BFL Coffee Crew!

http://bodyforlife.com/community/boards/bfl/f/13/t/80.aspx

This was my biggest support group. When I started a new job in April and lost all my support. Bad habits I had not had in many years slowly came back. Last night I ate a double cheese burger, 6 chicken nuggets, a bean burrito, and a flatbread taco.

I have made 2-3 attempts to start back up that crashed and burned. I had the fuel but this group was the wind beneath my wings. I quit the new job two months ago and now I am working two jobs as a independent contractor. I quit my gym membership because I had not used it in months and only went 20 times the whole year VS. 3-6 times a week in the past.

I got thru for a long time saying as long as I am under 190 I am doing ok and maintaining all the hard work I put from 2008-2009. Right now I am 204 and had to switch to an old belt to go to work. My wife is worried that I am out of control as she never knew me before I lost most of my weight and started living healthy.

Last week I turned 30 and I feel like a whole new chapter is opening. I am starting a business from home that we plan to launch in the spring. I am losing my full time contract at the end of the month. I slept in till 11am yesterday when I was suppose to be at work at 6:45am. I drank a red bull on the way to my second job and could not sleep last night.

I plan to take before pictures and measurement this week. My very first BFL challenge started December 14th 2009 (weighed 182) and I hope to start a new one or some type of training plan soon.
I miss this support group. It was one of a kind and everyone moving to Facebook then all the members fading away really hurt. The forum was magic because anyone could post and there were always new people who wanted to join in. The Facebook group was closed so only 1 person in it is still motivated and posts.

This is only my 17th blog post of 2013. I had 248 in 2012 and 340 in 2011. I have not had much to say and have not done much to write home about.

With 2014 on the horizon I am still optimistic about what the future will bring. I have been laying the stepping stones to escape the cubicle and draining commutes and focus on what I am passionate about to make a living. Depends on how a talk goes with my boss at my part time job my freedom might greatly increase. Freedom of time and freedom of living closer to what I believe in and what I want the future to bring.

15 Weeks

It is now 15 weeks until the DRC Half Marathon.

Ellen started a Juice Fast on Friday. Check out her blog: http://moodyfoodylady.blogspot.com/

Last week I attempted to do a full 5-6 day workout routine. I ended up running Wednesday, biking Thursday, and lifting weight on Saturday. This week is the new beginning. No more road trips and no more excuses. I am already signed up for the Palo Duro 20k on 10-19-13 and that is my main focus. If I can run 12.4 miles on sandy trails I will be able to run 13.1 miles on streets two weeks later.

I just downloaded the Hal Higdon's Novice 2 Half Marathon Training program. For some reason I cannot find the one I used in 2011 but this one is better because it works up to 12 miles before the race instead of 10. I have only run over 3 miles once in the past 6-7 months so I need to work on building back up to an easy 4-5 miles in the next 3 weeks.

We spent July 1-7th in Colorado. I used the time to eat healthy and stay active. I dropped from 198 to 191 in two weeks and plan to get back to my ideal racing weight (165-170) over the next 3 months. I peaked out right about 200 lbs which is my heaviest in almost exactly 4 years.

New Shoes and 5k Registration

I just ordered new shoes for my wife and I on clearance from http://www.travelcountry.com

I had been asking for a pair New Balance Minimus Zero since October. 

In order to get free shipping I got my wife a pair of Vibram fivefingers SeeYa LS. She loves her SeeYa shoes with a strap and hopes the ones with the laces will be even better.

I also signed up for the St. Paddy's Day Dash Down Greenville 5k

I am hoping to break out of the funk I have been in the past 5 months.

New Balance MR00

Vibram fivefingers SeeYa LS

Back in Action

Things are looking up in my world. After our trip to Reno we completely lost our routine for 3-4 weeks. As January was coming to an end I looked at my calendar and noticed I had only ran 2 miles and had lifted weight twice. Since my post last Wednesday "Why wait till Monday" my mojo is back. I got off my ass and just did it and ENOYED it. 

