mquang’s BodyBlog

Finally, I was able to take charge of my health again.  I’ve been off not exercising for nearly two weeks due to a bad cold.  My short term goal is to get back on track, back on exercising daily, and to eat healthier from now till the end of March 2009.  I want to take progress picture again.  I want to feel strong again.  I want to feel confident about myself again.

Today, I had an opportunity to train with Bruce, he’s my new personal trainer.  My previous trainer had an opportunity to pursuit a new career, and I do wish him the best.  He was great, I’ve learned a lot from him.

I do noticed the different between two trainers, I have the same doubt about my new trainer as I did with my previous one.  New trainer, new style of training methods.  Today, he measured my bodyfat, and my weight, and take a few others measurement and documented them.  We also established my max reps on bench press, which is not that much.  I was asked to write down about my goals, which is 1)Strenth Training, Building Mass 2)Learning to exercise correctly without hurting myself 3) Flexibility.  We did one of the core exercise today, and it was hard, my balance suck for now.

I was sweating and tired after the training, but I am running out of training sessions, so I got to pull myself together and learn as much from him as I can.  I got to tell myself to shutup, and listen, because sometime I hear myself more then I hear my trainer.

I’ve been consuming a lot of carbs mostly brown rice and bagel with the hope to gain a bit of mass.  By next week, I will start back on eating chicken breast, I’ve stopped for a couple weeks, because I can’t stand the sign of chicken breast anymore.  Instead of eating chicken breast, I eat beefs and salmons, which are all healthy.  One things I am not proud of myself is I’ve stopped eating fruits and veggies, but I’ll fix that.  I’ve been consuming alot of coffee more then water, boo hoo!
My training has been so-so, just weight training then I’ll do cardio either on the elliptical machine or on the treadmill.  I’ve been feeling tired lately, exhausted, and I feel my strengh dropped alot…blah!
I need to get back in year, because I want to take great pictures.

It is 6:30 am and I am on my second meals of the day (combination of veggies, chicken breast and brown rice), and while standing at the microwave I couldn’t help but think about my friends and co-workers.   It seem to me the message programmed in people mind is to not eat, by that I mean starving yourself then that would lead to losing weight.  I have seen friends, co-workers and family members practices this idea.  They would not eat breakfast, and their lunches are merely a bag of chip, and a diet soda.  "Are you eating lunch?" I asked, "No, I don’t eat lunch they make me look fat" answered.  They attends parties and would not touch foods claiming these foods will make them look fat.  But it seem every times I see them they gained a few extra lbs on their bodies and faces.  Then they would see me eating and claims, "You eat that much, You’re going to get fat" or sometime I’ll eat a protein bar, and I will get comments such as "it’s unhealthy for you, you should be eating real foods."  It’s funny that these people are not in great shape or even trying to be in great shape, yet they are giving advises and expect to be heard…it’s interesting interesting.

New Year Eve was fun, I attended a house party, have a few mixed drinks and met up with a few friends.  At the party, I felt confidence about my physical body, and myself.  Sad, but it was the first time I have a date, a kiss on New Year Eve, which make it extra special to me.  My friends introduce me to their friends, and my introduction was like this "he used to be 200lbs, and look at him now"…geeze thanks! =p

At family party, I received comments from family friends such as "wow, you look younger", "you look like a brand new person", "oh, how handsome you are, i would introduce you to my daughter." lol, i blushed a little, oh ok, so I was HAPPY!

I would probably not have a great time, someone special, a kiss on new year eve, all the self confidence if I haven’t decided to take charge of my health and body.  Chances are I probably would stay home on New Year Eve because I don’t feel confidence about myself.

2008 ended perfectly, and 2009 is going to be remarkable.  End of May 2009 is going to mark my two years transformation, and I am going to make it memorable.  I don’t expect a model coming out of this body yet, but I do expect to be healthier, fitter, and stronger body.

I did managed to avoid the office party two days ago.  Instead, I was eating the usual brown rice, and chicken breast.  I’ve been eating scramble eggs with whole grain bagel in the morning.  But I noticed, I’ve been getting a bit tired lately, and I’ve decided to increase my food intake again.  Hopefully, I will gain more strength, and build a stronger body.   Also, I’ve been eating a lot of nuts (cranberries, almonds, and cashews), and I eat one yogurt a day.  I have not introduce any things new in my meals, just the basic, brown rice, chicken breast, salad, eggs, varsities of nuts, beefs, turkey, bananas, tuna, tofu, tomatoes, baby shrimps…I eat them plain, excepts I do sometime use seasoning on chicken breast, turkey and beefs.

As for training, I just started doing Dead lift, I was introduced to it last week.  Going to start doing more to get the form correct.
Looking forward to celebrate the new year 2009, with a fit body =) WHOOOoooOOOO

This morning, I was searching for clothes to wear to work, and I couldn’t find anything that would fit me.  Most of my old clothes are sizes from Medium to Large, and now size Small fit me better.  Tonight, I am going to search through all my clothing containers, and donate all my old clothes.  Why hanging on to it?  I did put on an old sweater and realized how big I used to be.  I ended up wearing a new polo, size Small, and it fit perfectly.  I feel good.  I see no beer belly.  I walked on the street to work and feel a bit proud.

