SkweRLy’s BodyBlog

I’m still on the painful end of this rotator cuff injury, and it’s really bringing me down emotionally. I hate that I can’t go just throw weights around the gym for a while at the end of the day. Not to mention my running is being subsided to very windy conditions. I can’t run outside much now without putting on a parka basically and I hate the damn treadmill. I don’t find it very accurate. I know my pace and stride, but the machince doesn’t. So basically I gave in today and did some leg exercises. Did I mention I hate working lower body, but sometimes you just have to give in right? Leg presses, calf raises, squats, a bit of treadmill time. It wasn’t all that bad, but I would have rather lifted. Yesterday was an abs day and I love every painful minute of it. They are gettin tight and huge, but i gotta get rid of this excess fat. It’s just so hard with the constantly shitty food and diet I complain about in every other blog. I’m tryin and I think I am makin do with what I am given. I can’t wait to get back to the states where I can stock a fridge, make my own meals, and have some freedom about my diet. Yea, then hopefully I will still be able to stick to mytraining regemin and really get the look I am aiming for. Any advice I can get on losing that littlebit of left over flab right at the lower stomach area would be great. A guy I know keeps saying, "It’s dairy fat, use soy milk in your cereal that will get rid of it." I find it hard to believe milk sits just right there. But hey, that’s all the advice I have as of now. Running my ass off has helpped a lot, but not enough. I’m still sitting at 12% BF and I want under 10. So still a little ways off. I’ll be there.

On a side note, my work hours are changing from midnight to noon, to noon to midnight. So I’m going to try to plan a run in the mornings, work, then gym afterward. I don’t know if that’s a better Idea than gym before work and running afterward, but after work it will be midnight - 0100, so I wouldnt be able to run outside.

So yea I think that I am about done ranting now. I need a shower, and sleep.

Well, i tore some ligiments, or strained, or pulled, whatever in my left shoulder putting up the 285 on the bench the other day. I went to medical, talked to Doc, and am on some meds. I have to take it easy on the shoulder, just do light rotator cuff exercises for a while. fun fun huh? well im going to take it easy, so no updates to come for about a week or so. it sucks, but with work and the holidays im going to need the break to talk to family and get things in line. thats about it.

yesterday i took a day off from the gym, running, and everything. i got off work, hit the shower, and went to bed. it was amazing. other than waking up an hour and a half later thinking it was time to wake up because my body thought it was fully rested. which lead to having to walk to the bathrooms outside through the cold. For anyone who does not know i am in iraq and the bathrooms are a good 100 yard walk from my room. when you are nice and cozy in bed all bundled up, walking just to pee sucks. anyway i finally got back to sleep for what felt ike 5 minutes, but it was 6 hours later and time to get up. fun fun.

 the day before that i got off work and skipped my run. so i feel like a slob today. its been 2 days since i ran. but i wanted to hit the gym and work on my "beat the gunner" stats. we have a little competition in our shop where we face off against the gunner in 5 competitions; pullups (max set), dips (max set), crunches (2 minutes), pushups (2 minutes), and max bench. So far my stats are 25 pullups, 35 dips (i did 42 one day, but i didnt get a wittness), 114 pushups, and 280 max bench. I’m leading the max bench and pushups so far. The only thing that sucks with the max bench is that we take the benched weight and divide that by the persons weight. mine would be 280 / 177 = 1.582 roughly. So we use this number since not everyone weighs the same. Gunner weighs in the low 160, so he doesn’t have to bench as much. But we have a few months left till the final show down and I believe I am only going up.

 I don’t know if my goals on winning the "Beat the Gunner" contest will diminish my overall goal of under 10% BF with a 6 pak or not. We will see. I am still working on it. I know it is a challenge trying to weigh out maintaing or increasing muscle, while still losing fat but not muscle with too much running.

Side note…. I got my flu shot a couple of days ago and since then I have been way too hungry and eating for no reason. Its nothing bad, a handful of peanuts here, some crackers there, the occasional banana, but still I am not used to jsut giving into being hungry for no reason. Anyone else have this problem? And can you go overboard on peanuts? I don’t eat a shit load or anything, but I eat a good amount. Also I drink about a gallon and a half of water a day. I jsut get thirsty. Maybe its because of the peanuts? lol.

I need some advice on lower ab workouts, my upper and mids are showing and getting tight as hell, but my lower isnt too good. i have the "V" but no lower ab show? normal? am i doing something wrong? advice please. thanks.

