Day 16/17

No update yesterday. That's because I did not work out yesterday. I decided that I would take a day off. Instead of working out I went to the WTA Championship Tournament in Doha. That's Women's pro-tennis. Not exacty my first choice in sporting events, but it was free, and it was a good time! I also didn't eat the best either. I had an Arby's Beef n Cheddar, curly fries, and some sort of iced frappaccino type drink at the tournament. Afterwards we stopped for food at Nando's, which is an awesome chicken restaraunt that my friend Liam showed me while I was in London. I had Chicken, rice, and some grilled halloumi cheese. Oh, and a coke. That's the first soda I've had for a couple weeks. Then I stayed up late to watch the world series and had the 3 beers that I'm allowed. So, not the most healthy day, but whatever. I'm not going to cut out everything that is good. I'll just hit the gym tomorrow instead of taking my normal Monday off.

Today was kind of an easy day, but it was actually pretty challenging. No cardio, I'm going to do the intervals tomorrow. Instead, I was introduced to some yoga poses and pilates moves. It was actually quite the workout. My muscles were definitely burning at times. I'm told it strengthens my core muscles too, so thats good.

Anyhow, I'm going to take a 4 or 5 hour nap to try and get back on the night shift sleep cycle.

Day 15

I met with my trainer again today. It was good to have some guidance again. When I don't have somebody there to help me, I feel really out of place in the gym. I don't know what to do for strength training, so I usually just end up on the treadmill. That's what happened yesterday.

Today I worked my triceps, shoulders, legs, and my core. I'll spare the boredom of trying to describe exactly what exercises I did, but it was pretty good. It definitely worked some muscles that have not been used much.

Today was one of my one hour cardio days. I thought about doing the same rotation I did last time, but once I started jogging on the treadmill, I didn't feel like changing things up. 30 minutes came and went, my heart rate was hanging out around 150, and my legs felt fine. So I pulled a Forrest Gump, and I just kept run-nin. I ended up jogging with the speed at 5.0 for non-stop for a full hour. I jogged 5 miles non-stop. I feel pretty good about that.

Tomorrow I am on my own, but I was given instructions to just do my 30 minute interval cardio workout. I meet again with the trainer on Sunday. I guess I'm going to be learning some yoga moves. This should be pretty funny.

Day 14

I've been here for 2 weeks now. Things get pretty repetitive...especially the meals. What makes things even more repetitive is when you're trying to eat healthy. For an Air Force that wants its people to be healthy and thinner, they sure do stock the chow hall with a bunch of unhealthy stuff. This limits my choices. So for the most part, my breakfast and dinners are usually the same every day. My meals usually go something like this. Bear in mind that I work nights, so breakfast is between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. Lunch is at 2 am. Dinner is at about 8 am.

Breakfast:

2 cups of cereal (usually a Kashi version of cheerios, Special K with Red Berries, or Granola with raisins)

Fruit

1 piece of whole wheat toast

Lunch:

This varies and is usually my most substantial meal of the day. A lot of the time it ends up being chicken breasts and Salad, but I mix things up and just watch my portions. My salads usually consist of lettuce, broccoli, carrots, celery, radishes, bell peppers, and garbanzo beans. I top it off with a non fat dressing of some sort.

Snack: 1 cup of plain yogurt with honey and pecans or walnuts and/or fruit

Dinner (Pre workout meal): 4 hardboiled eggs (I only eat 1 yolk), oatmeal with raisins and some brown sugar, or today I did banana and walnuts. More fruit.

30 minutes before I work out I mix 2 scoops of N.O.-Explode with 12 oz water. This stuffis hot pink in color and helps with energy during my workout.

Post workout: a banana and 1 scoop of chocolate flavored whey protein in 6 oz water to.

This is it. Pretty much every day. It's pretty repetitive, but its not bad, and I know I will see results. I've also completely eliminated soda from my diet. Water,water, water.

1 day a week I can eat a reasonable amount of whatever I want and have a beer. Those days are nice.

Today for exercise, I was on my own. I thought I had an appointent, but I was wrong. So I did 30 minutes of intervals on the treadmill. Warmed up for 5 minutes, then I ran at a speed of 7.5 at an incline of 6.5 for 1 minute. I immediately adjust the incline and speed to 3.5 , and walk for three minutes. repeat this for 30 minutes and its a pretty good work out.

I watched game one of the World Series last night. It was awesome. The Giants won. My friend Art was actually at the game. I talked to him via skype when I got home from work and he said it was amazing. He was also at In n Out Burger...I was very jealous.

I'm thinking about posting my pictures that I tok before I started the workout program. Should I?

Now, to eat that banana...

Welcome to my new blog!

Hi! I'm Jeff. If you don't already know me, or know me and don't know what this blog is all about, I'd like to invite you to read the About Me section of this blog. First off, I'd like to give credit where credit is due. I basically stole the format for this thing from my good friends Art and Kepa. Check out their blogs at http://overweightamerican.blogspot.com (Art) and http://thefatlazyguyslog.blogspot.com (Kepa). I really like how their set up, so why fix something that's not broken. Now, on with the blog.

Anyhow, I am currently deployed for six months. I am on Day 13. Last week I met with a personal trainer here on base, and we started working on a plan for me to get into shape. We are still working out the specifics and going over different exercises daily, but the basic idea is that I will do some form of cardio 6 days a week. I will do 1 day of cardio where I go for an hour, keeping my heart rate around 140, which I am told will be prime for burning fat. Every other day I will spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. I will spend 1 minute with the treadmill at an incline of 7 and a speed of 7.5. Once the minute is up and my HR reaches about 170-180, I will slow it down to walking speed and level it out until my HR goes down to 135 or 3 minutes. Whichever comes first. We are also focusing on strengthening my core muscles for the first few weeks. After that, I will be introduced to the weight room. Today was one of my 1 hour cardio days. So here is what I did:

I warmed up for 5 minutes on the treadmill and then did my core strengthening exercises. Today was shoulders, legs, and biceps. I did 3 sets of each.

Shoulders (all 20 reps):

Reciprocal arms with 8 lb weights. Imagine doing the butterfly swim stroke with weights and then doing them backwards.

Overhead press with 15 lb weights. Raising the roof has never been so painful. haha

Lateral raise with 10 lb weights.

Legs (all 15 reps)

Wall Ball Squats. These are just squats, except you brace yourself against one of those giant workout balls.

Heisman jumps. I really look like an idiot doing these, but I can feel them working. I basically jump from left to right raising a knee each time. Kinda like the Heisman pose.

Forward Lunges.

Biceps (10-15 reps)

Curls with 20 lb weights

Chin ups. Ok...I really suck at these, and once again I look like an idiot. I can do maybe 1 without help. In order to do 10, I have to use my feet on the wall for a little assistance. This is actually ok to do!! But I'd really like to work my way up o doing 5 consecutively.

Finally I also did some Abdominal Crunches. Like 3 sets of 15.

Today I did 60 minutes of cardio. I kept my heart rate between 135-145 the whole time. I spent 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the eliptical, 10 minutes on the bike, and 10 minutes on the rowing machine.

Needless to say, I'm pretty tired. So it's bed time now. Game 1 of the World Series tonight!! Go Giants!