CornerDealy’s BodyBlog

I got back last night from my trip to baltimore for the weekend. Nice city, great ballpark (loved seeing the Yanks not get completely buried in the playoff push).

Anyway, you all know the vacation mindset. You got money in your pocket and no reservations when it comes to eating. I pigged out, ice cream, cheesesteak, crab cakes, french fries, soda, beer, etc.

But I’m glad to be back on schedule cause as soon as I got home I felt gross. I don’t regret eating like that, cause these days I rarely if ever eat like that anymore. But the opposite effect has happened. In the past when I put myself on a diet it was almost a relief when I allowed myself to eat bad (like ahhhh finally a break). But now my body just responds so negatively to eating bad food for too long that it feels great to eat healthy and exercise.

Maybe things really are changing for the good.

Oh and a question:

Say I am able to get to the gym 5 days a week, should I just focus on one body part a day? (ex. Mon Chest, Tues Tris, Wed Back etc)

Or should I go less and do multiple parts a day? (ex. Mon Chest and Tris, Wed Back and Bis)
If I lift less days a week should i supplement the other days with cardio? Does it even really matter, just as long as I’m getting out there regularly? I wanna be able to go to the gym as often as I can.

I’ve been off all summer. Doing nothing just about every day. I’ve been good with my diet/exercise, but I usually just forget to weigh myself. I like to weigh myself when I first wake up, but lately (see: the past month or so) I’ve been eating breakfast as soon as I wake up so I don’t wanna weigh myself on a full stomach.

I’ve been using (don’t laugh) wii fit to track my weight because it’s an easy way to track my progress over time and is built right into the scale. (Don’t worry elitists, I’m going to the gym as much as I can, the wii fit is mostly my mom’s but I use it to track my weight and occasionally do some games or exercises if I don’t feel like going out).

So basically I haven’t weighed myself in over a month (40 days to be exact) except for when I went to the doctor’s last week (it had me heavier than I am because they weigh you with full clothes/shoes on). And much to my surprise I was the same weight than when I last weighed myself 40 days ago. For some reason I had prepared myself to see a gain, but I am still on track and it was great motivation to keep going.

So that’s my little story for the day.

I ate well, I’m not gonna list everything because I don’t feel like it and I went to the gym and did Chest and Tris (I’m starting to shift my focus on including more freeweight exercises). I think I’m gonna do cardio the rest of the week though because I’m going to Baltimore for the weekend and I don’t intend on eating that well.

Peace.

I’ve honestly forgot about this for a long time, but I just wanted to say that I’ve been regularly exercising and eating right. My progress is coming slowly but surely and for once in my life I truly feel like I’m making permanent changes. I’m gonna try my hardest to use the blog as my daily log of how I’m eating and what exercise I’m getting in, sort of a means of accountability and a way to be more mindful of what I’m accomplishing. I can’t make promises that I’m going to keep this up though, because it’s not easy.

So let’s start it for today, the day isn’t over yet but I’m gonna just write in what I plan on eating the rest of the day. (reminder, it’s the summer so I’m off all week long and

Eating:
10am - Flax Seed Hot Oatmeal
12pm - Protein Shake
2pm - Can of White Albacore Tuna mixed with brown mustard and relish on a multigrain pita
4pm -  Romaine Salad with Grilled chicken, olive oil and balsamic vinegar
6pm - Slice of pizza and a chicken roll

Exercise:
1230pm - 30 minutes of cardio at the gym spread over Treadmill, stepper and bike
830pm - 60 minutes of lifting at the gym, back and bis

This is weird…I’m now into my second week of regularly lifting, and my 3rd or 4th week of the diet, and I havent dropped a pound. I havent really gained any either though. But it’s weird because in the past I’ve always dropped those initial water weight lbs and everything. I’m not that discouraged, I know it will come in time, and I try not to focus on the actual number of lbs, but more on what I look like in the mirror. I think I look a little slimmer (it’s only been a few weeks, and I know rome wasn’t built in a day). I just hope I’m not doing anything wrong…I am eating more calories a day than the last time I was on a diet, but when I did it the last time I felt like I didn’t eat enough in a day and I lost a bunch of lbs, but it was impossible to stick to and I gained a bunch back. I dunno, if anyone has any suggestions or comments, please feel free.

I think the thing that leads me to cheating more than anything else is just simply being bored. I’m a boredom eater. It’s a fact. I guess to a degree I’m also an "emotional eater" (oh god, this is some Oprah stuff right here), but anyway, I certainly see myself eating to either supplement or augment negative or positive feelings. It’s not crazy to the point where if I get a little upset you’ll find me clutching my knees and weeping while jamming a pint of Häagen-Dazs down my throat, but a bag of chips or a burger sure does make it easier to swallow a Yankee’s early exit from the playoffs. And hell, I’m a Jets fan, need I say more?

