One Month off

I hadn't intended to take nearly a month off from workouts - the intense workouts not just walking.  Many factors contributed to this break the primary reason was sickness and role change.  The role change was in my company, I took a week off to finish up the last push then I got sick and hadn't fully recovered until last week.  Last week, I spent the work week attempting to get caught up so I could go out of town.

Today, is the first day back to a real workout and modifying my food.  I think I'm going to go back to juice.  I felt great with it and never felt hungry.  I was losing weight and I felt great (I just wanted to mention that twice).

My workouts through the week are going to be essentially the same.  I may go back to the Pull Up Program and the Feelgood workouts like I was doing, but for now I'm going to do a single workout that combines the exercises I have a problem doing.  I'm also adjusting my workout so every hour has the same 5 workouts.  Every hour I need to take a break from work and get away from my desk.  I'm horrible about that.  So I've decided to set my alert and every hour I'll take a 5 minute break and do the same 5 exercises and amounts.  These particular exercises are for improving shoulder, chest, shoulder, and core strength with the primary result being a pull up, hand stand/decline pushup, etc.

My daily workout is going to include 30-60 minutes of stationary bike riding, for now.  As the weather gets better and better I'll adjust that to trail riding and hiking.  I don't want to spend hours working out each day (in a row).  I do want to get in at least 30 minutes of workout 5 days a week.  My goal is 60 minutes 5 days a week.  Those estimates are not including 5 minutes every hour for 8-10 hours a day (which would be between 40 and 50 minutes of additional calisthenics a day).  So from my totals, you're seeing 30-60 minutes of bike/hike workout, 30-60 minutes of calisthenics, and 40-50 minutes of calisthenics.  That's quite a big of workout.  Depending on how these go, I may end up breaking them down to something else.  An example would be 30-60 minutes bike/hike workout, and 40-50 minutes calisthenics (hourly), and then 30 minute workout of the Pull Up Program and Feel Good Full Body Workout.

The TRX Force workouts are good, but way too much for me.  I did the 12 week program last year and by the end I was just ready to not workout again.  My diet was messed up, my workouts were messed up.  I was excited in the beginning, but as I went through I just kept getting depressed.  Part of that is that I think "hey I can add more and more" until finally I can't do any (or don't want to do any).  I want to add just enough that I feel good, still get stronger, and don't feel like I don't want to workout.  I think this new plan will do just that.

W6D5

I haven't done very well blogging my status since I quit juicing.  My weight has gone up a bit and seems stuck between 265 and 267 right now.  That's probably about normal considering I probably eat 4 pounds of food a day, but it's still a bit of a bummer which also means that I've not been as interested in pushing b/c I feel like I've hit some sort of plateau.

I'm eating about 1000 calories a day and working out about an hour a day - but I still feel like i'm stuck at 265-267 when I should be 259; and that's messing me up pretty bad.  It shouldn't, but it does.

I'm insanely hungry right now - and extremely tired.

I had a horrific night last night where all of the energy I was directing at writing came crashing into no energy, no drive, and no will to push forward.  I'm done.  I've been done once before where I was broken to the point that I didn't care anymore.  I'm there again after 5-6 years.  I've been trudging along hauling the world like Atlas climbing a mountain.  People keep packing it on top.  Until last night, when I dropped nearly everything.  I was so tired and done last night that if I could've figured out a way to have a moving company show up and pack everything I have to put into storage I would've done that and moved out last night.  Moving forward doesn't seem to help me out; and carrying everyone else doesn't help me out.  I don't want to do it anymore.  I will, but I don't want to.  I would rather sell everything I have and take my car and drive to some place like the Florida Keys, sell my car, then fly to the Grand Cayman and live on a beach collecting cans daily to pay for food or massaging feet of tourists to pay for the alcohol i'd need to consume to forget about everything.  For the first time in many years I not only wanted to go back to Iraq, but I tried to figure out a way to do it.  It's crazy, to me, how much I miss a place I never wanted to call home; it's more real to me than where I'm at in life now.

