Almost missed one

Today was not one of my better days. I didn't eat that well all day. I went out to a local restaurant and had some white pasta. I normally wouldn't do this, but it was that or a salad. I had light cheese on it though. Around 600 calories total, which is of course high.

I came hope and sat down in front of the TV. I knew I said to get my workout in and then go downstairs and work out. By the time I got to work it was..5pm! Oops.

I got to work and had dinner and then at 11:55pm I did my workout. I had dinner at 7pm. Why on earth didn't I get a workout right after that?

I guess I feel guilty for some odd reason skipping my work to do a workout. Something seriously wrong with my thinking there.

What also screwed me up is that I had a sugary coffee drink today. It didn't have a ton of sugar, but enough to be close to being "bad". Maybe 30g of sugar? Around 6pm I was feeling terribly negative and not right. I NEVER feel this way and I think it was all due to the highly process carbs and junk I had today.

I ate something healthy and immediately felt a lot better.

I didn't get a lot of work done today and only 50% of Monday's work done.

The good news is that I didn't skip my workout. I will NEVER do this. Not anymore. I learned my lesson before and it just leads me to stop working out entirely. I also in just 1 month made more gains in the amount of weight I can lift than I did the last time I was working out (late 2009).

I'm also listening to my favorite headphones while exercising. I use a Koss Pro DJ 100 plus an Ipod Touch 2G and a Fiio E5 amp. They're my favorite headphones under $200 and I've tried a lot. Best of all, they only cost me $80. Koss is a lesser know brand, but they make some good budget headphones.

Monday will be a good day. I just need to eat properly and take regular breaks and drink a lot of water.

I've been now lifting weights and eating healthy for 1 full month. I'm glad to say that I haven't missed a single day or have eaten any bad food. No free days at all to eat whatever I want. I did have one day where my workout was only two exercises, but this was only because my body was too sore.

This time around it's more of a success because I'm not recovering much quicker. I work out every other day with ZERO cardio. First my lower body and then my lower body the day after. It takes me about 2-3 days to fully recover.

I'm now feeling just like I did back when I was working out all the time. I have lots of energy at all times. My diet is as basic as possible. Lots of simple foods without many highly processed foods. I probably limit myself to less then a dozen types of foods.

No sugary food, no fried food, no highly processed food. I also cut out diet pop and fruit juice. It's all water or unsweetened tea. Giving up Diet Pepsi is the best thing i've ever done. I actually did it to save my teeth and money. I got to the point where I was drinking a 2liter a day!

Luckily I now never have a craving for junk food. I think this is due to the protein stopped my cravings a bit. Maybe not. My goal is to go for 1g of protein per LB of lean body mass.

I also don't weigh myself at all. As long as I keep at this, i'll lose weight. I want to gain some muscle and still lose fat. My clothes feel a lot looser already, but no drop in pant size yet, but maybe soon!

My mood has also changed a lot. It seems like when I'm in a bad mood or think to myself "I don't want to work out", it's early in the money and when I am hungry. I've tried my best to say positive at all times. What makes it tougher is my business isn't going too well.

What's also nice is that in less than a month the amount of weight I can lift is much greater than before. Still nothing special, but I'm getting there.

Back on track

I started weight lifting and eating healthy again on January 10th. In late 2009 after I reached my goal I had gotten way off track. I don't know how it happened. I think at one point I got sick and could not work out for nearly a week. This got me into the habit of skipping workouts. I also was not recovering past enough somehow.

Unfortunately I also got into the habit of eating junk food without any exercise. I'd eat Pizza every weekend and would eat garbage too much. For example, when I went to Subway a few times a week, I'd always get two cookies. My job of sitting down all day didn't help. I really have no excuse and gained most of what I lost back. It really hurts to start from scratch.

My goals are the following:

Try to avoid too much fat. Some fat is obviously OK. I'm going to cut out nuts, Peanut Butter and fried foods. I know some of these are OK.

No sugary food. No Protein Bars with lots of Sugar.

Drink a ton of water. Probably a gallon or more a day.

Eat lots of vegetables. I'm going to try going for 175-200g of Protein a day.

I won't count calories. I've had good results when not doing this.

NO MORE FREE DAYS to eat whatever I want.

My main priority is to eat foods that are not highly processed.

I'm not going to cut out ALL "bad" carbs. For example, I think a white potatoe plain once in awhile is OK. Same with white rice, but not too much. I'll limit bread, but if I do eat bread it will be the really heavy wheat bread.

Very little (if any) foods in a box! I want to keep it all simple.

Take a vitamin every day.

BTW I've found that when I don't want to work out I just ignore that thought and just go do it. I try to remain positive and just get it over with.

The main positive about skipping almost a year of exercise is that SOMEHOW I still had a ton of energy. Strange huh?!

On Tuesday night for some reason I was so extremely tired. At around 7:30pm I was wondering how on earth I was going to get a workout in. I wanted to just go to sleep. This was mainly due to not getting enough sleep the night before and it wasn't due to lack of proper eating.

