Making Statements, Not Excuses

This weekend I have a couple of friends competing at the Southern USA at PC Beach this weekend. I’m heading out in a few hours to go see them compete. They are bmustang1 and CarolAnn1 from bodyspace, so if you get a chance go by and wish them good luck. BTW in order to avoid wasting money on bad food, i finally learned to prepare food for my trips. I packed up some chicken breast, a few bananas, some tuna , bottled water and will buy a garden salad from the grocery store so i can eat it fresh. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. But i guess when i travel for longer than a weekend we’ll see if I can keep this up. At 5 meals a day it’s not easy. No workout today as I said i got it in Wednesday so i could pack and get on the road. Now I can actually listen to lite rock and enjoy it because i’ll be driving HAHA!

Sometimes we put these restrictions and challenges to ourselves and then wonder if we should have done it or not. I think that’s why most people fall off the wagon. They got in over their heads and set their bar too high and then get frustrated when they don’t see the results they want and give up beacuse it isn’t happening fast enough. This is day 3 for me since I re-started my 60 day No Bread/NO Sugar challenge and it is hard to walk down an aisle of the grocery store where you see sweets and bread and its not getting any easier, because in a few weeks its Memorial Day. The difference is I set a reasonable goal. Some people want to get results in a month and that is just not realistic. You have to trust your body enough to allow it to adjust to the changes. Remember we caused our bodies to be in their current state and contrary to popular belief, our bodies did not get in this shape overnight, it happened over a specific amount of time as we slowly ate, smoked and drank our way into this current state. The problem is it was easy to do these things to make our body fat, out of shape and lazy, so by contrast we have to work hard to get it back to where it was and when you have to work hard, its more tiring, more painful takes longer and and we get impatient. But here’s a newsflash, time always seems to move slowly when we have to work at anything. You ever notice how fast time flies when we are at a ball game or a party, but it seem to drag along when we are at work or somewhere we don’t want to be? So guys be pateint, don’t set unreasonable or unrealistic goals and don’t try too hard. In time you will get there.

Well off to the gym to get my adrenaline flowing to a long music set to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, followed by the superband New Kids on the Block, and rounding it out with Air Supply

Pull-ups…. 3 sets of 6-8 reps assisted of course

Bent Over Barbell Rows….3 sets of 8-10 reps

Lat Pulldowns…3 sets of 10-12 reps

Nose Crushers…3 sets of 8-10 reps

Close Grip BP…3 sets of 10-12 reps

Today is Day 2 of the sugar/bread destruction plan. I get myself up and take down my egg whites and water and head out to the gym. It’s usually my day off but I will be at the NPC Southern USA championships in PC Beach this Friday so I went ahead and got in my shoulder work out today. Well of course you know it was a matter of time before I saw…the talker…You all know this person. The one who wants to talk about everything and talk to everybody. Well I manage to get my workout in in about an hour which was fine considering I made myself one with the radio again this morning as i got jacked up to the hard core sounds of Ne-Yo and All-American Rejects among others. So now i’m dealing with this person asking what they have to do to tighten this up and shape that up, etc. Now this person is the one that complains about never getting better. So when this person is told some of the exercises that can help, she comes back with, "oh that’s too hard", and when you mentioned that eating right is 90 % of the fight, she comes in with "oh i have to have my popcorn and cola". I just shook my head and went about my business as I moved to my abs workout. I told her friend that she was with that she will never get better. Her friend said "she is one of the classic examples of wanting the great body but not wanting to pay the price". Now she is the one who will eventually be jealous of her friend when they go to the beach and the friend is in the two piece and she has to settle for the khaki shorts and oversized Tee-shirt.  So Sad…

Seated Military Press…3 sets 6-8 reps

Upright Rows…3 sets 8-10 reps

Lateral/Side Raise(superset)…3 sets 10-12 reps

Dumbbell Shrugs…3 sets 10-12 reps

Meal 1…protein shake w banana

Meal 2 snack…Apple

Meal 3…Tuna salad

Meal 4 snack…Banana

Meal 5…Tilapia Fillet

Well I have to admit that I am human and not a perfect man. That said I have to admit that when i originally set out to do my 60 day no sugar/no bread plan, i fell off the wagon a couple of times. So even though i have gotten back on I just realized that i need someone to do it with me. So a good friend from here, atray87, and i agreed to be accountability partners. Starting today we made a deal to re-start the 60 day sugarless/breadless campaign. One of the problems was that I sopped planning meals and preparing them so i will start perparing my meals the night before and will take my meals with me wherever i go so i am not tempted to have to stop at a restuarant when on the road.  Todays workout and meal plan is below. I’m gonna have to borrow someone’s ipod because i don’t think I can handle Lionel Richie and George Michael songs while i’m doing legs LOL.