I dropped 3 pounds since then and I am eating better. I feel better. Yesterday I had to survive on just 900 calories from 6am to 7pm and I though I would die but I just drank more coffee and I was fine. I have been eating enough or overeating for 4 months and forgot that I can control and limit myself.

After 12 weeks of bulking and lifting and 3-4 weeks of no activity I am read to tackle the next 16 weeks.

I am 15-16 pounds of fat above ideal. I am giving myself a June first deadline to lose it. Just in time for 3 trips to the beach we have planned.

Starting Wednesday I am giving up gluten, alcohol, fried foods, and all nonessential communication tools. 40 days of freedom!

Starting Monday we are following an 8 week program called The Texas Method that I downloaded from the creator of StrongLifts. It is similar to what we just finished except it adds in Pull Ups and Dip and the number of reps and intensity vary from Mon, Wed, Friday.

We are headed to Galveston Island this weekend. It will be in the 60s and rainy. I have not visited my grandmother for a whole year. She is turning 80 this summer and my last visit was on February 2-4 2012 when I ran my fastest half marathon.

February 2012 was the peak of my running conditioning. I had been training for 8 months with a 2 week break in the middle. On 2-5 I ran my fastest Half and on 2-12 I ran my longest ever run (17mi). On 2-19 I was attempting 18 miles and my knee crapped out on me ending all my plans. I am no longer motivated or interested in longer endurance running/racing. I have 8-10 pounds more muscle now and I am not going to waste it away again.

Balance is good in human fitness. Body for life was good balance for me. Running for 20 to 45 minutes is healthy. Doing 5k and 10k races is fun. After my first BFL challenge I swore off cardio and just lifted weights. After that I start running like crazy for 2 years and eventually lifting became a twice a week effort to just maintain my muscle.

How do I combine the best of both worlds? I want to bench press more than 165 pounds. I want to run 10k races in under 54 minutes. I would like to maintain a lean sub 12% body fat year round. 

2013: A New Beginning

We just got back from Reno on Saturday. After a week of good eating I lost 3 pounds and Ellen lost 6 pounds. We have been gaining weight since June and I have been intentionally packing on the pounds since October. With a combination of the GOMAD diet and just plain lazy laid back holiday eating from Thanksgiving to Christmas I managed to pack on 19 pounds (25 pounds since June). Due to measuring body fat percent I can tell that I gained 13.5 pounds of fat and 11.5 pounds of lean body mass. Considering my history with obesity having 45% of my weight gain non-fat is pretty good.

My final weigh in of 2012 something happened that I had not seen in over 3 years. I weighed 190.6 hitting my "weight ceiling" I set on my last training session with my personal trainer back in September 2009. The good news is that although I am right at 190 I am 3 pounds leaner than my last training session. At the beginning of the GOMAD diet I planned to go to 4 week or stop when I hit 190 pounds or 20% body fat. I peaked out at 190.6 lbs and 17.9% body fat.

I have almost come full circle over the past 3+ years but now I have more confidence, more muscle, and I am stronger mentally and physically. I have gained and lost the same 15ish pounds 4 times but I am not a yo-yo dieter. I have changed my short terms (2-6 month) goals back and forth from weight lifting and muscle growth to weight loss and various running speed and distance goals. This year I plan to keep my focus on the longer term without any up and downs steadily chipping away at the goals I set in 2009 that I have yet to reach. My fast food addiction has improved but I want to eliminate it like I did my addiction to sodas. I drink maybe 2-6 cans of sodas a year now. Chipotle will be my quick healthy go to food along with almonds and beef jerky from convenience stores.

This evening we finally took our progress pictures and measurements.

