nuke316’s BodyBlog

Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. I had planned on celebrating with an intense workout, but suffering through the weekend with the flu, I just couldn’t muster up the strength, so I opted for watching the Packers/Vikings tilt instead.

Today is different. I’m sitting at my desk at the end of the day, browsing through the blogs and profiles drawing inspiration and motivation. I love this site. Five to fifteen minutes on it and you feel like pushing yourself past every one of your limits. Much love to all the contributors, bloggers, etc that make this site the community it is.

Complacency is the bane of all things healthy. This was a valuable lesson I learned over the last week. After about 5 weeks of relatively intense training and diet tracking I managed to drop about 5 pounds and shed 3% of bodyfat. I was thrilled.

Last Wednesday I was exhausted and sore, so I figured a rest day was in order and skipped my usual lunch with weights for lunch with a friend. On Thursday, I got invited out to lunch again and was pretty tired in the evening so I headed to bed. Both lunches weren’t of the healthiest variety. Then Friday hit…Slayer/Megadeth concert resulted in too much beer, too much crappy food (wings, pizza, ribs) and too little sleep. The next day, hungover, I made more poor choices and topped it off with more beer with friends and dinner out.

I hit the scale this morning and was crushed (CRUSHED) to see the scale tipping back to my original weight and bodyfat. All that hard work flushed down the toilet in the matter of one week. With no one to blame but myself, I slinked back into the gym for the first time in a week and hit it hard. It felt good and I pushed a little harder as some self-inflicted punishment for letting myself slip.

Today is another beginning. I just have to learn from the mistake and keep on moving…but ain’t that what life is really all about anyway?

Had a huge workout…huffed and puffed and now I’m about to be blown down. Feel like I’m gonna puke. That can’t be good…or can it?

What if everything around you isn’t quite as it seems

What if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream

And if you look at your reflection is that all you want to be

What if you could look right through the cracks

Would you find yourself…afraid to see

Some personal issues plus a return of crappy weather plus some miserable little virus has led up to about 5 days of total misery. I had to force myself to go to the gym today even though I could have thought of a million things I would have rather done. In the end, it turned out to be not my best workout, but all things considering not bad either.

When I entered my workout stats into My Workouts though I was surprised to see personal bests for not one but two exercises. Felt good to see and vindicated my decision to go to the gym.

I guess sometimes, even on your worst days, you are capable of accomplishing (personal) greatness.

A bad night of sleep to cap off a weekend of no gym and outright terrible eating led to a piss-poor performance in the gym today. I crapped out after 3 exercises. I figured rather than run the risk of injuring myself by pushing through with poor form, I’d take a break and wrap things up after work. Hopefully it improves and the rest of the week goes better than today.

"…greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obsure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

I finally did it. 10 unassisted bodyweight pullups. This is huge for me since before I set this goal a couple months back the most I had ever been able to do was 4 or 5 pullups. Pretty happy for myself, but no time to sit on my laurels…now I’m gunning for 15.

Must…not…succumb…to…illness. Must…keep…forging…ahead. Goals…to…achieve…before…New…Years.
..

To most on this site, this probably won’t seem like much of an achievement, but for me…it’s huge (that’s why they’re my goals…not yours : ) ). Today I rattled off 8 bodyweight pullups. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do more than 5 in my life.

My goal is to be able to do 10 by the end of the year…and I actually stand a chance of hitting it. More hard work required over the coming weeks.