Month 2 Progress Report

Today was measurement day. I'm still 230 lbs, which means I've only lost about 5 or so pounds in 2 months. It was a little frustrating until I found out that I have gone down from 20.2% Body Fat to 13.6%!! Here are some progressive photos of my progress. Also, I can now do 10 consecutive pull-ups! Progress is good. So here are some photos that show my progress. For the record, my trainer MADE me do the flex poses. I felt pretty goofy.

Day 43

Today was a swim day! I like swim days a lot. I hear a lot that swimming is a good workout for your entire body. I was a little bit skeptical, but today I am believing it. I swam for 30 minutes. I warmed up, then would swim as fast as I could to the other side. Then I would slowly swim back and rest for a minute or 2 until my heart rate went down. I probably made it through 6 or seven intervals before my body said no more. So to cool down I just tried doing 2 laps slowly. I made it to 1 1/2 before I just walked to the wall and got out. That combined with Chest and Biceps today has me totally beat. I am going to sleep well. Goodnight!

Day 42 Thanksgiving

The thing about Holidays when you're deployed is that they just seem like every other day...Groundhog day...except the chow hall makes turkey. Well, tonight Fox is broadcasting the football game from here. I won't be able to attend the broadcast for 2 reasons. 1) They only have a limited number of spots in the sports bar. I don't have a ticket. 2) more importantly, I'll be working during the broadcast. Anyhow, yeah...this is my second set of holidays I'll spend deployed. I miss everyone. I definitely wish I could be back celebrating with Christine, family and friends, but I know that in the end this is better for the big picture. At the end of this deployment I will be completely debt free, and for that I am thankful. I'm also thankful to have the best girlfriend in the world. She sent me an awesome care package the other day, and it really brightened up my day/week. Thank you, Christine!

Today I worked my abs, back, and triceps, followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the bike. I sweated a bunch. It was a really good workout. Tomorrow is swimming again. I'm looking forward to that! Ok, time for my protein shake followed by bed!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Day 41

I'm already nearing day 50! Day 59 will be a very good day. I'll only have 120 days after that. 4 months. The old deployment length. those deployments flew by like nothing. Hopefully the rest of my time here will do the same! So today I was back on the free weights doing chest and biceps. I definitely worked them good, because I couldn't even do 5 push ups afterwards. After that, I would normally do my 30 minute intervals on the treadmill today, but I felt like doing something different. Today, I swam for exercise, and wow...it was more of a workout than I had anticipated. First off, I can't remember the last time I went swimming. Actually, I do. It was at the beach in Barcelona, but that wasnt really so much swimming as it was just playing around in the water. Today, I swam. My trainer had me warm up by just doing a slow swim back and forth. Like 4 laps. I could really feel it in my chest today. It really was a full body workout. After that, I did intervals. Intervals meaning I would swim freestyle as fast as I could to the other side of the pool, and them swim slower back, and rest for a couple minutes. Today I did 4 intervals, and then cooled down with 2 laps non-stop. The goal is to get to 10 intervals in my 30 minutes. I was worked after 4, so this should be interesting. I like swimming though. I like it so much, that I am going to take a break from my intervals on the treadmill for the nex few weeks, and focus on swimming. I can feel my heart rate increasing, so I know its working. I was also told that it will help my waistline go down. I like that idea a lot. Most importantly though, it will give my joints a break. I will still be on the treadmill on my 60 minute cardio days, but the swimming allows my joints some reprieve from the 6 days a week of pounding away on a treadmill. Tomorrow is 60 minutes of cardio...I swim again Friday. Excited!

Day 39 Month 2 of Fitness Begins

Yesterday I pulled a God, and rested on the 7th day, although I'm sure that I ate far worse. Yeah, it was my off day yesterday, and there was football, so I did not eat the healthiest. But I figure 1 day out of the month isn't going to wreck everything. ou gotta have a little something to look forward to in order to stay motivated. So after I got off work yesterday I had 2 egg white breakfast burritos with cheese, bacon, jalapenos, tomato, onion, green peppers, and tots. I also had a biscuit with gravy and a mini waffle. Then I went to sleep. I woke up and went and watched a movie. Secretariat, which was your typical Disney underdog comes out on top story about horse racing. I liked it...more so than The Social Network at least. I had some popcorn there. My next meal consisted of a salad and a steak and cheese sandwich. I'm not doing too terrible so far...but then I had the rocky road brownie. Oh yes! It was fantastic. I could eat those every day....but I won't. later on in the evening it was time for football, so I went to the sports bar and ordered 3 Hefeweissen. I stretched them from about 9pm to 3am as I watched football on the tvs in the sports bar, and did a 4 way split screen with my NFL game pass on my computer. I can honestly say that I was able to watch every NFC west game at the same time. Wow does that division SUCK! But at least the Seahawks are still in 1st place! So at about 1:30 am the Seahawks game was still on, I was hungry, and I didn't want to walk all the way to the chow hall...so I ordered a meatlovers pizza from pizza hut. It was fantastic, but I think its one of those treats that I'm going to have to limi myself to once a month (another thing to look forward to). So yeah, yesterday was unhealthy.

Today it was the beginning of my second month of workouts. I was on my own today, so I did the same chest workout as 2 days ago. It went really well. I also decided to work my biceps, and abs. For cardio I did my 30 minute intervals on the treadmill. It was a challenging workout, and I was totally worked afterwards, but it felt good. I'm enjoying a protein shake right now and about to eat a grilled chicken sandwich. Back to work at mdnight tonight, so I'm gonna watch some TV and do a little homework now.

Day 37 Monthly Progress Report

It's the 20th of the month. That means it's time to get measured. Last night when I woke up, I weighed myself in at 230 lbs. So I've lost 5 lbs. Honestly, I was kind of expecting to lose a little more than that because I have altered my eating and exercising habits DRASTICALLY. I tried not to get discouraged though because I've only been going for 1 month, and I've been lifting weights too. There is a chance that I could've gained muscle mass. Only the body composition test would tell me that for sure. So today after work, I met with my trainer and we took my measurements. Once again I was a little surprised by the results. I thought that with all the cardio I was doing, that my waist would've gone down more. I mean it did.. 1/2 inch, but I thought my pants felt looser than that! Apparently the fat is burning off of other places first. I lost an inch in my hips. And strangely I actually gained an inch of muscle in my legs. There was no change in my arms or chest measurements. My trainer crunched the numbers, and I am now at 18% body fat! This is actually better than I was expecting. I was expecting maybe 19%, but 18% is awesome. That's 1/3 of the way to my goal of 14%!
So we decided today that I needed to step up the upper body workouts. We moved into the free weight room and now every other day I will focus on my chest and some other muscle group of my choice. Today I chose shoulders and abs.

Today I did:

Chest:

3 sets of 10 reps standard bench press (135 lbs)
3 sets of 10 reps incline bench (95 lbs)

3 sets of 10 reps decline bench (115 lbs)

Shoulders:

3 sets of 10 reps shoulder press (55 lbs on each arm)

3 sets of 20 reps forward and lateral arm raises (10 lb weights)

Abs:

Crunches

Sidebends

Cardio: today I just decided to run. I set the treadmill af 6 and I turned on some music and went. I ran 6 miles non-stop today. I'd say I barely broke a sweat, but that would be lying. I was dripping sweat, but I did it, and I feel really good about it. It was a good workout to finish the week. I have a day off tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that! Month 2 of workouts starts Monday!

1 Month Pictures

Monthly Progress Check #1

230 lbs

18% Body Fat