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Current Stats and Pics, M2 over!

2008-04-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I lost track of days and overshot my deadline by a little bit, but to be honest, my physique hasn't changed all that much in the last couple weeks as I've stopped my "bulk" diet.

The final numbers for my Mission 2 are as follows:

Weight: 143.3 (+8.1 from 135.2) lbs

BF pinches:
Suprailiac: 10 (+0 from 10 mm)
Chest: 7 (+0 from 7 mm)
Abdomen: 14 (+0 from 14 mm)
Thigh: 11 (+0 from 11 mm)

Bodyfat %:
AccuMeausure 1 site (suprailiac): 11.6% (+0 from 11.6%
Jackson/Pollock 3 site (chest/ab/thigh): 9.13% (+0 from 9.13%)
Avg: 10.4%

Fat Mass: 14.9 (+0.8 from 14.1 lbs)
Lean Mass: 128.4 (+7.3 from 121.1 lbs)

Tape Measure (in.):
Neck: 13.75 (+0.5 from 13.25)
Chest: 35 (+1.25 from 33.75)
L Bicep: 13 (+0.5 from 12.5)
R Bicep: 13 (+0.5 from 12.5)
L forearm: 11 (+0.25 from 10.75)
R forearm: 11 (+0.25 from 10.75)
Waist: 28.5 (-0.25 from 28.75)
Hips: 30.5 (+0.5 from 30)
Butt: 35 (+0 from 35)
L thigh: 20.5 (+0.25 from 20.25)
R thigh: 20.5 (+0.5 from 20)
L calf: 13.5 (+0 from 13.5)
R calf: 13.5 (+0 from 13.5)

I was actually surprised that my bf pinches came out to be EXACTLY the same as when I started. So I managed to put on about 8 lbs while maintaining the same bodyfat levels, which amounts to a little over 7 lbs of lean mass gain. I added to my neck, biceps, forearms, hips and thighs, while somehow simultaneously dropping 0.25in on my waist. Of course, some of this could be measurement error, but the engineer in me tells me that the overall trend indicates increases, so there must be some validity in them.

I think that I have to declare my M2 an overall success in that I continually saw strength gains and managed to increase my lean mass while keeping my bodyfat down. Eating clean foods and avoiding sugary processed foods has become such an everyday habit now that I don't even have to think about it. It's now just my new way of life. It really doesn't seem that hard anymore. I know my body and it's nutritional needs. I guess being good with numbers has helped me in that I've gotten really good at eyeballing and ballparking my meals.

I don't know if I'll make an official M3 at this point as I'm still re-evaluating what I want to do with this blog. For all of you out there still chasing your goals, Shred on!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Final

Small Update

2008-04-14T08:33:00.001-07:00

Hey folks, I've really let the blogging slack off, but that doesn't mean I've slacked off on shredding hard! I'm really loving following CrossFit and have worked my way up to the recommended 5-6 times per week. I've since stopped my "bulking" diet and levelled off on a sort of maintenance diet. Over the time that I was putting on weight, I "feel" like I've gotten leaner, especially since I started CrossFit. I'll get around to doing pictures and measurements tomorrow. I promise this time! Unfortunately, I think the pushups will have to wait. I tweaked my shoulder and it hasn't quite felt right for a while, and pushups seem to stress it the most.

Anyway, I think my plan over the next little while is to not be too strict on my intake levels, mostly just keeping starchy carb intake down and see what a steady diet of CrossFit does for my body. "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and NO sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat". To be honest, I'm confident that I'll be ripping out a six pack soon enough.

My real goal now is to just increase my performance in all the CrossFit workouts. Faster times, heavier weights, more reps, etc.

Since my last post, I've seen even more improvements. Most noteably, I managed to string 5 muscle ups together in a row and I also deadlifted 325 lbs fairly easily.

Another Goal Accomplished!

2008-03-27T19:53:00.001-07:00

Ok, so this one was just outside of the window of my mission, but after I started looking more into CrossFit, one of the goals I made for myself was to be able to perform a "muscle up". This is almost a rite of passage in the CrossFit community. Well, last night, after my workout at the local affiliate, I was staring at the rings. Someone else was trying out muscle ups, so I thought I would give it a go.

I got set in the proper position, grabbed the rings, and violently pulled myself up and spread out the rings to my side. The next thing I knew, I was through the transition and pushing myself up to fully lockout the dip portion. I was shocked! I had just done my first muscle up! I stayed in that top position for a little while with a big goofy face.

A couple minutes later, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I tried it again and got another one!

If you don't know what a muscle up is, just check out this video:

Mission 2 Goals

2008-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did my strength testing, going for 1RM on my squat, press, and deadlift as a bookend to my Mission 2. I still have to test my pushups and I'll have to admit that I didn't really work my bench press as much over the mission. I viewed it as more of a supplemental exercise to help my overhead press, which is viewed as a more functional measure of pressing strength.

So these are a bit late, but my lifts were as follows:

Squat: 265 lbs (+40)
Overhead Press: 140 lbs (+25)
Deadlift: 315 lbs (+40)

So I didn't quite reach my goals for the Squat and Deadlift, but I did add 40 lbs to both of those lifts. I also exceeded my goal for the overhead press.

As for the rest of my goals, I know that I have easily added more than 5lbs of lean mass and I have managed to stay below 12.5% BF. In fact, my fat pinches have changed very little. I'll have exact measurements tomorrow along with my final "reveal" pics if I can find my camera. It's gone missing for the past little while since my gf and I got back from a trip.

As for the pushups, I want to test them on a day when I'm fresh, so I don't know when that will be, but sometime this week hopefully. So technically, I will have gone past the deadline on this challenge, but I haven't maxed out on them in a while, so I don't have all that great an idea of where I am.

Over the next few days I'll try and get back into posting a bit more about what I'm doing and some overall reflections on this mission, and what I plan on doing next.

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. Just a quick post to say that I'm still around. I haven't fallen off the wagon, just haven't posted in a while. CrossFit is a whole different animal and has consumed my life. My strength goals and pushup goals have kind of taken a back seat to it. CrossFit will still have me working towards those goals, just at a slower rate since I'm working on my improving my overall fitness. This means working harder at what I'm not good at. From doing CrossFit so far, I found that my areas that I was working to improve before CrossFit are my strongest points, so there's other things that need catching up.

Tomorrow I should have a final body composition analysis as well as my final pics. I guess you could say my lack of photos in the past few weeks is going to be more like a "big reveal". I'm also going to do a CrossFit Total tomorrow and get numbers for my squat, press, and deadlift. I know I won't be able to hit the numbers I set as goals back in January, but I have definitely improved.

Day 170 - Committed to CrossFit

2008-02-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well, today, I signed off on the cheques that'll have me going to my local CrossFit affiliate 2x/week. The rest of the time will be spent at my University gym. It'll be nice to have that bit of coaching, as well as a facility that is specifically geared to being able to do the crazy workouts.

Here's today's workout (it's a CrossFit.com rest day, but not a rest day for me!)
CFWUx3

5RM Back Squat:
45, 95, 135, 165, 195

mini G.I. Jane (L'il G.I. Janie?):
for time
50 Burpee Pullups
6:16

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 52

Day 169 - Caveman

2008-02-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

The workout posted on CrossFit.com today was:
Five rounds for time of:
400 meter Run
50 Squats
30 Back extensions

The treadmill and back extension machine apparatus are in separate areas, so to save running back and forth, I substituted dumbbell swings. I also scaled it back since I'm just starting at this.

So I did:

CFWUx3

4 rounds for time:
25 db swings (30#)
25 squats
15 back extensions

10:04

Probably would have been faster, but a guy stopped me in the middle of my last set of squats to ask me if I was doing CrossFit. He must have noticed my crazy non-stop db swings and huge puddle of sweat developing on the floor. He said he knew some people on his rugby team that did it (he was wearing a University Rugby team shirt). He asked me how it was, what I thought of it, and how I was finding it. I could only come back with winded caveman answers.

".....yeah.....just starting.....good......hard.....crazy"

I had originally planned for 5 rounds, but my form was suffering really bad on the last set of db swings, so I figured it was time to stop. Not too bad for my first WOD with a bit of weight.

Splits were:

db swings: 25, 15/10, 15/10, 10/10/5
squats: 25, 20/5, 15/10, 15/10
back extensions: 15, 9/6, 10/5, 15

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 51

Day 168 - Catch up

2008-02-25T19:27:00.002-08:00

Yesterday I ended my current strength program and am switching to following the CrossFit WOD's. I figured the best way to end my strength program was to do the CFT!

Squat:
Warmup - 45x10, 135x6, 185x3, 205x2
-----
3 tries: 225, 255 (+30 PR), 265 (f)

Press:
Warmup - 45x8, 65x6, 95x3
-----
3 tries: 120, 130 (+15 PR), 135 (f)

Deadlift:
Warmup - 135x7, 185x3, 225x2
-----
3 tries: 295, 305 (+30 PR), 315 (f)

Total: 690

Notes: The 135 press was going up slowly, but it was so uneven and wonky that I just dumped it given it was so ugly looking. I think I could have gotten the 315 deadlift up if I took a few less warmup sets. The total amount of time I was taking was really long and I think I just gassed myself. I wanted those "3 wheels" so bad! Definitely topping 700 next time.

Today, well, the day I decide to come off a strength program and start following the WOD's, a strength workout is posted. Since I maxed on the press yesterday, I didn't think it was too wise to do a big workout of presses, push presses, and push jerks.

Thought I'd do a light day and work on my POSE running.

CFWUx3 (The modified CrossFit WarmUp is 10 reps each of Good Mornings, Overhead Squats, Pull-ups, Dips, Pushups, and Knees to Elbows)

7 min warmup run/walk
Tabata Treadmill Run 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11, 11, 11.5, 11.5 (km/h @ 7 incline)
5 min cooldown run/walk

Had a bit of time to kill so I thought a couple push jerks @ 115 wouldn't hurt. Wasn't really feeling it, dropped down to 95, banged out a set of 5 and called it a day.

Here's this weeks stats:
M2 Week 7: 2008-02-18 to 2008-02-25
Weight: 140.29 (+0.62)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/15/10 -> 9.13% (-0.31)
Avg BF: 10.4% (-0.1%)
Lean Mass: 125.70 (+0.70)
Fat Mass: 14.59 (-0.08)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 50

Day 164 - First time to CrossFit

2008-02-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight I used up my freebie visit at my local CrossFit affiliate. A common saying among the CrossFit community is "Your workout is our warm-up". Well, I thought I had been doing reasonably well following the CrossFit warm-up on my own, but I had been leaving out the pull-ups and dips since I do weighted ones of those as part of my strength program. They also had us do ring dips which are waaaaay harder, chest to deck push-ups, and "knees to elbows" instead of crunches/sit-ups. That made a world of difference. I was already feeling it by the end of that. I only had enough courage to attempt a very scaled down version of the workout of the day that they did, and it was plenty.

I was planning on doing my CrossFit total (1RM testing of Squat, Press, Deadlift) again tomorrow, but I think after today's workout I'm going to have to push that to Saturday to give me proper rest. Today's workout was like a bonus workout anyway, so I don't feel bad about moving tomorrow's planned workout back. I just know I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

Anyway, I think the workouts are great and I want to jump right in. So I'm changing my plan and I'm going to start doing (scaled versions of) the CrossFit workouts starting next Monday.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 46

Day 163 - Pics

2008-02-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

Quick post, just pics today.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 45

Day 161 - Oops

2008-02-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I let the blogging slack off a bit. My workouts have stayed on schedule though, so I haven't missed out on any exercise yet, except for the last Wednesday weight session that was replaced with a CrossFit style workout.

My nutrition feels like its been a bit off, as Valentine's day added in an extra reward meal. My relaxed schedule on the weekend led to a few too many snacks. Healthy snacks, but a bit too much. I think my measurements show that I went a little bit past the gains that I was making before and ended up picking up a bit more fat. Overall though, I'm still satisfied with my progress, but I'm starting to feel like I might want to stop my bulk a little early. Oh, but a few more pounds of muscle won't hurt me :D

M2 Week 6: 2008-02-11 to 2008-02-18
Weight: 139.67 (+0.95)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/15/11 -> 9.44% (+0.31)
Avg BF: 10.5% (+0.1%)
Lean Mass: 125.00 (+0.71)
Fat Mass: 14.67 (+0.24)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 43

Day 156 - 3/4 Tabata Something Else

2008-02-13T05:25:00.001-08:00

University gym was closed due to the snow storm, so I had to miss my scheduled strength workout. Decided to do an abbreviated "Tabata Something Else" without pull-ups within the comforts of the living room since it requires no equipment as our first CrossFit styled workout. "Tabata" is a specific type of high intensity interval training using a strict 20s/10s work/rest scheme. Each exercise was completed for 8 rounds with no rest between exercises. The official CrossFit "Tabata Something Else" calls for 8 rounds of pull ups before the push ups.

Pushups 21/17/15/14/10/8/8/7 = 100
Situps 8/11/11/12/10/10/9/7 = 78
Squats 18/18/18/17/17/17/16/18 = 139
Total: 317

This works out to an incredible amount of work done in only 12 minutes. I ran out of gas on the pushups due to working them hard last night I think. The squats felt pretty good until the last 2 rounds. My quads were burning by the end and I collapsed on the floor. Had to force myself to get up off the floor to stretch them out and walk it off! I can't imagine adding 8 rounds of pull ups ahead of that workout.

Oh, I thought I would throw in a comparison pic to show how much snow came in the last 24 hours.

It just keeps piling on. It almost makes me want to go out and do a Rocky training montage running in the knee deep snow.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 38

Day 155 - Feeling Lazy

2008-02-12T12:45:00.001-08:00

Feeling pretty lazy today. Don't feel so much like writing. But thought I would get today's pic up anyway. Today is an off day, but I might do my push-up training later on tonight rather than tomorrow morning.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 37

Day 154 - Numbers and Pushups

2008-02-11T09:10:00.001-08:00

Went for the "all out, as many pushups as possible, with rest, but not breaking form in one set" count. I'll use this new counting scheme as my measuring stick from now on.

M2 Week 5: 2008-02-04 to 2008-02-11
Weight: 138.72 (+0.74)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 124.29 (+0.66)
Fat Mass: 14.43 (+0.08)

Still slowly putting on muscle. Hasn't seemed to slow down yet. How much longer can I go?

Oh, and here's a pic (not my car) for Adam showing off the snowfall we got over the weekend. It wasn't as much as was expected though, but it's been blowing around a lot.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 36

Day 153 - Quiet Weekend

2008-02-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I missed a few days of blogging, but I don't really have too much to report. Had a decent workout on Friday. Got my regular workout in and then did some "skill" work. I'm trying to get my "kipping" pull-up technique down as well as doing some other work towards developing a muscle-up. The rest of the weekend was quiet.

Today I did however buy myself a workout watch on eBay in preparation for CrossFit workouts. It's the Timex Ironman OVA, which is worn on the side of the wrist, not the top. In this position, it's easy to see the face at all times without having to turn your wrist over. Also in this position, you can avoid inadvertent button presses from a flexed wrist (important when doing certain barbell lifts). It's highly recommended among the CrossFit crowd because it has all the timing functions one needs. The best feature is you can set work/rest intervals on it to do a Tabatas (20/10 work/rest interval training) and has a counter for rounds (I tend to lose track of these things).

