my own with my weights, or the wall and tables, etc. But with this device I got (it's another infomercial thing, the Iso7x), there are a lot more ways to work your muslces, so it's mainly being used to give a variety of different isometric exercises that I can do for each muscle. Another good thing is that this is something I can do after a workout as I'm bringing my heart rate down. I can say, watch Youtube videos while doing this. Isometrics will NEVER take over my workout routines, but I'm wanting to use a variety of different exercises in my workout routine. It's kind of like aerobic and anaerobic exercise, you could do either, they have their different benefits, or you use a combination of the two for better results and a better workout program.

By the way, oh god does that commercial make me laugh. It's so stupid. Glad I got mine for only $13.

Ah finally, I'm excited about this week. November 8th, TWO amazing things come out in stores. Obviously, Modern Warfare 3 comes out, and I'll be buying it asap. I have a $50 giftcard for Target, so $10 for basically the game of the year? Hell yes. Secondly, something not many people would anticipate me being excited about it, is the FOURTH BOOK OF THE INHERITANCE CYCLE. Oh god yes, the 4th and final book. Background on this: The Inheritance Cycle is the name of the 4 part Eragon series. I've loved the series, and am very glad that after 8 or 9 years, I'm finally going to complete this. I anticipate that I know most of what will happen in the book, but oh well. And yes, a book that I actually will read, considering I don't read much for fun. November 8th will be a great day, although I probably won't get either on the 8th... But who cares! I will also get the Iso7x bar by the 8th (should at least), so I will start doing some Isometric exercises starting Tuesday.

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Remember remember, to stay fancy.

Challenge... Accepted

What a fun weekend. Two winning volleyball matches, hanging out with friends at a Halloween get-together, chillaxing on Halloween night, lots of Call of Duty (yup, that's my life). Other than that, nothing too exciting. Although I'm going to make a trip to Local Boyz, which has some of the best food I have ever eaten, and that's coming from a food fanatic. Catherine from Penguin Camp at the Zoo attends OSU as well, so we decided to meet up for some delicious grub and catch up. Oh, and I went as a scientist for Halloween, which helps explain this random picture with my friends.

I've been meaning to update this since Friday, and just haven't gotten around to it. Always either too tired or busy to deal with it, when I remember. So here I am, typing this up on Tuesday afternoon on November 1st. Today, is the beginning of it all to me. The month of October was mainly just to lay out my goals, start working out, and get an idea of what I'll be doing to lead a healthier lifestyle, mainly, getting in shape. But now, my first monthly challenge has begun!

I've already told a few people, but never mentioned my specific plan in the blog yet. My challenge or the month of November is to not eat sweets. But time for the terms: Thanksgiving is an exception, but I will limit myself (such as on pie or any other desserts). Other than that, I may not buy any sweets (candy, cookies, or anything with a lot of sugar in it) and really the only other exception for this sort of thing is if someone, such as family, makes me baked goods. Then I will considering having a moderate amount of said baked goods. For example, on Saturday I received cupcakes from my family, so that would be okay with me, as long as I ate them in moderation. The only other exception that I can think of is chocolate milk, as it is a great recovery drink after a workout. It has about a 4:1 carb to protein ratio, which is ideal for replenishing your energy after a workout, plus it tastes delicious. Now, I'm not eliminating sugar, however, I am cutting out and reducing lots of unnecessary simple carbs/sugars as well as empty calories. I'm hoping that this month will help create a healthier eating habit for me, to avoid all those sugars. Another thing, is I will be trying to avoid fake sugars as well, basically, a lack of sweets, real or fake.

One problem, is that over the weekend, I was given a bunch of cupcakes, as I mentioned, and Ryan's mom gave us some Safeway cookies (which I find extremely addicting), so I definitely got my fair share of those, plus more than my fair share. Oh well, it was like a last meal type of thing; I just can't resist those damned cookies.

Now regarding my workouts, I ended up taking a 3 day break, once I finished my recovery week, finishing up my first 4 weeks, or month, of the program. I'm starting fresh today on the second month, conveniently on the first of the month. My workouts will be slightly different. I'll be focusing on creating leaner muscle mass for this month, so basically, I will be giving the same amount of effort into a workout, but with weights, I will be doing a slightly lower weight and more repetitions, as my main goal is to be leaner overall. Another reason for doing this is because I injured my right elbow somehow. I noticed it doing yoga last week, that I tweaked my elbow somehow, so I've been icing it since, and it feels better so far. So I will be using lighter weights, so that way if I need to stop on my right arm, I will just do less repetitions until it heals properly. Another reason for taking the 3 day break is I ended up completely exhausted by Friday of last week, and I just had little to no energy to workout again right away. This way, I'm well rested, and have given my elbow some time to relax and heal. My first workout will involve moving my elbows a lot, so I was afraid I'd re-injure it if I worked out right away as well.

This month is all about kicking butt. I'll be pushing myself harder in workouts, now that I've gotten used to it all. However, I will not be worrying about doing double workouts in a day, or making up for them. If I really need a rest, then I'll take it, if I need to do half a workout, then I'll do that. I'll push myself to make sure I don't wimp out, but if I truly need a break, then I'll do it. No need to completely strain my body and hurt myself. But I do want to see some definite results by the end of this month. Not necessarily weight loss, but I want to be lifting more (either weights, repetitions, or both) and notice an increase of energy for my workouts. I'll also be more careful about my eating, obviously with my challenge, but also preventing midnight snacks (one of my worst enemies, I'll eat a little snack, then realize I'm hungrier, and eat even more, and by then, I'm wide awake and end up falling asleep really late into the night). I also really want to get on a sleeping schedule, as I've had some serious problems with this in the last two weeks.

Well I guess that ends this post. Going to my Genetics class here very soon, and then going to Local Boyz as I mentioned (oh, it's Hawaiian food, by the way). And this evening will be my Chest, Shoulders, & Triceps workout, and hopefully my elbow manages it pretty well. Until next time, stay fancy.