Friday, October 26, 2012

“The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top.”

Day 84
Hit the ghetto barn gym at home yesterday for a good workout.
Great day yesterday out at the ranch. Having the horses out there makes it a whole different experience, “there is nothing as good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.” They are such special animals.
Went to the gym early this morning and got in some heavy weights while still keeping my heart rate up. This is going to start getting really fun. I feel like I am about to take this body and my fitness to the next level.
I have two hours of training tomorrow for my personal training. Thursday and Friday I have certified pool operator training all day so should be tough to get a workout in, but I will stick to one of my mottos,
No Days Off!

Day 85
I went for a run today with my son, four miles, about a 10 minute mile. Not two fast, but got something in. Plus my little man is not light, probably pushing about 50 pounds all together with the jogger.
Did my last training at the rec center, I am a now a personal trainer at the Gypsum Recreation Center. Let me rephrase that, once I get a client I will be a personal trainer. My first day on the floor is next Tuesday at 8am.
During the training session I also got my body fat tested 9.2%. I am back up to 152 pounds. My weight seems to be jumping around a bit. I am hoping to put on about 10 pounds of muscle in the next six months.  That is less than two pounds a month, which would put me around 162 by my birthday. If I can keep my body fat below 10% and gain 10 pounds of muscle that would be cool. I am making this up as I write, but just trying to shoot for another goal besides the eight pack.
My goals are refocusing. I want to just work on dynamic health, get a little stronger, add some muscle, keep my cardio up, eat really healthy.
At the end of this road, 280ish days from now I will post a before and after shot of myself as the last post of this blog, but the more I workout the less I am concerned about appearance and the more I am concerned with performance. Although I won’t lie for that last picture I will try to get down to 4-5% body fat.
Got in my 100 push ups today.

Day 86
Went  for a little over five mile trail run in the rain/snow, such a great run. I am at a loss of words to describe how special this run was, kind of an out of body run, really cool. It was surreal, I was so unmotivated to go for a run because of the weather, but once I was out there everything was great. So many things are like that. It is so hard to get things started, or your brain says oh this may happen, or this may happen, but the fact is until you get out there and do it, whatever it is, you will never really know what is waiting for you.
Got in my 100 push ups as well.

Day 87
First snow of the year out at the ranch, hopefully just the start of a heavy snow year. Also if the snow gods are listening, I need it to snow every Tuesday night, thank you!
Tried to get up early for a workout, but didn’t make it in time. Sat on my ass for eight hours in a CPO class, not fun. I was forced to do math equations for the first time in a long time.
Got my 100 push ups in, two sets of 50. I have never done 50 pushups in a row before, felt good about that. Some sit ups and light stretching and off to bed, basically a rest day.

Day 88
I made it in early today and got in an awesome new workout. I found a great website www.fitnessblender.com. Did two different workouts off of this, it was new and fun, and I highly recommend this website. It is 100% free and seems to have all different type of workouts with a really easy to follow format.
I am also a certified pool operator, Yay! Scored 55 out of 60 on the first test I have taken in well over 5 years.
I will get my 100 pushups in along the way today. Last day for pushups, tomorrow I will start on 100 sit ups a day on top of my workouts.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Make the rest of your life the best of your life!

Day 80
Sprint interval workout.
1 x 1:32         2 x 4:22       4 x 9:36
1 x 1:53          2 x 4:23
1x 1:53
1 x 1:57
Not very goo compared to when I did it on the treadmill. The distance may have been off a little because we were not running on the track. My lovely wife did join me and did a great job. The sprint intervals are not my favorite, but I am going to keep doing them because there is probably a good reason I don’t like them, they are hard. I will keep doing them till they are easy.