I'm also thinking of starting some trail running once the snow melts around here. That might be a while though, but I'm going to try again to build up my running. I haven't had much success in the past due to my back pain, but I've been researching some stuff on technique and am going to try to build up and develop the POSE method. I think this might be the answer for me. I've always done well running on grass in soccer cleats, but could never run on pavement with regular runners. I was probably more likely to heel strike on pavement than I was on grass in cleats. The POSE method is more or less concentrating on landing on the balls of your feet and pulling yourself through the stride rather than heel-striking and trying to push your feet forward. At least that's what I've got out of it so far. They say it can take a while to really build up your calf and feet muscles to handle it, but once you do, the impact on your knees and lower back is significantly reduced.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 35

Day 150 - Strong enough? Big enough?

2008-02-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

I did a lot of thinking today, and wondered if my current mission goals/plan aren't quite moving me towards my ultimate goals in the best way possible. I might just dive right into CrossFit. My strength and muscle gains might slow down, but every other aspect of my fitness should increase. We are making lifestyle changes, and CrossFit is a lifestyle that just seems like the perfect fit for me. As I mentioned, boredom is starting to settle in on my current program, and CrossFit is a different workout everyday, so it's always fresh and new.

I'm contemplating doing 2 more weeks of Stronglifts Beginner 5x5 setting up for a max effort at the end. Then I'll jump into the CrossFit workout of the day.

I can still eat my way to muscle gain, but it might be slower with CrossFit, but it should definitely be lean the way those workouts tax your entire system!

Did pushups training tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Didn't want to put it too close to my regular workout tomorrow which I have to move forward to the afternoon since my girlfriend and I have plans for the evening. They felt good and I'm sure I can bang out a bunch now. I actually did some "youtube" pushup standard searching for what constitutes a set, and the consensus seems to be that you are allowed to rest and crank out more, as long as you don't break your plank form i.e. no resting on knees or bending of the body or you know, collapsing in a heap. If you count that way, my goal is to crank out 65 with a max effort on Sunday night.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 32

Day 149 - Foolin' Around

2008-02-06T19:17:00.001-08:00

Today I switched out my regular back squats for some overhead squats with much lighter weight to give my legs some "active" rest and really to just work on the overhead squat as I slowly learn many of the other lifts that are used in CrossFit workouts. The overhead squat is a great exercise for increasing your stability and it also has skill transfer in that it will "clean up" your other squats. With the weight overhead, any glitch in your form is emphasized as your core has to try a lot harder to stabilize it.

Anyway, going lighter on the overhead squats got me through my regular workout quicker. My girlfriend wasn't quite done her workout, so it gave me some extra time to fool around with some other exercises from the CrossFit repotoire. I did a few one armed dumbbell snatches, and then some dumbbell swings. Then I tried a few dumbbell pushup rows. I don't know how to explain these well, but you take a set of dumbbells (hex) in your hands, set them on the ground, then do a push up. Then you pick up one of the dumbbells while in a plank position and then rotate your torso and raise the dumbbell up in the air. My girlfriend said I got a few funny looks when I was doing all of these! I think she thought I was going to hurt someone with my dumbbell swings.

Then I finished up with some "Durka Durka's", more commonly known as Turkish Get-ups.

I think boredom might be starting to settle in on my current strength training program as evidenced by my bipolar workout today. I almost want to just dive into the CrossFit workouts immediately but it kind of goes against my current muscle building and strength focus at the moment. CrossFit is definitely the better overall program as far as general fitness is concerned, and I know it's the program I want to follow in the end, but it might take longer for me to hit the muscle and strength goals that I set out if I were to start it tomorrow.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 31

Day 148 - Bring the Pain

2008-02-05T19:21:00.001-08:00

Today I had a wicked case of the DOMS, especially in my legs. What did I do to give myself this world of hurt? Believe it or not, I lowered the weight on my squat in yesterday's workout, and still followed the same set-rep scheme.

So how did lifting 30lbs less weight than last week give me a greater stimulus?

Quite simple. I wasn't squatting deep enough.

As I increased my weight each session lately, I've been also slowly reducing my range of motion. I figured rather than cheat myself out of the whole movement, I'd lower the weight and really get an ATA (arse to ankle) squat.

I now have confidence that I can go that low without hurting myself. So from now on, I'm squatting deep into the pocket!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 30

Day 147 - Feeling the Push

2008-02-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

4 weeks down. Sorry for the abscence over the weekend. The ideas I mentioned in my last post are going to have to wait again. Today I'm focusing on my progress again with my weekly stat update.

M2 Week 4: 2008-01-28 to 2008-02-04
Weight: 137.98 (+0.75)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (-0.31%)
Avg BF: 10.4% (-0.12%)
Lean Mass: 123.63 (+0.84)
Fat Mass: 14.35 (-0.09)

So it seems as though my BF isn't really moving too much (actually went back down this week), and my weight is slowly creeping up. I wonder how long I can keep this up?

Anyway, I also tested my pushups today and thought I would up the accountability and put my progress up on YouTube instead of just the blogger video.

I decided that the proper way to count is the number of pushups that can be done continuously, without pausing. That would put my first effort at 47. Therefore, I've made little progress, but have not been doing any real formal pushup training since it seemed to interfere with my other training. In order to build up my endurance rather than strength, I'm going to have to train for it if I want to hit my goal. From now on, I'm committing to doing the formal 100pushups training first thing in the morning, since it really doesn't take long, and then gives me enough time over the rest of the day to rest up for my normal workout which I do in the evening.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 29

Day 144 - Gross!

2008-02-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

Gross! Yup, that's a dozen dozen, 144. Post is late since last night was Friday night and my gf and I entertained a friend. Just thought I would get yesterday's pic up.

Had a good workout yesterday, mixing things up a bit. I did the full CrossFit Warmup 3x which included 10 kipping pull-ups and 10 dips each round. This replaced my scheduled weighted dips. I conentrated on speed this since I didn't have any weight slowing me down. I also substitued some power clean work instead of the scheduled bent over barbell rows.

I'll make a longer post later today with today's pic and hopefully if I have time, it'll be a nice article type post. I've got a couple things in my mind that I want to talk about, I just have to get enough time to devote to them to do justice.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 26

Day 143 - Big Reward

2008-01-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

..and now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Tonight was a big reward meal for myself and my girlfried. We celebrated the 4th anniversay of our first date by going out for supper. I'll spare the details and just say that it was a feast. But as of right now, I'm feeling totally guilt free. I love my girlfriend more than anything in the world and it was nice to get out and celebrate.

But I'm right back on track after that meal, so no worries. It almost renews the excitement of eating healthy again!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 25

Happy Birthday Adam!

2008-01-31T14:04:00.000-08:00

Here's to our master shredder! The inspiration for myself and many more:

Day 142 - 2 steps forward, 1 step back

2008-01-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Today's workout was pretty good, but I think I almost could have used another days rest. I didn't quite feel as strong as I did on Monday. I just didn't quite have enough gas in me and my form started to suffer a little. I don't know if it was my nutrition or just that I haven't slept well the past couple nights. I'm going to see how things go on Friday, but if I can't pull the weight that I want to, I'm going to do a short "intensity cycle" where I will back off on my weights to 80-90% of what they are right now, and then slowly work my way back up, and then exceed!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 24

Day 141 - Impressive bar skills

2008-01-29T18:38:00.000-08:00

Who knew that a playground was still so much fun even when you grow up? Check out the following video, especially the first move that the guy does. They're called "elevators", and you'll see why. It's mind boggling.

After stumbling upon this impressive display of pull-ups, chin-ups, muscle-ups, I am now determined to be able to do a muscle up. I'm adding it to my list of goals. I can already do pull-ups and dips, so now I just have to string them together.

CrossFitters usually do these on rings, and I'm guessing most of you are like me and don't have rings at your gym. I'll have to settle for trying to do them on a pull-up bar like these guys.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 23

Day 140 - A bit of fat

2008-01-28T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today was another fat pinch day, so here are the results:

M2 Week 3: 2008-01-21 to 2008-01-28
Weight: 137.23 (+0.90)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/11 -> 9.44% (+0.31%)
Avg BF: 10.52% (+0.12%)
Lean Mass: 122.79 (+0.64)
Fat Mass: 14.44 (+0.26)

Well, this week showed some bigger gains, both in the lean mass and fat gains. Although I think the fat gain has more to do with the "jump" from the caliper measurement due to it's limited precision. I think it's been more of a slow fat gain so I think it's safe to say that the fat gain has been more a result of the past 3 weeks in total rather than just the past week. Unless I see a similar fat gain in 2 consecutive weeks, I won't change anything up.

The lean mass gains look promising though, although I'm skeptical about how much is actual muscle. The latest protein powder (Nitro-Tech Hardcore) I got has some creatine in it. I wasn't looking for creatine specifically, it was just that this particular protein powder was on sale, so it was a good deal at the time. The amount of creatine in it is no more than 2 g per serving (probably really closer to 1 g). This is smaller than what they recommmend people usually take (I think anywhere from 3-10 g/day is recommended), so people specifically wanting to use creatine wouldn't get enough from this protein powder, but I think it is enough for me to see some of the increased water retention that is associated with it. I probably won't know for sure until after I go through the two tubs (they're 4 lbs each and it was buy one, get one 50% off) and then flush all the excess creatine out of my system. That might take a while though. Until then, I'm making sure I drink a lot of water, even more than I was before!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 22

Day 139 - Q & A

2008-01-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I would answer Lilla's questions in my post since they were some really good ones that I kind of wanted to talk about at some point anyway.

I'm curious about stronglifts - when you start, you don't chose weights for failure on each set 5 x 5?

When I started stronglifts, there were a few exercises that I hadn't done ever or in a while. Mainly, the deadlift and barbell squats, which are also ones in which you can injure yourself more easily if you have poor form and lift heavy. I started out with an empty bar and worked my way up in weight while concentrating on form. Since you squat 3x a week on this program, if you add 10 lbs each session, it doesn't take long to build up to a decent weight. If you're comfortable in the exercises, you would go to a slightly different program and use weights closer to your maximum. Most programs of this type recommend a basic 2-3 week strengthening phase using sub-maximal loads before you hit a maximal workload.

How did you up your calories %wise per macro? Do you eat differently on workout days vs. non-workout days?

My calories pecentage wise changed a little bit. Before, when I was on my initial fat loss stage, I aimed for about a 30/15/55 protein/fat/carb split. In order to get enough calories in for a bulking plan, the main thing that I did was allow myself more fats, since it is a good way to get the calories in. Also, some saturated fat is good because it stimulates your testosterone levels, which is anabolic. I also didn't increase my carb intake as much as the others. I think that my ratios are somewhere around 30/25/45, but it's hard to say exactly as I no longer log my food or count calories. I just try to eat a lot! If I overeat on anything, it's meat. I figure I need all the protein I can get.

I eat slightly differently on workout days to account for my workout nutrition. On non-workout days, I eat 6 meals, and incorporate meal tapering. My last meal is more of a bed-time snack which is a casein protein shake with a serving of fat, which has lately been either Udo's mixed in the shake or almond butter on celery sticks. I try to have minimal carbs in this snack. My pre and post-workout nutrition on workout days is strictly protein and carbs. I try to have as little fat as possible in these, and they are smaller. There might be 2-4 grams that sneak in, but I don't conciously add a fat source. These are usually meals 4 and 5 for me, then I'll have meal 6 about an hour or so later, and then finish with my bedtime snack (meal 7). Because of this, my workout days might be lower in fat content and might be more like a 35/15/50 split. The total calories per day probably don't vary much because I feel it is just as important to feed the muscle the day after a workout.

There is a good chance that I'm not making the leanest gains possible, but I am now fully accepting that some fat is going to be put on. What I'm doing is giving me results that I am happy with, so until I see large fat gains and little muscle gains, I'll continue on.

Thanks Lilla for the great questions!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 21

Day 137 - Maximum Effort

2008-01-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today was probably the hardest I worked out in the gym in a long time. On my current program, the goal is to increase the weight on all exercises each and every time I go in. I'm almost at the point where I've worked my way up from using an empty bar concentrating on form, to putting in a maximum effort and nearing failure on all my exercises. I was able to finish my prescribed reps for all of my exercises, except for my last set of weighted pull-ups. This might have to do with a slightly more intense warm-up. I usually only do a cardio warm-up on a machine, but today I tried a modified "CrossFit" warm-up. 3 sets of 10 reps of squats (instead of broomstick overhead squats), sit-ups, back extensions, push-ups (instead of pull-ups, which I do later), and dips. Now I know what they mean when they say, "Your work-out is our warm-up".

I think next week I might incorporate the "flip" method, where I invert the order that I do my exercises in. So, instead of ending with my weighted chin-ups or pull-ups, I'll start my workout with them. I think this will help me push my weights up another notch.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 19

Day 136 - New muscle?

2008-01-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Although my stats are showing a small increase in lean mass, I've mostly been battling with feeling like I've either just put on water weight or fat. But today was different. Today was the first day where I really felt like I could feel new muscle on me. Well, maybe my muscles are just filling up with more water. It's really hard to say, but it's just one of those things where mentally, I felt it. It could just be in my head, but hey, it all starts with the vision. Just gotta stay clean, keep on the program, and have confidence.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 18

Day 135 - Sweetness

2008-01-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I picked up some stevia from the local health food store. Following Lilla's advice, I added a bit of it to the BFFM pancakes this morning. I think that was the secret missing ingredient. It made them much more enjoyable. Now I think the BFFM pancakes can be a real regular on my menu.

Today's workout was great. I was a little sore from Monday's workout earlier in the day, but the pain subsided once I got into the gym. My squats felt a lot stronger and I know I can keep pushing the weight up each session. Snuck in some push up work at the end of my workout, but my bench press and tricep dip had already taxed me. But it made for a great workout! By the end of it, I could barely move.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 17

Day 134 - Udo's Oil

2008-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

Today I ran out of flax seed capsules. Luckily though on the weekend I picked up a bottle of Udo's Oil to meet my EFA needs. Well, I just had a taste of it in my bedtime casein protein shake, and I must say...I think it might take a bit of getting used to. The capsules are great because you can't taste it, but they aren't the most cost efficient way of getting enough of your EFA's.

A serving of Udo's oil in a protein shake seems to be a pretty standard thing in the health circle, but I guess it's one of those things where you sacrifice your taste buds a little for the sake of your health. In time, I'm sure I'll get used to it though. I thought celery would be one of those healthy foods that I just wouldn't give in to, but I've just gone through a few bunches of them lately. They go great with natural peanut butter, or my latest indulgence, almond butter! I did the same thing with oatmeal. I thought it was one of those healthy meals that I just wouldn't sacrifice my taste buds for, but now I've been eating steel cut oats almost every day.

So you never know what healthy foods you're going to end up enjoying. They say that babies have to try a food up to 20 times before they realize they like it. I don't think it'll take me that long to learn to love the Udo's oil. So, I pledge to try it everyday for the next 20 days. If I can't stand it by then, I guess I'll go back to swallowing capsules.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 16

Day 133 - Slow and Steady

2008-01-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

Well, for the second week in a row, I managed a lean mass gain of about half a pound, which is on the low end of average possible lean mass gains per week, but I'm still happy with the results. As far as my basic measurements go, my bodyfat percentage is still the same, but physically, I'm having a hard time believing it hasn't gone up more yet. The mental struggle of the "buik" continues!

Well, as long as I can make slow and steady gains of half a pound a week though, I'll hit my target.

