In the past week I've started drinking 3 liters of water and eating over 38 grams of fiber a day. I've also started using my calorie/macro counter program again. I'm entering a cut phase to help me get in better shape for the Warrior Dash race in September and the Tough Mudder race in November. I just got out of a relationship that was bad for my training goals (got pulled into eating pizza and drinking beer more than I should have). I had gotten down into the 240s in weight, but when I got off track I picked 5 pounds back up. Since starting this cut phase, I'm back down to 252 pounds and dropping about 1/3 of a pound a day. I find that the increased water intake gets rid of cravings and my skin is looking better.

I also broke my Everlast neck harness at the gym a couple days ago. I was lifting 55 pounds and it snapped halfway during the 3rd rep. I'll need to get a new one next month, but it will have to be a serious one that can handle heavy amounts of weight. I also switched my fat burner from Ephedra 5 to Black Cats. I found that Ephedra 5 was close to useless. There was one time that I took a dose of it and managed to fall asleep a half hour later and sleep soundly. The Black Cats are working much better. I can tell they are working and I don't experience any crash afterwards. My current pre-workout stack is generic multivitamin, generic phytosterols, Black Cats, and generic cinnamon/chromium for pre-workout. My post-workout stack is Move Free Advanced, generic L-glutamine, generic DHEA and generic calcium/vitamin D.

I'm more fit right now at around 250 pounds than I was when I was down to 220. I've got a good deal more muscle mass due to using more freeweights and compound lifts. I've started adding more cardio and endurance exercises into my training. I haven't been to Aikido lessons in over a month due to money being tight over the summer. I've been thinking about taking a yoga class at the gym to work on my flexibility which is steadily diminishing the more I lift weights. I'm also adding focus on grip exercises, especially those relevant to the monkey bars obstacle on the Tough Mudder course, which I hear defeats many runners.

My shoulder recovery will take longer than initially expected. I'm on Celebrex right now, which has really taken down the inflammation. But I'm now aware that just about any exercise that involves the upper arms also affects the rotator cuff to some degree. I tried doing my usual spider curls but stopped after one set because I could feel the muscles around the joint tightening. Maybe its because the inflammation went down enough that the muscles surrounding it could swell more, but it didn't feel good.

I'm now resigned to the fact that it will take several weeks of no upper body lifting except for abs, neck, and forearms. As much as I hate to do so, I'm going to do an old-fashioned cutting phase while I'm recovering. I'm loading up on cardio, continuing to lift with legs, glutes, abs, obliques, lower back, neck, and forearms, while increasing my protein intake and hoping that I don't lose too much upper body mass during my partial downtime. Its kinda frustrating because I had just ordered a pair of Fatgripz.

Aikido practice has gotten easier. While I'm still sweating profusely by the end, I don't feel exhausted. I'm also much more comfortable with cardio on the treadmill. I've increased to my old regular speed from back when I used to work out at Louisville Athletic Club. In a few more weeks, I'll have the incline back up to 8%. In a month, I'll be using ankle weights with it.

I'm recovering from a rotator cuff injury to my suprasprinatus tendon in my right shoulder that I sustained after an Aikido nikyo shoulder pin done with a little too much enthusiasm. Later, when I was in the gym lifting, I tried the dumbbell Cuban press and felt a sharp pain in my rotator cuff. Its been over 2 weeks and its finally starting to heal w/ Osteo-Biflex & glutamine. I haven't done any chest, shoulder, or freewight tricep exercises since. Hopefully, I'll be over it by the time my off cycle is complete. I want to hit he gym extra hard in May.

I went to the Kentucky Derby Festival Fitness, Bikini, and Bodybuilding Championship. Not as fun as the Kentucky Muscle Classic, but it was cool. Not nearly enough take-home freebies from supplement companies. But I realized that I'm at least a year and a half out from competing: a year of beast lifting and a half year of working on poses. A good deal of first-time competitors didn't make the finals because their poses didn't showcase their strong points properly. After that, I got a quick workout in before doing some volunteer work with refugee kids.