January 2012 to January 2013

 January 2012 to January 2013

September 2012 170ish (Pre-GOMAD) to January 2013 190ish

7 Week Update

After I moved my marathon date to February I lost all motivation to run. I dropped my plan to run a marathon and to log 1000 miles in 2012. I decided to cut back to running 1 day a week for 2 miles with my dog but even that plan did not last. After 15 months I stopped but I did manage to sign up for an 18km trail run with my father-in-law and his friend. It is on December 8th and I have done zero training for it until last Friday. I ran, hiked, and climbed 8.3 miles with my father-in-law in Palo Duro Canyon (the second largest canyon in North America). It gave me confidence I can manage 11ish miles but I have not run in the past 6 days.

My loss of desire to run was match with an increased focus of strength training. After taking 11 days off of lifting I started the StrongLifts 5x5 program. It is a very simple 3 day a week routine. You alternate doing 5 sets of 5 reps (after some warm up sets) of three full body exercises. Working A you do Squats, bench press, and bent over barbell row.  Workout B you do Squats, Overhead Press (standing), and Deadlifts. In order to develop proper form you start with just an Olympic (45 pound) barbell and 5 pounds each exercise the next workout (10 pounds on deadlifts). I had been neglecting working my legs the past 2 years and I am loving it.

As an experiment the first 4 weeks of SL5x5 I also followed the GOMAD (Gallon of Milk a Day) Diet. Basically you drink a gallon of whole milk on top of your normal eating. I split it into 4 quarts and drank it between meals and in 27 days I gained 12 pounds half of which is shows up as lean body mass. It was "fun" but I am not sure what I think about the results. Since Thanksgiving is now past I plan to shed the fat I gained plus some. Cowtown 10k is 2-23-12 (about 12 weeks away) and I plan to shed 12-15 pounds while maintaining my Lean body mass (151-152 pounds). That will put me back in the 160s and 12% BF range that I was in back in May/June. 

I no longer fear gaining weight and I am now committed to a full body "powerlifting" program that I will build strength on instead of hitting a weight plateau due to switching my routine every 4-6 weeks. Never says never but now I have no plans to continue doing any endurance training and will still do HIIT cardio and running 5k and 10k races on occasion. 

Please feel free to tell me anything or share any opinion you have. It will not hurt my feelings and I like constructive criticism.

10-5-2012 to 11-27-2012 (camera phone quality is poor)

171 lbs 14.4% BF to 184 lbs 17-18% BF

“"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out..." - Robert J. Collier”

StongLifts 5x5 Week 7 Day 1

Squat:

Warm Up

45 x 5

45 x 5

75 x 3

75 x 2

Work Sets

135 x 5

135 x 5
135 x 5
135 x 5
135 x 5

Bench Press:

Warm Up

45 x 5

45 x 5

100 x 3

100 x 2

Work Sets

130 x 5

130 x 5
130 x 5
130 x 5
130 x 5

Barbell Row:

Warm Up

95 x 5

95 x 5

120 x 3

120 x 2

Work Sets

145 x 5

145 x 5
145 x 5
145 x 5
145 x 5

47 mins

For 2012 I have been taking a monthly progress picture around the 8th day of the month but this month I was super busy (and could not find my blue shorts.) This morning I had Ellen snap some quick pictures on my phone. The quality is low but comparing them to my October progress really shows how much I gained. The October pics were taken the week before I started GOMAD. I am about 14 pounds heavier 6-7 weeks later. Hopefully I packed on some permanent muscle. I plan to start running again to shed the 6+ pounds of fat I put on. I have 14 pounds of fat to shed to my longtime goal of 10% body fat and the Cowtown 10k is 13 weeks away. I have a goal and a deadline and it is time to take action.

The Big Picture

Sometimes it is nice to slow down and just enjoy life. Reign in the tunnel vision focus on goals and deadlines and really see they big picture. Take a moment to look back and reflect on the past and the progress or direction life is going. Rethink your goals to better align with your passions and values. Ask yourself if the things in life that take lots of time and effort reflect your personal beliefs. What are your long term future goals? Have you lost touch with your younger idealistic self? Are you sacrificing your time on this earth towards something you believe in?

Before I finish this chapter of my life I want to make sure I am not straying from my values and the original motivations that got me to this very moment in my life. Every action and choice and brought me to today. Where will my future actions take me and where do I want to be?

