In Hell without a snowball.

     I recently took a not so brief Hiatus from the gym. I could go in to details of how I had family in town, crazy at work, etc etc, but it really comes down to a drop in motivation. I am working out again and I have some Great news. I have been accepted in to the Colorado Army National guard OCS program! This means that I am finally on the way to becoming an Officer. This has been plenty of motivation in itself. 

     Of course, majority of my friends and colleagues think that I have completely and utterly lost it. In their minds it does not make any sense for me to go from being a Platoon Sergeant back to being treated like a new recruit. I do partially agree with them but I know in the end I will be happy in my decision. Do not get me wrong this will be a very difficult trial for me. There is currently a 40% success rate for this school and I will have a LOT of studying and very little sleep on the weekends. I have considered applying for accelerated OCS which occurs over the summer months from July through September, but I do not know if I should. I would have to miss even more of my civilian job than I currently am (BOLC has 2 phases which will require me to be gone almost 6 months). Well, whoever reads this wish me luck! 

I have made some significant changes to my workout to fine tune my gains. I started by adding wrist straps when I am doing back exercises. I have heard many different sides to the “wrist strap” argument. One thing I had heard is that it will perpetuate the lagging muscle syndrome. Mainly that if you do not push the lagging muscle it will not keep up. For me this was not an issue since every night I do exercises I am pushing my forearms. In fact, they started hurting every day and I felt they were falling even more behind due to a lack of wrest for these muscles. I also stopped doing wrist and reverse wrist curls on arms night. I think I was just hitting this muscle group too hard and way too often. Since I have made these changes I have noticed some nice gains on my bicep and back exercises which proves to me I was right in going the route I have gone. I will reevaluate in a few months if I no longer feel these muscles are being taxed.

The second major change I had incorporated was to add squats and lunges to my workout. I have noticed some major changed to my legs in the last few weeks. I believe it is too early to gauge the exact changes but again I will reevaluate in a few weeks. Another benefit is the gains I have made in leg curl and press. I originally thought doing squats and lunges would tire me out in the last two exercises but I have actually found just the opposite to be true. The last time I worked out my legs I went up 10 pounds in each exercise. My legs felt like Jell-O after the lunges but when I started the next few exercises they felt great like I was hardly even taxing them; it was a great feeling.

Tonight I will start the next round of changes to my workout namely trying some new shoulder exercises. I am still doing some research on what these changes will be. I have been doing my shoulder press with a machine and I do not like this. I prefer to kill my muscles with free weights and use cables or machines to complete the devastation not to start it. I will start browsing bb.com and see what I can incorporate in to my work out.

Man, I cannot believe that it has been over a month since I last posted to my Blog. I have been really busy lately and I have not had any time to update anything on the site. I know that I am due for some more progress pics and I do notice some big changes. I am getting close to the point to make some changes to my goals also which feels pretty good. I am still aiming for 10 % bf and some more weight loss before I begin bulking. I do not plan on getting too big (isn’t this what everyone says in the beginning?) just find a nice easy medium between size and being cut. 

The good news is that I have been hitting the gym over the last few months making it a minimum of 4 days a week and an average of 5. I cannot wait to see the progress in the pics and in the measurements. The only depressing part is most of my measurements are staying pretty even. Oh, there is some progress but I misjudged how much was muscle and how much was fat, but at least I am not on any delusions anymore. 

A few weeks ago I was getting the depressed view that I was not making any progress, but luckily, I have gotten past that point. I even had to go out and buy all new belts, which proves that I have been making progress and I love the way I am feeling lately. I do need to buy more pants though. I will probably just pack away the ones I have now for when I hit my next bulking phase; that is one thing I am dreading! I like having a smaller waist and I wonder how this will affect my outlook? I am not too worried at the moment because I have learned to appreciate my gains in the gym as progress versus the gains on the scale. 

   Man I felt like crap yesterday. I was feeling a little queezy all day, so basically I hardly ate yesterday. I wasn’t going to let it get me down and I went to the gym. Things went from bad to worse. I started my 15 minute wartmup and 5 minutes in to it, I left the elyptical and sat in the bathroom with dry heaves. I decided nothing was going to stop me from working out and I elected to make myself throw up. I did the old stick 2 fingers down your throat, but amongst more dry heaves nothing. It was at that point that I told my body, "I do not care how you feel, we are going to work out". Strangely enough after I made that decision I felt better; not fine, but a lot better. I than went and completed my workout and I felt that I had an increase in strength. I still felt a little queezy but I made it through my workout (skipped the cardio) and went home to lay in bed and I tried to get to sleep.