Here's this weeks stats:

M2 Week 2: 2008-01-14 to 2008-01-21
Weight: 136.33 (+0.55)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/13/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 122.15 (+0.49)
Fat Mass: 14.18 (+0.06)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 15

Day 132 - Pics

2008-01-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

Another quick post...Maybe tomorrow I'll have something informative or insightful. As for today...well, mostly spent it putting together that entertainment stand we picked up yesterday and moving furniture around. So there was a fair bit of heavy and awkward lifting today. Just ready for bed now.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 14

Day 131 - Light Change Up

2008-01-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

Saturday's are normally a rest day for me, but my workouts this week were one day behind due to my gym being closed for the snowstorm we had on Monday. I thought I might get to the gym today to do my normal Friday workout, but Saturday is a real errand running day for my gf and I, and we just didn't get around to doing everything we had on our "to do" list. I decided that I'll get back on schedule on Monday, resting again tomorrow.

I figured I could get in a mini-workout today at home. Just enough to stress my muscles and get the heart rate up for a bit. I did supersets of push-ups, "Hindu" squats, and crunches. Basically I went hard, fast and intense for 15 min or so. It was enough to get me out of breath, and enough to already feel a bit of muscle soreness, so I think it was a decent "active" rest day. I think it was just enough to pump my system so it doesn't hit rock bottom before I hit the weights hard again on Monday.

This was on top of the deadlifts/squats I did earlier in the day as we bought a tv entertainment stand. The box is probably close to 75 lbs I would guess, and awkwardly shaped. I had to carry, set down, lift, then carry this heavy awkard box through each door between the store and my apartment. I think it's something that before would have been easy for me to injure myself doing. But the good thing about squats and deadlifts is that they translate into real world motions, and real world strength.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 13

Day 130 - Quick Post

2008-01-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post today to put my picture up. Things are going great and last nights workout left me good and exhausted again, so I spent the day resting and concentrating on eating clean. I even tried out the BFFM pancakes after seeing Lilla's video. It really isn't much different from what I have for breakfast normally though. I usually have a bowl of oatmeal with chocolate protein powder, and a piece of fruit (bananna, orange or berries).

I decided to make mine with a bananna instead of apples, since bananas are my "recovery" fruit that I like to have post workout and now am having for 1st breakfast the day after a workout. To be honest, they came out a little bland for me, so I think next time I might have to succumb and put in some splenda or go with an all fruit jam on top. The chunks of banana are good, but the plain oats portion of it was lacking. Here's how they turned out:

Looks like I might have had the pan a little too hot! Here's hoping the next batch is better!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 12

Day 129 - What's in your grocery cart?

2008-01-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

Today while I was at the grocery store I ran into an old buddy who just happened to be in town for a bit. I saw him a little over the Christmas break, but we didn't really get a chance to talk. The first thing he said to me was, "you're eating healthy!" I think the giant stalk of celery sticking out of my baasket gave it away. He then jokingly pointed at someone else's cart and said, "they're healthy too, eh? Look at all those Pizza Pops!" That person had about 6 cartons of them in their cart along with an assortment of other garbage food. For those that aren't familiar with Pizza Pops, they are the epitome of North American convenience food. Pepperoni and cheese mixed with a preservative filled tomato sauce inside a white flour pocket that is microwaveable and ready in minutes.

He then went on to say how good it was to see me all slimmed down and eating healthy. This meant a lot more to me coming from him. I've known him longer than I can remember and he's a good honest person. He's also the one from our town who was known as the big gym rat and we spent a lot of time at our gym together. He was always the stereotypical ectomorph growing up. Skin and bones. But he made a big transformation after his final year in high school and packed on a lot of muscle. He did his research and made a big commitment to his workouts and his nutrition and he made great gains. If you didn't know him when he was younger, you wouldn't believe that he was as skinny as he was growing up. But he made a plan, stuck to it, and got great results.

But it all starts with the grocery cart. You really can tell a lot about a person by what's in their grocery cart. Now, I know that when embarking on fitness missions such as these, that your best measuring stick is yourself. But I always like to play the "am I the healthiest person in this line?" game at the grocery store. It's a fun little game to play when you're right beside all those impulse sweets right by the register. I know they say that you shouldn't feel good at other people's expense, but I enjoy the victory of putting my fresh organic veggies on the converyer belt behind someone with their bags of potato chips and (soda) pop. Does that make me judegemental? Elitist? Snobbish? Possibly, but it does make me feel good about making healthy eating choices.

So here's what was in my cart today when my friend complimented me on my healthy eating:
skim milk, Low fat Triscuits (whole wheat crackers), organic steel cut oats, egg whites, whole wheat hamburger buns, organic baby spinach, low fat (4% MF) probiotic cheese, strawberries, herring, celery, green pepper, blueberries, cucumber, fresh Atlantic salmon, and a box of clementines.

How does this compare with your lists? Are you the healthiest person in your grocery line?

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 11

Day 128 - I'm Full!

2008-01-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Well, today was just another day of getting good rest and eating well. Based on my measurements from Monday, I'm starting to make lean mass gains with little fat loss, but it's hard to really convince myself that it is lean mass gains. I've been eating more and to be honest, I just feel full a lot of the time now and have that "putting on fat" feel. I might have to drop my cals just a bit from what I've been going at lately on rest days since I didn't account for my overall activity level decreasing from the 6 workouts/week I was doing before. Even though it toook me a while to turn my system around and get it into "gain" mode, I think I might have overshot.

Or, I can just let things ride out...it's near impossible to put on lean mass without a bit of fat gain. I've done the fat burn before, and I'm confident I can do it again, it'd just be nice if there was less to get rid of once I put on some muscle.

This really is a tough mental struggle switching modes and staying committed.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 10

Day 127 - Back in the groove

2008-01-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well, the extra rest helped out and it felt good to get back into the gym today. Last week was more of a warm-up. Today's sessions I tackled weights that were more than what I was doing before Christmas.

I warmed up on the deadlift with the weight I was using before Christmas and it felt so much lighter. Now that I'm confident my form is good, I threw on an extra 50 lbs on top of that.

I'm in the groove and ready to step it up and go big!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 9

Day 126 - Snowed in, a bit late

2008-01-15T05:45:00.000-08:00

This is actually an entry for yesterday, which I missed posting on, but I'll still post for today this evening.

Well, I thought I was going to jump right back into my workout schedule, but mother nature had a different plan. After a quick thaw that saw most of the insanse amount of snow that had cumulated over the last few weeks melt away, we got dumped on again. A nice fresh layer of clean snow on top of the crusty, dirty brown stuff that remained. The snowfall started at pretty much the worst time, early enough that by the time my scheduled workout came around there was a good amount of snow down and they shut down campus (including the gym) so that folks could get home safely as more was coming in the night.

So yesterday's workout got pushed to today, which I had planned to be a rest day for yesterday's workout. This should mean I'm good and rested and able to put in a maximum effort in the gym tonight. Since my current workout plan is only 3 sessions/week, I'm not going to beat myself up about it being a day late, as long as I get my 3 sessions in this week.

Also yesterday was measurement day, so here are the results:

M2 Week 1: 2008-01-07 to 2008-01-14
Weight: 135.78 (+0.56)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 121.66 (+0.5)
Fat Mass: 14.12 (+0.06)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 8

Day 125 - Old Friends, Old Habits

2008-01-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I certainly enjoyed myself this weekend, but as I get back around to reading the shredder blogs, I'm starting to feel guilty. Yesterday I had a nice surprise and found out that a couple of my best friends who recently moved to California were in town for one night, and one night only. We had a lot of fun last night with them and other old friends from school. The bunch of us have been friends since our first days of University, which for a few of us is closing in on being 8 years ago. So what happens when old university friends get together? Eating out, lots of junk food, lots of beer, and very little sleep.

Of course, I had no regrest about enjoying mself, but I still feel like I have a responsibility to the rest of the shredders. I don't think I am as committed to an all out transformation, being 95% or greater compliant with a strict plan as many of you other shredders are at the moment. I've already made the biggest change, and I'm not that far away from my ideal body. I am confident that I possess the knowledge and ability to make small changes with as little as say 80% compliancy, and I know that I'm not going to allow myself to stray as far off the path as I have in the past.

So to the rest of you out there still shredding hard, I applaud you.

I think the 3-4 rest days/wk required for solid muscle gains is bumming me out. I want to do more. But less is more... Really looking forward to hitting the gym tomorrow hard, definitely going to up the intensity. I mean, today's photos really look like I had a rough night last night...I tried testing my push-ups today and I just had no energy. On top of that, my muscles were still sore from Friday's workout, and I only managed to push out 40 before I got tired. So it was LESS than last week!

This only means one thing, it's time to...
Get my game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 7

Day 123 - CrossFit Total

2008-01-11T16:17:00.001-08:00

Today I did my 1 rep max (1RM) testing. Doing this properly takes a fair amount of time, so I was actually only able to get it done for the big 3, the squat, deadlift, and the overhead press. Well, I don't know if these are usually considered the big 3, but they are the 3 lifts that factor into the CrossFit Total.

I threw in a new compound power lift sequence at the end of this to get my total workload up for the workout session, as doing heavy singles isn't a lot of total poundage moved. The CrossFitters call this one the "Bear Complex"

It works pretty much all the major muscle groups. Boy does it ever wear you out!

Anyway, here are my results from the 1RM testing:

Squat: 225 lbs
(Overhead) Press: 120 lbs (not in one fluid motion, did 115 with good form)
Deadlift: 275 lbs

At my current bodyweight (say 135 lbs), this gives ratios of

Squat: 1.67 x BW
Press: 0.89 (0.85 good form) x BW
Deadlift: 2.04 x BW

The deadlift probably surprised me the most. Getting over the 2xBW threshold was pretty good I think. I had an idea that I could squat 225 though and might have been able to push it further, but I underestimated my starting weights for it and ended up doing too many singles building up.

Comparing these results to strength standards table found here, I'm in between the ranges for intermediate and advanced, but closer to intermediate. Based on this, the goal I am setting for the end of this mission is to hit the advanced level for the press, bench press, squat, and deadlift. I will also practice my technique on the power clean and some other power lifts, but not go heavy on them just yet.

This would put my target 1RM at the following, assuming I finish at a bodyweight of around 140:

Press: 135 lbs (need to increase by 20 lbs)
Bench: 225 lbs (need to increase by ???)
Squat: 300 lbs (need to increase by 75 lbs)
DeadL: 365 lbs (need to increase by 90 lbs)

Out of these, realistically I might only be able to get the Press up to the advanced level, but it gives me something to shoot for. I know I'm going to have to make some jumps in added pounds on my 5x5 training! Gotta push myself!

That's all for today.

So until then,
Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 5

Day 122 - Feedings

2008-01-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

Well, today is once again a muscle building rest day, so I didn't have much else to concentrate on other than my "feedings". I only managed 5.5 meals today rather than a full 6. I was just a little bit late with each of my first 4 meals which added up to me not having enough time fit the last 2 in without really stuffing myself. I decided against this as eating 2 regular meals only 1 hour apart is just like having a big feast since your body doesn't have enough time to digest the first one.

I'll have to work on my meal timings a bit more on my rest days since before I just had the 1 rest day and that was used as a "free" day where I wasn't so rigid with my meal times or plans.

Although I didn't quite get my 6 meals in, what I did eat was good quality clean food. I'm hoping it has me nice and fueled up for tomorrow's workout/strength test.

I'm excited to see how I do tomorrow!

So until then,
Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 4

Day 121 - Strength Goals

2008-01-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

I've decided that my primary focus for my mission 2 will be to hit some specific strength goals. But in order to do so, I really need to figure out what I am capable of. Since I've started on the Stronglifts program, I haven't reached the point of failure in any of my exercises yet, and they've all been done as 5x5's. Especially since I started light and am slowly adding weight, concentrating on perfecting form. However, the best indicator of absolute strength is the 1 rep max (1RM). I have no idea what my 1RM's are for all of my lifts, so that's something I need to figure out.

This Friday, I will attempt to determine my 1RM weights for the squat, deadlift, overhead press, bench press, and maybe the barbell row. I may do the bench and barbell row on another day, as I'm not sure how many different 1RM I can truly figure out in one session as the combination of exercises may fatigure me. But maybe I'll just do them all and make sure I do it in the same order when I re-test again.

This will give me a starting point. I'll then re-test my 1RM's at least once in the middle of my mission, and at the end of my mission.

Well, I must say that starting this new mission has me all pumped up again. I couldn't get to sleep last night because I kept thinking of all the different exercises I wanted to do. I was doing squats and deadlifts in my sleep! I was so wound up with extra energy! I probably would have slept better if I worked out yesterday, but to build that muscle, I really need to try and get my rest! It's hard for me, I'm typically an all or nothing guy, so if I'm working out, it's all I want to do! I just have to remind myself to be patient though. The changes will come as long as I keep doing the right things.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 3

Day 120 - Rest to grow

2008-01-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've decided to make Mission 2 purely a mass gaining phase. Well, I'll simply be focusing on strength and conditioning, but my nutrition and rest periods will be structured to allow for mass gains. This means caloric surplus, and more rest.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I may be a hard-gainer in disguise. Putting on muscle is a slow process and my tendancies in the past of doing more cardio than weights may have hindered any muscle gains I've tried to make. Working out only 3 times a week almost seems lazy to me now, but most of the info out there points to this frequency for maximal muscle gains. Before Christmas, when I increased my calorie intake, I was still working out at least 4-5 times a week and wasn't able to put on any weight.

Yes, I still believe in simply being strong for one's size and have no intentions of becoming a hulk, but I do think my frame will allow for a bit more muscle mass without sacrificing other aspects of my athleticism.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that today was a rest day for me. I sure needed it too! After two weeks of not being in the gym, I've got a large case of muscle soreness! Good to know I'm shocking my body and working it hard.

Anyway, apologies to all of you out there who thought I may have disappeared earlier, but as I stated yesterday, I'm back and on track, and on a new mission!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 2

Day 119 - Mission 2 Kickstart

2008-01-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

Hello Fellow Shredders! I'm back and I'd thought I'd start off with my first video:

Return to Form - Mission 2 Kickstart Video

My final milestone of my first mission, playing in a charity hockey game went well and I surprised a lot of my old teammates in how well I played even after not being on the ice for 4 years. Also, over $6000 was raised for the local cancer society from proceeds and donations from the game. Not bad for a small town of about 1600 people. Sorry, I didn't get any pictures myself, but there was a team picture that was taken, but I'm not sure who has a copy.

However, I think I crawled across the mission 1 finish line rather than sprinted. I was starting to fade and get run down. Also, no matter how good shape you are in, there is no true exercise replacement for actually playing the sport, so my body found a lot of aches and pains from the game that it doesn't normally get from my regular exercise program. This shows the importance of changing up your program and cross-training. This meant that my scheduled vacation period really was a vacation rather than the "active" vacation that I initially planned.

Based on this, barring additional events that I can't control the date around, my future missions will be capped at 12 weeks before I allow myself a period of extended rest (at least 1 week).

I'm jumping in on Tea's push-up challenge. In my video I managed 47 in a row before I needed short rests in between. I reached failure at what I now count as 54 (I said 55 in the video, but I miscounted). But whether it is 47, 54, or 55, I think 110 is a good goal to aim for, so that is my pledge. Sounds ambitious, but I know I've been able to do in the 80-90 range before, so I should aim to surpass that. I'll also have to modify my form. After watching my video, I think I had my butt up a bit, and maybe my feet too far apart.

Over the break, without measureing myself, I felt like I gained a lot of fat, but based on the measurements I took today, I essentially maintained my physique. Weight was up a little bit, but out of my fat pinches, 2 were down, 1 was the same, and one went up which overall meant I was down for bodyfat.

My pledge for mission 2 is to continue on the StrongLifts 5x5 strength training program. On Sunday's I will test my push-up strength and post my results. I suspect that doing this weekly along with my other strength training should be sufficient to see gains. Regarding posting, I will post daily, except for possibly some Saturdays (rest days). I will post a daily photo, but have decided for this mission that I will keep it to a single front photo. Don't worry though, I've got a nice surprise lined up for making up for the lack of side/back photos.