I'm just done.  I want to quit.  I remember wanting to quit before - AIT and BCT.  All I had to do was say I wasn't going to keep going and I could've done anything else.  I wouldn't have been proud of myself, but I wouldn't have been doing the 15 mile runs or the massive sprint and running drills that I was sure were going to kill me at 5 am after the run.  I just wanted to stop.  At least with BCT and AIT there was an end date - something that said "after this you're free".  I don't have that end date right now.  There's nothing driving me forward except my kids and even then I can't give them or make everything that I want to with them.  I'm driving deeper into depression that until last night I hadn't seen in weeks or months.  I hate that my creativity phase where I get fully involved and sprint in my project (usually writing or filming) has gotten interrupted only 4 days in.  I'm so depressed that I don't want to write at all.  I'm quite lost at the moment.  I spend so much time doing things to make other people happy and appease others and holding everything together - it's times like this that I just want most of it to go away.  I want all of the stuff I didn't ask for to go away I'm tired of holding it all together.

In not so depressing news, my last workouts I have been pushing harder than before.  I feel like the workouts are great, but even then I'm hitting a point where I don't want to workout - so I'm going to force myself to workout and push through.

W6D1

I officially quit juicing last week.  I did the full 60 days.

Saturday I weighed in for the last time during the juicing weeks.  My weight hit a low of 260.8.  I was ecstatic that was a good start to the rest of the work I need to do.  24+ pounds in 60ish days and more than 30 pounds in the last year (so far).  I celebrated with waffles and bacon for breakfast; then dinner was a quesadilla and some shrimp parmesan on penne pasta.

Today I begin week 6 of workouts.  I'm changing up my workouts a bit.  I want to see what I can do daily when I push myself.  While juicing I was running out of energy about half way through the longer 60-90 minute workouts so I'd get done with the 30-45 min workout and be exhausted.

Also starting today I'm adjusting my diet to not be so juice centric and instead focus on solids.  Mostly, that means instead of juicing 6x a day I'll be eating many of the same solid foods to achieve the same goals.  Examples are eggs, bacon, and an apple for breakfast; midmorning apple and veggie protein with BCAAS; lunch swai and probably carrots; midafternoon apple and coconut water; and dinner swai or cod an ounce of cheese and a cup of baked cauliflower.

PullUp (1x)
Pullup 5x
incline plank 2x10s
incline press 8
dips 15
jump and hold 5x5s

Abs (1x)
hinge 15
suspended crunch 15
mtn climber 15
sanding body crunch 15
hanging leg raise 15

Feel Great Full Body Workout (Upper) 3x
Chest press 20-25
Jumping Jacks 50
Tricep press 20-25
Jump Rope 50
Mid back row 20-25
Biceps Curl (L3) 20-25

I took about 3 minutes between the upper body workouts and clocked in at 50 minutes today.  I still want to do a 2nd PullUp and Abs workout and then do 2-5 mins each of jump rope and jumping jacks.

I didn't run out of energy today until the very end, but my arms feel like jello.  I know I would "like" to do a workout first thing in the morning in a fasted state, but I'm not sure I can get my body to comply with getting out of bed at 7.  We'll have to see.  That would get my noon workout out of the way and free up that time to do a little extra workout or work on other stuff and not be stressed about not getting my workout done during work hours.  It would also free up time that I could meet others for an occasional lunch.

W9J3 - W5D3 (W3D0)

Today has been a very weird day.  I woke up this morning and weighed in at 264 (YAY!) and taped myself and lost some more size.

I started to workout and while doing my inverted pushups I developed a nosebleed so I stopped.  I then attempted to finish the workout I started and was too exhausted to continue.

My energy by the end of the day is completely used up.  I'm only getting about 900 calories and expending far more than that during my workouts.

I think for the next few weeks I'm going to switch up my routines.  I'm dropping TRX Force.  I could either do TRX Force or the other workouts I set up, but I can't do all of them.  The other workouts get me going and I like them more than TRX Force.  I'd like to continue doing TRX Force, but I don't know of any way to add energy without increasing the foods that I do eat.

So, until further notice I'm bringing back the Feel Good Full Body workout and the Pull Up Program workouts.  However, I'm swapping them.  MWF will be the Feel Good workouts and TTH will be the Pull Up Program.  I'll also continue my preworkout workouts with pullups, inclined planks, handstand pushups, dips, jumpandhold, hinge, suspended crunches, mt climber, standing body crunch, and hanging leg raises.  I like all of those exercises much better and seem more adept at being able to accomplish the sets.

Here's to a lighter tomorrow.  I have 2 days left (til Friday am) to reach 260 pounds (arbitrary goal - 261-262 will make me just as happy).  After that, I'll figure out if I'm going to continue to juice or if I'm going to do smoothies or something else.

photo time

I thought it was time to update the photos.  I've been juicing for 43 days and no coke for 44 days.  I have noticed a lot of difference in my size, now it's time to see what that size looks like.