I am going clubbing this Saturday, I am not a fan, but my date wants to go.  I rather be in the gym on my Saturday’s night with my Ipod and I rather be in the bookstore on Saturday’s night.
Yesterday, I’ve an opportunity to try the new Controlled labs product, WhiteFlood Tablets.  I feel a bit disappointed of the product, because I did not achieve the same result with the powder version.  I felt exhausted, tired, not pumped or energized.  The pills size was about the size of GNC multivitamins, and I’ve to swallow 8 of them.  The power version is much better, I can just drink it down.  Going to give the tablets version another try before I shipped it back.

Yesterday, I received a private msg on the facebook from a friend, he wants to know the secret to my transformation.  He mentioned he been training extremely hard at the gym, but see absolutely no progress.  Could it be because of his style of eating?  Another friend of mine was telling me his stomach is getting huge, but he have been doing crunches almost daily, training abs daily.  I asked him, what is his meals like? he said "as long as I workout, I can eat anything I want".  Yike!  Lately, I started to notice a lot of gym goers do extremely heavy weight, crazy, difficult exercises and crunches till they are blue in the face, but zero progress.   Ouch! That would suck for working extremely hard, spending time and money at the gym, and not seeing progress.  It could be fixed by changing our eating style and choosing plain foods?
I feel I am going insane this month with all these parties, I try to eat healthy almost every days, and when at party, I tried to stay away from certain foods, and pick on the foods that as plain as possible. blah!   I opened my fridge and see, a container of boiled chicken breast, a container of brown rice, and veggies, eggs, I just want to puke.  Some days, I do some salmons, and beef just to change it up a bit.   I got to make these small sacrifices, for a summer body.  Else, it would be more painful in the summer.  Else, I feel like $hit.  Else, my clothes won’t fit. Else, I will not be able to wear those muscle t-shirt.  I would HATE wearing clothes and see a beer belly on me…NASTY!!!!!!!! HATE IT  I don’t want to go back to the old Q.
Counting down to the month of January when all these crazy holidays and parties are over with.
Almost forgot, my aunt is modeling my eating style, she went out and bought oatmeals =) She never eat oatmeal in her life.  Also, this week alone, four of my friends, college friends, well, five if I do count my date, all saying I look in shape…YAY!!!!!!!

Today, I hear myself complaining and cursing the cold weather, "It’s cold, and I don’t feel like going to the gym.", and "It’s winter, we all cover up, who is going to see that I am getting fat?"  It’s silly, I am complaining about the weather, but there is nothing that I can do about it.  But for the fact of taking progress pictures, then I must continue to train and eat right, else, picture will show it.  I have to think Summer, and ignore the fact that we are in Winter.  I am training to look great and feel great for the summer.

I’ve been going out and eating out a bit lately, my date and I both want to be in shape, but we both have different definition of being in shape.   I want to continue to push my limit strengthening my training and eat healthy all the time, while, "being fit" is acceptable for my date.   I’ve been doing cardio after weight training to avoid feeling guilty after "indulging" myself and it was not fun at all.   I need to come up with a explanation to express myself, maybe we should try to do things different than other couple do.  Instead of trying out new restaurants, we can eat at home, then catch a movie or walk in the malls, or making out and burn calories (joking).

My short-term goal is to stay focus, strengthen my mind, body throughout these last few days of December 2008.  I want to take great progress pictures for bb.com and WOW my date =)  I want to show my date that by changing your eating habit, and continue to train create a stronger, fitter body.  I am one day closer to achieving the body that I deserve.

It was not until yesterday, that I was able to return to my fitness goal, choosing healthy foods to consume rather then stuffing myself with left over treats from both Thanksgiving and my birthday.  One of my friends, who I have not seen for awhile, was comment on the way I look during a Thanksgiving dinner, and it was nice to receive compliment.  My short term goal is to stay focus on my fitness goal, a combination of healthy eating, and exercises throughout December and carry it through January.   Now is the time for me to work on the beach body.  I need to "wow" my special someone (K) =p
I’ve decided to continue using Controlled labs products, and just ordered two more Pre-out supplement (Whiteflood) from them.  One is the tablet form, and the other is powder.  Yesterday, a friend asked that I picked up some supplements for him, last time I got him multivitamins, and fish oil.  Although, he said he maintained the same weight, the fact is he looks fat, he workouts (mostly cardio) he claims, but he still eating traditional foods.  It sucks, to spend a lot of time in the gym, and not producing result.  I would hate that, I rather just suck it up and eat plain foods then knowing I have wasted all my time and money. Money for gym membership, money for trainer, money for supplement, and all those time wasted, money can be earned back, but time one it is gone, it’s gone.
My special someone is working for a restaurant, and I have to say "No" a lot to unhealthy foods.  blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I’m doing this for both of us honey =p  Perhaps, the end of December I can take some pictures…it’s time to look good =p