Weekly I will post weight and bodyfat measurements. I have taken tape measurements as well, but I'm not sure how often I will post those, either bi-weekly, or just at the end as I'm not sure how much they will change.

My starting stats:
Weight: 135.2 lbs

BF pinches:
Suprailiac: 10 mm
Chest: 7 mm
Abdomen: 14 mm
Thigh: 11 mm

Bodyfat %:
AccuMeausure 1 site (suprailiac): 11.6%
Jackson/Pollock 3 site (chest/ab/thigh): 9.13%
Avg: 10.4%

Fat Mass: 14.1 lbs
Lean Mass: 121.1 lbs

Tape Measure (in.):
Neck: 13.25
Chest: 33.75
L Bicep: 12.5
R Bicep: 12.5
L forearm: 10.75
R forearm: 10.75
Waist: 28.75
Hips: 30
Butt: 35
L thigh: 20.25
R thigh: 20
L calf: 13.5
R calf: 13.5

I still have to work out my specific goals for this mission, but once I get them finalized I'll post them. This mission will run for 11 weeks from now until March 24th.

So, until then,
Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 1

Day 104 - Snowdio

2007-12-23T21:55:00.000-08:00

Hi folks. Just a quick post to say that I don't have much time to post other than to admit I didn't get my scheduled cardio session in at the gym today. I did however, spend an hour and a half outside in the snow with my nephew making snowballs, punching and karate chopping the snow, throwing snowballs at trees, shoveling snow, running in snow, jumping in snow, doing pushups in snow, doing squats in snow, and I even did a bunch of chin-ups and pull-ups on my old jungle gym that is still set up in the yard. So it wasn't the regular old HIIT workout that I scheduled, but I sure worked up a sweat. I also already have sore legs and shoulders, which might be from yesterday's workout, but the snow playing workout was pretty good too.

Also, even with all the holiday goodies around, I still managed 5 clean meals today...although the 6th meal was definitely a cheat! It was a nice piece of homemade apple pie and a gingerbread cookie! Oh well, 'tis the season. At least it was only a 1/8th size peice of pie and only one cookie.

Happy Holidays,
Raiden

Day 104

Day 103 - Feeling Nostalgic

2007-12-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

Today I returned to where it all began for me. I went back to the gym where I first started to do weight training years ago. It's been about 3.5 years since I last worked out there. They've since added some new equipment and got rid of some of the old. A nice improvement overall. The nicest addition in my opinion was a world-class rowing machine, the concept 2, which is used by olympic rowers and is the recommended rowing machine for CrossFit. I had to try it out and I must say that rowing is quite possibly one of the best overall workouts you can do. I did 3x500m sprints on it and I was totally wiped by the end of it, even though that only took me a little over 10 min.

It was kind of nice to go back there and work out again. I even saw some familiar faces, people that I used to see work out a lot when I was going regularly years ago.

Well, I don't have the camera that I've been using (my gf claimed dibbs on it while she visits her family), so I'm relying on the webcam in my MacBook. Thought I'd have fun with the background feature of Photo Booth since my little cousins have been playing with it and having fun with it.

Anyway, I would just like to take this time to say thanks for all the holiday wishes that all the Shredders have been throwing out, and I'd just like to throw mine into the mix. Hope everyone is having fun enjoying good company and relaxing, while still staying healthy and merry!

Cheers!
Raiden

Day 102 - Home for the Holidays

2007-12-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today was a travel day, so I spent most of the day on the road. I arrived safe and sound at my folk's house. Spent the evening playing with my nephew, so I'm rather tuckered out right now. My plan is to hit the gym in the morning before my sister and her family arrive.

I had some fun checking out my parents food stock. It's a good thing they're both eating healthier these days too. 3/4 of the fridge is filled with fresh vegetables. They've got a good stash of organic oatmeal and quinoa as well! It's strange, I never had quinoa when I lived there, but seems as though they probably discovered it about the same time I did. I even found a box of Quinoa pasta! They've also got a bunch of about 8 bananas and some other fresh fruit.

In other news, the charity hockey game I'm playing in has been advertised on the lighted billboard outside the rink coming into town, as well as an ad and article in the local paper. That might have to do with one of my old teammates though, who is now the sports section writer for this paper and will also be playing in the game.

I'm about to crash hard, so I'll have to cut it short again tonight.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Day 101 - Last normal post before holidays

2007-12-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

Don't be fooled by the title, my mission isn't over yet, but I will be starting my holidays tomorrow and will be on the road until after the new year. But have MacBook, will travel. I can plug in at my folks home until I leave on Boxing day. From there, I may not be able to plug in until New Year's, but we'll see.

Here's a picture of me using the Christy Commemerative Photo method. This is ME with my commemorative hockey goalie stick purchased on Sunday (Dec. 16) in celebration of having completed 95% of my mission goals. I have lost fat, improved my cardiovascular fitness, increased my strength and stamina, gained muscle mass, am eating healty, am fit and strong, and am confident in my capablitiy of returning to the ice to compete and excel in a competitive hockey game. The only thing left for me to do is shock my friends and relatives (should happen tomorrow!) and to play in the hockey game.

After my hockey game on Boxing Day is my "relaxed period" before I start up my second mission in the new year. Until then, I thought I would outline my exercise plans up to then. I've had an idea in my head what I'm going to do, but if I post it here, then I'll be more "accountable" to stick to it.

Friday 21 (tomorrow) - travel day, rest day
Saturday 22 - Strength/Weight training at my old gym in my old town
Sunday 23 - HIIT cardio and light weights
Monday 24 - Christmas Eve, rest day
Tuesday 25 - Christmas Day, rest day
Wednesday 26 - Boxing Day, milestone 1, hockey game day!
27-29 relaxed days, possibly some bodyweight squats and push-ups, but nothing extreme
30 - Strength/Weight training at hotel in city I'm celebrating new year's with friends
Dec 31 - Jan 2 - New Years celebrations (relaxed days)

Sometime after Jan 2 I'll start my 2nd mission. More details when the time comes!

I'd like to write more, but yes, busy, busy busy. For those that I haven't gotten around to commenting on, don't worry, I've been reading everybody's blogs! I'm sure I'll have more time to comment soon. I gotta go finish wrapping some presents now though, so the wrong people don't see them too early!

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Day 100 - The Century!

2007-12-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

Today marks triple digits as I enter day 100 of my Return to Form challenge. I feel like I should make a big post or something, but I honestly don't have the time and I wouldn't be able to do it true justice, so I'll just make it simple and promise to make some more interesting posts in the future. I'll probably have time to over the holidays, but we'll have to see about that.

Personally, I've been busy finishing up things for work (school) as I have a big deadline for a conference paper submission this friday as well as some other big stuff that I can't talk about here :)

All this is going on while I also prepare to head home on friday to see the family. Craziness! Tack on top of that the crazy hours with my gym now, present shopping, wrapping, Christmas baking, and I'm all over the place.

Today though, I did get my strength training session in and upped all my weights again. I'm pretty pleased with my squat and deadlift progress, and I'm loving the weighted chin-up/pull-up/dips.

I also semi-fixed my image program problem, so the nice pics are back up.

That's all I got for today, need some quality rest!

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Day 99 - Just Pics

2007-12-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

As the title says, just pics today. Got in a cardio session today, but no weights (weight room was closed, and today wasn't a weight day anyway).

I do have an interesting bit I'd like to talk about, but I'm really tired right now, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Day 99

Day 98 - Shoveling/Weights Morning/Evening Split

2007-12-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

With the snowstorm that hit us hard yesterday and continued on through the night, I started the morning bright and early with a shoveling and ice scraping workout. Even after my "pre-shoveling" last night, there was still a fair amount of snow on the car. There was also a nice layer of ice encasing the car as towards the tail end of the storm, a bit of rain fell and then quickly froze. I'm not usually a morning workout person, but this got my heart rate up and kept me alert for the rest of the day.

However, I think the extra energy expended this morning made my scheduled evening session a little lighter. I passed on the cardio tonight, but still managed to get all my weights in, just in the nick of time before they booted us out of the weight room, as an exam was about to start.

Also, today is my weekly fat pinching day, so here's this weeks updated stats:

Week 14: 2007-12-10 to 2007-12-17
Weight: 134.66 (-0.33)
BF: 20.80 (-0.16)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/13/12 (9.44%)

Here's where you can find the rest of my weekly stats.

My weight still hasn't switched modes yet, as it is still going down, although much slower. My body fat is still going down, which is good, but I think the muscle mass gains are too small at this point to be noticeabley measureable. I do feel stronger and my muscles feel a lot firmer when they're flexed. I might still be having a hard time shoveling enough calories into my body. It's a lot harder to get all those calories when you aren't pigging out on sugary fatty foods.

I'll probably have no problem getting enough calories over the break, but for now, I'm still concentrating on eating clean.

I still haven't solved my image editing problem as I didn't have much time today to try and fix it. So, instead of struggling with it, here's today's pics:

Day 98

Day 97 - Nordic Track

2007-12-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

The day started off with a mini-milestone. I went to the local sports equipment store and picked up a new hockey goalie stick. It was a great feeling to be able to pick out a stick, feel it in my hands, take my stance and try it out. It was also a weird feeling to realize that I had been out of the game so long that my preferred model had been discontinued.

We got nailed with another snowstorm here, so most people were hibernating inside. I had planned to take another rest day, as I think I might have been over-doing the cardio lately. Well, it turns out that I had a movie to return tonight and the roads weren't in any condition to drive in. So, what to do? Most people would probably just pay the late fee and take it in when the roads were cleared. But there are few things that can match my love for freshly fallen snow. My gf bundled up in our scarves and toques and headed out to face the Great White Blizzard.

Walking through knee deep snow turns out to be pretty good exercise. All that snow can get heavy and add a lot of resistance! It was an eerie feeling, as the outside is always so quiet when it's snowing and there were very few cars on the road, and almost no other people walking about. We took some time out of our trek to make some snow angels, make big snow piles to jump in, and jump as high as we could and land in the soft snow.

By the time we had returned the movie and made it back to our apartment, we were wiped! We had wet boots, rosy cheeks, and runny noses. It's great to be a kid in Canada...Oh, I'm not 10 anymore? Ooops.

Well, tomorrow I'll be back in the gym, back on the regular, more traditional exercise program, working even harder.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Ok, so my other image editing program isn't behaving right now, so I'll post how I was before:

Day 97

Day 96 - Christmas Fever

2007-12-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

Today was my scheduled rest day, and my gf and I braved the madness that is the shopping mall at this time of year. We managed to complete a HIIT version of present shopping. We were focused with a well thought out plan. Before I arrived at the mall, I had visualized the targets that I needed to hit, and visualized myself completing these targets. Each target was attacked in a short burst of high intensity, resting, then attacking the next. Agility training involved ducking and weaving around other unsuspecting customers.

After we finished our shopping workout, we retired and put up some Christmas lights and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We're really getting into the spirit of things. Christmas is actually close enough that it doesn't feel like a commercial cop-out to start doing the traditional activities.

I am wondering though if I should have given my relatives a heads up on my current progress. I suspect I'll be receiving a lot of clothing a size too big.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Speedbump 4: Leaving the nest and adjusting my life

2007-12-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of my story documenting the parts of my life that have brought me to Day 0, when I decided to change my daily habits for life, and for the better, to ultimately achieve my goals of reaching the best shape of my life, being fit and healthy, and full of energy. For other posts, see the rest of my story.

I have a bit of extra time this morning since I woke up early, and the start of the ShredderSphere has given me a bit more incentive to revisit and explore where I came from, and reinforce my PRW (see Adam's My Biggest Secret).

My last speedbump left me getting ready for university and learning to deal with ulcerative colitis. I had spent the summer building my strength up and getting my UC under control. However, with UC, flare-ups have a high occurrence during periods of stress.

Well, I just found this site that documents stressful life events and their relative stress level. When I put in the situations that I was in when I moved away to college, even though I was lacking the big ones, like dealing with death and divorce, I still would have scored over 300 on this test. This would have put me into the high range. Well, that sounds like a recipe for a flare-up, even after I had brought my UC down to a more manageable level over the summer through medication, rest, and moderate exercise.

I was moving away for the first time longer than a week or so, living in residence, living with a roommate, eating residence food (blech), dealing with my UC, seeing a chiropractor for my back pain, making new friends, not seeing my old friends, no longer playing sports, all the while taking a full course load in engineering with the pressure of having to maintain a high enough GPA to retain my scholarships. I came from a small town, so I was really unsure of how the small, "hometown hero" would handle the big city (relatively speaking, I am from Canada...).

I was sick. I was on a restricted diet, eating almost nothing but plain broiled chicken breasts and boiled potatoes (no salt, butter, toppings of any kind). I had to severley restrict my intake of salt, spices, flavourings, fat, fruit, fibrous veggies, dairy, sugar, caffeine, and the list goes on and on. If it had any type of fancy taste, I wasn't allowed to eat it. Bascially, I dreaded eating, but I was so hungry all the time. I was starving, but anything I ate would make me naseuous. Not only that, but as a first year university student, I had to severely restrict my alcohol intake as well. I had maybe 2 or 3 drinks my first semester. Not really the Animal House frat party lifestyle that people think about when going to college.

In addition to this bland diet, I wasn't exercising. I wasn't playing any of the sports that I used to. At this time, I was concentrating on getting my UC under control and doing the best at my studies. My body slowly withered away. A lot of my strength and muscles I had built up from my years of playing sports was disappearing. I didn't gain the freshman 15, I lost 10, and I'm sure most of it was muscle. This didn't help my back either. I needed those back muscles to keep my body stable and the pain down, and sitting at a desk all day doing schoolwork doesn't help the matter.

I was tired, and miserable, but still trying to enjoy the university experience. I made a lot of new friends and still managed to enjoy myself on the odd occasion. But it was a very hard period of adjustment. I was able to relax a bit more in the second semester after I had received my fall term marks. I had scored a perfect 4.3 GPA, straight A+ in all my courses. I had made the jump from smalll town high school to large University standards. To keep my all my scholarships, I only needed to keep a 3.7, so I now knew that I had a little bit of wiggle room and didn't have to stress myself out more about my schoolwork.

I slowly adjusted, gained some strength back. My UC wasn't as bad, and I slowly added more things to my diet. I also signed up for a couple intra-mural sports that weren't too demanding on my body. I ended the year with all my scholarships intact. I felt a bit more myself and was staying more active, as well as enjoying all the new friends I had met. Things were a lot different in my life at this time, but it was a new life that I was adjusting to. I was happier, but I was still sad about the life I had left behind. Growing up is hard to do, and my illness and injuries were putting me through more growing up than I wanted to deal with at this point.

Day 95 - Odd Hours

2007-12-14T17:36:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of at a loss for words today, which doesn't happen to me very often. Usually I have some idea of something elaborate that I want to write about. Not today I guess.

The only interesting thing regarding fitness today for me is that the my gym at the university doubles as an exam writing area, so the hours lately have been sporadic, as they don't want people banging weights while they write. So that meant today I had to do some extra planning and sneak off a bit early to get in my workout.

It was another great strength session on the StrongLifts program. Upped all my weights and am now doing weighted pull-ups. I didn't quite hit the prescribed 5x5 on those as I tapped out with 3 reps on the last set, but I'm sure I'll get it next time.

Tomorrow is a rest day, but I'll probably be pretty busy anyway. Well, now I'm off to relax for the rest of the evening with the gf.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Day 94 - Entering the ShredderSphere

2007-12-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

Today marks the first day of daily accountability through the ShredderSphere on Adam Waters' Real Time Physique Blog.