I couldn’t help myself today. I was at work, and even after a good meal I was still starving. I ended up just eating out of boredom. It was alright at first, I had some peas and carrots and a nice piece of pork. After that tho I just ate whatever was handy, chips, cookies, peache cups. I just didnt feel full or satisfied. So I finally got put on something to do and I stopped eating. But then for breakfast, rather than my normal smart start cereal and couple pieces of ham or what not, I had total raisin bran, coco puffs, a banana nut muffin, english mussin with ham, just random ass stuff. To top it all off I was drinking water like I had been treking through the desert for days. Well I thought that when I got to the gym I was going to weigh in to account for it, but to my suprise I was only 177. Which isn’t bad at all. I have gradually been losing and its awesome. I have 2 more pounds to lose by the 31st to reach my goal. I think it may be safe to say that I’ll make it. I may possibly set my goal to 170 and use that as a moderate weight level. Who knows.

 As for today’s training, I ran 4 miles. The first half mile or so I had a slow jog, just going through the motion mentality going on. I was just going to do 3 miles to warm up before the gym, but it’s always about this point in my run that my breathing regulates and my stride evens out. Then I just push it. I got to that mile and a half turn around point and decided to just keep on going, I had a great sweat going, and I didn’t want to stop. I ran to the 2 mile mark and turned around. This was about 15 minutes. So I did what anyone would do, I raced myself back. I crossed the finish at 28′ 35". so basically I smoke checked myself by 1′ 25". Not too bad for it being the second leg of the 4 miler. However I do have to account for the sand bagging that I did for that first half mile. I don’t really think it was but 30 seconds worth, but it’s accountable.

After that I went to the gym for my normal ab routine, which involved as much, if not more, sweating as the run. I was hurtin. I love getting to that point in a workout where you can just see the pain in the persons face. And boy was I there a few times. I’m definately feeling tighter abs tho. Any recommendations for really making the abs "pop" tho. That’s definately what I want. It’s only been about 7-8 weeks of really training, and maybe 5-6 of doing my focusing on my abs, I know it takes time. I just like to know what works for other people.

It’s definately bed time tho. The alarm sounds in about 6 hours for work. ouch.

Went to the gym today, but what else is new. Maxed out on the bench at 275. Still tryin for my 295 goal. my body fat and weight are droppin slowly but surely, and im lovin it. I didnt run today, i just wasnt feelin it, but i think a day off from it wont hurt at all. tomorrow im goin for another 5 miler and abs. my waist is down to 31.75in from 34.5 about 2 months ago, and my weight is down to 178 from 200ish. my muscles are getting defined, ive lost some size on random muscles (arms, chest) but it is all fat size anyway. id rather be cut than large and chubby.

 but to the point of the blog. my shift at work is getting changed. rather than the midnight to noon shift, im going to be noon to midnight. this throws my workout schedule for a little curve. however it will be easier to get out and run before work, then gym it up afterward. which will be a good change and probably help out rather than squeeze it all in at once.  so it has its ups and downs. i guess i just have to take it as it comes.

well lets see if i can hit my 175 and 10% BF by the 31st.

I just have to throw it out there, that tody after 2 months of working I hit my goal of under 20′ 30" on a 3 mile run. I only beat it by 2" but it felt great to hit that 3 mile marker, stop my watch, and look down to see that I did it. Not only that but I’m down to 180Lbs. So only 5 more to go by the end of the year for another goal, and only 1.5% more BF to lose. Slowly but surely. Yesterday I wasn’t able to get on, but the update on that is I ran 5 miles in 39′ 32". So that’s not too shaby at all. It’s the first time I have really run that far by choice. 

Other than that I bought some protien just to make up for the lack there of in the food here, so hopefully that will help the lean muscle stay on rather tahn drop when I keep running a lot.  

So there I was, taking a shower, when I looked out and into the mirror. I flexed a bit, as I do during showers just to see where my body is. To my suprise I could see my abs starting to take shape. I can feel each individual muscle of 8 abs, and the top 4 are starting to show. Well when I flex hard enough. I just need to lose a lot of my spare tire area to get the rest showing. I keep going online and figuring my BF% and it says as of now im sitting between 11-12% which seems a bit low to me, but who knows it could be true. Someone tell me, 5′ 9", 182lbs, 16 in neck, and 32 in waist. I dont know, I just plug and play. Ive been running my ass off lately, and working abs a lot, possibly to the over worked extent, but I am loving every minute of it. I actually did some weight lifting today. I gotmy bench max at 275. I want to get 20 more pounds on that. Basically I just want to push a 45, 35, 25, 10, 5, and a 2.5 on each side so that nice little slop of weights is there. Yea, I have weirs goals. Let’s see if I can do it by new years. 

Well I just finished syncing my new playlist for the gym, and I have to be up for work in about 5 and a half hours. Word.