But back to boredom. Right now I’m on winter break, and I still have a few weeks left of doing nothing all day pretty much every day. And for the most part I can stay in control (especially when I’ve accepted the fact that I’m on a regimen now). But I’ll be damned if I don’t find myself mysteriously in front of the open fridge, almost on auto pilot sometimes. It’s weird, but I guess it’s just a behavior I’ve learned to unconsciously do when I have nothing else going on. If you wanna get freudian, I suppose you can say I’m still fixated in the oral stage, but let’s not read too far into things (taking college level courses in psychology will help you self diagnose to the nth degree).

I think the most important thing to do is to make sure I stay more active and be more aware of what I’m doing. Anyway, on to the day 1 report.

Yesterday, Andrew and I embarked on the beginning of what we hope to be is a life long journey (no, we didnt get engaged). The first day back to lifting in a while is always rough. It’s hard to not focus on the negatives like how bad you let yourself go, how much strength you’ve lost, how out of breath you get, but I try to keep things into perspective. I’m not a pro athlete, I’m not training for a body building competition, I’m doing this for myself and there is no time limit. This is the beginning of a very long term change, so from what we did (and the goal was to just knock the rust off and have our bodies start to adjust) I can say it was successful.

You can read about what exactly we did, and how Andrew felt about it, in his blog: http://blog.bodybuilding.com/BooTz_60

Right now it’s about 1pm the next day and I’m still kinda sore, my chest a little, but the biggest thing is right above my elbows. I never felt this before when doing tricep exercises, and I did nothing different… but the place that is sore the most is right above the elbow (on the tricep side) it kinda feels like my elbow, but I think it’s just muscle. If it persists I suppose I’ll have to take a look at my technique. It’s not unbearable though.

On saturday I suppose we’ll be attacking a few different body parts, in what is just going to be an easy session again. Monday starts the real deal.

Ok, here we go. In the past I have gotten on weight loss and health kicks, but never seemed to be able to stick with them long term. I have found success in the past, but never have been able to make it a way of life. I have looked long and hard within myself to try and analyze why I do not stick with these things, and what I could do differently. It is easy to stay motivated and be excited about a new health regimen in the beginning, but after a while it looses its luster and becomes monotonous. I have theorized that in the past I have always thrown myself in way too deep way too quickly. Just one day I would decide it’s time for a change and then the very next day I would go on a hardcore diet and exercise program. I never give myself any time to ease into things and allow it to become part of my life.

Right now I am super motivated, and I have a great partner with whom I could work out with, we can motivate each other, and just basically support each other. But I guess I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have an idea in the back of my head that this will not last. I’m hoping this time is different, and I’m taking a different approach. In the past I would go around telling everyone that this is the beginning of a new change, it’s time to start doing things differently and I would ignore that voice in my head that would say "you honestly can’t keep this up forever". This time, I’m doing it for myself. There’s no point in bragging, I’ll let the results speak for themselves. There’s no point in lying to myself, I understand my anxieties and it’s better to be open about them. It’s time to prove myself wrong.

As of the time I’m writing this blog, January 3, 2008, one day after my 24th birthday, I am getting started. It’s thursday right now, and for the rest of this week I will mainly be preparing myself for the real routine to start next monday. This week will be for getting my body used to the change in diet and for doing some preliminary exercises to get my body back into the swing of things.

My partner Andrew (bootz_60 on here) and I will be starting things in my basement where I have a base bench/free weight setup. This is only temporary though, just to get us into a set routine. Once we are used to working out 3 days a week and have a set schedule we will then get gym memberships (I’m shooting for the beginning of February).

As far as my diet goes, I will be shooting towards eating 5 meals a day, one every 3 hours. I will focus on lean meats, vegetables and whole grains. I have not totally worked out the diet yet, but it’s something I’ll be able to more accurately determine once we start working out regularly.

The workout we plan on doing is lifting 3 days a week. I will then also try and do some light cardio on off days (nothing hardcore, I’m not a big fan of cardio, I just want it to be a goal for me that I loosely follow). I’m going to be experimenting with Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength routine. If anyone has any other suggestions or tips about it, let me know.

Right now I’m still on winter break, so it will be easier for me to get into a routine since I only work 1 day a week (lol) and have nothing else to do really all day. Once school starts up again I’ll be going to night graduate classes monday and wednesday and interning during the day on monday-wednesday. Hopefully by the time it starts at the end of this month I’ll be in enough of a routine that it wont be too much of a shock. Andrew is working full time, so it is much harder for him than it is for me.

Ok, enough rambling. Here we go, let’s do it. Sunday will be the first weigh in, I’ll post about it here.

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