All these questions can be asked spiritually, romantically, physically, and financially. I can feel myself change with time. I have made alot of personal changes in the past 6 years. I changed alot in the 4-5 years before that when I completely let myself become an open book to explore who I was and what I experienced. Going back even further was the transition from child to adult. There are the changes that seem to naturally come with age and there is the personal evolution that happens over time while at the core staying the same basic being.

All my life I have let the numerical count of the number of trip on this earth around the sun rule what I thought I should be doing. I used it as a barometer of where I should be. For the first 18 years of my life everything felt like it was already planned for me and my goals were as much my decisions as they where social expectations. Once I got to college decisions about life were still guided but the amount of the decision making process that was purely up to me greatly increased. I had a finite amount of time/money to complete my education. It took me 2 years to find what I wanted to study while at the same time discovering who I am and what my limits might be. Once I graduated and got my first job I was allowed even more control over my life and decisions. I went thru a tough transition period where I felt lost and depressed because I had no clear direction and or exceptions from myself or externally. This lasted almost 2 years until I took time to sit back and look at the big picture. I was not a failure but there were goals and desires I had for over a decade that I had been ignoring. I used turning 25 as a big stressor and motivator to re-align my life with what I was passionate about, and my personal values, while finally reaching my long term goals and burning desires.

I feel like I am nearing the end of my current chapter and, although I have evolved and grown, it is time to re-align, or better yet fine tune, my goals and actions to better fit my passions and desires. The best thing to happen to me was meeting my wife Ellen. Now as I reflect, plan, and focus I do so with two lives as one.

Spiritually we both want to be part of a community to share our faith. Earlier this year we tired out a few churches. After going to my friend Nick & Keri's wedding a few weeks ago we really like the preacher that married them and are planning to go to church with them soon. I know how Nick feels about spiritual/religious things and it is similar to my own beliefs/values.

Romantically I want to be better in tune with my wife's passions and desires. I also need to learn to be a more helpful roommate and husband. Part of this means adjusting my behaviors and goals in a more harmonious and less selfish way.

Physically the majority of my goals in the past 4-5 years have been health and fitness related. I finally shed my excess weight and for the past 2 years I have been focused on running to maintain my fitness. I need to let go of my age based goals. When I set the goal of running a marathon by the age of 30 it was to keep myself going so I would not fall back into old habits and gain back my weight. It was also part of reaching a goal and then setting a bigger goal. I have been reading more and more recently that cardiovascular endurance reaches a point of diminishing returns. Running more than 45-60 minutes and more than 20+ miles a week leads to muscle breakdown, joint stress, and hurts the immune system. Back in November I was running off the high of completing my first Half Marathon. A month later I started training for a full marathon but the training took it's toll and I got injured. After re-training myself to run in minimalist shoes I set off to reach my goal again but without the passion and drive I had before my injury. I eventually dreaded the long runs and for the first time in a long time I gave up and quit. Today I saw a friend post on facebook that today is her last training run before her big race and she is going to miss the training. I do not feel that same passion anymore. At this point I am dropping my marathon before turning age 30 goal. Never say never but not right now. I still have unfinished business with the goal I set in October 2009, get back to 160 pounds lean body mass and 12-10% body fat. I really enjoy running 5k and 10k races and they are alot cheaper than half and full marathons with less recovery and training time.

Financially I have goals but I have not been taking enough action or making the right decisions to move towards them. After the wedding and before Ellen got her first post college job I was in a negative budget and building up debt. The week Ellen started her new job she broke her wrist. Medical bills piled up and we balanced our budget and slowed down and eventually stopped the accumulation of debt. This week she started a new position with better pay. Now it is time to take more action to eliminate the debt.

For the past 3 weeks I have been slowing down and bringing the bigger picture into view. Everything seems to be falling into place and I want to make sure I am taking the right actions and moving in the right direction. With the changing of the season, the ongoing political chatter about the upcoming election, the new job, the change in focus of physical goals, and a desire to find a church and spiritual community I feel an optimistic about the future.