Day 81
Trainer Day!!! I had such a great workout this morning with my trainer. We did a boxing workout and it was awesome. I felt really good the whole way through. It was a moment of vindication that all this working out is really paying off. I lost about 5-7 pounds since the last time I weighed myself. Right at 149ish. Six pack is starting to come in nicely if I do say so myself!!
New focus is on some heavy weights, which I like because I was thinking the same thing. Time to put some mass on this frame! I also got a challenge, 100 push up a day for the next week, with a different challenge following the next week.
We also discussed some road bike training which I am excited to try out.

Day 82
Mellow day at home, I did some yard work. Worked the 3-11 shift and I will workout after. I am going to put in an hour on the elliptical machine, get a real good sweat going, burn some more fat. I am also going to get those push ups in. Really looking forward to hitting the iron this week.  Starting to look a little skinny, but some heavy weight should fix that in no time!

Day 82
30 mins on the eliptical and 20 on the stationary bike with 100 push ups thrown in  last night.
Rest DayToday! I got the 100 pushups in, but other than that just hung with the family all day. I did have a cheat day today. I ate a piece of pizza and some birthday cake at a kids party. Oh well! We went to the horse rescue party today, and it feels really good to be helping such a worthy cause. Might be doing a little horse back riding tomorrow?

Day 83
Not sure what I am going to do today for a workout. I have a bit of a stomach ache, probably from that cake? I am thinking about a road bike today, but maybe just a treadmill workout at home.
The Bronco’s have a bye week, but I am looking forward to a little NFL anyways!

Monday, October 15, 2012

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

Day 76
My wife got the stomach bug today. It has taken the Leto’s down. Spent all day with the kids which was awesome, but no workout except carrying around my son all day.
I have recently started counting all calories, and just about everything else going in the old body. I use MyFitnessPal app on my Iphone. I just got my wife an Iphone 4 for .99cents. She lost her 3s a week or so ago. That’s not important but awesome, point being I am really watching everything I eat even closer. Trying to take everything to the next level.
I started to feel a little down lately. I just re read my blog and I noticed I do not really talk about how tough this is. It is tough to find time to workout, to work at my jobs, to become a personal trainer, to be a dad, and to be a husband.  To find the motivation to eat healthy and to work out and, a lot of times I don’t want to work out. Shit I don’t want to do anything, but where would that get me? So what do I do to keep going?
I spend most of my free time looking at motivational quotes, videos, anything to spark that fire in me, to remind me why I started this journey. I can’t reinforce enough that it was not the eight pack. I needed to let myself know that I could make a change in my life. There are so many things in this world that I can not control. What I can control is what goes into my mouth, and how often I exercise, and when I exercise how hard I push myself. These things are for the most part totally up to me.
When I decided to make this change my pie in the sky was to get an eight pack. I am 76 days in and have for the most part really stuck to my program and little by little I am seeing the physical changes occur. More important than that is the mental change that I am going through. 
I will not give up on this journey.  I know that. My behavioral change is starting to become a mentality change. I do not think about things the way I use to.  I am not the same person I was 76 days ago and I will never be that person again. This is not different from anyone else. No one is the person they were 76 days ago. We all change, the difference is I am taking control of the changes. I am purposefully creating the person that I want to become, little by little, it will not happen over night, but it will happen.
It is however a constant struggle and I don’t want that to get lost on anyone wanting to do this same sort of thing. It is not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.  I remind my self of this multiple times a day, and one day I will not have to remind myself, because it will be who I am.
I will be an author, personal trainer, and motivational life coach. 

Day 77
I spent the day working, than taking care of an emergency at our rental unit. A sewer drain that was filled with sewage got backed up and I had to go rent a seventy five foot snake to unclog it. Really shitty day, literally.
After I got home and showered for about an hour. I kissed and hugged my wife good night and than did 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, some planks, and some stretching, ate a little food and off to bed around midnight.