My current mission began back on Sept. 10. I've been blogging and posting pictures (almost) daily since Day 52 after I had seen the camaraderie grow among the original Shredder Council. I upped the ante so to say, to include public accountability as part of my mission and have also enjoyed the benefits of the camaraderie from other original Shredder Council members.

Although today is Day 1 of the ShredderSphere accountability phase, I will stay true to my original plans and goals for my current mission, which will end on Dec. 26 when I make my return to the ice for the first time in over 3 years and play in a charity hockey game with many of my old teammates from High School. I reached my fat loss goals early, and am currently following StrongLifts 5x5 strength training program w/ 2-3 additional cardio sessions per week, with strength gains (with some muscle mass) and cardiovascular fitness as my primary goals to be in peak condition for my hockey game.

After this, I will be taking a short break to rest after what will then be over a hundred days (107 to be exact!) of hard training and enjoy the rest of the holiday season with friends and family.

I will then begin a new mission shortly after the new year that will coincide with the remainder of the ShredderSphere timeline. I'll outline those goals more when the time comes, but in short, it will be more strength training, followed by an intense 4-5 week cutting period to trim my body fat even more using a similar self devised program that I followed for my original fat loss stage. The difference will be the inclusion of more compound lifts as well as working on technique for the power lifts, such as the power clean, clean & jerk, and snatches.

So for me, daily accountability trudges on. For others, it starts now. But whether you've already been practicing daily accountability, just starting, or restarting looking for that extra push, we're all in this together. Shred on!

Get your game face on!
Raiden

P.S. I also thought it would be nice to commemorate this occasion by celebrating with a bit of graphic work w/ my pics since I was doing some image work at "work" work today for a paper I'm writing and it got me in the mood to do some more. I've included a "ShredderSphere" comparison front pic to follow my progress over the next 100 days, but I want to keep my Mission 1 comparison pics because, well, I'm just so damn proud of them so far, and as I mentioned, my mission 1 isn't over yet.

Day 93 - CrossFit

2007-12-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

As I think more and more about my ultimate goals, the more I think about my "dream" body. Others may have a picture in their mind, or have pasted their head onto their dream body to help them visualize. Ultimately, I want to be fit, strong, and healthy. I am an athlete, but an athlete that no longer has a competitive sport to compete in. What does it mean to be an athlete? What does it mean to be athletic?

The more I think about it, the clearer the picture is for me. I want to model my "dream" body on the athletes that exhibit the greatest strength in all aspects of fitness, which includes cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. The best examples I can think of that cover this category are Boxers, Wrestlers, and mixed martial artists. Now, I'm not a violent person, but I like that each of these sports requires someone to compete in a specific weight class.

As a shorter and smaller person, I've always had to rely on other aspects of my athletic ability to compete against those bigger and stronger than me. My strong points in athletic fitness were always, well, everything but strength and power. But that was absolute strength and power. When you compete in weight classe, strength to weight ratio and power to weight ratio are what matters. So, my "dream" body is to maximize my abilites in all aspects of fitness, while remaining in my "weight" class, whatever that may naturally fall in, which I'm guessing is somewhere between 135-145 lbs.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I'm not just looking for big muscles and low body fat. I'm looking for everything else. Yesterday I stumbled upon CrossFit, which is a strength and conditioning program that combines different exercises into workouts that develop all aspects of fitness. It takes the idea of cross-training to the extreme. If you haven't heard of it before, you should definitely check it out and watch some of the workout videos. Everyday they post a Workout of the Day (WOD) and CrossFit athletes performing them. Now, I've only watched a few, but you'll soon realize that these are killer workouts. Watch these people with excellent physiques become totally wiped and struggle to complete these exercises as they tire.

This program is used by firefighters, police officers, SWAT, and military. I like to think of it as the training Jason Bourne got.

I think this is exactly what I need. A lot of the WODs look like obstacle courses, which I used to just love as a kid. Run, jump, climb, throw, lift, as fast as you can and try and put in the best time.

Well, it turns out that there's a CrossFit club in my current city. I really want to join, but I don't know if I'll do it right away, as it would be an extra cost and I'd have to drive to it. I can't really justify that now since my gym membership is essentially free (student at Uni) and it's a short walk away. It's also at a specific time each day, so there's no flexibility. Eventually it's something I would like to do though. It just looks awesome! You do something different everyday, so it's exciting and you wouldn't have to worry about boredom setting in. It is possible to just follow the workouts on your own, but they use a lot of equipment that my gym doesn't have.

They also use a lot of squats, deadlifts, presses, power cleans, clean and jerks for the weight lifting portions. I think I'll have to work on my form first before I fully engage. But this is certainly exciting stuff!

Cheers,
Raiden

ShredderSphere daily accountability starts tomorrow, so
Get your game face on!

Day 93

Day 92 - Raiden's Chocolate Granola Bars

2007-12-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

I mentioned yesterday that I spent some time Sunday making my power/protein granola bars. This time they turned out better than the batch before as I made a few changes. I think that the recipe might be ready for sharing.

Granola:
4 cups oats
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup almonds (chopped)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup natural honey (heated)
1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened)

Batter:
8 scoops chocolate protein powder
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup cranberries (dried)
3/4 cup egg whites (approx 5)
1 tbsp natural peanut butter (heated)

1. Mix dry ingredients for granola in a large bowl.
2. Mix heated honey and applesauce together
3. Drizzle honey and applesauce mixture over dry granola mixture and mix well to evenly coat
4. Spread granola mixture on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper (or waxed paper)
5. Bake at 325F for 30 min or more (until nice and toasty), mixing and stirring around at intervals of 10 min. to prevent outside portions from burning

While granola is baking:
6. In a separate mixing bowl, add water to protein powder and wheat bran mixture until it's close to a cake batter mixture consistency (hand stir with wooden spoon)
7. Add egg whites, cranberries, and raisins and mix well
8. Slowly add heated peanut butter and mix well.

9. Once granola is nice and toasty, mix it with the protein "batter" to coat the granola.
10. Lighty spread this mixture into either a 8x13 pan (thick bars) or two 9x9in pans (thinner) lined with parchment paper (or waxed paper). Spread it just so it reaches the edges of the pans and DON'T press it, just make it so it has a general uniform height. There needs to be spaces in the mixture to get a nice even texture
11. Bake at 325 for another 25-30 min.
12. Let stand to cool and then remove from pans
13. Cut into bars of desired size
14. Store in airtight container and enjoy!

According to fitday, the total batch is approx:
3746 calories, 31/51/18 protein/carbs/fat 287g protein, 564g carbs, 73g fat

I cut mine into 12 bars which yields 312 cal/bar, 23.9g protein, 47g carbs (7.8g fiber), 6g fat, <1g saturated

15 bars would give you 250 cals/bar, 16 would give you 234 cals/bar.

The protein content will of course depend on your protein powder (fitday uses 25g/ scoop). The carbs are split about 50/50 complex (oats, bran, and nuts)/simple (applesauce, honey, raisins, cranberries).

Some changes you can make to this are fairly simple.

Up the protein with an extra scoop of protein powder and egg whites.
Lower the fat: drop the peanut butter (I didn't find it added much taste)
Raise the fat: add 1/4 cup of walnuts or pecans
Lower the sugar: swap out some applesauce for the honey
Chewier and more complex carbs: more oats

Anyway, if you do make them, let me know and if you have any suggestions for improving them, let me know as well! I like the taste, but that's me. I'd like to know what others think.

Today's pics:

Day 92

Day 91 - The True Confessions of Raiden Matsuo

2007-12-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made a short but to the point post. I had done wrong over the weekend and the guilt was getting to me. The accountability factor of having to report back to this blog did help control it however.

It was kind of one of those deals where a cheat meal turned into a cheat day, which turned into a cheat weekend. It all started with the work Christmas party, which was a buffet style dinner. Luckily though, as a result of eating smaller, more frequent meals, I'm unable to overeat as much as I used to be able to in one sitting. But then there was the beer, and then there was the desert table, and then there was the drunken late night ordering of pizza, and then there was the hangover breakfast, and then there was the samosas for lunch (which is my normal cheat meal), and then there was the beer at the matinee music gig that I caught, and then there was the leftover pizza from the night before.

My body basically had a conniption from all the garbage I was suddenly feeding it. I felt awful by the end of this trek. I was back to my senses by Sunday, but there was definitely some damage done. Oh, and what do I see? A couple of comments from Sammy and Adam advising caution when trying to put on some muscle to not overeat, and to continue eating good clean foods. Oh, the guilt was really setting in there.

But, as I look back, it may not have been as bad as I've made it out to be. As I said, I only managed one plate at the buffet, and a good third of it was filled with salad and grilled tomatoes and peppers. I filled up mostly on the meat, which was a seafood mixture of mussels, clams, and fish (seafood is always good lean protein) and half of a chicken breast, and I had just a bit of pasta and potatoe salad. Ok, well, I won't talk about the beer and the cake, but I did get some watermelon in to slow me down from the cake. The pizza we ordered was topped with chicken, ham, mushroom, peppers, and onion, so I managed to stay away from the sausage, ground beef and bacon. My hangover breakfaast was half of a waffle covered in lots of good fruit (and whipped cream) with a side of ham and some baked beans. So not great, but not terrible.

I did miss my workout yesterday, but once again, I really needed the rest, especially after I spent most of the day on my feet doing chores as well as making up another batch of my protein fortified granola bars. I was exhausted by the end of the day.

Today was much better as the order of the work week definitely makes it easier for me to stick to my planned nutrition. I was back in the gym today and got in a good workout and banged out some great sets. I left the gym completely exhausted. The difference between the strength building exercises and all the isolation exercises I was doing before is dramatic. Before, when I was just focusing on 2 or 3 body parts per workout, that body part would get tired, but I'd still have plenty of energy left, or at least that's what it seemed like. Doing whole body compound strength exercises leaves me just wiped, but I still feel good. It's more like the feeling after playing a game of hockey or doing some rock climbing.

Well, before I ramble on too much longer, here are my weekly measurement stats:
Week 13: 2007-12-03 to 2007-12-10
Weight: 134.99 (-0.28, -18.4 total)
BF: 20.96 (-0.07, -5.6 total)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/12 (9.74%)

Not much changes this week, but the PhysicsDiet data is still playing catch up. I expect to see it go up next week. Even with my weekend binge though, the fat levels stayed the same as far as the pinches go. So, I guess the answer to my transformer hard-gainer in disguise question was that the buffet meal (and subsequent binge) didn't do a whole lot for either muscle or fat, but it did make me feel like crap. My stomach is starting to feel not quite as tight as it was a couple weeks ago. Although, some of my pinches felt like I could have recorded them as the next notch down, but it wasn't quite enough for me to record them as being different from last weeks numbers.

Well, here's today's pics:

Day 91

Day 90 - Guilty

2007-12-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

I'm guilty. Full confession tomorrow and update to this post tomorrow. It's late, so I need sleep.

Addendum:

Day 90

Day 88 - Transformer: Hard Gainer in Disguise

2007-12-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

I hit a new milestone today, but not necessarily one I was looking for. Today I hit a new low on the scale, 133.4 lbs. Of course, I thought I was now on a strengthening and muscle gain program. I guess I've just fallen into the classic "but I don't want to get fat again" mode. Even though I was trying to eat more, I just haven't been able to get myself to really put myself in a surplus. I mean, I kind of pigged out a bit last weekend. After doing so, I sort of had that fat bloated and gross feeling, and backed off a bit. Maybe that is what I'm going to have to do to gain some muscle back? I mean, I did see my weight go up a bit this week only to have it rocket back down the past couple days.

Maybe, even after those years of packing on the fat, I'm a hard-gainer in disguise? Back when I was lifting heavy before, I don't think I was ever really able to put muscle on before. I might get a bit more definition, but my weight would go down. Well, at least I know a bit more about this stuff now. I only had my bf tested once before up until this past year (I was about 16% back when I was 18). I've done some reading that puts reasonable muscle gains in the range of 0.25-0.5 lbs a week (I'm not a genetic freak so I'm going to aim for the average). That's lean muscle tissue. With that muscle tissue comes about an extra 0.25-0.5 lbs of glycogen and water. So a gain of about 0.5-1 lb of lean mass should be possible in a week with little fat gain.

Ok, well, I know I'm really good at pigging out, but can I pig out on good clean food? Maybe. We'll see. Maybe I just need a good binge fest to spike my muscle growth to go with my weight training. Hmmm, I'm just about to head out to my gf's Christmas work party w/ plenty of free food provided. Will I live to tell the tale? Tune in tomorrow and find out if Raiden managed to gain muscle, or gain fat, or through the miracle of the Hard-Gainer in Disguise, actually lose muscle and fat after pigging out!

Until next time, Transformers, transform and roll out! (apologies to Optimus Prime and Hasbro)

Day 88

Day 87 - The Gun Show

2007-12-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Hey, did you get your tickets yet...to the Gun Show?

Ok, well, the gun show pics have been making their way around the Shredder blogs, so I thought I would throw mine in the mix. It's one of those things that you never really see for yourself. It's like looking at your own ears. No matter how fast you turn your head, you can never see them with your own eyes. Not even me, and I think I have pretty big ears. Or maybe my eyes just aren't fast enough o_0

Haha, ok, well, that was fun.

...and now for the rest of the story:

Just pics today. I'll chat more later. Gotta get some quality sleep to let those muslces recoup and grow!

Day 87

Day 86 - The obligatory fat pants pic and another change up

2007-12-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well, I'll start off today by saying it was an honour being featured in Adam Waters' blog post today as part of the "ShredderSphere". Back when I started taking my daily pics and lurking on Adam's blog, I never thought I'd come as far as I have and actually become a part of Adam's shredding community. Although I'm not an official member of the Shredder Council or a part of the current weekly accountability group shred, I've been shredding alongside them all and posting daily (since day 52).

Currently, I've switched modes from fat loss to muscle gain/strengthening in preparation for my return to the ice to play in a special hockey game over the Christmas break. So, as part of the strengthening, I've upped my calories and my weight has changed direction and is slowly going up. I figured I should get the obligatory "fat pants" pic done before I put on too much more (hopefully muscle). My lowest daily weigh-in was 133.6 lbs a week ago. Today my weigh-in was 134.8 when I took these pictures:

These pants were a size 32 waist. The new pair of jeans I bought a few weeks ago are size 28. I actually probably could have gone with a 27 in the waist, but my legs were too big.

Today, I also changed up my weight routine. Initially I had been continuing on with the bodybuilding type muscle growth/fat loss 3 set x 8-12 rep x 3 exercise scheme. This has been great for my muscle definition and my fat loss, but isn't the best scheme for building strength and power, which is my focus now, since those are the qualities that I desire as an ice hockey goaltender. This requires different type of exercise-set-rep scheme, honestly, a type that I hadn't really done before. I was kind of stuck in the 3x10 or 3x12 or 3x15 mindset with a lot of isolation exercises.

Well, I'm going to be following the StrongLifts 5x5 beginner strength program, which focuses on compound exercises using heavier weights at lower reps. Even though I've been weight training on and off for close to 8 years now, I am probably still considered a beginner with respect to strength training (which is different from general weightlifting and bodybuilding). As I haven't done some of the exercises in this program in a while, I think it's best for me to follow the beginner program. I'll be using different starting weights once I figure those out, but the idea of progression in weights rather than sets and reps will be followed.

Today was the first day of this new program and I must say, the barbell squats felt pretty good and I concentrated a lot on my form (after listening to Michael's podcast). The pull-ups that I did were probably the most draining on me, but they felt awesome. 3 sets of those, each one to failure.

