Tag Archives: fitness

One Week In

Well, one week in and somehow I’m not back in my 34″ pants. What gives?

Fo’ reals tho, we’ve been getting up at 6:00am and hitting the gym, lifting weights Monday, Wednesday and Friday with some cardio and 40-ish minutes of cardio on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (though I missed the cardio on Saturday).

Been eating pretty good as well. Had a few bad things over the weekend but not a whole binge day of eating as we’ve done in the past.

I’ve got a long way to go before I’d feel comfortable in a swimsuit. I reckon I’m starting out as heavy as I’ve ever been. What can I say, I’ve enjoyed a lot of good food and couch time the last 9 months. Did I say GOOD food? I meant terrible, unhealthy, nasty food.

Oh, and I could REALLY use a personal bathroom in my office since I’m getting up EVERY 30 MINUTES to pee from all the water I’m drinking.

Maybe after a few weeks I’ll post my before picture.

Tomorrow it begins

It’s later than I’d like, but tomorrow begins an intense body and mind transformation. No more excuses. No more laziness. I finally have a deadline of late July. I have three months before I hit the beach with friends.

Stay tuned for more info. Off to bed with me.

My Name Is Kary And I’m An Addict

Surprised guy Fat-froDrugs? No. Alcohol? No. Tobacco? No.

I’m addicted to food. Food Food Glorious FOOD. And it’d be different if I stuffed my face every day with vegetables and tofu. But pretty much the worse the food is for me, the more I love it and want to eat it.

It wasn’t always like this you know. I blame the Body for Life program. I did that for 12+ weeks perfectly and never looked better. It has a “free day” where you can eat as much as you want of whatever you want. Its purpose is two fold: 1) to let you satisfy your cravings and 2) to be a self correcting behavior like when your dad catches you smoking at 12 and he makes you smoke the whole pack so you won’t ever touch cigarettes again. Unfortunately, the second part never worked for me. After the program, every day became free day.

Since then (2001) I have cycled gaining weight in the fall and winter, getting disgusted and then losing it in the spring and summer. Each cycle I gain more and lose a little less. I really just want to find a balance.

I make the worst possible nutrition choices. I guess I feel like “Hey, I’m gonna start being good on Monday so I’ll get the fries and burger and tenders and cheesecake and coke now” except that Monday never comes.

I don’t mind exercising and after a few weeks, the food cravings are significantly diminished. It’s just getting over that hump and being consistent. If I don’t work out, I don’t feel like eating well. If I don’t eat well, I don’t feel like working out.

So, it’s long since the time I needed to be getting my butt in gear. I’m hitting the three zero mile marker this year and when I do, I want to be in the best shape ever.

Plus, I’m seriously limited in my clothes selection right now.

The Not-Quite-Full Monty

scary.jpgSo auditions for the SCT summer musical were Monday and Tuesday. I sang One Song Glory and Your Eyes, both from RENT. I did alright. I mean, not spectacular but not bad. The songs were a different style than I’m used to singing and the range was all over the place, from low to pretty high.

There were a lot of people that auditioned. Several from Theatre MSU and the MSU choir. It ought to be a good show and a lot of fun. The director is facing a situation that she hasn’t faced before, too many people. I’ve heard there could be cuts but I don’t really know. We should know something soon.

I also heard that we’ll be doing one song from The Full Monty. You know that show where a bunch of guys end up naked at the end? Yeah, well, supposedly we won’t be naked but we won’t be wearing much is what I hear.

Now I’m a modest guy. But I’m willing to commit to this song purely for the fact that it’ll make me get really serious about getting into shape.

A couple months back I did well for about 6 weeks, then Smoke on the Mountain opened and I took about 4 weeks off. And my eating started to slide. I had lost about 7-10 pounds before I quit working out.

The thing is, I’m tall and I tend to carry weight well. So everytime I mention working out and watching what I eat people are like “What? you don’t need to lose any weight.” See, I’m tall and flabby. I don’t like flabby so much. And I don’t want to be flabby if I’m gonna have to take clothes off on stage in front of hundreds of people.

So I had started back to the gym on Monday anyway but now I’m kicking it into high gear. Here’s my plan: 6 days a week, I’m doing cardio. 3 of those will be high intensity interval training. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I’ll do two-a-days and go back to the gym at lunch to do resistance training. I’ll be carb conscious and go low carb a few weeks before the show. It opens 8 weeks from today.

I lost a good deal of weight last summer by eating healthy (mostly) and doing cardio 5 days a week (I put a lot back on over the fall/winter). It worked. But. I am firmly convinced to get the best results in the fastest time, it takes all three things: cardio, weights and clean eating.

About the intensity interval training, it’s 20 minutes of varying levels of intensity. It ends with a full out, everything-you-got sprint, though there are different forms of HIIT. The idea is not to burn a bunch of calories during the exercise, like it normally is with cardio, it’s to rev up your metabolism for calorie burn hours after you finish exercising. You can read it about it here.

My philosophy is to get in the gym, do what I gotta do and get out. I’m not one to go and chat with people and socialize. I never spend more than 50 minutes working out. I recommend the book Body-for-Life as a good starting point for getting in shape.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the show and it’s gonna be a good time.

I know, I know. That picture is SCARY.

10 year high school reunion

Back to the gym today. Had a killer upperbody workout. You know it was a good workout when it’s difficult to wash yourself in the shower afterwards.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working it hard to lose some weight. I went for all of four and half days before I gave out. I was attempting to do a restrictive, very-low-carb diet so I could get results quicker. It was a bad idea as I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. So the next few weeks was back to being lazy and eating bad. *sigh*

I am king of the yo-yoers it would seem. I really really really want to get back to where I was this summer, mentally I mean. Getting up early to work out and eating right wasn’t a big deal. I just did it.

