jessejack’s BodyBlog

So I’m making some definite progress. I looked in the mirror this morning and noticed…I am starting to get abs. I thought I might just be dropping weight so I stepped on the scale and found out that I am actually gaining weight. Definitely moving along nicely. It’s kind of strange too because I stopped lifting the heavy weights and have been doing a "home workout" lately, and my diet has gone to utter shit. So I was a little skeptical that I would be seeing gains. But here they are! So, yeah, go me.

So here’s the deal. I don’t know what the hell is going on but apparently I never had a gym membership. After being a layabout for a couple weeks (or, as I like to call it, intense recovery!) I figured that I should let that stop me so I have devised a home workout plan to keep me going until I figure something better out.

First I bought one of those Iron Gym things that are basically a pull up bar that you can hang on a door without any hardware. So I have been doing pull-ups like crazy. I try to do a few sets in every position…chin up, pull up, and parallel grip. On the box it shows the dude doing a lot of other exercises which I think are basically worthless but you can modify them to where they’re pretty effective, I think. For example, the push-ups the dude is doing on the box or commercial seem to be pretty lame but if you do incline push-ups with the thing it seems to work really good because you can drop your chest down past your hands and get a deeper range of motion.  If you can wedge it against a door frame it will hold your feet to do crunches also. So really I think I’m getting a pretty good upper body workout with it.

Of course, what about legs? I was thinking about this while I walked around campus, and I was dreaming up some pulley contraption to rig up in my garage to simulate squats, when it hit me. My backpack is f’n heavy. So I went home and loaded it up with some physics books and did Indian squats and lunges, and it really seemed to work.

So there are a few ways in which I’m keeping myself going. I guess I stopped frequenting this site because I figured calisthenics isn’t "real" bodybuilding or something, but I can see the results in the mirror. Maybe if I was still throwing the iron around I would make gains faster but whatever. I’m pretty stoked.

Got some money. Got some food. Hitting the gym again.

So my fitness project has hit a little bump in the road due to my financial situation and my cupboards being bare. I have very little good food. Most of what I have is junk. Stuff my wife eats and crap I have left over from before I started eating right. That’s pretty much all we have left to eat, and even that is going fast. So why don’t I go to the store and get more? Well, I’m an unemployed full-time student. That means I get "paid" my financial aid twice a year. I won’t get that money for another couple weeks. I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to survive but we have no cash to buy food with. Hopefully we can beg, borrow, or steal to get by. But until we scrape up the dough I don’t have anything to eat but microwave popcorn and oreos.

I feel that if I can’t feed myself to grow it would actually be worse for me to go lift than it would to sit around like a couch potato. So, I’m taking a break from the gym until I can adequately stock the fridge. I’m still checking BodySpace every day so hopefully I will stay motivated to jump back in as soon as possible. I actually feel really guilty about it but oh well.
The other thing is that since I’ve been going to the YMCA it’s been totally screwed up. I think it was about 2 months ago I paid my membership dues and I still haven’t got a membership card. About a month ago I got a call saying that they never received the payment for my first month; I told them I paid it and produced my bank statement showing the payment to YMCA. OK, so we’re cool she said. Well, here I am still waiting. I even asked them last week when I was in the gym if I had to pay another month’s dues and they said I wasn’t even in the computer yet. Obviously the girl at the desk doesn’t know anything if I’m not in the computer, so she took a message to have the membership lady call me. Still waiting! Every time I go in there I have to explain my situation to the desk person to get in. They usually don’t hassle me so that’s not a big deal. I’m not letting that hold me up, it’s just an irritation I’m hoping will get solved over my time off.

So, yeah, besides that, drama with school, drama with life, and other crap, things are going pretty shitty! But nothing worth crying about.

So, I don’t know if this is appropriate here, or too much info, or whatever. But I have noticed that since roughly the time I started getting into a serious groove with working out, I’ve also gained a lot more stamina in the bedroom. In other words, I’m no longer a "two pump chump". I think this is pretty cool because I feel like the uber-lover but I can see where it might get old since my lady doesn’t seem to be into marathon sex and shoves me off her after about 15 minutes.

Anyway, I’m not posting this to brag or anything, I actually am curious to know if anyone has seen a connection like this before, or if I’m reading too much into the correlation. I don’t think it’s something about her, or my "alone time" habits (if anything I’ve done that stuff less lately) and it seems to be the case every time.

So, I’m pretty stoked. I’m no Rip Studly (yet!) but I noticed today, after my workout when I was about to get into the shower, that if I flex my abdomen my chest sticks out further than my gut. That was one of my short-term goals and I’m really stoked. Now I can shoot for improving my measurements, and more definition in my chest and stomach.

On a side note, I think I’m going to consider moving to a two-day split instead of a full-body circuit. Reason being, I’ve read that you shouldn’t work out for more than 40 minutes at a time; accordingly, I break my workout into 5 min. light cardio warmup, 30 minutes lifting, and 5 min. light cardio cool down. It seems like I’m starting to run into this problem, especially now that I’m going more frequently, where there happens to be 300 people at the gym all milling around and I spend more time standing there waiting than lifting. If I could camp on a station until I’m done with it instead of moving around (because I’m currently doing so many different exercises) that would cut down on a lot of waiting time for me.

But anyway, mini celebration for me. Off to eat some chicken on whole wheat. Later!

Today I took my body measurements for the first time (well, since the last time I was fitted for a Tux, but that doesn’t count). So now I can see how truly pathetic they really are! But that’s OK. Now I have some empirical evidence with which to approach my body transformation scientifically. I’m not afraid to look my problems in the face and tell the whole world, because I figure it’ll be all the more satisfied when I’m totally huge and looking back on my old self.

OK. My main goal in life in the forseeable future is to EAT. Eat everything in sight. I have dropped 8 pounds since I started and I’m down to my "panic point" to where it has to stop.

I am going to stop worrying so much about eating 100% clean and just try to get enough calories and enough protein in me to start growing. Obviously I will continue to stock my pantry with healthy foods, and when alternatives present themselves I will choose the leaner option. But if it comes down to having to shove some greasy fried chicken down my gullet in order to get enough food in me, **** it.

I’m also going to start planning my meals out in advance. What I’m going to have for every meal, and stick to it.

So, nothing to do with working out here…but my wife is pregnant, she had her first ultrasound, and she’s having twins. Pretty crazy! I’m excited and terrified at the same time.

So I am worried that I’m starting to get off track. The first couple of weeks I took it easy. I would be sore for like a week straight so I wasn’t exactly a constant presence at the gym. I figured that’s alright, my recovery will increase and I will hit the gym more often, and I’ll just play it by ear: when I feel recovered, I’ll go, and I’ll rest until then.

Sure enough my recovery time has gotten shorter. I am ready to go today and I feel like I should be in the gym right now. Unfortunately the wife is sick and someone has to watch the little one, and I don’t think the gym has drop-off childcare today. So I’m stuck at the house. I don’t blame her because it’s normal — she’s pregnant, by the way — so I should be supportive of her. But it frustrates me because I’m all amped up and I can’t get out of the house. And it’s a little troubling because if she’s sick today she’ll probably be sick the next day, the day after, etc. So I’m a little concerned about how I can be supportive yet not let it hold me back.