Anyway, I hope to catch up and reply to some of the comments and to get around to everyone else's blog to comment soon. It's a busy time for me, so everyone keep shreddin'!

Today's pics:

Day 86

Day 85 - Snowed in!

2007-12-04T19:01:00.001-08:00

Well, the snow continued to fall last night and for most of today. We got totally hammered and pretty much everything was shut down all around the city. That also meant that my gym was closed down. Boo-urns I say, Boo-urns! This meant that I had to improvise on my workout today. I am not so well equipped in my humble apartment, but I did some resistance band work and some stability ball exercises. Not close to a full workout, but better than nothing I guess. I really wish I had some free weights and a bench. You can do quite a bit with just those. I might look into getting the Bowflex select-tech set which are close to $500, but I don't know if I really have the money to spend on those, especially when my gym is essentially free. I mean, it's not like it gets snowed in every week, so 500 bucks is a lot to spend just for those rare occassions when it snows a ton.

Believe it or not, even with almost a foot of snow on the ground, I was running around doing other things, so I didn't quite have time to sit down and focus on making my video. I could put up the quick and dirty version, but I'd rather wait a bit.

Oh, just thought I would add, I found out today that the "pick-up" hockey game I'm planning to play in on Boxing Day has now become a charity game in memory of a former arena employee who died of suddenly of cancer a couple years ago. All proceeds will be going to the Cancer Society. They're also looking into getting it filmed for the local community channel. Talk about added pressure now! There could potentially be a lot of people coming out to watch this game, including a lot of old town folk who used to watch me back in high school. I definitely gotta up my conditioning now! After I found out about this, I told my girlfriend and then she proceeded to practice "shooting" on me by throwing balls at me from point blank. I think my reflexes and hand-eye co-ordination are still there, but we'll see.

Anyway, here's today's pics:

Day 85

Day 84 - My 12 Week Transformation

2007-12-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well, my current trek doesn't end today, but I did hit the magical 12 week point. Since 12 weeks seems to be a common length of time that others have been using as the time it takes to make significant changes and turn their health around, I thought I would take some time to reflect on the changes that I have made in this time. Don't have much time before I need to get some sleep, so I'll probably keep it short and maybe add some other stuff later.

Mentally, I have seen big changes. As I did more and more things to make myself healthier, my mental health improved. I have been in general a lot happier and overall more energetic in my everyday life. I have been more alert, aware, and simply, just better.

Physically, I went from being the winded weekend athlete, dreading covering a "fast and fit" person during frisbee games, to being the dreaded one. I could play a game and not be completely exhausted afterward. I was more confident in my abilities and was able to push my body further.

Nutritionally, I have reduced my cravings of junk food as well as my intake of those junk foods drastically. I enjoy eating healthy food and it is now habit to go to the effort of preparing a full meal when I'm hungry rather than nibbling at whatever cheap food is hanging around and never getting around to eating real food. I've rediscovered fruits and vegetables, and over the course of my journey so far, I've introduced or at least tried out a lot of new exciting foods.

Statistically speaking, I lost 18.1 lbs of weight. Since my BF scale isn't accurate, I don't have a good number on the overall fat loss, but if I assume that my starting BF% was 21%, which I don't think is too far off, and use my ending stats from the AccuMeasure, then I have essentially maintained my lean body mass, so the weight loss is essentially all fat and water weight.

I consistently saw the amount of weight I lifted go up, and made lots of gains in my cardiovascular health.

I plan on putting a little 12 week transformation video together soon. We'll see how that little project goes. I might even be able to get it up tomorrow, but we'll see. If it's not tomorrow, it may not be until the weekend when I get a chunk of free time. Maybe I'll put up some graphs as well.

Here's the weekly stat update:

Week 12: 2007-11-26 to 2007-12-03
Weight: 135.27 (-1.09, -18.1 total)
BF: 21.03 (-0.40, -5.6 total)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/12 (9.74%)

I was definitely surprised to see my Jackson/Pollock dip below into the magical single digits. I couldn't believe it. I redid the measurements 3 times, but they kept coming out the same, so I guess it must be true. I lost 2mm of both my ab and thigh measurements, and that was with my decision to shoot for maintenance calories last week, a missed workout, and 2 sub par workouts. Amazing.

Oh, I just thought I would add that I did make it back to the gym today after taking the whole weekend off and having a couple sub-par workouts before the weekend. I got in a full workout today and I felt great. I think the extra day really gave me what I needed to jump back into it. I mean, I even had to trek through a winter storm to get to the gym! It was one of those 2 steps forward, slide 1 step backward kind of walks. Here's the view outside my apt window today:

and here are my daily pics, showing the changes I made in just 12 short weeks!

Day 84

Day 83 - An extra rest day

2007-12-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I missed out on my scheduled workout today, but I think it might be for the best. I slept in unbelievably long for me today so I think my body was telling me to slow down. I spent most of the day doing stuff getting in the Christmas spirit with my gf, so the gym appointment got pushed out of the way. I'm kind of sad that I didn't quite push the whole way to the 84 day/12 week finish line, but I still plan on going hard until Christmas. I want to make a nice post for tomorrow, but honestly, I've got a lot of other stuff going on, so it'll be hard enough for me to just get in my gym time.

Anyway, until tomorrow! I gotta crash again. Body needs rest, good quality sleep!

P.S. Today's Pics

Day 83

Day 82 - I Love Rest Days

2007-12-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

Man, do I ever love rest days. I needed this one so much more than the ones in the past. I did a lot of relaxing things, including trying to make my own power granola bars. They didn't turn out quite how I was expecting, but at the least, they are still edible and I've got enough to last me through the week at minimum. I'm going to have to play around with the recipe a bit. My girlfriend wasn't too fond of the texture, but said that the taste was ok. Anyway, once I get a good batch, I'll share the recipe with you all.

Today was mostly uneventful in the health department other than me overeating a bit at supper, feeling a bit guilty and then sneaking in a short wii workout. Hey, it's just playing video games, eh? So technically, I was still resting.

Pictures will go up for tomorrow. For now, I really need my sleep.

P.S. Today's Pics

Day 82

Day 81 - A bit more energy

2007-11-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post. I'll get pics up later. Just wanted to say that I did manage to get to the gym today for my workout. My energy level was still a little lower though, so I didn't manage to get in my cardio session after my weights, but I really think I just needed the rest. I'm looking forward to my rest day tomorrow and sleeping in after some long hours of work this week.

P.S. Today's Pics:

Day 81

Day 80 - First Real Low Day

2007-11-29T19:06:00.000-08:00

Well, today was certainly different. It was the first day since I started my task that I had a real low day. I mean, I was totally wiped, had no energy and really had to drag myself to the gym. Every day before, I had been bursting with energy and anxiously awaited for my partner in crime to get home so we could go both shred away. Today was the first day that she was all pumped to go before me. It took me an extra half hour of lying on the couch before I was ready to go.

When I got to the gym, I really felt like the tanks were empty. I had almost no gas to do my warmup, but I did manage to get through my weights. I took a bit extra in between sets toward the end, and had to lower my weights on my last chest exercise. In the past couple weeks, I've usually gone for a bit more cardio after my weights, but this time, I had to pass.

I'm now at day 80 and nearing the end of 12 weeks of pretty much exercising 6 days a week. I know in BFFM they recommended to take a break every 12 weeks or so. I'm kind of still committed to seeing things through until the Christmas break. I have my scheduled rest day on Saturday. I'm still going to try and get my workout in tomorrow, but if I'm really low energy again, I may have to re-evaluate and maybe take a week off. Or maybe it was just an off day and I just need to get some better sleep tonight and eat a little better tomorrow (my meals were a little off today).

Here's today's pics:

Day 80

Day 79 - Another change up

2007-11-28T12:42:00.001-08:00

Hey, I like doing things a bit different, so starting today I'm going to make my daily post before my workout. That way I might have some more interesting things to talk about other than my workout, and I won't waste away the wee hours of the morning finishing up my posts.

Today I thought I would share a little bit of data that I've collected.
For the budget conscious shredder, eating healthy may not come cheap. Some healthy food is cheaper, but others not so much. I think the biggest change that I noticed was that I was actually eating more food than before, and a lot more meat, since I tried having a source of lean protein at every meal.

Sources of lean protein are probably the largest part of my grocery bill, so I've kept a few tabs on the following staples, the stuff that I pretty much always have on hand, and end up buying even when it isn't on sale.

For some reason there's a lot of blank space here:

Food	Unit Size	#Servings	Protein/ Serving	Cost/ Unit	Cost/ 25g protein	Cost/ serving
Whole Eggs	dozen	12	6.3	2.25	0.74	0.19
Extra Lean Ground Beef	1 lb	4	21.1	2.99	0.89	0.75
Top Sirloin	1 lb	4	34.4	5.99	1.09	1.50
Chicken Breast (can)	1 tin	2	15	1.33	1.11	0.67
Egg Whites	dozen	2	21	2.25	1.34	1.13
Liquid Egg White	500 g	10	5	2.69	1.35	0.27
Protein Powder	1 kg	32	21	36.48	1.36	1.14
Cottage Cheese	500 g	4	15	3.29	1.37	0.82
Canned Tuna	1 tin	2	15	1.99	1.66	1.00
Chicken Breast	1 bag	10	22	19.99	2.27	2.00
Canned Salmon	1 tin	2	19	3.79	2.49	1.90
Salmon	1 portion	1	28.8	2.99	2.60	2.99

All prices are in Canadian Dollars and are listed as the lowest price I've paid for them that I could find or knew of off the top of my head. If was a real nut, I'd keep running tallies and use an average price, but that's probably a little extreme. I use the cost/25g of protein metric because that is about what I aim for in my protein intake per meal. For others, this might be higher or lower, depending on your needs.

Some notes:
The cheapest on this list, whole eggs, doesn't really count as a lean protein since it includes the fatty yolk. I eat mostly whites, so the average price for my egg protein intake is somewhere in between the price for whites and whole eggs. The next lowest, extra lean ground beef, isn't as clean as the other lean proteins since it still has a higher fat content than the others, most of which is saturated. Surprisingly, protein powder, even with all the marketing jazz and supplement company markup, comes in fairly reasonable. But if you use it too much, you're missing out on the other good stuff that comes from eating real food as well as the thermic effect since you're usually taking it in liquid form.

I guess it doesn't really change my grocery shopping or eating habits too much, except I'm going to try and make more use of egg (whites) and not to completely avoid the ground beef. Top Sirloin actually looks like a decent source as well, it's just a matter of limiting the size of the steaks that is the trouble. It's easy to take a nice big piece of meat which is probably closer to two servings. I think my salmon consumption will go down a bit as well and just make sure I keep up with my flax oil. I could get cheaper tuna as well, but for some reason I trust the little bit more expensive stuff more.

Well, there you have it, a short, but not too scientific insight on my grocery shopping habits. If anyone else has some tips on getting cheap sources of quality lean protein, let me know!

...and now for today's pics:

Day 79

Day 78 - Change of plans

2007-11-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

If you've been following me the last couple days, I was starting to incorporate carb cycling into my program to shed those last few pounds of fat. Today, I made a decision to alter those plans and add a new goal to my current milestone. In addition I'll be extending my milestone deadline to correspond with the date of the event for my new goal.

I've talked a bit about hockey in my past posts, and it was a very important part of my life when I was younger, especially back in high school. The ultimate goal of my quest is to get in the best shape of my life. This should also mean that I should be playing hockey. I haven't hit the ice for over 3 years now, but I am now making it part of my mission to get back on the ice and strap those pads on again.

Today, I got an invitation to play in an organized pick-up game (yeah, organized pickup sounds like an oxymoron) on Boxing day with all my old high school teammates and others from town, who will all be home for the holidays. For most people, I think this will be just some time to fool around and just have some fun. But for me, it symbolizes a lot more. I mean, if any of them knew it was my goal to train for this one single pick up game, they'd think I was crazy. But I've had a lot of setbacks since high school (my speedbumps!) and this game is going to mean a lot to me.

So, what does this mean? Well, today I weighed in at 133.8 lbs, and 20.4% BF (I post my PhysicsDiet numbers in my weekly stats, which are running averages, so they lag my daily numbers) on my scale. Before I made this blog, my goal was to get under 22% BF on my scale by Dec 15th. On my charts, I had only set the axis for my weight loss to go from 155 down to 135 (I made it fixed so I had something to shoot for). I since had to adjust the axis, and I also set 21% BF as a goal when I started blogging. To be honest, I never thought I was going to get below 135 lbs. Ever. So, I've essentially hit my BF% and total fat loss goals already. But, for me to play hockey, strength and stamina will be bigger factors now that I've lost most of the excess fat that was slowing me down.

Right now, losing fat won't really help me, as there's the possibility that I'll lose a bit of strength in the process and it probably won't make me that much faster. So, there's really only one way for me to go, and that's to now try and put on some lean muscle (especially back and legs), and at the same time also get my cardiovascular fitness up. Both of those new goals means I'm going to need a lot more calories, so carb cycling is now out the window. I'll return to that after the New Year to shed any bit of fat that I put on during this short muscle gain phase (and the holiday meals!).

My plan now is to shoot for maintenance calories all this week (2700), and then next week go into an approximately 10% calorie surplus (an even 3000). During this time, I'm not so much changing my workout schedule, but I am going to push myself even harder. Since I'll be eating more calories, I plan on having more energy so I can lift even more weight, and go even faster and longer on my cardio sessions. I'm not going to worry too much about whether the energy for my workouts is coming from the food I just ate or the fat stores in my body. I just want to give my heart the best workout it can get.

I'm not quite sure what kind of muscle gains I can make in this short time, but I'll take anything I can get.

Wish me luck!

Here's today's pics:

Day 78

Day 77 - Something doesn't add up! It's not Day 76!

2007-11-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well, I realized today that I'm one off on my day count. I missed counting a day somewhere back around day 35 when I was taking pictures. You'd think with my obsession with numbers that I would have caught onto this earlier. I should have realized my weekly stat posts weren't a multiple of 7. I guess I just thought it was an off by one error, which happens in computer programming, especially when your index starts with 0. Anyway, enough geek talk.

Today was my first high carb day, and I was aiming for eating maintenance calories, which according to my own calculations I have worked out to be around 2700, since I've been mostly aiming for 2200 a day and losing an average of 1 lb a week lately. To be honest, it seemed like a lot of food for me today, but hopefully I'll have a nice store of glycogen in my muscles now. I gave my legs a good workout, and they felt much better since I didn't do my HIIT on the bike like last week. I did however hit the bike for some post weight steady state cardio.

Tonight for supper I had a new food. My girlfriend and I tried making quinoa for the first time. In my healthy food searching I stumbled upon it and thought I'd give it a try. I picked up just a sampling from our local bulk food store and made it in my rice cooker. It's supposedly a real super food as it's a seed that is used like a grain, with a higher protein content than wheat or rice, with a well-rounded amino acid profile. It tasted pretty pretty good and was a nice change from rice or potatoes. It's a bit expensive though for a starchy staple, coming in at about $10/kg, especially compared to my big bags of rice. It's worth a try though. I think I'll get some more and try it in some mixed dishes instead of just eating it on its own.

Without further adieu, here's my weekly stats:

Week 11: 2007-11-19 to 2007-11-26
Weight: 136.36 (-1.23)
BF: 21.43 (-0.50)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/16/14 (10.96%)

and my daily pics:

Day 77

Speedbump 3: A life changing discovery

2007-11-26T06:44:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of my story documenting the parts of my life that have brought me to Day 0, when I decided to change my daily habits for life, and for the better, to ultimately achieve my goals of reaching the best shape of my life, being fit and healthy, and full of energy. For other posts, see the rest of my story.

