Day 104 - Snowdio

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

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

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 100 - The Century!

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

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

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