FEB 1st! Best holiday of the year!

Another donation day, yesterday. This was a great month to give blood. I should have been tooting my horn, trying to get people to donate to the red-cross, because January was give a pint get a lb month! Where if you donate a pint (of any blood product - whole blood, platelets, plasma, double-red) you get a lb of dunkin' donuts coffee! I know it sounds superficial and materialistic of me to donate blood because I get goodies, but it's so easy! Everyone should do it!

Either way this is my 2nd lb bag of coffee this month :-D I really enjoy having it in the house - not really for myself, as I'm not a big morning coffee drinker... but in the event I have guests, I have delicious coffee for them to consume and it's basically free. (I had to drive to the donor center).

But guess what glorious day it is today? Did you say Feb 1st!? That's correct. If you're wondering what's so special about February first... if you haven't yet been to the gym today, then perhaps you are unaware that today is the official "I'm done with my new-year's resolution day" which means the gym that I go to, which for the past month has looked like this:



Is now starting to look at lot more like this:



With the exception that there really isn't any football on the TV's anymore except for this weekend - which happens to be the superbowl. On a side note, that 2nd picture is actually MY gym! So I hope that my workout today resembles that photo in more ways than just it being empty!

Over a month without any posts!

Hello! Oh how long it's been since my last entry. Well - just to keep you updated I have been heavily working on gaining weight. Part of my absence can be attributed to bodybuilding.com forums which have consumed much of my free time. Learning a lot about getting bigger!

My weight hasn't gone up dramatically since my last weigh in. I am about 156ish lbs and some people at the gym have mentioned that I am getting bigger arms/chest. Perhaps I shall take some photos to give myself some progression since my last photo was taken some time in October! GOODNESS, that seems like so long ago!

I have been focusing on weighted pullups/chinups. I have joined the 1million pullup challenge by 2012. I'll post a link to this thread sometime in the near future. We're currently at 19,000 in total... I think I contributed maybe 300-400ish already. We have a long way to go, but I like the challenge and hopefully will convince some people to join in the fun.

The kind of weight I am using for pullups has gone way up since my last post. I am able to do 65lb dangled between my legs for 3-5 pullups, or for a more consistent set I can do 45lbs 10times. This is my typical go-to, but often leaves me sore for multiple days.

I am eating a bit more as the P90X diet is quite restricting, and I think was one of my major set-backs in muscle growth. I'm now eating approximately 50% protein and 50% carbohydrates (230g/230g respectively) about 2000calories, maybe a bit more once you include fats.

Hopefully this will be the return of me to blogging - I can't promise anything yet, but as for what's to come, I plan on doing a 3rd classic round of P90X around spring-time to prepare for summer. I really enjoyed the way P90X gets one's self really lean, so I think that will be a nice fine-tuning come summer time.

I'd like to think everyone is sticking to their goals and putting forth a good effort when it comes to fitness goals, as it's still January... I presume most people are still working off holiday woes or filled with visions of sculpted figures for new years!

Crazy Christmas Time:

6 sugar cookies (in 1 day) = 130 calories per cookie x 6 = 780 total... not to mention the other things I ate today.

Going to be an extra long day at the gym! Ugh - bad me, bad!

And the sad part is, I enjoyed those cookies sooo much! They were all left over from Friday's work christmas party. To think I did so well on Friday but blew it on Monday when the left overs were left out in the common area. For shame!

Been doing weighted pullups (about 125/day... with 20 additional lbs) Today I will attempt 30lbs.

Fathead

One of the blogs I like to read in the morning, when I'm having a slow day --> FITBOMB. I haven't read it in a long time, so yesterday afternoon I read about 30posts straight. Aside from my brain feeling a bit mushy, I was intrigued by a comment he made regarding Hulu and Fathead and how everyone should go watch it.

Well, after all that reading, why not spend another hour and a half in front of the computer? So I did.

I enjoyed the movie - it was a nice spin off of the Spurlock Super Size Me flick. Only this time the narrator lost weight eating fast food. Proving the point that Spurlock was going way out of his way to eat unhealthy at these places and that a level headed individual with a modest understanding of health/fitness can eat a fast-food diet with little health concern.

I liked some of the interview with doctors and scientists - and actually I think his personal doctor (the one who gave him the before/after screening) was hilarious! "Has anyone ever told you that you have a heart-murmur!?" "Uh... no" "Good, because you don't have one!"

