benjamminb6’s BodyBlog

So I haven’t worked out for the past few days, it has been a crazy week, so I wanted to check out a few things on the website in order to get a little motivation and know where I’m at for the gym tonight, since I am planning on going later.  The past week, very interesting.  Last Thursday I hung out with JR and two new friends, Jessica and Kelly.  We all went to Dave and Busters and played games, then went back to Jessica’s house to play some pool.  They are really nice girls, but not too bright lol.  I think that they both are interested in JR, but JR has a girlfriend, and has no interest in them except as friends.  I guess they used to work together or something.  Anyway, they are young and a little crazy, so I worry about them, cuz they will probly end up getting in a car accident drunk driving or something.  But they are nice people, and big Angels fans, so they will probably go watch some games with us this season.  Friday I worked out as planned, then Saturday was JR’s birthday, so I went with him and Arthur to a little bar called JT’s Beachclub.  There was a really good rock band playing and the place was packed.  I ran into Yolanda, an old friend from Mercury Insurance, and we met some really nice people, and I think JR enjoyed his birthday.  He was supposed to spend it with his girlfriend, but they had gotten in a huge fight, so that just didn’t pan out.  Sunday was homework day, I was on the computer doing assignments all the way until midnight.  3 of my classes are online, so all of my work has to be submitted before Sunday’s at midnight.  I managed to play some poker online on Sunday too lol.  Pokerstars gave me 5 free bucks cuz I havent played in so long, so I logged on last week and played it in a little tournament and made some money.  I got it up to like 30 bucks and won my way into a bigger tourney.  So Sunday I played in this big event that had 20,000 players, yes 20,000!!!!  And the prize pool was $200,000!!!!  1st place paid $20,000 and I intended to win it lol.  After 6 hours I ended up finishing in 14th place out of 20,000 people, not too bad, and I won $500 bucks.  I was all in preflop with the best hand and got really unlucky, otherwise I may have won the whole damn thing and the $20K.  I was never so unhappy to win 500 bucks lol, I felt robbed, but oh well.  And then Monday, I had class in the morning, and planned on going to the gym at night.  I ended up going to hang out with a group of people instead.  Jessica and Kelly called and asked me to come hang out with them and some other friends.  These two really nice guys were there, Brandon and Keavin, and some other people came and went.  Anyway, it always cracks me up when I meet new people, especially when people are drinking, cuz nobody believes that I don’t drink at all.  Its always a topic of discussion when I tell them that, and to be honest, I really don’t know the real reason why I’ve never had alcohol.  I’m sure there are lots of little factors, but overall, I just have never been tempted to try it.  We ended up staying up all night cuz they were all drinking and we were just being silly and watching movies.  Brandon left early, and Keavin left around 7am, so that left me the task of driving these two drunk girls home, they smelled really bad haha.  So since I still had not gone to bed, and had no sleep, I didn’t know how I was going to survive school, but somehow I got a second wind, didn’t feel tired at all, and went to both my classes from 4 until 10pm.  Piano is interesting, i think I will struggle with it alot, but ultimately enjoy it, and the other class is so boring, but should be an easy A.  I left school at 10 and went and met Roger to get some food and chat.  We have been hanging out occasionally, just kind of catching up.  He’s doing some interesting work for a non profit organization, he seems to like it.  After that I went home, and for some damn reason couldn’t sleep, so I watched a DVD and finally went to bed at like 3am.  I had been up for like 42 hours.  And that brings us to today.  I have been struggling mightily to understand my Spanish homework.  Its an online class as well, it just seems more advanced than it should be, and I followed the online instructions 100 percent while doing a homework thing that involves the textbook, but the computer says that my score was a 0 out of 15!!!  A ZERO!!!  How is that possible?!  I emailed the professor, so Im curious to see what the heck happened.  And so now, I hafta write a prewrite for an essay Im doing about the movie Pleasantville and gender roles for my English class.  It’s due tonight online.  JR wants me to come hang out with him for a bit, but it depends on how long this takes.  So those are my excuses for not working out since Friday lol.  I know, excuses are bad, but I really have been busy.  So Im working out tonight if possible, and should be the rest of the week as well.  Still need to cut out soda! Oh yeah, almost forgot.  It was really good to see Art and be able to catch up.  He and Reid were like my brothers for years, and when we had the Book Lady business going, I spent more than 12 hours a day with Arthur for about 2 or 3 years.  I love him like family, and have missed hanging out with him.  We are really alot alike.  So he’s having a kid now, not planned or wanted, which is another really long story, and he still misses his ex, Crystal, whom I just happened to run into the day after I saw Art.  I was in a hurry, so we only spoke for a minute, but she wants me to have coffee with her so we can catch up, so we exchanged numbers, and maybe we will hang out.  I hafta tell Art tho, he’s gonna flip his lid, but he’s in Santa Barbara working for 7 weeks.  So anyway, yeah, a pretty bizarre and crazy week, lots going on.  This week will be no different, especially if I start working somewhere, but I can’t make excuses and skip the gym.  Ok, homework time.

