mjmartin’s BodyBlog

So, in the past two days of cardio, I’ve learned to completely control my mind, like a great Jedi master! Okay, so not really, but I have found an invaluable distraction that helps me to get through my workouts without thinking. I’m watching football while I work out. I set my TiVo to record all of the Buffalo Bills games from this past season (My favorite team), and I transferred them all to DVD. For the past two days I’ve been watching them while I run on the elliptical, and the results have been unreal! I’ve done longer sessions, at a faster pace, and I’ve done so without feeling like I was wasting valuable time. (I don’t know how watching football is LESS of a waste of my valuable time, but it somehow works out that way in my mind…I don’t question it…)

The funny part is that I used to be tired after 30 mins of cardio, but now that I’m distracted I fee like I could go all day. It tells me that up until this point, I’ve been ‘babying’ myself, not going as hard as I could go.  I came to a similar conclusion several years ago, when I was lifting on a regular basis. I would do my thing in my gym, and write down my results, and my progress always seemed great…I was able to lift more, on a weekly and sometime daily basis. That is when I realized, I’m lifting more becuase I can, and I probably could have done this amount of weight from the beginning, I just wasn’t challenging myself. So from that point on I challenged myself, and though my ‘upward progression’ on the amount of weight I was using stalled rather quickly, my strength gains were much greater.

Moral of the story: I didn’t improve because I didn’t challenge myself. I didn’t challenge myself because I either had no idea what I was capable of, or because I wasn’t willing to do the work involved in finding out what I was capable of…either way, it doesn’t help to baby yourself. Hit it hard…as hard as you can and you will improve. It doesn’t matter if it’s work, school, sports or bodybuilding…if you make it easy on yourself, you’re going no where.

I had the best cardio day yesterday! For some reason I broke through a barrier yeasterday. Up until that point I was struggling to get through my cardio sessions (at least the cardio sessions on stationary pieces of equipment) Yesterday, for some reason, was completely different. I got on the elliptical machine and went full-tilt for 50 minutes. The crazy part about it is that I got on, turned on DVD of a Buffalo Bills game (my favorite team) and just starting rolling.

Normally I monitor the time I’m on the machine, and I usually start to get bored around 15 minutes, tired around 25 minutes. This time I didn’t even think to look at the clock. By the time I did look down at the clock I had already been on the machine for over 45 minutes! What the hell???? So I went to the nice round number of 50 minutes and wrapped it up. It was friggin crazy! I wasn’t even tired…but the read out on the machine said I went at a faster pace than I had been averaging in past workouts, and I did so for nearly twice as long as I normally go. It was like an out-of-body experience!  

Check out this article, it made the front page of Yahoo.com this morning…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/hl_nm/diet_exercise_dc

So I’m down 13lbs since I started my diet on January 1st. That’s not too shabby considering I didn’t really start doing any cardio until around the 14th or 15th, on a consistent basis.

The diet part of this plan is coming along very well, and becoming quite easy to stick to. If I just stick with it, I’ll get to my goal…it may take a while, but it’ll happen eventually.

I’ll be kicking the cardio in high-gear this week. Starting with elliptical every morning, I’ll follow that up with a run, or walk of several miles. In the evenings, I’ve been lucky enough to find a place to play basketball, and the games are good 4 nights a week. I usually end up running games for around 2 hours. I also enjoy going several rounds with the heavy bag 3-4x week (great stress reliever also!) I figure if I put it all together, and stay the course on my diet, things will happen sooner rather than later!

So my diet stayed nice a clean yesterday. I did have my morning coffee, with skim milk and splenda, but between that and being very busy I didn’t notice any hunger around my normal lunch time. So I just kept working and before I knew it it was dinner time. (I know I shouldn’t undereat, but I truly wasn’t hungry.) My wife and I planned to go out to eat, and I fully intended to secure my cheat meal. Well, that didn’t work out either. When it came time to order I ended up getting a small, lean cut of steak and brocolli, and I passed on the baked potato in exchange for more brocolli! I was very proud of myself.

So we ran past Blockbuster and grabbed a movie (about the most exciting thing we can do with my wife at 8+ months pregnant) "The Illusionist", starring Edward Norton, in my opinion the most underrated actor of our time. The movie was good, but I caught on to the ending entirely too early to enjoy it fully. My wife loved it. During the movie I did manage to work in my "cheat" for the week by eating a handful of raisinettes. (Not a smart cheat, but they did hit the spot!)