I copied the last post about photos with comparisons so I could put all of these side-by-side with todays.

Previous picture comparisons
http://elvisapocalypse.blogspot.com/2012/06/old-pictures.html
http://elvisapocalypse.blogspot.com/2014/05/picture-comparisons.html
http://elvisapocalypse.blogspot.com/2014/07/photos.html

Jan2010	May2014	July2014	19Jan2015	2Feb15

weights:
Jan 2010 - 270
May 2014 - 283
July 2014 - 277
Jan 2015 - 268
Feb 2015 - 264

You can see some drop vertically in my belly from Jan to now.

W8J7 - W4D7 (W2D0)

Yesterday was quite the day.  I hit a new weight low at 265.6 - 6 pounds to meet my goal!  I did not workout.  I know I said "10 days I need to kick my own ass." but I was not with it yesterday.  I've been quite dehydrated lately due to this head-cold-flu.  I will workout today and kick my own ass.  I need to make sure I have enough energy to do so.  I also had a cheat meal of a Chicken Grilled Stuft XXL burrito, some Mozzarella sticks (with marinara) and a footlong coney with cheese and chili.  None of them were worth it.  I shouldn't have eaten any of them.  I feel bad pysically and mentally (guilt).  I'm so close to my goal I felt like that was a sabotage maneuver...jackass!  So, I've decided today I won't even have any olives - I'll stick with all juices and water.

Today has been 56 days since I last had a Coke (really any soft drink) or anything other than juice, water, vegan protein shake, or BCAAs.

My pants are so loose I've had to start wearing a belt again - which makes my pants look like I've cinched them with rope.  I can't wait to buy new clothes that fit right.

I did not get in my workout today.  I spent the entire day working on my book and running around with kids.

Yesterday and today I've gained about 6 pounds from the different foods I've eaten.  As soon as I "eliminate" then I'll lose all of that weight.

I'm calling Monday to schedule an appointment with my trainer and his company to do full measurements.  I'm going to continue going to them to do measurements until I've reached my goals.

I'm very close to my goal now.  I can feel it and I'm not giving up now.

W8J5 - W4D5 (W2D3)

I was not well overnight.  I have a sore throat, major sinus pressure, and a horrific headache.  My son was over here for a couple of days with the flu and the same symptoms.  I did manage to get about 7 hours of sleep before I woke up at 5 and was awake for good.  I was dreading going to the scale b/c I was sure I had some extra weight going on and I felt horrible.

My weight is the same: 266.8 (7 pounds left to beat my goal!).  I decided to do some measurements to see where I am (approximately) mid-week.  I'm doing quite well.  My sizes have decreased another half to one whole inch.  Calipers are mm smaller on each measurement.  If I measured correctly then I've gained about a pound of muscle in about 4 days.  At my weight I could gain approximately 4 pounds of muscle a day.  I'm ok with not gaining a lot, I'd rather see the fat fall off.  I don't think my measurements are correct, which is why I'm scheduling an appointment with my former trainer to get accurate measurements.  I'm a lot stronger.  Last night I was doing moves on the TRX that a month ago (see W4D5 in the title) I couldn't do very well at all.

Today's workout plan (ETA 90+ minutes):
My Pull Up plan (1x)
Pull Up 5x
Incline Plank 2x10s
Incline Press 8 (with one leg down)
Dips 15
Jump and Hold 5x5s

My Ab plan (2x)
Hinge 15
Suspended Crunch 15
Mountain Climber 15
Pendulum 3 each direction
Standing Body Crunch 15

TRX Pull Up Program (4x)
Inverted Row 15
Wall Slides 15
Low Row - Biceps Curl - Y Fly 15
Pike 10-15
Squat Row 15

TRX Force (2x)
Squat Row
Chest Press
Plank 4x10s
Hip Abduction 15
Squat 15
Row LMH 15
Triceps Curl 15
Side Plan 3x10s
Biceps Curl L3 15
Hamstring Curl 15
Spiderman Push Up 8 each side

I'm not really doing well on my hourly mini workouts.  I need to do more incline pushups (like 10 an hour or something) and maybe something to do with the parallettes.

I did everything on my list except I only did one of the TRX Pull Up Program.  After the last one this week I'll probably drop those from the list and then add them back in after the 12 weeks is done.

I lost my energy most of the way through.  I don't know why this time, normally it's a pretty solid energy level - but not today.  I need to figure out what I want to do to add more energy to my workout.  I have been saving the apple shavings from juicing so maybe I'll eat some of those a half hour or so before I workout.