Chest/Back, Shoulders, and Bicep/Tricep Supersets

I have cut back my running recently. Last week ended a 28 week streak of running 3-4 days a week. This is the first time I have quit training or cut back that was not due to injury. 

My goal marathon was causing more stress than excitement so I quit my program training in week 8 of 18 weeks.  I have 14 days to relax and focus on lifting weights before I start training for the Cowtown Marathon. It is in my hometown and is more special to me. My parents ran the 10k back in the early 80s. Ellen and I did the 5k together 2 years ago and I limped thru the Half Marathon earlier this year a week after I injured my knee. 

Thurs night we went out for dinner and I left my car at the restaurant so I would be motivated to run on Friday morning (my day off). When Ellen left for work I ran the long way (4 miles) to pickup my car. A couple hours later I had my most intense strength training work in about a year. A year ago I was doing alot of low rep superset workouts. On my way into the gym I got on my blog and downloaded my logs from 8-3-11 and 8-6-11 and combined them (minus burnouts and Abs) into 66 minutes on "torture." I was able to lift the same amount or more on everything except shoulder shrugs. Saturday morning when I woke up I said to Ellen. "My everything hurts."

My DOMS lasted 3 days and I am looking forward to going back for more "torture" tomorrow. Also, I am considering doing the GOMAD diet for 4 weeks (google it). We started back up on Paleo again yesterday and planned to stick to it for 5 weeks until Ellen's birthday. Since May we both put back on what we lost from February to April. If I mix Paleo with GOMAD I guess it will call it the Nomad GOMAD Challenge. The past two years I put on 8-10 pounds from the last weekend in September until the end of the year. I might as well do it the right way.

Running in the Heat

Last month I did something new with surprising results. I ran in the sun in 100+ without stopping and didn't die or pass out. This changed my previous opinion that anything over 89 was too hot for running. It became "punishment" for not waking up at 5am and running before work. One thing I did keep in mind was "Once your body temperature climbs to 104 degrees, you're in the heatstroke danger zone."

After keeping in the furthest regions of the back of my mind I finally said out loud that someday I would like to attempt to do the Badwater Ultramarathon. Just like how I started thinking about running a Marathon when I had yet to do a half and my longest run was only 6.2 miles now I am thinking of doings Ultra Races. I hope to find out December 9th what 26.2 miles feels like.

The Badwater Ultramarathon describes itself as "the world's toughest foot race". It is a 135-mile (217 km) course starting at 282 feet (86 m)[1] below sea level in the Badwater Basin, in California's Death Valley, and ending at an elevation of 8360 feet (2548 m) at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mount Whitney. It takes place annually in mid-July, when the weather conditions are most extreme and temperatures over 120 °F (49 °C), even in the shade, are not uncommon.

I think it was bad/good that last week after my spark of motivation with TC I read the story of David Goggins. I had already head about Badwater and follow it on facebook but now I have a story that made it seems less like a pie in the sky goal. I posted a quote by him on facebook on Saturday. 

"Life is not always going to be this care free happy place that we would like it to be. What life throws at you is a lot of negativity. It's what you do with that negativity that makes you a stronger human being. When you hear the words, no, you can't, impossible, never...what do you think to yourself? Do you cower inside and run from the challenge. Or do you face it...head on...asking for more?

Failure is an option. It's what you do with the failure that makes you who you are. Our failures mold us. I have failed at several things in my life. What sets some of us apart, is that when we fail, we can't sleep at night. It haunts us until we have our time at redemption."

Here is a runner's world article on him I really liked. http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-560--12944-0,00.html

"I’m nobody special. Let’s be perfectly clear… I don’t like to run. I don’t like to swim. I don’t like to bike. I do this to raise money for the children of soldiers killed in combat.... Like I said, I don't like running. I don't like biking. I don’t like swimming. I do it to raise money. But, now that I'm in this sport I want to see how far I can push myself."