04/15/2011

I woke up this morning at 6:30 AM, took my dog for a 2.2 mile walk, and then headed straight to the gym.  This morning I felt sore, tired, and dehydrated.  I’m finding it tough to stay hydrated; I think I’m consuming more electrolyte tablets at home then on the ranch.  Perhaps not filling me with a Camelback to start the day is the reason; I have to make a conscious concerted effort to consume enough water.  I may be crazy but the visual cue I am using is the color of my urine.  It’s a race to keep it clear. 

At the gym I used the Arc Trainer to do a Cardio Interval Session.  I started at resistance level 30 and increased the resistance by 10 every 30 seconds, and then at the eighth level I increased the incline to level 10.  In working my way back down the seven :30 second intervals I found myself doing sprints at resistance level 40.  After the first cycle I performed three 1 minute sprints, 2 speed sprints, and 1 at incline level 20, and resistance level 100.  Once the sprints were completed I moved up through another set of Cardio Intervals at the same pace as the first one.  When I got back down to the bottom of the intervals I did 5 sprints this time, 3 speed sprints, and 2 at incline level 20 and resistance level 100. 

In terms of time I had reached approximately 40 minutes, so I kept sprinting 1 minute on 1 minute off for another 3 sprints to round the time to 45 minutes.  I think the next time I do Cardio Intervals I am going to go for three cycles instead of two. 

After the Cardio Intervals I took 15 minutes to stretch.  This was the first chance I have had to dedicate time to a decent stretch.  It felt good, my body is starting to tighten up again, and I realize that I need to spend more time stretching.  The hardest thing about re-entry is time.  Finding the time, making the time is a huge sacrifice, not to mention that everything now has travel time added to it.  10 minutes here, 15 minutes there and the day disappears.  I thought getting up at 6:30 would be early enough but I realize today in order for me to get to work at a reasonable time I have to get up at 5:30 AM or 5:00 AM.

Check out my meal plan for today here.

My evening session of exercise was good.  It was really good.  I had a brief moment of being pushed hard enough that I felt like I wanted to quit and then broke through it with another 30 minutes of cardio on the Arc Trainer.  I am really liking my off day trainer Ali.  He has the right tempo for keeping my heart up.  Similar to Tuesday we focused much of the workout around Kick Boxing. 

Essentially the workout is 5-10 minutes of boxing, with alternating core work.  He offers a good variety in the type of work he has me do, for instance today I was introduced to the TRX band.  The TRX Band looks innocuous, as it hangs from the ceiling, but the types of workouts you can perform can really kick your ass.  My first three exercises on the TRX were squats, jumping lunges, and side lunges.  The band allows you to use your upper body to hang off of the straps, which essentially gives you the ability to be more explosive with your legs, and as your legs get tired you can use the strap to help pull yourself up so you can keep working.  It’s almost a self-spotting device so it’s easy to keep pushing yourself beyond your bodies work threshold.  TRX Website

Ali has me moving fast, and we transition right into the next exercise, he is one step below Sam in workout pace, yet he is more like Michael C in his approach to pushing.  He simply will tell me not to “Gas Out” its a little push which gives me the juice to keep going.   I am beginning to enjoy his workouts more than my other trainer. 

Beyond what you see in the videos he had me do step ups with a shoulder press first on the Reebok step, then on a bosu, I was in a plank position on the bench and then moved side to side down the bench, and then raised 1 leg and arm and was planking with 1 arm and leg.  In trying to catalog the entire workout it’s tough because we hit so many different types of maneuvers, in such a rapid fire method.  About every 3, 4 exercises we jumped right back into boxing.  When I was done my back was sore from all the twisting I did to punch the targets.

(Sorry about the video I forgot to tell Ali you can't record horizontally because I can't rotate the video.)

Towards the end of the workout I started to get a second wind, by the end I was soaked in sweat, in fact Ali said I was raining on him.  I felt so fucking great after the workout that I decided I would do a Miracle Mile on the Arc Trainer.  At level 30 I pushed really hard, and finished a mile in 15 minutes, 34 seconds.  When I reached the mile marker I just said screw it and kept going for a few more minutes.  It then occurred to me to just do some sprints; I sprinted 1 minute on 1 minute off up to minute 37.  I did 6 speed sprints at resistance level 30; my goal was to keep the pedal rate above 160 per minute.  When I reached the last of the 6 sprints, I still had a few minutes left; I let myself recover for 1 minute, and then sprinted the last 2 minutes straight.  It felt awesome!  At the end of the sprints I had finished another 30 minutes of cardio after my personal training session.

I am becoming a workout crackhead!  I am in a constant search for the breaking point, so I can bust through it.  There is no greater feeling than reaching the point of exhaustion or giving up, and finding a way to power through it. 

It’s interesting how big a paradigm shift I had in Malibu, not only have I changed the way I look at food, and how to workout, I am attempting to stay calmer more often.   At work today two things happened which would have flipped me out three weeks ago.  First an employee wasn’t paying attention and let a car roll off the conveyor, which rolled downhill and hit my car.  The customer was pissed, we couldn’t calm him down, and even after we told him we would take care of the damage, he threatened to beat up my Assistant Manager.  He was just a dick, what asshole drives a non M3, 3 series Bimmer from 5 yrs ago and has the temerity to purport that it’s a 50,000 car, three weeks ago I would have broken him down, and said listen prick just because you lease a BMW for $300 a month doesn’t mean I have to listen to you bitch.  He’s one of those douche bags who gets an MBA and then puts it on his business card like he’s a fucking MD.  Instead of getting into a pissing contest I backed up, and let one of my subordinates onsite take care of it, and I told my manager the site would be responsible for paying back the damage claim and that if it happened again he would definitely be letting some people go.  Either way I didn’t implode, and just moved on with the rest of my day.

The second thing which happened is I had a manager quit without notice, this guy comes in leaves a letter of resignation and that’s it.  Again three weeks ago I would have flipped out and been pissed all day.  I didn’t give it a second thought and shifted some people around, which opened an opportunity for one of our existing staffers, who busts his ass every day.  In hindsight the former manager is probably doing me a favor.

I am going to try my hardest to not get stressed out and when I do I am going straight to the gym and plan on sweating it out.  My life is too short to be hostile all the time about things I can’t control.  There are so many things we just can’t control, but our response to these stimuli is 100% within our control. 

Similar to my issues of food, just because it smells good, and tastes good, I don’t have to eat it.  I can choose to eat it, but if I do I have to accept the consequences of what will result.  I can also choose not to eat it, and stay on my present course.  When people talk about weight loss as a journey I want to stick my head in a blender, turn it on high, and let err rip.  The hypocritical thing is I am beginning to think it is somewhat a journey, because I am rediscovering pieces of my personality that have been dormant for years.  I almost feel as if I’m walking through some personal metaphysical study.  Or it could be I’m just a skinny guy trying to break out of this fat body…