See, I think the difference is that I had a beach trip with some high school/college buddies. That pushed me to stick to it. After the trip, I couldn’t get motivated for more than a week at a time (if that). Just wanting to look good isn’t enough. The frustration of not being able to wear the clothes I bought over the summer isn’t enough. Wanting to prove to myself that I do, in fact, have abs isn’t enough. It seems that a looming dealine that could cause me personal embarrassment is what I need to succeed.

Now some people aren’t all that self conscious about their flabbage. I know you’ve seen the girls who have NO business wearing a short shirt that shows their belly if they even look up. Or the guys that really need to just go ahead and buy a new pair of pants THAT FIT instead of pretending that they can still wear those size 34 jeans that they’ve stretched out to about a 36.7. Well, I’m self conscious about it. I own pants ranging from size 32 to 38. Last summer I was a 32/34, now I’m a 36/38.

I can lost weight pretty fast, but I can also put it on at an alarming rate. I really just want to find a lifestyle that doesn’t feel like I’m on a diet or a plan.

Anyway, I could ramble on and on about the different plans and diets and weight lost and re-gained over the years. I won’t. Suffice it to say I’m really determined to get in those gray Kenneth Cole pants that I love but can’t wear right now.

Hay

iLife ’06 has got some really cool things to play with. I’m playing with the podcast studio in GarageBand. I hope to finish up a trial podcast/radio-type-thingy this weekend, but I’m traveling a lot so I don’t know. It won’t be very good or amusing but I’m still learning and thinking of amusing things to do. The built in microphone on my powerbook is the pits so I ordered one. But I’m going to go ahead and publish the first segment? installment? before it comes in. It’ll just have crappy sound.

A couple weeks ago I won my first ever pro disc golf tournament. Weird considering I suck and don’t play much or practice at all. There weren’t any “good” pros there anyway. But still, a win is a win. I’m playing in another event tomorrow at Tishomingo State Park. It’s become tradition for my buddy Jeff, his wife and me and M to rent cabin #6. Jeff is a good cook from New Orleans and he will cook red beans and rice (oh so yummy) and M will make dessert. We drink beer and play Balderdash. Everytime a new phrase or saying from the game is created and we laugh about it all night. Good times.

Oh, I finally pulled the “Hey stop here” cord on the fat train. It’ll take some time for me to get off it completely but I am putting forth a concerted effort. I’ll be back to my summer slimness (and pants) in no time.

I suck

because I’m lazy. I can’t seem to get myself up in the mornings in time to exercise. My eating’s not very good but not very bad either so my weight is just hanging out.

My co-worker and I are about to start meeting at the gym for workouts so that should give me more incentive to get up and at ’em.

I haven’t really told you much about Story Theatre rehearsals or all the cool college kids I’ve met this semester. I’m actually thinking of including them in some future videos for the blog. I mean, so far it’s just been me being an idiot, why not have other people be idiots with me on the internets? But anyway, ST rehearsals have been great and amazing and sooo much fun. I demand that you come to a performance. I’ll post more about it later.

Reading then bed time…

All day if it don’t rain

Yay for Friday.

183.5 @ 20%

I think my water levels are still trying to stabilize. That probably would explain the rapid weight drop and body fat slight increase. The body scale uses bio electrical impedance analysis to measure body fat and it is sensitive to the amount of water in your system.

I slept in today. So I’ll have to make it up this weekend and get some exercise.

9:15am: yogurt with some granola and string cheese
11:45am: chicken tender salad and a banana
3:30pm: granola bar
6:00pm: dinner with friends at Old Venice Pizza Company (I’ll do the best that I can)

Happy Homecoming. Maybe we won’t lose.

Surprisingly I can walk today

I don’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought I would. So I went to the gym this morning and did 20 minutes of high intensity interval training and 20 minutes on the treadmill (4mph @ 10.5 degrees or % or whatever).

185 @ 19.5%

8:30am: cafeteria breakfast special: scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and a biscuit (can’t do that too often)
12:30am: seaweed salad, snow crab roll, eel+avocado roll (Yay sushi)
5:00pm: vegetable beef soup
10:15pm: handful of cashews

I got in bed at 11:00pm last night, so a little better than the night before. I still couldn’t go to sleep for a while and then I slept fitfully until M. came to bed at midnight (she’s a full time landscape architecture student and part time teacher, so she spends her nights working late hours, poor thing)

Tonight, improv practice and Story Theatre rehearsal. Then bed, I guess.

Oh, I found $5 dollars today.

I’m going to hurt tomorrow

Alarm clock. Snooze. Alarm clock. Snooze. Wait, no. Must. get. up. Pee. Weigh.

187.5 @ 19.5%

Clothes. Water. Stretch. iPod. Run. 3.1 miles

It took me 26 minutes. It could have been worse since I haven’t exercised in a couple of months. There’s lots of room for improvement.

Food.

9:15am: yogurt and string cheese
11:45am: big salad
2:30pm: banana
5:30pm: homemade beef soup
9:00pm: Q-smart bar
10:00pm: handful of cashews and half a granola bar

Lots of water and peeing. I’ll see if I can’t mention pee and/or peeing more.

I got in bed after 11:00pm last night, so not quite the 10:30pm I was aiming for. It didn’t matter cause all I did was lay there until about 1:00am. I hope I can fall asleep a little quicker tonight.

Gotta go pee.