Day 78
I woke up this morning smiled at the moon still in the sky. Three little birds slept outside my window, but I was awake at 5am. Helped put my son back to sleep, prepared my meals for the day, than I was out the door to workout. I got a great circuit workout in at the hotel, concentrating on my legs, shoulders and back. I kept my heart rate high the whole time, got a great sweat in, dripping.
Two more days left till I meet with the trainer again. The only thing I know we are going to do is measure body fat, because I am curious. I have got to get in a sprint interval workout in the next two days.
11/16 is the opening day at Vail, almost one month away, hopefully a powder day!

Friday, October 12, 2012

Some people go to church, we go snowboarding...

Day 71
No gym.  No nothing. I am taking another rest day. Feel wiped out.

Day 72
I rode the mountain bike towing my daughter in the chariot. I love hanging out with my little girl, she is so awesome!

Day 73
I went for a run pushing the Bulldog. That is what my self and others call my son, his other nickname is meatball, he is round, cute, and so cuddly. When he was littler he always looked kind of grumpy so he looked like a little bulldog growling. Know he smiles all the time so it is loosing its effect, but I still love it. He was super good on the run, about an hour, and he slept the whole time, maybe four or five miles total.
I still feel pretty weak from being sick. I have not really pushed myself working out since I have been back.

Day 74
Went to the gym and had a good workout going until some guy interrupted me to talk. Turned out to be a good conversation, but jacked up my workout. I have got to get my home gym set up to avoid this. There is to much social shit going on in gyms, I just want to work out!!!

Day 75
Good road bike ride today. I took it pretty mellow, but had a pretty good time heading out, slowed down a bit on the way home but all in all a good ride. I am starting to feel like myself again. I did get caught in a rain storm on the way back. Sometimes Colorado rain can be so cold, guess it might snow tonight.
This will be my 15 or 16 winter since Taber and I basically started building our lives around snowboarding.  I would not recommend this for everyone, but it seems to be working for us so far. Things have changed a bit, and the kids (thankfully) and work (not thankfully) are taking more and more precedence in our lives. However when the snow starts to fall and the mountains start to open I still get just as excited as I did every prior year.

 I am more patient these days and I try to watch less snow porn this far out, but the thought of catching some more powder days this year is just as enticing as ever. This year I  got my best riding buddy back after a year on the pregnant reserve list. I also think this is the year my daughter is going to start really riding, as opposed to sliding with me catching her. Who knows what the 2012-13 Vail winter will hold? I can’t wait to find out.

Monday, October 8, 2012

“'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.”

Day 68
I did not do the sprint interval training. It was 12:30am by the time I got on the tread mill. I warmed up for about five minutes set the tread mill to 12.5 and started the first sprint. I made it about twenty seconds before I lost all motivation to continue. I was not at all into it; in fact treadmills in general are something I am not very fond of at the moment. I am going to take this workout outside sometime in the future. I ended up getting on the elliptical machine for about 20 minutes than creating my own little circuit workout. It was fun to do something a little different.
Today I went on a 16 mile bike ride, in about 52 min, taking about 3 minutes off my time, averaged about 3.14 minutes per mile.  Eight miles is down hill and eight miles is up.

Day 69
Last night I woke up at around 3am curled up shaking in the fetal position and threw up, a lot. Spent all day Sunday cramped up and could not eat anything till around 10pm. Not a great day.
Although I did catch some cycling on TV in between the football games, the woman were doing a 16 mile time trial and the winning time was around 32 minutes. The men were doing 30 miles and the winning time was under one hour. Granted the guy that won pretty much passed out at the finish, but that is some impressive bike riding. I also discovered my new favorite TV show, Duck Dynasty.
Really though my wife is the best. She went from having two kids to three and did not miss a beat. She is awesome and in need of a spa day soon.

Day 70
Still feel like shit, but I am vertical so that is an improvement. My lower back is sore from puking so much if that is any indication of the violent nature of my regurgitation.
Going to take it easy today, eat healthy, rehydrate, and try to get to bed early tonight.
Tomorrow I will ease back into a workout, probably hit the gym.

