Joe’s BodyBlog

As an ex athlete who has had many injuries and is still recovering from them, I figured out something about myself the other day. I have a need for competition. Big or small it doesn’t really matter, I need to compete. If it is against myself, time or other people I just like to compete. I miss it. It motivates me and helps me to bring out my best qualities. How did I realize this tidbit about myself, it was from a conversation I had with my wife. With my back slowly healing I told her I wanted to run in a 5k sometime soon, just to do it, not really for time or anything, but just because my body has been through some much in the form of injuries I thought running in a 5k might help me to feel like I have accomplished a goal. Her response was , You should do it, and I will too, so I can beat you! Well that was it, the challenge was on. By the way, she will most likely beat me, but that isn’t what matters to me. I want to do well for myself. 3.1 miles is not a long race, but a respectable time is what I am looking for. Right now, since I have just started training, I am not sure what that respectable time will be, or should be, but in a few weeks I should be able to figure that out. Of course my back is a concern, but my doctor feels I can do this, so I am just working myself in slowly. Road running is a lot different then running on the tread mill. Your body can take a pounding, so I want to get myself into it the right way. The race is Labor Day weekend so I have plenty of time to train and get myself back into it. Lookout…

So I have been getting into the gym enough to feel like I am getting into a good groove. I am not as sore after each workout and I am upping the weight on some of my reps. That feels awesome after everything I have been through with the latest of my injuries! I am hitting the Cardio hard as well. I want to take advantage of the weight I have lost to lose more fat! I haven’t done all of my measurements in a while, but I am going to do that this weekend to start tracking everything. I am a little afraid that my BF won’t be a good number because of how I lost the weight (stress!!!), but I can’t do anythign about that now, except eat clean and lift!

I like the fact that I feel like my day isn’t complete unless I go to the gym or do some sort of workout. That means that my mind and body are back where I need them to be! yeah for me. My back still hurts everyday, but I think it is because my bed is too soft. I can’t afford to replace it right now, but I have others I can sleep on at home, it is just not my preferred place to sleep, I would have to sleep away from the wife… .

Speaking of the wife, she is doing P90X and man she is loving it, and I am loving the results she is getting. She wasn’t doing very well on getting her protein intact to where it needed to be, plus she has a tendency to eat lots of carbs, so she wasn’t losing a lot of fat even though she was getting stronger. But now that she has tweaked her diet she is losing fat and looking fantastic. (Yes I am bragging!). I tell her how good she looks and how proud I am of her for her hard work. She inspires me to make sure I don’t miss a workout!

Well over the past month things have been up and down.. Mostly down. My back while starting to improve took a bad turn. I ended up getting another Epidural Injection, but guess what No Improvement! Lucky me. I have found that working out does improve the way I feel. So when I go for my next check up I am telling the Doc, I am done with injections. My stress level has come done a little bit, but not that much, so I am sure that is affecting everything. My weight has stabilized since I last posted, I am at 185, and this is all due to the stress I had been under. I lost 12-15 lbs originally, now it is 11, but I am trying to maintain the loss, even though I know it wasn’t done properly, so in order to do that I have to diet well, (eat clean etc) and keep on my workouts. Being consistent in both will help me reach my goals.