A Week in the Books

I've completed my first week. In total, I took 5 trips to the gym with one off day and a day lost to my volleyball league. I'm keeping up the three miles a day, with slight variations each day until I find my pace and get my stride back.

I figure this is a good time to discuss the workout schools of thought. There is a ton of information out there (especially on the internet) with regard to weight loss and training. Hopping around the internet, you'll probably stumble on some variation of one of the following philosophies:

The Bodybuilder
This is the most common information found on the web. This school of thought suggests that you should go through bulking and cutting phases. Bulking being the building of raw muscle, cutting being the rapid loss of fat. I can not stress enough, if you are reading this blog, this system is not for you. This is for serious weight lifters. People doing max weight, low rep sets who are building muscle mass. The Bodybuilder philosophy is eat more, lift more, gain more. There are lots of high intesity cardio routines designed for this sort of work out. Again, not good for someone trying to drop a few pounds. If you want to look like The Arnold, then this is for you and by all means good luck.

The Marathoner
This school of thought is for the long runner or endurance event competitor. This sort of philosophy will often be found on the runner's world website. You need to be super fit to train this way. Lots of rest days are built in around insane high intensity interval and distance (upwards of 20 miles) workouts. A lot of people who are interested in losing weight may do well with this sort of training, but it's not for the beginner. No unfit person will ever benefit from a 2 hour run. There is far too much risk for injury when your body is not prepared for this sort of workout. Injury and overtraining are the obvious fallouts, but loss of motivation and development of poor form are equally detrimental to anyone's weight loss.

The New Ager
I don't want to say too much about this one because it's pretty obvious. This is the soy drinking, meal bar eating method to getting fit. Lot's of yoga and pilates advice will be found as well as new compound variations on old excercises. Again I don't think this is a beginner tool. The diet end of it is great, but it is really expensive and requires more planning than most of us can afford. Add to that that alot of the training and excersises require a correct form to avoid injury of unbalanced training. This approach is great for losing weight but if you want to do it this way, higher a trainer and plan ahead.

The Old School
This is the school of thought I fit into. It's also the least available workout source around. It's principles are simple - eat less, move more, lose weight. The Old School believes that if you finish a run and feel like you could run more, you didn't work out hard enough. This involves repetition of the same excercises over the course of 6 or 8 weeks, then a change, then 6 or 8 weeks of repitition. This worked for me my whole life as a soccer player. Believe me, I was super fit. The caveat is you need to listen to your body. You do not want to push to the point of injury or over-exertion, but just to that limit. Stretch your breaking point and your breaking point will get harder and harder to stretch.

Friday Motivation

I am a big fan of the Adidas commercials with athletes and celebrities running together. Adidas has found a way to use athletes from all over the world and all different sports to create a mass general appeal within the US. Anyway, I saw this commercial spot yesterday and found myself thinking about it on my run:



I've identified Ali (obviously), McGrady, Zidane, Beckham, Henry and Laila Ali. Anyone know who else is in this thing?

Day 2 on the Deadmill

Went to the gym again yesterday and ran on the treadmill. I didn't go on Tuesday because of the untimely finale of my beach volleyball team in the playoffs. Anyway, 3 miles in 37 minutes (10 songs). I benefited by creating a quick playlist on my ipod so i didn't have any 7 or 8 minute songs in the middle of my run. Yes, Monday I got stuck with an 11 minute song at the end of my run that damn near killed me. I felt good, except for my foot which felt horrible.

The whole eating right thing is the hardest part about this for me. Going to the gym is not that big of a deal. My wife isn't home until 7 most days so I have a 2 hour window to get home, get to the gym, and get started on dinner or whatever task awaits at home. Eating right is a whole different story. I topped off what was a pretty good diet day with a mini-, homemade chocolate cream pie last night. Yum, but bad for the belly. Moving forward, I'm trying to stick with a bowl of cereal for breakfast, fruit and a pb&j during the day, and dinner at night. If I have to snack after dinner I want to keep it limited. If you ask me, there is nothing worth snacking on that is any good for you. I also still can't decide if italian ice is completely horrible or a nice alternative to a half a box of cheez-its.

Back to the deadmill today. 3 miles and a stretch, then home sweet home with some ice on the foot. Yay!

Update

I finally joined a gym! Anytime Fitness - a 24 hour/7 days a week do-da that is more like a small apartment than a fitness center. It's convenient to my house and has everything I will need, plus I got a month to month membership so I can switch if my fitness goals or gear ever exceed what they offer.

Monday was my first day (I know a little later than my goals) and all I did was run on the treadmill. 3 miles in about 43 minutes, a snail's pace. I alternated between jogging at 5 mph and walking at 4 mph for the entire time. A while ago, I discovered that running on a treadmill is infinately more enjoyable when you throw a towel over the monitor and run to music. In the past, 8 songs was three miles (approx 29 minutes). I used to go over a little or under a little, in which case I would just complete the final distance at a max pace. Monday I ran for two songs and walked for one song ran for two songs, etc. Eventually I will get my time back down to the thirty minute mark.

My plan for the next few weeks is to just continue to use the treadmill, get a good stretch, and go home. I don't think there is much value in hitting the weights when my body is so un-accustomed to continous, strenuous movement. Add that to the fact that I haven't had much physical activity because of my foot (plantar fascitis, achilles tendonitis, tarpal syndrome - TAKE CARE OF YOUR FEET or end up like me) and I've get a solid recipe for out of shape soup. So anyway, we will call this my run in period. Sort of like a clinical trial but I won't be taking any drugs.

I'm also working on cleaning up my diet. Step 1: No fast food.

Crawling to the starting line

This blog was originally created for a couple of reasons: (1) a place to track progress of workouts, weight loss, and the conversion from sedentary life to something a little less, and (2) a place to share with other readers who stumble upon this motivation, tips, and tricks that help me reach fitness and lifestyle goals.

So what happened? Life got in the way. I was working out steadily when I created the blog then work got busy, my wedding came and went, honeymoons took place, other commitments popped up and I stopped going. Then we moved, my gym membership expired, and my foot started to hurt more than ever (i'll post on this someday). It seems that each week I say I'll start next week, and next week comes and I forget to pack a gym bag, I can't decide what gym to join or re-join, my ipod isn't charged or any number of minuscule interruptions destroys my motivation.

I figure I'll start here with a list of goals and go from there. Hopefully, I'll keep with these and the blog and provide myself and anyone reading with updated now and then:

This week:

• Pick a gym - Do I go with the old gym that I'm comfortable with, is priced reasonably, but is 40 minutes from my house or a new nicer gym at high price that is more convenient?
• Go to the gym three times

Semi-long term:

• Lose 5 pounds
• Run 3 miles in under 27 minutes
• Perform 20 consecutive flawless pushups

Long term:

• Lose 15 pounds
• Run in a competitive 5k, faster than 25 minutes
• Perform 15 flawless pullups
• Perform 25 flawless pushups
• Squat my body weight

The Body

"The body is simply a mechanism, your mind has to move it." - Phillipe Petit