I remembered I had bought a low carb Monster Energy drink the night before and didn't drink it. I absolutely hate most energy drinks and think they're a waste of money normally. Somehow I just needed to buy one the previous night but forgot about it. I drank it all really fast and within what seemed like a few minutes I had a ton of energy. I went upstairs and had this stupid song in my head and it made me laugh. Somehow that put me in a good mood and I had the best workout i've had in a very long time. I lifted weights that were so heavy that I previously couldn't lift them. When I was done my muscles were shaking. Probably from the heavy weights, needing more food and the caffeine.

After my workout I went and got some food and took a break. I was finding it hard to believe I was about ready to fall asleep a bit earlier. I now felt really good.

On Wednesday morning I got up and immediately ate breakfast. I had some oatmeal. The really good kind and not that junk in the individual packages that's loaded with sugar. I'll admit I put a bit of sugar on it, but not much. I had so much energy. I couldn't believe it. I immediately got ready and went out to try to get a haircut. I had lots of energy until about 3pm (woke up at 11). Ate a late lunch and came home and did some work for awhile.

It seems like the best days for me are the ones the day after a good workout. I'm back on track and have immediately noticed the difference when I workout and when I don't. I think i'll make sure to get in every single workout without any excuses. I don't care if i'm sore.

Tomorrow is thanksgiving. I'll try to eat healthy, but it might be hard. I don't want to use it as my free day. I won't eat desert though. I just don't want to remember what sugary food tastes like. If i'll eat something like Pumpkin Pie I might be tempted to eat junk food later.

I ate poorly one day of the weekend. Yes, I ordered a pizza, I admit it. I also overate some of it, but it was worth it, almost.

The next day I got a lot done and had a very productive day.

On Monday I worked from about noon until 5am. I pretty much did two days worth of my work in one day. I don't think it was worth it since i'm feeling not good at all right now.

I went out for some soup and salad today at 3:30pm with my mom and came back and i'm just so tired. I went to bed at 6am last night but I had major problems sleeping. When I woke up I felt fine at first.

Today in the morning I weighed myself and I lost 3 1/2 pounds!! That really made my day. The hard part right now is how i'm so extremely sleepy and need to still get a workout in. A part of me wants to skip it, but i'm going to force myself to do it no matter what. I could take the easy way out and just do cardio, but I don't want to do that.

Hopefully I can fit into a smaller pant size soon. It makes me mad and a bit frustrated that i've been try to drop a pant size all month and couldn't do it, yet I lose weight on the scale.

I just have to keep doing my workouts and not skip any of them no matter what!

Having problems

I've been having major problems getting my workouts in. I made the mistake of splitting up my workouts and it just isn't working out for me. I need to figure out a new workout plan FAST and stick with it.

Things have been just so bad lately. My business is doing terrible and I had a death in the family and it really hurts to even think about. The day after the funeral I just wanted to stay in bed all day and not do a thing. I had no motivation at all.

On Friday it was going to start out badly, but I changed that as fast as I could. I called my mom up and asked her if she wanted to go out to lunch and then go to the mall and bookstore. We ended up using my free day and got a pizza. I didn't overeat luckily. I did some walking at the mall and stupid me got a ice vanilla late. They're not exactly the best thing to drink, but it's something I avoid due to the sugar. It wasn't even worth it.

I immediately came home and did my workout. I used my new Koss PortaPro headphones to test out and I went really slow this time and did some new exercises. Instead of the barbell bench press I used some dumbbells. It seemed to work even better since my machine doesn't work very well for a barbell bench press.

I also did something different and did some Tricep Kickbacks. I found those actually quite difficult. Instead of my barbell Military Press I tried using just some dumbbells instead. Overall I had a very good workout.

After that I spent around 4 hours cleaning my basement and getting ready to do some painting in my spare bedroom.

For dinner I went out and got a plain black bean, rice and veggie burrito. Nothing too bad and no cheese or anything bad on it. A lot of calories though.

I just hate how I have been able to fit into a size smaller pants in over a month. I guess I need to try harder. There's a few small items I can leave off my diet to help with this. Lately I've been a lot hungrier then normal. I don't know why this is.

This month i've skipped more workout days then I did during the entire first 6 months. Not good. Maybe on my off days I will do some more cardio.

Things are going ok still. I did miss one other day. On my off day my muscles were so extremely store and I did some major raking of the leaves in my yard. I did a world record of leaf removal and that didn't help my muscle recovery. I have 4 or 5 trees in my yard so it was hard work.

The next day my entire body was hurting somehow (due to lack of proper recovery) so I took the day off and skipped my workout. Sure it's a lame excuse. The next day I got in my workout though.

I've lost some more weight but I need to make sure I write down my weight and the date on a piece of paper every week to keep track of my weight loss.

Ok, off to work!