Day 102 - Home for the Holidays

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

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 94 - Entering the ShredderSphere

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 85 - Snowed in!

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 78 - Change of plans

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

Speedbump 2: Injury and Pain

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.

After my crazy year in Grade 10, I slowed down my high school sports compared to the previous year. In Grade 11 I only played soccer and golf in the fall, hockey for one team and basketball in the winter, and then volleyball (and some golf) in the spring. It still was a lot, but at least I would get days off to rest. It was this year that my second speedbump started to manifest. I started having lower back pain, the great affliction that most people associate with getting old. I was 16. It wasn't too bad in Grade 11, it started out as mostly just a dull ache and I never thought too much of it. I would get spasms every now and then when I was playing hockey. Later in the winter season though, I injured my right knee in a game of basketball, straining my Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL). I went to physiotherapy for ultrasound treatment, did some resistance band exercises, and strapped my knee into a brace and kept playing. Hey, no pain, no gain, right?

Well, the knee wasn't too bad and got a bit better after a few months and was probably around 90% and by volleyball season I was running around making digs just fine. By the time summer came around again though, the nagging back pain started to affect my golf swing a little bit. The previous summer I had my best year of golf, qualifying for Nationals and winning and placing in a lot of the local tournaments after making a decision to drop baseball and focus on my golf game (two totally different swings!). Maybe it was mental burnout as well, but I failed to make it back to Nationals that summer, or even come close to my performance from the previous summer.

Into Grade 12, my senior year, the back pain started to progress even more. During hockey games, the spasms were getting worse and more frequent. They were getting so bad that my body would freeze up and I wouldn't be able to move temporarily. In a fast paced game like hockey, this sort of thing can't happen. I finally got to a doctor to check into it and I was back to the physiotherapist that had worked on my knee with some back exercises and ultrasound treatment. We experimented with taping up my back for hockey games and wearing a funny brace, none which helped stop the spasms. By the end of hockey season, the spasms had progressed into more pain in my hip and shooting pain down my leg. Throw in a pulled groin late in the hockey season, and it was apparent that my body was shutting down on me.

Speedbump 1: Burnout

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.

My Grade 10 year in high school was perhaps the busiest I had ever been. Fall was filled with golf and soccer as usual, but by the time winter rolled around, I found myself on two hockey teams, as well as the varsity basketball team. Most schools around here limit a single persons athletics to a single team, but our school was small. Our basketball team lacked numbers, and our high school hockey team lacked a goalie. Between 2-3 practices and 1-2 games a week per team, I was so busy that I barely ever had a day off, and it was impossible to make everything because of schedule conflicts. My town hockey team took first priority, but alas, the girlfriend I had for all of 3 weeks was probably at the bottom. I guess that's why it only lasted 3 weeks. It's not like I could blow off a game and let a whole team down just to hang out with her. Girls just don't understand...oh, those wonderful teenage years.

Well, during this period of my life, I never suffered any major injuries, but it was about a 6 month stretch in my life that left a mark. I was young and reckless and felt like I was in great shape. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had burned myself out. I hadn't given myself a chance to let my body rest and recuperate. I probably blew my chance of hitting my goal of reaching 5'6 too. I wasted too much of my energy on sports, and not enough on growing! Well, given my genetics, I don't even think 5'6 was in the cards for me, but a little guy can dream, can't he?