It's a good film, mildly educational and certainly entertaining. If you've got an hour+ to waste this weekend (And I know you do). Skip over to Hulu.com and watch it. I just typed Fathead into the search bar and it came right up. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

*I weighed in this morning at 152 - down from my thanksgiving high of 156ish... I've been doing MASS PULLUPS (100+) with weight (17.5 + 20lbs) situp routines, pushup routines, and some max weight style lifting to build bulk and strength.*

Diet Kryptonite...day 28^3

Everyone knows superman has a weakness... but did you know that every diet has a weakness too? Perhaps some of you have been battling that one food (or perhaps food group) that really is more than just food, but some kind of evil arch nemesis. I know I have a few lurking in the shadows. Namely Pizza, Coffee, and Rum&Cokes.

So what should you do with these perpetrators that destroy your good deeds and leave you feeling miserable/guilty afterwords? It'd be a little too easy for me to just say "Avoid them" and it'd be too complicated if I try to explain the feel good chemicals in your brain that you associate with these foods.

The best thing to do is identify them. Knowing your weaknesses will absolutely help you minimize any collateral damage these badins will do to you. For me, it's best to stay away from Friday Lunches that are to Domino's Pizza or John's Pizza and Wings. If that means a couple fridays per month I'm bagging my lunch - okay. Does it mean I might have to sit at my office and eat, sometimes yes. As for coffee... my best defense against this evil foe is to get a good night's sleep and be well rested the next day as to not require that morning cup'o'joe. And as for alcohol...try to remember that the best feel good drug is having a good time - and having a good time does not mean having 3 drinks first.

Perhaps you have your own arch rival in your diet plan - your best bet is to identify it immediately and figure out your best approach to dealing with it, because sooner or later - if you don't stay on your toes - the bad guy might win!

Day 24^3

My new outlook on fitness. Probably something I've been meaning to post for a while now... ever since I have been on yahoo answers helping other people lose weight and formulate exercise programs, I've come to the conclusion that "Losing 10lbs" is not the only thing you need when it comes to fitness goal-setting.

Let's consider losing 10lbs as a destination. And everyone knows you need to travel to a destination, so let's agree that fitness/diets are the journey. My new outlook on fitness is that loving the destination/goal is not enough. If you're not prepared to embrace the journey, you're never going to reach your destination (or if you do, you'll likely find yourself somewhere else down the road once you've given up).

Fitness and being healthy are a lifestyle. And we all know that life in itself is its own little journey. So, to me, this philosophy makes perfect sense. Hopefully it does to you too.

So my message to everyone out there who is struggling to lose weight, or struggling to stick to a diet, or just trying to maintain a healthy figure - set a more interesting goal: "I will formulate a diet/exercise plan that will help me get to my destination AND will be something that I can embrace and do every day (or X times per week) with room for improvements and adaptations that I may perform for many years to come" NOW THAT'S A GOAL!

Day 23^3

Perhaps I've gone over this before... but food labels - in all their glory can be quite deceptive. I don't mean the nutritional facts on the back with their sly tricks for serving size and rounding down content... I mean buzz words and trends like "Low Carb" "Low Fat" "Reduced Fat" "Light" "Organic" "All Natural" "Whole Grain" and my personal favorite "Fat Free"

Lets take a look at what some of these mean - and DONT MEAN:

Low Fat: Low fat means a product contains 3g of fat or less per serving, and 30% or less of total calories

Reduced Fat: Reduced fat products contain at least 25% less fat than the original version. This does not mean that the reduced fat version is low fat (or even healthy). Take a package of reduced fat cookies, for example. If the original fat content per serving was 20g, and the fat has been reduced to 15g, it is still five times higher than the 3g per serving that officially qualifies as low fat.

Low-Carb: The FDA has not yet legally defined what "low-carbohydrate" means - so buying a low-carb snack, could mean abolustely anything.

Light: At least 50% less fat or 1/3 fewer calories per serving than the “regular” full-fat food cited on the label.

Organic: 90% of the food item is produced by farmers who avoided the use of bio-persistent nonselective chemical pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers. It does not ensure 100% organic - there is a 100% for those type foods.

Whole Grain: Are cereal grains that consist of the intact and unrefined, ground, cracked or flaked fruit of the grains whose principal components - the starchy endosperm, germ and bran - are present in the same relative proportions as they exist in the intact grain.

All Natural: According to the USDA, food can only be labeled natural if it contains no artificial ingredients or added colors and is minimally processed.

Fat Free: Each serving of food has less than 1/2 gram of fat - but not necessary completely void of fat.