   I slept maybe a half an hour and when I got up I felt really warm so I ate some ice cream and watched some TV. Unfortunately I barely got any sleep, but I did work out and I felt better about it. On to today…

Body hair has never really bothered me much. Well, it has on women, you know, legs. Something about waking up after a wild night of partying and seeing a hairy leg next to you, kind of creeps you out!

Lately my own body hair has been annoying me.  I always thought that guys should have arm pit hair, but my avatar pic has me wanting to get rid of all body hair! I think I am going to try one of the products off of the store. I do not know how extreme I am going to take it, but I def want to remove the upper body hair like arm pit, chest (the few strans that are there) and happy trail. Without getting too personal I have always trimmed, but lately I am wondering what a hair free body would look like. I will have to update with pics without getting too graphic. Any thoughts?

Woohoo I bought my Copper Mountain/Winter Park ski pass last night and a new board! I am so ready for the snow to come! I can’t wait, I even brought my ski pass with me to work! I know, stupid, but it is a great motivational tool. Every time someone calls my desk and I am like Hello (What the F%$K do you want?), what have you broken now? I just have to look down and see the ski pass and I do not care!

I bought a new board (which I have needed forever), a Rosignol. I looked around for over an hour at boards. I will post pics tonight of the pass, my new board, and some progress pics. I am even more motivated to work out tonight and I cannot wait to hit my legs again. Now, I have a new goal and I plan on hitting this one hard! I will post more later with the pics

Arms again tonight, Yaaaayyy, biceps are still my favorite bodypart. I do not know why but I no longer like to do chest exercises. The chest is my second favorite bodypart (of course I am a guy), but I hate to do chest exercises. Maybe because it seems so much harder to do them versus other body parts. I have no problems with my back or legs, I just do not look forward to chest day. Hmmm, maybe it is some weird neroses that I have gained. I do not know where from. Well, it is almost time to hit the gym. Voices, i will talk to you later.

Well, since I received very few responses to my last blog, I will just keep on the same path I have been on. I do feel the need to gain a workout partner. I have not had to worry about not going to the gym because every time I think, maybe I won’t go today, I force myself to go. I have been more motivated to work out than I have ever been in my life. I am loving it! But, I would like to move back from DB to Barbell for chest. I do not feel comfortable doing these alone, because I can’t really push myself as much as I would like. I do enjoy the fact that not having a workout partner I can go to the gym any time I feel like it. With a workout partner I can ensure I have great form and also have him/her push me to do even more. Enough for now, I will just have to change the time I workout to make it a more regular schedule.

I have been losing weight and gaining in the gym which is a double plus. As much cardio as I am doing plus the weight training and watching what I eat so far has been working for me. I know there will come a time when something will have to give. I will either start to gain weight due to my calorie intake or I will stop making gains in the gym due to my low calorie intake. So far it has not hurt me (in the effect that I am still making gains and losing weight) too much. I do not doubt that I would be making more gains if I upped my caloric intake and added more protein, but I am happy with how things are going so far.

   I did shoulders last night and it kicked my butt! I am thinking about changing my strategy on weight lifting. My problem is that I enjoy being in the gym. I actually feel really good working out. I know it is coming from having a goal and knowing that I am working my hardest to meet that goal.  I start out with 15 minutes of cardio to get my body warmed up and after this, I have been taking 1 minute between sets and 2 minutes between exercises. I think I need to give myself more time to recover between sets and exercises. It bums me out to be done with weight lifting in 45 minutes. I know this is actually good for a beginner and that as I progress I will be adding more exercises and more sets. I guess I am no good in the patience department. It will come in time.

I am going to keep the calories low until my bodyfat drops. I do not know my current BF. I bought a caliper, but I am not doing it right. I have read alot of information on them, but when I use them it tells me I am at 34%; this cannot be right. I can believe somewhere between 20 - 24%, but not 34%. I am 5′6" and weigh 162. I have always been somewhat active being in the Army, but lately I do have a desk job. Hmmm, I will keep using the Army way of measuring BF and go from there.

   Week 2: I was trying to workout 6 days a week, but my body had other plans. I felt dead all weekend. I believe it was my body’s way of saying, let’s work on this slowly, okay? I am going with 5 days a week for now and see how this works. I have also added 5g Glutamine in every protein shake or NO I take.

   I am still fine tuning the diet which is okay for me. Every time I try to make a drastic change it will backfire on me, but gradual changes seem to go okay. I need to work on getting sleep and finding time to cook all the chicken I will be eating. I think that I will have to buy a second freezer. I am having a hard time fitting all of the meat and vegetables in my freezer to last me 2 weeks. I thought about going to canned veggies, but they usually contain too much sodium. I still take my protein bars fro snacks which work well, but I should make it another meal type and save my bars for an occasional snack. So far a good beginning to week 2.