Today I’m back on the diet full speed ahead. I’m about to hit the road for another painful jogging experience. Sadly I’ve yet to find a good weekend basketball game to help me get some extra cardio, but I may have enough heads to get a football game going on Sunday morning. Here’s to hoping my buddies don’t punk out if it’s "too cold" to play football. IT’S NEVER TOO COLD TO PLAY FOOTBALL!

Okay, so I wrote a post yesterday about some of the people who were reacting sensitively to picture ratings they received, and I got some interesting POV’s from others on the subject. It was fun to go back and forth and I can see both sides of the story. However, I did pursue some research into people who leave, not bad ratings, but negative comments for other users. In doing so I found something hilarious!

There is a fairly active member on this board who I firmly believe has two user accounts that he uses. One of his accounts is his actual bodyspace account, with pictures, blogs, the whole nine yards. The other account is used as an imaginary friend of sorts. I believe he logs on as the 2nd user and posts positive comments to his real account, he uses his 2nd profile to back up arguments he made with his real profile, and he makes rude comments to other users who have left bad picture ratings for his real account. I can’t help but find this absolutely hilarious!

Body Building is a great way of life. It promotes great health, as well as an active lifestyle. The BB community as a whole seems to be very supportive of one another, and this site has been great for encouragement even for someone like myself who isn’t a BB, just a guy trying to get into shape.

Guys like this cat really give the community a black eye. Not only is this particular guy, in my opinion, doing some "unnatural" things to get his results, he is fooling himself if he thinks his little multiple personality is a healthy thing. He need to learn to let little things like a bad picture rating (from someone he doesn’t know) roll of his back. He needs to realize that the acceptance of others in this community, while nice to have, is far less important than what he thinks of himself. If he can look in the mirror everyday and be happy with himself, that is all he needs. It’s amazing what some people will do to get attention. I just hope that this is a solitary case of multiple cyber-personality.

Okay, so I have been doing great on my diet, eating extremely clean, drinking water, green tea, and now yerba mate. Occasionally, maybe 3 mornings a week, I have had a morning coffee. I use low-fat milk and splenda (no sugar) in my coffee. Is this going to hurt my diet, or help it? It seems to act as an appetite supressant, which suprisingly enough really helps me by the end of the day. (It pushes all of my meals back an hour or two, so I’m not hungry when 10pm rolls around)

So I guess I’m asking the experts, am I screwing myself by drinking the coffee? If so, I need to know! I appreciate any feedback on this matter. I’ve been really dedicated to the diet and cardio, so I don’t want something as small as coffee to throw a wrench into my program…

I’ve read a lot of blogs, and looked at a lot of forum pics to keep myself motivated. In that time I’ve noticed something peculiar. A lot of people are very sensitive to the ratings other users give to their pictures. I can understand that many people have worked long and hard in the gym to attain their level of fitness…so why let the rating of one person you don’t know get you all riled up? Even if there are 50 low ratings, so what? You are in control of what shows up on the photo, and only you can rate yourself accurately, and you rating is the only one that really matters. Let picture ratings roll off your back. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Another good day of dieting and exercise, but today, I"M SORE! It’s a good kind of sore, but it’s an all-over type of sore as well! I haven’t played basketball two nights in a row for quite awhile, and it is taking it’s toll on all of my formerly injured bodyparts. My ankle and foot is swollen, my neck is stinging, my lower back is aching, and my bad knee is throbbing…I think I’ll go back for some more tonight!

So not only did I live through my evening of basketball with college kids, I excelled on the court!

It’s amazing what losing only 10lbs can do. (my goal is 50lbs) I felt lighter and faster, and my lungs were along for the ride. I was able to  run the court like I wanted to, played my usual tenacious defense, and my shot was a lot better than I thought it would be after the long layoff.

The best part was that I found out that this gym, free entry at the local college, is open and has good games 4 night a week! I can get in an extra 2 hours of cardio 4 more times per week now! This is the kind of cardio I ENJOY doing, so this is a great discovery for me! Now I need to see if I can use the weight room that is attched to the b-ball courts for the same low price (free) They have way more equipment than I have at home, and I saw a few machines that I haven’t used since I was in college and in shape…

Yesterday was another good day! Elliptical, Long Walk, Light Lifting, 2 hours of B-Ball, and a nice clean diet. Now all I need is another 90 days of that and I should be near by goal!