Brooklyn Mike’s BodyBlog

I will be entering the Labrabda LeanBody Challenge which starts on Jan 12th.  Turns out, my local gym is doing a challenge comp which starts 3 days later, so I guess I am in both!

I will be posting my "before" pix soon. 

A lot has happenned but it seems that there is never enough time to post!  I know, I know, those who really know me are thinking "Mike with no time for the internet???"  But its true, life has been really busy.

I’ve had some great workouts and I have been getting back into good cardio and food routines so hopefully I am back on track.

Last Wednesday night I did a chest and triceps workout with Josh, my trainer.  Thursday as I am getting dressed for work, I notice that my shirt just doesn’t fit right!  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t goinmg to pop any buttons or anything, but it just felt a bit snugger artound the upper chest.  It was a nice change from feeling stress around my waist!!!  Then Thursday night, muscle soreness kicked in on  my triceps. I mean REAL muscle soreness, like it hurt to even straighten out my arm! But for some bizarrre reason, I am loving this kind of pain; I guess it is telling me that I pushed myself to the limits and I am getting bigger and better.  The soreness is still here although much less severe, on Saturday!

Today, Josh put me through a killer leg workout so I suppose I will be walking funny by tomorrow morning!

Guess thats it for now. 

First off, thanks to all the public and private messages I got about my last post. I was afraid that I would get negative comments but instead, they were ALL supportive and everyone understood the source of my emotion.  To quote my good buddy Keith "What you did, you did for every geek that got humiliated in school. "  Didn’t really think of it like that but I guess it is right on.  So GO GEEKS!!! (and
drop and give me 20..or maybe 4…or one..or not LOL)

 Now, on to tdays workouts! Not really workouts but got TWO cardio sessions in today!  First one was recovery cardio, where I do 30 minutes at my target heart rate.  I did that one on the elliptical.  Tonight I did intensity cardio where I do 5 minutes of warmup, five minutes at increasing heart rate (up to about 148) and then 5 minutes of cooldown.  Did that tonight on the treadmill.

So thats it for tonight. So far I got 3 cardio sessions in this week.  My requirement is 5 and my goal is 7 so we will see if the motivation lasts. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and snow storm so I hope I can get to the gym.

Thanks for reading.

So who reads these things anyway???  Well if anyone is out there, post a "Hi!" after you read this; if no one is out there, hey its good therapy anyway.

So why I cried…

If you have been reading this blog and my BodySpace site, you know that until a few years ago I was totally out of shape my whole life.  Then I turned 50 and made a commitment to get myself fit and healthy.  After a number of false starts, I finally, just a bit over a year ago, got myself a personal trainer..(Thats you, Josh Katz, if you ever read this!)  At that time I was at my highest weight ever (260+) and probably in the worst shape ever.

So , to make a short story long, when I was a kid I dreaded gym class.  Dreaded it because I was no good at sports and was in no shape to do any of the "gym stuff", which in my head was epitomized by pushups and chin ups.  So now fast forward and I am 55 years old and beginning to work with a personal trainer and I have NEVER been capable of doing one single pushup in my life!

A number of months ago, I told Josh that if he ever got me to the point where I could do a single pushup, I would buy him dinner! 

Over the the months, my weight decreased, my bodyfat %age went down, my lean body mass increased and my overall strentgh and cardio abilities went up, up , up!  But no push ups.

Then this morning, diuring one of my 2 weekly sessions with Josh, he says "get on the floor."  He demonstrates a push up and then tells me to do it!  I almost said NO but I never say no to Josh because I am working with him to motivate me and push me past what I think my limits are.  Granted, there have been those times when I tried to do what he said and couldn’t (although surprislingly not too often) but I never refused to try.  So thinking he is nuts, I get into position and Josh is urging me on and…

one,

two,

three, four PUSHUPS!!!!! Then I collapse with my face on the dirty floor and I am overcome by emotion!!! I did it! Four good pushups followed by a second set of 2 (or 2 1/2).

Shit, 57 years and I did my first pushup!  so now I realize that there is nothing that I can’t do if I put my mind to it!

And that is why I cried in the gym!  My self esteem is through the roof and my motivation is even higher than its ever been.

So now its on to chin ups….  (to be continued)

11/28/07 and 12/5/07

Geez, I haven’t posted since November 10th!  Well I have continued to workout somewhat consistently but my new job limits the time and energy that I have to be on the net inthe evenings!

So since November 10th, I celebrated my birthday (yikes-I’m 57!!!) and been to Disney World and back.  My food hasn’t been as good as it could have been but my bad eating these days is better than my "good eating" used to be a few years back!  So I guess that is progress.

SSpeaking of progress, today I started using the Workout Tracker on Bodyspace…neat new feature!  I am trying to commit to getting back into my daily cardio routine as the scales are telling me I must.  I threw in a couple of bicep exercises just because!  I realized as I was filling in the Workout Tracker that I have pretty much boubled my DB curl in a year.  Yeah, so its still just 25 lbs, but that definately is progress, right?

Well thats it for now. Hope I can post more frequently.