Randy Nixon

Dear God - Just for today, I am thankful for all I have.  I am free to make choices today, right or wrong.  God, please help me make the right choices, manage them all day long and then recommit to them tomorrow.  Thank you for a good job, healthy body, loving family, precious daughter and more friends than I’ve ever had.  Life doesn’t feel so great today, but I trust that you have great things in store for me.  Please reveal them to me when I’m ready.

Randy

Dear God - Just for today, I am thankful for all I have.  I am free to make choices today, right or wrong.  God, please help me make the right choices, manage them all day long and then recommit to them tomorrow.  Thank you for a good job, healthy body, loving family, precious daughter and more friends than I’ve ever had.  Life doesn’t feel so great today, but I trust that you have great things in store for me.  Please reveal them to me when I’m ready.

Randy

To save a long and very detailed story, I’ll just tell you that Emily filed for divorce about three weeks ago.  Yeah, so I’m about as motivated as you’d imagine.  The last week has been pretty good with diet and workouts, though.  One day at a time, yo.

Wish me luck.

I feel like one of those ‘fair-weather’ fitness folks who crowd the gym every January.  Not because I lack the staying power to keep at it, but because I started Jan 2nd.  I suspect most of those folks will have given up by the end of next week and things will be back to normal.

I made it to the gym every day for the past two weeks, with the exception of a weekend day or two.  I’ve also tried to get a walk in, but the cold weather makes it difficult.  I’m lifting about what I was a year ago, which is depressing.  The good news is that my weight and BF are more in line than a year ago.  I’ve nixed the NO Xplode, opting for pure creatine monohydrate.  The only supplement I take is Glutamine to aid in muscle recovery.

I am without a workout partner, which is a huge obstacle for me.  I gain so much faster when I train with someone.  Hopefully I will find someone soon with a similary schedule and goals. 

First things first.  I basically lost 80% of the progress I made between May and September of last year.  How, you might ask?  I stopped listening to my own advice.  I let go of the daily routine that I’d worked so hard to develop.  I allowed myself to become complacent and accept less than what I knew I needed and wanted.

The truth is that I was doomed to fail before I even started.  You see, I struggle with a very powerful disease and previously felt confident that I had control over it, as if I had defeated it through perseverance.  As with many other diseases, daily care and maintenance is mission-critical

As you might imagine, I let this disease creep back into my life.  Once this happened, a very predictable course of events took place in a matter of about seven weeks.  Before I knew it, I was right back to where I was in May.  Devasted.  Defeated.  Lost.

Sometimes we reach a ‘plateau’ with respect to our workouts.  We stop growing no matter how hard we try.  In most cases this happens because our minds and bodies become accustomed to running the same old plays over and over.  After months/years of this, it takes less effort to repeat.  What must we do to overcome this plateau?  You got it, CHANGE UP THE ROUTINE.

On December 30th, 2008 I changed up my routine and I’ve been growing like never before.  Inside and out.

Feels good to be back!

Last Monday morning, around 3am, the full force of a viral infection took its toll on my body… the works.  I’m not one to go to the ER, but I went.  I seriously thought I was going to die.  The contest diet was on hold, I was doing well just to stay hydrated.  My throat was raw and ulcerous, fever, chills, tremors and I was vomiting on top of all that.  Hopefully you can begin to understand why I went to the hospital.  They ran tests, poked, prodded and let me go with the diagnosis of ‘nasty virus’.

So, now it’s eight days later and I’m just beginning to get my strength and energy back.  You’ll see a big blank period on the Workout Tracker because I missed all of last week.  Yuck.  I would like to think that I can recover and still compete, but I’ve lost muscle mass, gained bf and lack the energy to give 110% like I need to.  I’m going to give it all I’ve got, though.  I am traveling this week for work in Pensacola, Fl… so the diet is a real challenge.

I’ve reconnected with the Lord, after drifting a bit.  I can’t stress the importance of staying close to Him every single day regardless of how much you "need Him" on a given day.  When things started to improve slightly in my personal life, I let up on the intensity of my prayers and daily walk.  Big mistake.  He has helped me understand why this won’t work.  For that I am thankful.