So as I planned, I actually went to the gym late last night to do my back.  I wasnt very tired at all, so I decided to go to the gym in Brea so that I could relax in the jacuzzi after my workout.  It’s so nice to not hafta wait on any machines or deal with the crowds of people at that hour.  I was able to do my workout quickly and efficiently, and actually felt like I couldve done more, but I am still easing my way back into super tough workouts.  I got to the gym sometime around 1:30 in the morning and there were 4 or 5 people there, but by the time I left, there was only one guy still in the gym.  I did 25 minutes of cardio on the elliptical first, before hitting the weights.  I would love it if I can make this a more regular routine and start going every night.  I could go do cardio over here in Buena Park in the mornings, and maybe do weights depending on how I feel and how crowded it is, then go do more cardio and really work out hard at night in Brea.  I always get a better workout when the gym is less crowded like that.  I think its just less anxiety over all the people, with nobody to worry about or share machines with, theres really no excuse for not doing everything I can and really work hard.  So, if I can adjust my sleep patterns thats what Im gonna try to do from now on.  I suppose this week will have some say in that.  I hafta find work or figure out if Im getting financial aid from school.  If I hafta work, that will impact my energy levels and how much time I have cuz I may be up doing homework still and not have time to go to the gym as often.

So my workout was good.  I did 5 exercises, 3-4 sets of each, 8-12 reps per set.  I did low back extensions, wide grip lat pulldowns to the back, one arm cable rows, close grip pulldowns to the front, and machine tbar rows.  I did one set of deadlifts, but I didnt realize how heavy it was and didnt wanna pull my back or hurt myself, so I just stopped after the one set.  I spent a half hour relaxing in the jacuzzi afterwards, which was really nice, and then I showered and went home.

So the past couple of days, I have just gone and done 30-45 minutes worth of cardio and skipped lifting.  I have been fairly busy with homework and job hunting, and was still pretty sore from workouts earlier this week.  Add to that, the fact that its been raining all week and I haven’t slept well, and I guess I just didnt have the energy to lift.  I spoke to Heather twice this week, which made me really happy, and then really sad.  I miss her more every day, and it makes it worse that she doesn’t seem to feel the same way.  I’m trying to move on, but the reality is, I don’t want to move on.  I love her, and letting go is difficult enough when you want to do so, it’s so much harder when you don’t. 

 So I did my triceps today after doing cardio.  I did 4 exercises, 4 sets of each, supersetting the last 2 exercises.  I did cable pressdowns with a v-bar, one arm dumbell overhead extensions, and a superset of one arm cable reverse pulldowns and rope overhead presses.  I worked hard on all sets and probably couldve done a little more work, but I was pressed for time.  Overall, I am happy with the progress I have been making.  My diet has been much improved.  On a scale of 1 to 10, it used to be a 2, now its about a 5.5, I would like for it to be an 8.5 or better.  Soda seems to be my weak spot, I just crave it sometimes.  I can see a difference in the mirror, but I need to take pictures and measurements soon.  I think that I have been putting it off because I don’t wanna know how bad I look lol.  Anyway, it’s Friday, and since I am a heartbroken loner and all of my buddies have girlfriends, I will probably have zero plans tonight, sadly.  So, I may head back to the gym late, around midnight, after I spend a few hours doing homework.  I can be alone in the gym that late on a Friday night, and should be able to get in a really good back workout, and relax in the jacuzzi and sauna.