Friday, October 5, 2012

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

Day 64
Sweat it all out yesterday. Felt really good to get a workout in. I am off to the gym today to lift some weights. Get some!!

Day 65
I had my first personal trainer training. It was pretty basic paper work stuff and tour of the facilities. I went on a trail run on the boneyard, about six miles long in about an hour. First real steep up hill run. The whole time running up you can’t wait to start running down. When you start running down you realize this is no easier. The irony!
Really beautiful Colorado day.
One thing about the exercise program that I am doing is I get to spend a lot of time outdoors. Everyday I head out I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. It will be interesting to see how this all changes when the cold weather and snow come to town.

Day 66
I took a rest day today. Spent a great day with the family, although my daughter was sick, think she got some food poisoning or something. She is a tough little trooper! It was still a nice day around the house. I cheated a bit on my diet with some pizza. It was delicious!

Day 67
My wife started a new job today.  So I watched both of the groms this morning and it was awesome. I love hanging out with those two little monsters. It is a lot of work, but definitely the most rewarding type!
I have to work today 3pm-11pm shift. I am going to do a late night interval sprint workout followed by some planks, stretching, and swimming. I am not really looking forward to it cause it is no joke, but it is time to make it happen. I will try to beat my last times, especially on the two half miles and last mile? I have the minimus shoes, hopefully my calves hold up.
Thus far this whole experience has been really rewarding. I feel great, look better, and the mental advantages to eating healthy and exercising are just incredible. I feel calmer all the time and focused. What started as an inward journey to make my self look better, has coincidentally made my outward observations look better?
Trying to really focus on food preparation and making sure I bring meals with me everywhere I go. Letting your self get too hungry is a recipe for bad decision making. I am starting to study nutrition to make my self better and to make myself a better trainer. There are so many philosophies, but what has stuck with me the most is just being a conscious eater. Really just thinking about everything that goes in the body and why it is going there?  
Have a great weekend!

Monday, October 1, 2012

“It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.”

Day 54
Adding the sets to the treadmill work out defiantly put a strain on me. Felt good, but I was super spent after.

Day 55
Went to the gym before heading in to the Lodge for a 12 hour shift.

Day 56
Went on a 7.34 mile run in 1:02:54 Avg speed 7.01 mi/h. Ran in my minimus shoes and my calves are fucking killing me. Awesome run!!!
I am going to start using my other running shoes for the longer runs and just switching back and forth, till I am use to the shoes.

Day 57
Heading to the gym to get after a little iron. We get horses out at the ranch tomorrow!

Day 58
Gym workout yesterday got cut short by the fact that I had no time? Awesome road bike ride today 16.21 miles in 55:35 avg speed 17.51.
Man, my wife and daughter excited about our horses. It is really sweet to see them all together.

Day 59
Quarter mile sprint day. On the tread mill!           ¼ x 4 =1:30 1:23 1:17 1:19
    ½ x 2 = 3:52 4:00
    1 x 1 = 7:52
Brutal workout! My calves still kind of hurt and I wanted to quit soooo bad, but alas I made it through and feel good about doing so. That might be a huge component of this just training your mind that it is not okay to stop. Perhaps this will carry over to other aspects of life?

 Day 60
I took a nice hour long bike ride, towing my daughter in the chariot. It was such a beautiful fall day in Colorado.

Day 61 and 62
I had every intention of working out and staying on my diet during my buddy’s weekend wedding. Neither of these things happened, I jumped way off the wagon. Had a really good time, too good of a time really, did not really over eat, but defiantly over drank. I sat around and watched football all day Sunday, Broncos!! My body hates me right now, but it was fun to let loose a bit. 

Day 63
I am still feeling the effects today. Stomach is a mess and I feel super lazy, but I will get a workout in very soon. Gonna hammer out a treadmill workout and try and sweat this shit out, “Be gone vodka demon!”