Squats 3 sets 10-12 reps

Leg Press 3 sets 10-12 reps

Leg Curl 3 sets 10-12 reps

Leg Extension 3 sets 10-12 reps

10 stadium runs…in case of rain, 3 sets of 10 lunges

Meal Plan

Meal 1… 4 egg whites, 1 whole egg,

Meal 2… Tuna Salad

Meal 3… Garden Salad, No dressing

Meal 4… Chicken Breast, Broccolli

Meal 5…Apple

To be totally honest I just got up this morning after a great mother’s day when my mom actually was blessed to have all five of her children and their families there to celebrate it with her…it doesn’t happen all too often because we are all spread apart. Well this morning I hit the grind again with my Chest/Biceps routine. I got in and had a pretty decent workout but of course today’s adventure was that as I got about halfway through my workout, there were these two cute blond ladies there (So that i don’t offend anyone i won’t call them Milfs or cougars). They of course decided they wanted to talk but at least they were working out. And here came the obligitory questions about what they need to do to make this better. I personally loved the one who was about a size 2 and weighed maybe 110 tops, asking me what she could do to get rid of her love handles….i wanted to say, "WHAT LOVE HANDLES!!?" but i of course just suggested she do side bends and seated twists with a medicine ball. Of course i’m still trying to get myself pumped up to the adrenaline pumping, hard core sounds of Jesse McCartney and Rihanna. I managed to get through it and am now ready to relax until i go and hit my sprints later this afternoon. Well here’s how the workout went

Bench Press: 4 sets 10 reps

Incline DB Press: 3 sets 8 reps

Cable Crosses: 3 sets 10 reps

Alternate DB curls 4 sets 10 reps

Seated Preacher Curls 3 sets 10 reps

Now its off for a tuna salad for my second meal of the day….YUM YUM!!

Up and at em early this morning about 5AM. Got out and did a good run around the hood. Then got my eat on with a delicious breakfast of 5 egg whites, half a grapefruit and water. Then it was off to the gym to murder the shoulders. So i will be looking forward to the ice bath i have later. Hopefully I’ll see my two buddies from the SCREAM fest the other day. I’m trying to buy a new Ipod so i’ll have to settle for listening to pop music on the gym’s radio, because there is nothing like a 50 minute set of music featuring Backstreet Boys, Debbie Gibson and Elton John Classics while you are trying to get a good pump going.

With that being said, here is the workout for today

Shoulder Press 4 x 10

Military Press 4 x 10

Front Raise 4 x 8

Side Raise 4 x 8

Cable Face Pulls 4 x 12

Shrugs 4 x 10

DB Shrugs 4 x 8

BAck last month I started my 8 week boot camp and beach transformation project. All 4 weeks of it went well, i had more energy, was losing weight at a faster pace and it was just great to be outside because it had been a long long time since i did anything outside. But man I sure did miss those weights. There is nothing better than banging those weights around and kicking a$$ in the gym. Getting sore is a high that nothing else can top. There is just something about moving that steel that fires you up and the pain just, well in the words of John Cougar Mellencamp, "HURTS SO GOOD" i’m still doing the boot camp but i’m glad to be back on the weights again. 

Now you guys know that my diet has been clean for some time now. But every now and then as i’m driving through town, I pass by a murderers row of fast food joints and I always get the urge to want to stop and grab something. Now i know what it means to be addicted to something. I gave up sugar and bread last month and now every time I pass by these places, I want a burger soooo bad. I haven’t eaten any kind of beef in a while so i know its the craving for bread, but like a good disciplinarian, i just tell my body NO and keep going. Now when i watch Biggest Loser I can understand why these people fall off when they go home. I see that exercise isn’t the only place i have to step my game up. But i didn’t realize it would get this hard.

So yesterday i go in to get myself a nice chest, bi, and tri workout, and being in a public place i was mindful to sneeze and cough into my elbow and not my hands so no one would be in fear of the big bad swine flu. My workout went well as normal. Although no sooner than i go to start on my bench press i see a couple of guys walk in and from the minute i saw them i knew they were gonna be an pretty good pair of cats. They started on the bench beside me and of course saw that i was doing 250 for reps and of course, here comes the questions, "How much is your max? , how many reps can you do 225, and etc." The killer came of course when they got on their bench as if trying to impress me. They load the bar with about 230 to start off, no warm-ups whatsoever so i knew i was about to have a live comedy show. The first one got off about 3  reps and beat his chest like he was the man and then his buddy got off 3 and then it was on to the next set. Well they didn’t add weight, they took weight off. They dropped it to about 205 and i asked how many sets and reps? They said they were gonna do 5 sets of 5. You may ask what was funny, well i’m gonna tell you. On each set, they would get to about the 3rd rep and would start screaming, not grunting, SCREAMING!! Meanwhile the spotter would practically deadlift the weight off his partners chest while yelling, ITS ALL YOU!!! I AIN’T DOIN NOTHING!! So when they finally finished the set they would walk poking their chest out as if they just won Mr. Olympia. They walked around about 20 more minutes obviously trying to impress some of the ladies in the gym by doing some exercises on the cables. It was just the right medicine i needed. Can’t beat comic relief in the gym.