So I completely intended to work out on the 21st, which was a holiday, but ended up hanging out with my buddy JR all day instead.  So biceps got pushed back a day, which is fine.  Not a whole lot going on the past few days, mostly just doing my homework and trying to clean and organize my room.  My reading class is completely retarded and the Professor seems to have no idea what she’s doing.  Shes says she was an English professor for 8 years before switching over to be the Reading professor 2 years ago.  It’s hard for me to believe that they hired her to teach anything, especially English, because she can’t spell, and is a terrible writer.  She has no concept of punctuation or sentence structure when she writes, it’s completely bizarre having her as an instructor.  So for some unknown reason, we are required to spend a minimum of 1 hour per week at school in a computer lab working on class assignments.  This is an online course, and everyone in the course has a computer at home that they are using to do the rest of the work for class, and the work that we are doing in the computer lab at school is completely accessible from our home computers, so I don’t see why we need to be in the lab at school at all!?!  It makes no sense and seems to be a waste of time to be driving to campus when I could be doing the work already at home, and it also seems unfair that we are using all of the computers unnecessarily while other students from other courses that don’t have computers at home are waiting for a chance to use the computers so that they can get their work done.  Bizarre.  I’m going to go meet with the professor one day this week and ask her why she is retarded, I’m honestly going to ask her that.  Anyway, sorry about the rant, it’s just been bugging me all week.

So back to biceps.  Well, I had originally planned on going to the Brea gym so I could just lift, and then shower there and go to class.  But I had to run a few other errands, get my haircut, go to Target, etc., so I just went to the gym right by my house and came home to take a shower before leaving for school.  The gym here is pretty ghetto, especially compared to the Brea gym.  The Brea gym is a Sport, and is huge and has tons of equipment, a pool, sauna, jacuzzi, etc.  The gym by my house is tiny, has very little equipment, and what equipment it has is very old and outdated.  They dont even have preweighted barbells for barbell curls!!  You know, the ones on the vertical racks that have the weight printed on the outside of the weights, and they are made to be permanently a specific weight, you can’t load or unload plates.  The good thing about the ghetto gym though, is that it is always really empty, no matter when you go.  The Brea gym is so packed sometimes, that there’s no way you can even get in a decent workout.  That’s why I only go there late at night, like midnight or later.  So for my biceps, I tried to hurry some since I had to shower still and get to school, but I had a decent workout.  I did 4 exercises, 3 or 4 sets each, 8-12 reps per set.  I did preacher curls, dumbell bicep curls, rope hammer curls, and overhead cable front double bicep curls.  I wanted to do a barbell curl, or another low cable bar curl, but didn’t have a ton of time.  I don’t remember the specific weights, I should probably get back in the habit of writing everything down, but for now I’m just glad that I’m being consistent.  Oh, and I’m not gonna mention it always, but I have been doing 30-45 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine prior to every workout.  I usually like to do my cardio after, but doing it first means that I don’t get to have an excuse afterwards as to why I can’t do it.  Next is triceps, hopefully today, and tomorrow back.

So I woke up fairly early today so that I could go to the gym before the NFL playoff games started.  I did the elliptical machine for 30 minutes to warm up, I always do intervals on the elliptical.  I then did my chest.  I started with 4 sets of inclined dumbell chest presses.  A warm up set with a pair of 45s, and then a set of 65s, and two sets of 70s.  After that I did 4 sets on the pec deck fly machine.  I think I did 75, 90, 90, and 105.  All sets on all exercises are for 8-12 reps or until failure.  After the flys, I did a hammer strength wide chest machine, it felt sort of like decline presses, I have never used this particular hammer machine before.  I did two sets with one 45 plate on each side, and two sets with two 45 plates on each side.  After that I did a seated upright machine bench press.  The one where you are sitting straight up in the chair and pressing directly forward in front of you.  I have always liked this machine because I use it to do drop sets on my last set.  So I did 90, 120, 150, and then 170 to failure followed immediately by a drop set all the way up the weight stack.  So I did my 170 and got about 7 or 8 reps, then with no rest dropped it to 150 and did 3 more reps, then to 130 and got 2 or 3 more, down to 100 for 2 or 3 reps, down to 70 for about 4 reps, and finally down to 40 for 4 or 5 burning reps.  I finished off the workout with 3 sets of cable crossovers using 50 pounds on each side.  I did some abwork on the lying ab curl thing, and headed home.  Now my stupid tv wont work, so I cant watch the game here, and it just started!!! So im off to find somewhere to watch the game.  Adios.  Oh, and Im rooting for the Chargers, and the Packers! 