I first starting really following a regular workout program after hockey season had finished up in my Grade 12 (final year) of high school. I had done a little bit of lifting here and there, and knew the basics regarding reps, technique, breathing, rest periods, and progression, but I didn't make it a regular thing until then. Mostly because I was young, still growing, didn't have the time, and didn't feel like I needed them. That all changed with the onset of my back problems. It was now necessary for me to make a commitment to strengthening my back muscles, and the rest of my body to support everything.

This however, wasn't my life changing discovery.

This is perhaps the hardest thing for me to write about and I still think that there's a part of me inside that is still suffering from denial. I don't know if I've ever fully accepted this, but I've been slowly learning to live with it. At the time though, I was riding an emotional roller coaster. I was finishing up my senior year at high school, enjoying the last bit of time I had together with my class before we all went our separate ways.

About a week before our grad class was to go on our class trip canoing down a river for a few days, after I had spent some time getting tests done at what seemed like unnecessary hospital visits, I was told that I had ulcerative colitis. I had never heard of it up to that point, but hearing the phrase "chronic disease" didn't do much for me. I was prescribed medication and rest. Rest, as in, you really should skip this class trip of yours that involves 3 days of paddling and sleeping on the ground. I was crushed. I refused to give up on the class trip and without really understanding what was going on with my body, I demanded to go anyway. The doctor's of course didn't recommend it, but said they couldn't stop me, but warned me that it would set back my recovery time.

I went on the trip, and had one of the best times of my life spending the days paddling down the river in a canoe with all my friends that I had grown up with since pre-school. It was only after this, and all the graduation ceremonies, that I would have to focus on my newly discovered affliction.

If you don't like to read about poop and bottoms and such, skip the next paragraph.

Ulcerative colitis is an auto-immuno disease affecting the gastrointestinal system, in that it is the body's response to rid itself of some foreign body or toxin, that isn't really there or really a threat (much like allergies). This causes inflammation of the bowels that is triggered often during times that the body is put under stress. Usually, the first sign that is recognized is blood in the stool. This inflammation can be put into remission and the symptoms will subside with medication and rest (and removal of the stress). It is similar and related to Crohn's disease. Both are classified as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which is not to be confused with Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is only symptomatic. The only difference between Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis, is the part of the GI system that is affected. Crohn's is found in the stomach itself, while Ulcerative Colitis is found in the large and small intestine. The biggest problem with these diseases, is that when the tissues are inflamed, then they are unable to absorb all the nutrients that the body needs that it gets from normal digestion. For this reason, when the first flare up is exhibited, weight (not specifically fat) loss is usually one of the signs. The other side of that, is that since the body isn't getting all the nutrients it needs, one usually also suffers from chronic fatigue.

By the end of the summer, through rest, some strength training for my back (I had also started massage therapy), and medication, I had my condition somewhat under control, but I still didn't fully understand what it was doing to my body. I wasn't doing everything that I was supposed to such as avoiding alcohol and fatty fried foods, eating small meals, taking all my medication, getting plenty of sleep, and avoiding stressful situations. I was starting University in the fall, so I had that adventure to look forward to, but my life had to shift focus from sports, to taking care of my health. This wasn't something that was going to happen overnight, especially for the athlete that was most known for his reckless abandon, sacrificing his body to stop that puck or baseball, diving in the air to keep that ball from going out of bounds, and slide tackling guys twice his size.

Day 75 - Where did the time go?

2007-11-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm not quite sure where the time went, but the blog has taken a bit of a backseat to the rest of my life. Yesterday was a rest day, but I spent it running a lot of those Saturday errands, which included some Christmas shopping. Today was a fun day doing stuff with my girlfriend. Weekends are all about spending more time with her. Managed to get my first low carb day in and a HIIT session, but not sure how low carb it was exactly. Might have just been a low calorie day. Sunday's are a bit more off the map than I plan to be during the week.

Even though I missed a post yesterday (rest day), I did take pics, but I think I'll just post today's:

Day 75

Day 73 - Looking forward to that rest day

2007-11-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

Not much to say today, at a little loss for words right now, just going to put up the daily pics I guess.

Day 73

Day 72 - Getting Ready for Carb Cycling!

2007-11-22T19:21:00.000-08:00

Workout today was chest and triceps. Warmed up on the bike and then cooled down on the elliptical after the weights.

I'm going to make this a short one since it's getting late for me and one of my new goals is to try and get to bed earlier and get more quality sleep. My biological clock wakes me up at the same time every day pretty much, whether I go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, or at 11pm. The difference between the two is the quality of sleep and how I feel later in the day. When I wake up I'm generally refreshed, but I feel the effects by the evening if I didn't get enough the night before.

I spent some time today planning my attack for the final 4 weeks before I hit my milestone 1 deadline. I'm pretty sure I'm going to reach my goal before that, but there's no harm in me going for exceeding it! I plan on finally incorporating some moderate carb cycling into my program for 4 weeks. I don't think I'm particularly carb sensitive and have always thrived on high carb diets before given my previous high activity levels. Anyway, my plan is as follows:

Sunday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Monday - High Carb w/ weights, ss* cardio
Tuesday - Low Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Wednesday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Thursday - High Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Friday - Low Carb w/ weights, HIIT
Saturday - Free, Rest

*Steady State

The idea is that I'll be hitting the HIIT workouts at my low points, since the HIIT workouts are the ones that burn the most fat as long as I'm not drained. This is a more moderate carb cycling, but I really do thrive on carbs (currently 55-60% of my cals), so I think it would be tough for me to go more than 2 days on low carb and I'd probably end up binging real bad on whole packages of rice cakes, triscuits, and baked tostitos.

Wow, not so short anymore...

Ok, here's today's pics:

Day 72

Day 71 - Where'd my pillow go?

2007-11-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

I feel sorry for my girlfriend. I've taken her pillow away. When we watch tv on the couch together, sometimes she lays her head in my lap. Well, before I had a nice little cushion for her, all that extra padding I had. Lately she's been joking with me and when she lays her head down she'll ask me, "Where'd my pillow go?". I guess my stomach is getting hard now because she's started putting a real pillow in my lap and then laying her head down. I feel sorry that I've taken her pillow away, but I'm proud that I've gotten rid of my pillow.

Ok, I'm being selfish now, I'm thinking about how funny it will be when I finally carve out that six pack and my stomach is all bumpy! Speaking of which, today was an ab day, so I guess that's what inspired me to write about that little anecdote. I tried a couple different ab exercises. I think I can stick with my girlfriend's ab workout one day of the week, and my ab workout the other. They're essentially the same exercises, but doing them slightly different. One exercise each for upper abs, lower abs, and obliques.

I also had to settle for a regular elliptical today for my HIIT. My ArcTrainer was taken again! I don't know why it's so popular now. Maybe everybody sees me using it and seeing how well I've progressed over the last couple months and they think it is some magical machine. Yeah, that's gotta be it...I think I still lift the least amount of weight out of any of the other guys at the gym, but at least I have better form than most of them. What's up with all the cheater's? Almost nobody does bicep curls with proper form. It's kind of funny when you watch the real big cheaters. It ends up showing in their physique. They end up with these big solid cores, but never build up their biceps. Anyway, I'm rambling now, I'll save the form discussion for another day.

Is it just me or does an ab workout make you extra hungry? My metabolism must be super stoked because I've already ate my 6 meals today, my last one I just finished an hour ago, and I've already got the hunger pangs. This is quite unusual for me as a lot of the time I have to almost force my 6th meal on myself. Either that or my supper didn't agree with me. I might be getting mixed signals, but it sure feels like hunger to me. I guess a bedtime snack of cottage cheese wouldn't hurt :D

Anyway, here are today's pics:

Day 71

Day 70 - Bananas are good

2007-11-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I didn't mention it, but I didn't have my regular post workout meal, which just consists of a simple protein shake and a banana. I like this post workout meal because it hits the basics of what a post workout routine should be, protein, simple carbs quick carbs, and low (almost zero) fat. It's also repeatable, and easy to carry. Well, yesterday I went without and had supper within about 30 min. of finishing my workout. Supper consisted of a basic meal as well, a nice lean top sirloin steak, squash, broccoli, and carrots. It was delicious, and healthy, but wasn't quite the same as my shake and banana on the walk home from the gym.

I mentioned yesterday that my quads were pretty sore from the bike, and I gave them a good workout as well. Today, they were unbelievably sore, and I think they might not have been as bad if I had remembered my banana. Not only did I miss out on those wonderful quick carbs replenishing my muscles, but I missed out on the potassium rich source of nature's candy. Most of us here in North America have no problem getting enough sodium in our diet, but what our muscles also need to fire properly is potassium. Without getting into too much chemistry/biology, these two ions, along with chlorine ions (sodium + chlorine ions = table salt, NaCl) need to be kept in a proper balance for our muscles to contract and fire properly. We sweat out a lot of sodium and potassium when we exercise, and this needs to be replenished. That's why this stuff is often found in sports drinks as well.

Anyway, I made sure I had my banana today. I worked out my lower back and shoulders today. My bent over rows felt really strong and the weights seemed a lot lighter than they did last week. I'm happy with that progress. My shoulders are struggling a bit though, but still coming along.

Well, my membership to the shredder forum that Lilla set up is now pending. I think it's a great idea. Can't wait to start posting there. Sure is nice having all these people along for support!

Today's Pics:

Day 70

Day 69 - Biking aftermath, weekly stats

2007-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well, today I felt the aftermath of yesterday's HIIT bike workout, since today was my leg day for weights. My quads were definitely lacking a bit of energy, but I was able to squeeze out all my reps for my planned exercises. I was pretty sure my quads were going to lock up by the end of my last set on lunges though. Luckily I didn't end up on the gym floor. I had some extra time since I finished my planned workout before my girlfriend was done, so I snuck in a couple extra leg exercises on the pulley machine.

Today is also Monday, which also means it's time to post my weekly stats.

Week 10: 2007-11-12 to 2007-11-19
Weight: 137.59 (-0.93)
BF: 21.93 (-0.39)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/17/16 (11.87%)

and today's pics:

Day 69

Day 68 - HIIT'in up the bike

2007-11-18T19:11:00.000-08:00

Today my beloved ArcTrainer was in use at the gym. This almost never happens...Even though there's only one ArcTrainer, and about 6 or 7 of all the other machines, almost nobody seems to like it. I like it because it has an interval setting of 30 sec/60 sec, which I find a good ratio for me to work my butt off on.

So today, I gave the bike a try for my HIIT workout. I like this better than the treadmill, well, mostly because the treadmill wrecks my back, and I don't have to fiddle with buttons to up the speed. I was able to set a a single resistance level and do my 30s/60s intervals of high speed/low speed. I did however, end up with a sore butt from sitting on the darn thing. It didn't quite seem as good an overall workout as the ArcTrainer and ellipticals give me, but I sure felt it in my quads. I had to stretch them extra afterwards. Speaking of stretching, my side split is starting to come back. I still got a ways to go, but I'm seeing improvement already in my range of motion.

I then went through my gf's ab workout that she does, and I must say, I'm cursing by the end of it. I'll build up those abs soon, you just wait and see!

Day 68

Day 67 - Pics and stuff

2007-11-18T05:41:00.000-08:00

Well, this post is actually for yesterday and yesterday's pics, which I didn't get up in time yesterday as it was my rest day and my gf and I spent last evening with some friends who had us over for dinner and a night of board games and socializing (yeah, we're a wild bunch now). Even though yesterday was my rest day and planned relaxed day for meals, I ended up eating clean just about all day anyway, except for a couple desserts at our friends place with a couple glasses of wine, but even that wasn't too bad. The meal they cooked for us was actually pretty good as it was a nice meal of roast beef with potatoes and carrots with some shrimp as well. The beef was pretty lean, and I snuck a few more shrimp than the others for the nice low fat protein. I limited myself to one tiny bite size of fudge, and a small brownie. To be honest, I don't really have that much of a sweet tooth, my biggest weaknesses are fatty salty fried foods and the like, which I have to confess, I was making up for from Friday.

I didn't mention it in my post Friday night, but that was probably my blowout. We went out with some friends for cheap apps and drinks at a place downtown, which turned into me preying on the classic wings and beer. It was only a couple beer and about a dozen wings, which is half of what I used to do, but it was still a lot for my stomach to take. It isn't used to getting stuffed anymore. I ended up feeling a large amount of abdominal pain. I guess my brain doesn't clue in to stop eating anytime I have beer with my food. Later though, after the pain subsided, I was back to munching on chips and dip with a couple glasses of wine. Baked Tostito chips and low fat dip mind you, but its still junk food.

So, this weekend was a little set back, but I think I managed a little better than I have in the past. I'm well refreshed now and ready for another weak of eating clean and shredding hard.

I also thought I would start posting my before pics everyday now, which will hopefully keep me motivated. I'll do another post tonight probably after I finish my day and workout.

Day 67

Weekly Stats

2007-11-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here are my weekly weigh in stats. I'll continue to update this post with new numbers (on Mondays). Weight and Body Fat % are the average numbers from PhysicsDiet.com using measurements from my Weight/BIA scale. Starting in week 7, I also tracked my BF% using an AccuMeasure skin caliper for a single site suprailiac and a Jackson/Pollock (chest, abs, thigh) 3 site skin fold test.

Week 14: 2007-12-10 to 2007-12-17
Weight: 134.66 (-0.33)
BF: 20.80 (-0.16)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/13/12 (9.44%)

Week 13: 2007-12-03 to 2007-12-10
Weight: 134.99 (-0.28)
BF: 20.96 (-0.07, -5.6 total)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/12 (9.74%)

Week 12: 2007-11-26 to 2007-12-03
Weight: 135.27 (-1.09)
BF: 21.03 (-0.40)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/12 (9.74%)

Week 11: 2007-11-19 to 2007-11-26
Weight: 136.36 (-1.23)
BF: 21.43 (-0.50)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/16/14 (10.96%)

Week 10: 2007-11-12 to 2007-11-19
Weight: 137.59 (-0.93)
BF: 21.93 (-0.39)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/17/16 (11.87%)

Week 9: 2007-11-05 to 2007-11-12
Weight: 138.52 (-1.10)
BF: 22.32 (-0.44)
Suprailiac: 12 mm (13.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/17/16 (11.87%)

Week 8: 2007-10-29 to 2007-11-05
Weight: 139.62 (-1.33)
BF: 22.76 (-0.49)
Suprailiac: 12 mm (13.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/18/16 (12.17%)

Week 7: 2007-10-22 to 2007-10-29
Weight: 140.95 (-1.30)
BF: 23.25 (-0.40)
Suprailiac: 12 mm (13.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/18/16 (12.17%)

Week 6: 2007-10-15 to 2007-10-22
Weight: 142.25 (-1.09)
BF: 23.67 (-0.28)

Week 5: 2007-10-08 to 2007-10-15
Weight: 143.34 (-1.62)
BF: 23.95 (-0.40)

Week 4: 2007-10-01 to 2007-10-08
Weight: 144.96 (-1.48)
BF: 24.35 (-0.42)

Week 3: 2007-09-24 to 2007-10-01
Weight: 146.44 (-2.15)
BF: 24.77 (-0.51)

Week 2: 2007-09-17 to 2007-09-24
Weight: 148.59 (-2.58)
BF: 25.28 (-0.67)

Week 1: 2007-09-10 to 2007-09-17
Weight: 151.17 (-2.23)
BF: 25.95 (-0.65)

Starting Stats:
Weight: 153.4 lbs
BF: 26.6%

Day 66 - Quickie

2007-11-16T19:57:00.001-08:00

Quick post today, just before I hit the sack. Entertained some friends this evening, so pretty tired, especially after I put in a solid workout at the gym this afternoon. Finished off with a solid HIIT session that totally drained me.