I've finally updated all of my workout history stored on my iPhone. I added March and all of April up to today. The data starts in late October of 2010. I have previous data from another app that I was using, but all it recorded was the general type of exercise (example: weight training, running, cycling, etc) and the duration of the exercise since the focus of that app was calorie counting, not a full-featured workout logger.

On another note, I'm trying to figure out how to reconfigure my workout plan now that I've added hour-and-a-half Aikido sparring sessions into the mix. I've found that the joint locks and throws have a way of aggravating muscle strain in certain areas like my forearms, deltoids, rotator cuffs, lats, and glutes. I was so sore today that all I was able to do was the rotary torso machine this morning. I might try to get some treadmill time in after dinner, but thats about all I can do.

I added the spider curl to my workout yesterday and I really like how it isolates the biceps. I get a better pump from it. Also, it allows me to use the fixed-weight barbells for low-rep sets, unlike EZ bar curls where I can do upwards of 15 reps with the 110 pound EZ bar with little difficultly. I also added the Cuban press in the place of the standing scarecrow, but was limited due to the wear-and-tear from sparring (I lifted a little bit after sparring).

In the next few weeks I'm going to add more cardio into my workouts. I'm going to focus on simply holding onto the muscle I have while cutting fat. So far, I've been simultaneously gaining muscle while cutting fat. After 3 or 4 weeks of intense cardio, I'll cycle back on my supplements and go hardcore again on lifting with a monthly goal of 120,000 pounds.

Today I added workout data from December 2010, January 2011, and February 2011. There are a good deal of exercises that I didn't include due to the how much time it takes to enter so many exercises not listed in the database. No cardio, resistance band, or bodyweight exercises are listed (except the few that appear in the database). This alters my true monthly totals. More to come.

I'm slowly adding past workout data to my profile. Its a painstakingly slow process since there is no way to directly import the data from my phone app, so I'm forced to enter it manually. So far I've added October and November of 2010. The phone app that I was using before then only tracked time duration and calories burned, so I won't have any data previous to these entries. I plan to add December 2010, January 2011, and February 2011 tomorrow.

I also went to the gym and got a starting 1RPM for the deadlift and military press. I had never done either in my workouts, having previously favored the back extension machine and the shoulder press machine. The amounts that I entered aren't my complete maximum, but just what I felt comfortable doing without cutting the rest otf my workout short. None of my 1RPM readings are my absolute max. I'll get a more accurate barbell row 1RPM tomorrow.

Its been awhile since I've been on here. I let myself go after a bad breakup and ballooned back up in weight. I then joined Urban Active and I've been cutting fat while gaining muscle, which is never an easy thing to do well. I've managed to make fast progress, but now I'm having to cycle off all my supplements other than protein in order to give my body a rest. So many of the various supplements I was taking had counteracting effects that put extra strain on my body. I've gotten better about spreading out my meals rather than clumping all my protein intake into 3 meals. I've also been taking almost double the recommended amount of fiber each day.

I've added much more cardio to my workouts in the past few weeks. I've been participating in 5Ks each weekend for the past 3 weeks. I've also used more free weights this time around than I did in the past. The last time I was in the gym heavily, I used mostly machines with only a little bit of free weight use or arm curls, shoulder flys, shrugs, and standard bench press. Now I use more free weights than I do machines. I've also started specializing and targeting my training days now. I used to do the identical super circuit workout every time and hit every machine in the gym for only one or two sets. Now I have leg days and arm days, etc. I still throw random exercises in that work other parts in order to give the primary target areas a rest between hard exercises.

I've been using more dumbbell exercises than barbell exercises lately, which has given me greater gains. I also recently started taking Aikido in order to get some extra discipline and cardio, as well as an outlet for some of the aggression than comes with elevated testosterone. But anyways, I'm going to keep on trucking. By this summer, I want to be able to take my shirt off.