So its been about 6 months since my last post…….  Well, everything has changed, so I hafta update.  Heather and I seemed to be doing so well in May and June when we 1st moved to Las Vegas, and I was happy with the gains and progress that I was making.  However, in July, she began working out after work while I was still at work, which caused my motivation to suffer to a certain extent.  Its much easier to go to the gym with your partner and encourage each other.  But now, after I got off work, shes already exercised, and she wants me to go to the casino with her, which sounds so much more fun than going to the gym alone late at night!!  Also, I had some DMV issues, and was paranoid about getting pulled over by the police, and since the gym was like 9 miles away, that also subdued my desire to go alone.  So anyway, I pretty much stopped working out at the end of July, except for occasionally running a few miles around the block.  My eating habits also seemed to fly right out the door, which is bad when you work in a restaurant.  So anyway, August, September, and October passed, and Heather and I were doing better than ever in our personal relationship, even though she was looking cute and sexy and continued working out and I was getting fat haha!  Then, to make a very long and complicated story very short, Heather decided to move to the east coast, the Washington DC area, to prepare for grad school next June.  I knew she was going………eventually, but I thought it would be much closer to June, not 9 months before!!!  I also thought that I would be going with her in June, but her decision to leave ahead of schedule was a decision made within 48 hours of her actually moving!!  There was no way that I was prepared to quit my job, pack up my things, and move 3000 miles away from everything and everyone that I know in a 48 hour timespan.  Her parents were driving cross country from California to move there also, so it was very convenient and easy on her to go, but extremely difficult for me to see her leave. 

Since her departure, I havent really known where we stand.  At 1st, she wanted me to come there too, so I was exploring that, but now, I guess thats not what she wants anymore.  She requires alot of attention, and since I am 3000 miles away and cant give her the attention she needs, I guess she is seeking it out elsewhere.  My heart is broken, and I dont understand how you can look someone in the eyes, tell them how much you love them, will always love them and only them, and want to be their wife and mother of their children someday, and then change your mind, lie, cheat, and go out with other guys within 2 weeks of being apart.  I suppose its probably best for me in the long run, although Im having a hard time convincing myself that.  If shes willing to walk out on me on such short notice, and willing to lie and go behind my back and cheat on me, then I was probably setting myself up for more heartache in the future.  With that said, if she ever said that shes sorry and wants to be faithful to me and only me, I would take her back in the blink of an eye.  I really do love her.  We havent officially said that we were done, but we have argued about stupid crap, and she basically told me that she doesnt want to be my Valentine and doesnt want me to come visit her.  So we havent spoken for 2 days, and I dunno if we ever will again.  Its very sad.

 So on to my exercise situation…….  My new years resolution was to get in shape, but also to stay in shape so that next January, getting in shape is not a resolution since I will already be ripped!  It seems that so many people, me included, always make the resolution to get in shape, and then dont keep it for the whole year.  This just leads to the same resolution next year, its a bad cycle.  Some people keep the resolution for only a few weeks, and I assume most people are like me, I keep it until summertime, so that I have a nice body for the beach or swimming pool, but after summer, my discipline fades as the holidays and busy time of year come around.  But not this year!!!  I am gonna stick to it all year.  I have been working out just about every day so far since the 1st, and can see a difference in the mirror, as well as in how I feel.  My diet has been a little better, but it needs to be alot better!!  I also need to replenish my supply of supplements and make sure that my body is getting everything that it needs.  A big thing for me this year is that I need to somehow become more flexible.  I dont know if that just means stretching, or taking a yoga class, or what, but my lack of flexibility causes me pain in my legs and back, limits mobility and movement when exercising, and just makes me feel stiff all over.  Im probably the least flexible person in the world lol, I have never not once touched my toes, not even when I was young and in great shape.  I have just never had and flexibility and as I get older and heavier, I worry about injury.

Oh, almost forgot!  So since Heather left, Vegas just wasnt fun anymore, so I moved back to Orange County, California.  I enrolled in college…..finally, and I am trying to move forward with my life and take positive steps to a brighter future.  My situation at the moment is far from ideal haha, but Im making the best of it.  Im very lonely though.  I spent every day for nearly 2 years with a hilarious, funny, cute, energetic, loving, best friend, and now I feel like Im the only person in the world and Ill never have love again.  Alot of my closest friends have moved away or are now in serious relationships, and everyone has work and life to contend with, so I dont have people to hang out with when Im bored or feeling down.  I need to try and see my buddies more, and Im sure that once baseball season starts we will all be going to Angels games together, but in the meantime I need to make new friends too and try to cheer up.

Im starving now, so Im gonna go get food and then try to do some homework, but I will be updating this with new workouts and blogs, and hopefully new pictures and stats soon.  I need to update all of my personal info as well.  2008 is going to be a great year, and a healthy year.