Here's today's pics:

Day 65 - A few of my favourite things

2007-11-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

Today my girlfriend (jokingly) played the "do you love me more than..." game and she then proceeded to name off a bunch of things that, I didn't realize, but have become a part of my everyday life. It's funny how the outside observers pick up on these things. Well, in no particular order, these are some of my new favourite things:

Cottage Cheese (fat free)
Tuna
Chicken breast
The cardio room
The weight room
The ArcTrainer
Protein Shakes
Spinach
Bananas
Broccoli
Egg whites
Cat food

Ok, well not really the last one, but she refers to any of my tinned meats (tuna, salmon, chicken breast chunks, turkey, all great to put on spinach salads!) as being cat food. Maybe she has something there...I could probably save money if I bought cat food and it probably has just as much protein. I think I still prefer the taste of people food though, so I'll stick with that...for now anyway.

But my most favourite thing of course, is still my girlfriend. She wins hands down. No contest. Well, maybe if I try cat food...

Had a chest/tricep/forearms session today after some light cardio. Added an another chest exercise to my routine as well as some forearm work. I hope they're not too sore tomorrow for my bicep workout though. Ah, but I have my rest day coming up. Time to push it hard!

Here's today's pics:

Day 65

Day 64 - Pizza can be a part of a shredder's diet

2007-11-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, well, I know the most extreme shredder's and bodybuilder's might not agree or just stay away from pizza in general, but I made one tonight with my girlfriend and had a couple slices, and I don't think I strayed too far from my regular nutritional intake. I've eaten a lot of pizza in my day, but I think this one came out a lot better than the other ones. I think the biggest culprits are the frozen pizzas from the grocery store. They all seem to be loaded with salt and saturated fat, even the ones with chicken breast!

Well, here's what we did to make ours. First off, we started with a pre-made frozen crust with the sauce already on it. The kind we get have nearly fat-free dough (0g per serving, which really means < 0.5g) and are fairly thin. Now, it wasn't the whole wheat kind, which you can get and would have been better, but it just tastes a bit too funny for my girlfriend. The next step, was loading it up with big chunks of chicken breast. Then on top of that was loads of veggies - sliced mushroom, green and red pepper, tomatoe, green and red onion, piled nice and high. This was all topped off with some low fat mozza cheese.

Now, this may not be exact, but this is a rough estimate of what I think the numbers are for 1/4 of a pizza, which is what I ate:

Protein: ~30g, 120 cal
Fat: ~ ~7g, 63 cal
Carbs: ~60g, 240 cal

which brings the total meal in at 423 cal in a 28/15/57 protein/fat/carb split which is pretty close to my aim of 30/15/55 and just a little over my 400 cal meal threshold. I think that's pretty good for a pizza, which I made and ate without really measuring or thinking about the macronutrient ratio or total calorie intake. I think I don't even have to count it as a cheat meal, maybe half of a cheat meal? It's hard to think of pizza as being a good meal. It's funny, it seems to be one of the stereotypical bad foods. It's made several appearances on the Biggest Loser as an "evil" food. Well, I guess it probably was for me when it was the sausage, hamburger, pepperoni meat pizza, no veggies, and washed down with a half dozen beer.

I think this one was pretty good, either that or I'm rationalizing it to myself by writing this. What do you guys think? If anything though, the dough was probably a bit high on the GI, but my muscles and body were pretty starving since I left a bunch of me on the gym floor just a short while before that working my butt off on my HIIT workout. To top that off, the HVAC system was out in the cardio room, so the air was pretty thick and warm. It made breathing really tough and sapped the energy even more, but I still managed to get through my target levels.

Here's today's pics:

Day 64

Day 63 - Snow!

2007-11-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, we got some snow up here today. I guess winter is now here. It's been hovering around freezing temps the last few days, so I guess the snow wasn't really a surprise.

Just a quick post today as I've been pretty busy with finishing up some work, but I must say, today I really felt the effects of the added lunges I did yesterday. Really felt it in my glutes! I think I've hit a mini-plateau, as my weight hasn't really budged the last week or so, maybe even gone up a bit, but I'm hoping my new routine will give it a spike and help me get rid of that last bit of fat. Today was my lower back and shoulder session. I added an exercise to each for a total of 9 sets for each muscle group, up from last weeks 6, increased the weight, but lowered the reps. I'll probably feel it tomorrow!

Anyway, here's today's pics.

Day 63

Day 62 - Day off...kinda

2007-11-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

Well, today was sort of a holiday here in Canada. We have Remembrance Day on Nov. 11, but this year that was the Sunday, so a lot of places made today a work holiday. I technically didn't have it off, but my hours are flexible and my girlfriend had it off, so I took the day off to spend time with her.

It didn't mean though that I was taking the day off from my exercise schedule or eating clean though! We did sleep in though, so my whole schedule was about an hour behind the usual. An hour is easy to make up in spacing out my meals though. My first 3 meals were closer to 2.5 hours apart rather than the normal 3.

Today was the first weight day of my new schedule. I changed it up a bit last week, but starting today, my schedule will be pretty much the same until I meet my milestone 1 date, Dec. 22. I'm going to a 4 day split and doing strength training 4 times a week. Today was my leg workout, and I only did warm-up steady state cardio (about 10 min). I added weighted lunges to my list of leg exercises since my goal with this new split is to work the muscles a little harder each workout, but not as many different muscles in one workout.

After my workout, it was a beautiful evening here, so my girlfriend and I decided to go for a nice walk around town. We strolled for an hour or so and took in some fresh air.

Oh, I just remembered, today is Monday, which I'm going to designate as my weekly stats update. As I've mentioned before, I use PhysicsDiet to track my daily weight and BF measurements from my digital scale. I also use an AccuMeasure caliber and track my suprailiac and Jackson/Pollock 3 site BF measurements.

Here are this weeks numbers:

Average Weight: 138.52 lbs (down from 139.62)
Average BF: 22.32% (down from 22.76)
Suprailiac: 12 mm ~= 13.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock Chest/Abdomen/Thigh: 8/17/16 mm ~= 11.87% (down from 12.17)

and here are today's pics:

Day 62

Day 61 - Trying out the treadmill

2007-11-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I would give the treadmill a try. Just a little try, so it was only about 5 min. I've never really ever used the treadmill for my cardio workouts. My back isn't very partial to the pounding impact a treadmill gives. It didn't feel too bad though, and maybe next time I'll try 6 min. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

I used the rest of my time at the gym to get a full HIIT workout on my wonderful ArcTrainer. I was pretty dead after the session today. It's amazing what that extra 5 min. on the treadmill took out of me.

Anyway, here's today's pics.

Day 61

Get your game face on!

Day 60 - New Clothes!

2007-11-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

Today was my rest day, but I didn't do much resting! Been busy the whole day, but no workout. Went down to the farmer's market again and was happy to find that there was still one stand selling fresh green and red peppers.

I did some more shopping downtown with my gf (she got new workout sneakers) and then we went uptown to the big mall where I went shopping for new clothes. I've dropped about 15 lbs since Day 0 and the new jeans I picked up today were size 28, down from the 32's that I've been wearing that were hanging off of me. I'm almost thinking I should post my fat pant picture soon.

Dont' have much time right now since I'm heading out with some friends, so I'll just post today's pics.

Day 60

Get your game face on!

Day 59 - I Love Fridays

2007-11-09T12:08:00.001-08:00

I love Fridays, well, minus the work related stuff I got dumped on me today. Something I wasn't planning on starting for another couple weeks has had its deadline pushed up and I need to finish it by next Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it done though, so I'm not really worried about it.

Today started off with a killer workout. I love Fridays because I know that since Saturday is my rest day, I can really push it. I altered my workout a bit today since I had some extra time so that I did a 10 min. warm-up of steady state cardio before I did my weight session. Once I finished my weights, I then went for an all out 30 min. HIIT session and man, did I really empty the tank on that one. It felt great. I was able to keep pushing right up to the end as I told myself in my head, "Push now, don't stop, rest tomorrow".

My usual workout is 30 min. HIIT followed by 35-40 min. of weights, but lately I think that my weights have been suffering since I wipe myself out on the HIIT. It generally is better to do your cardio after your strength training, but my gym is fairly busy and you have to reserve your cardio for 30 min slots, and that's the most you can reserve. I never like to lift weights cold, so I have to get about 10 min. warmup in first. But normally its hard to get a free machine just for 10 min. Today was an exception though, so I was lucky.

But the reason I love Fridays even more is that I know I get to spend the whole weekend with my girlfriend and neither one of us is working.

Some more catch up pics:

Day 12

Day 13

and today's pics:

Day 59

Get your game face on!

Day 58 - More Wii!

2007-11-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

Just a quick entry today. Once again, my attempt at hitting the gym up for a short cardio session was pre-empted by pumping my fists and pounding the air on the Wii with my girlfriend. Played for over an hour this time and worked up an appetite for supper. Tomorrow my plan is to hit up the gym first thing in the morning early before my work since tomorrow evening is reserved for Friday socializing with my girlfriend's work friends.

Anyway, here's the catch up pics from Day 10 and 11:

Day 10

Day 11

Day 58

Get your game face on!

Day 57 - Goals, written and actual

2007-11-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Today my girlfriend and I had a little talk after our workout session and it got me to thinking about what my goals really are. As a engineering guy, numbers were initially a big part of my goals, what I had written down when I started. I like numbers. I really saw this whole body transformation process as a really big lab experiment, except that the sample size was one, my own body. So the daily photos, daily weigh ins, calorie counting is just data collection. Throw it into a big pile, examine it and determine what the results are. If they aren't quite what was expected, tweak, adjust, take notes, all the while still collecting the data.

I guess I really got caught up in all the numbers, the calculations, and the plotting of my progess graphs. These are the tangible results, the quantitative goals.

Ultimately, when I started this trek, it really wasn't about the numbers, it was really only about one thing, getting healthy. Well, plus the fact that I was really sucking wind when I played frisbee in the summer... I had a lot of bad habits that needed changing. I've done a pretty good job changing a lot of them. I no longer eat a whole box of crackers at a time. I no longer feel like I have to eat every last bit of food on my plate when I go out to eat. I actually eat meals now instead of just continuously snack on junk food. I'm eating a lot more fruits and vegetables. I have more energy during the day, and I don't crash and burn after the sugar rushes. I'm happier and more productive at work. I enjoy eating healthy now.

I know I wrote down overall health as one of my goals, but for a while I guess I forgot to even think about it. Now I have, and it feels good.

Anyway, back to the data collection portion!

Catch up pics:

Day 8

This is the day I accidentally smacked my camera onto the ground from the counter it was sitting on. It hasn't worked since...Thankfully, I had my girlfriend's on hand and have been using it since (thanks babe!)

Day 9

Day 57

Get your game face on!

Day 56 - Back on the Wii Workout

2007-11-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

Today I was all set to go to the gym to get in a little cardio session, but it was raining out. I thought it was just a little drizzle, but when I was getting ready to leave, I realized it was an all out downpour. I don't have a car, so its still a 10 minute walk to get to the gym, and lately I've been battling a cough and cold, so I thought it was wiser to not go out and get soaked and cold. So, there I was, protein shake and banana all ready to go for my after workout meal, but me left with no workout at the gym.

I wasn't totally skipping out though, I decided to get back on to my Wii Workout! Yes, believe it or not, it is possible to work up a sweat playing video games. I put on my workout clothes and turned on Wii Sports Boxing and jumped around and punched the air for a good 40 min. Now mind you, it probably doesn't quite burn as much calories as that treadmill, but it seemed like a better alternative for me than heading out in a storm.

I spent a lot of tonight just cleaning up the apartment and making all my meals for tomorrow. Now its close to bed time for me, just gotta put these pics up...

More catch up pics:

Day 6

Day 7

And today's pics:

Day 56

Get your game face on!

Day 55 - Killer legs

2007-11-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day, I managed to reach a new high for reps on all my leg exercises and I think I'll be ready to up my weights next week. I'm almost running out of weight on the leg press machine at our gym. One of my mini-goals that I'm aiming for is to be able to press the entire stack on the machine. Then I think I'll be confident enough to move on to squats using a barbell. I could really feel it in my quads today as well as my abs, which I gave a good push. Actually, everything felt stronger. I think I'm going to feel it tomorrow though. I barely had anything left when I left the gym. My plan is just a cardio session tomorrow, so I should still have plenty of energy.

Nutrition was pretty good today. I emptied my first container of protein powder. It was just a little one with only 11 servings though. I experimented with having a fruit smoothie protein shake for my afternoon meal instead of my usual tuna/chicken/turkey/salmon salad since my girlfriend was making one for herself. She doesn't like the taste of the protein powder though (Vanilla) in her smoothie, so I have to add mine after. The smoothie seemed to do a good job and didn't weigh me down at the gym. I'm not sure if I want to make it a regular part of my nutrition plan though as it brings my veggie intake down for the day (less fibre, more sugar). I also want to eat as much real food as possible since its easier to stick with that in the long run.

Well, here's a couple more days of catch up pics and todays pics.

Day 4

Day 5

Day 55

I figured I needed some fancy tagline, some sort of motto to keep me focused and in the right mindset like Adam's Eat Clean, Shred Hard, Think Big. To go back to the Ol' Glory Days, I'll steal a line from my old hockey coach from when he'd go around the dressing room and try to focus our attention on the game we were about to play rather than, well, let's just say normal boys dressing room chatter. During this time he got us to stop talking and think about the game, what we were going to do, what we needed to do, and to visualize us doing it. I made so many crazy stops, sliding pad stops, diving glove saves in those 5 minutes that there was no way a single puck was going past me. If you were to look around the dressing room during this time, you would see nothing but faces filled with looks of focus, determination, and confidence. This steely eyed stare was called the Game Face.

So, until next time,

Get your game face on!

Speedbump 2: Injury and Pain

2007-11-05T04:30:00.000-08:00

Day 2, 3, 54 - New Week, New Routine

2007-11-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day of the new week, and the first day of my new routine. Previously I was on a 3-day split for weights, which meant I was hitting each body part once a week. I was doing HIIT cardio on days that I did weights as well. In addition to that, I was playing Ultimate Disc (frisbee) for about an hour 3 times a week, which I counted towards my cardio (lots of running). So I essentially had cardio sessions 6x a week, and weights 3x. Since my primary goal is fat loss and muscle maitenance at the moment, I found it was working decent for me.

However, as of last week, frisbee season is over. It's now too dark to get a game in the evening, and the other league that I played in that had a lit field finished up as well. It's more of a summer sport since it's played outdoors, and once it gets cold out, the activity tends to wind down.

So, this means I have to re-tool my exercise program to make up for the lot cardio that I was getting from frisbee. I aslo think that it might be time to go for a 4-day split, 4x a week for weights, adding an extra exercise for the large muscle groups. I think the 4-day split might have to wait until next week, but this week my goal is to get to the gym for 3 additional cardio only sessions in addition to my regular 3x cardio/weights sessions.

Today I got in my first HIIT cardio only session in. I upped the level on the ArcTrainer for the first 10 minutes from my normal level 5. I wanted to do level 5 for the whole 30 min. session, but I wasn't quite feeling it and figured I didn't want to blow my legs out too much since that's my Monday workout. Baby steps, baby steps. Slowly adding a few more minutes at a higher level is a better plan.

Anyway, here are today's pics along with my catch up pics from Day 2 and 3

Day 2

Day 3

Day 54