Fifty-one days to the show.  I’m picking up momentum with fat loss and that’s a big plus.  My main concern, still, is not being lean enough in the mid-section and thighs.  I’ve been ripping up some LIT cardio and loving it!  Abs are a focus daily, usually hard in the AM and light in the PM.  Diet is solid, meals and/or shakes every two hours during the day, with a daily caloric deficit of about 350-500.  My weight and bf% are in line with the goals I set on Day 1, which means no drastic measures to play catch-up.  Nice.  My overall physique must be changing.  Allison, a co-worker, stopped me today and said, "You’ve lost weight, I can tell."  I thanked her for noticing.  She said, "Yeah, your jaw line is more defined."  Cool.  I rarely look at my face, over the various muscle groups.  Ive always said a good measure of progress is when outsiders notice and make comments.

It was bound to happen, I picked up some virus or bacterial thing from my daughter last week.  I’ve got a wicked sore throat (on fire) and sinus issues… makes heavy training days even more challenging.  The good news is that Maeley is on medication now and is feeling much better.  Daddy, on the other hand, is going to ride it out.  Maeley turned three on Monday and that was hard to swallow.  Seems like yesterday I was rocking her to sleep in the hospital bed next to my wife.  The nurse was giving me crap about reading to a newborn.  Must’ve done something right, that little girl is so smart already!

August 2nd I’ll be heading to Pensacola, FL to help with a training initiative at work.  I’ll have a couple days before and after the training to chill on the beach, in addition to time after work.  I’m looking forward to a much-needed break from the drama that my world has become.  I feel better just writing about it.

To all the competitors out there in the midst of a contest prep, stay strong!  To all those competitors in my class, go ahead and eat that pizza… 1st is already taken!

Half-way through the diet and I’ve finally started tracking my meals.  As expected, too few calories (1,600-1,800).  I should be near 2,200.  I knocked the dust off an old Access database that I created, made some tweaks, wiped out all the old data my wife entered and started from scratch on Thursday.  I remember how important it is to track macronutirent intake now.  Seeing meal and daily totals really brings it all together.  It also reminds me to eat every 2 hours.  It’s a pretty cool tool, so if you’d like to try it, let me know and Ill send you a copy.

Took some progress pics this morning.  I suppose they’re okay, but still look a lot like the 16 week shots!  The most obvious change is in my skin color.  It’s been really sunny here in Nashville and I take my walks while the sun is still pretty strong.  I do have a wicked tan-line though and need to get cracking on evening that up in the tanning bed.  Physique is coming right along.  Waist is getting smaller and cuts deeper.  I still have the most fat to lose in my waist, hips and glutes.  I never realized how thick I was through the middle, yuck!

My daughter got sick last Sunday, so I’ve been caring for her.  Bless her little heart.  She’s going to be sick on her bday Monday.  The rest of my life is moving right along.  My job will be taking me to Pensacola, FL for about 10 days at the beginning of next month… yeah, life is rough.

I was just telling my workout partner how strange it was that my weight (bf) was dropping, yet my strength was increasing.  I should’ve kept my mouth shut.  My strength on select exercises has started to drop off.  I know this is normal, but I was enjoying the high life of getting leaner and stonger week over week.  The up side to this is that I was finally able to see the beginnings of a bodybuilder’s midsection last night… first time in over four years.  I’m adding another low-intensity cardio session in the evenings to bring me in line with my weekly goals.  I am about 2 lbs over my body mass goal for this week, but only 1% bf behind.  I’ll take the mass and work on the bf  I can always compete in the light heavy-weight division if necessary.  That would actually be pretty cool to be competitive in a bigger class.  Still need to get on board with tracking every meal.  I was religious about it in the past, but have been hesitant this time… I think it’s becuase I know it will require eating more and I feel like I’m eating round the clock now! 

Sixty-seven days to go.  I’ve been avoiding weighing in because I know I am behind schedule with fat loss.  Despite this, I am still getting stronger with all my workouts.  A very good sign, since I traditionally get weaker as the contest approaches.  I know eventually I will plateau, but I’ll take it for today.  I’ll weigh this weekend and update my progress section.  The knee is also healing up some, which is helping a lot.  I can squat 315# again and my legs are filling out.

As far as my mental and emotional health goes, I’ve come to a peaceful realization.  I am becoming who God created me to be.  Everything else is secondary.  Worrying is a waste of time and energy.  I continue to focus my thoughts and actions on moving forward with my life… and that is what I am doing.  If I spend my days looking back and waiting for a change, I’ll miss out on what God has planned for me today.