Day 57 - Chest and Back + Ab Rippa X

Week 9 has started and I felt pretty damn good. I felt like beast flavored awesome with awesome sprinkles on top. OK maybe that's a bit much but it felt pretty damned good to get back into working out today after my infant induced hiatus. Chest and back was the same it always is but I made some pretty decent gains over last time that I did this workout. I'm up in reps and/or weight on every exercises and holding steady at 165 lbs. I stopped actually keeping track of my calories a few days ago and I'm holding steady at my current weight. I continue to check my weight everyday and if my weight starts to balloon again I'll go back to calorie tracking.

Day 43 - P90X Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps

Well week 7 has started not with a bang but a pitiful whimper. Lifting yesterday really wiped me out for this workout. I was really struggling to match past weeks performance. In a few areas I saw losses, mostly in chest heavy moves. Some of the triceps and shoulder workouts I was able to move up to 30 pound dumbbells but not all.
I think that with the combination of all the running, the P90X, and the 1000-1500 calorie diet I may be overtraining. Last week I upped my carb intake to be 30-40% of my calories and set a calorie limit of 1500 a day. Since the change I haven't lost any weight. I realize that my total weight isn't what I should be concerned about so I'm changing my focus a bit. I did a tape test for body fat and I know those are inaccurate but it measured me at 15% body fat. I'd like to be around 10% or so but I'm going to play around with my diet a bit. I'm going back to an low carb diet and raising my daily calorie limit to 2000. We'll see what that gets me. Hopefully I'll maintain the same weight or add muscle without gaining fat. Next week depending on how this works out I'll change things up again.

Day 33 - Are we there yet? - Cardio

I just finished my longest run to date in the vibrams. This morning I knocked out 5 miles in 45:50. My goal was 9 minute miles and I just missed that. Total average according to the Garmin was 9:11. Whatever I'll take it. I hadn't run 5 miles intentionally for a while so that in itself felt pretty good. Now time for the excuses. I think I was still a little tired from Monday's cardio fest because I felt like crap from the first step. My form was also pretty lousy today. I was running very "loud", with my feet slapping and I felt like I was impacting harder than I should have been with each step. The calorie deficient diet I'm using is also catching up and I kinda crashed around the 3 mile mark. It's you remember a road as being pretty flat when you drive it all the time, but when you run it suddenly you feel like your in the Appalachians.
Hopefully I only have about a week left of the diet. I'm down from 177.8 to 168.2 as of this morning before the run. I'm almost at the 10 pound mark in less than 2 weeks, and that is much better than I had anticipated. My original goal was to get to 169 by the end of June. I thought that 1000-1200 calories a day plus at least an hour of exercise a day would be to extreme, but other than just prior to meals I feel fine. I am looking forward to being done with it and eating some bread and pasta though. Carbs are the devil, but the devil can be pretty yummy.

You are 934 calories over your goal.

My parents came into town for the weekend and we had a great time. My mother however is the proverbial home chef and made spaghetti. Then she made sandwiches, and well no excuse here but, we had Snicker's Ice cream. My final tally was 2971 calories. 52% from carbs. My step dad and I spent all day (like 11 hours) building my spoiled kid a swing set. It's pretty massive and even after all that time it's still not completely done but I'm within a few hours of completion. My best buddy is throwing a BBQ today for memorial day so probably gonna slam some calories today too. I'll at least cut down on the carbs. Time permitting I'll knock out a run tonight too after I study.

Week one of the diet is in the books. Total weight loss even with my mom's spaghetti is five pounds. There isn't much going on at work this week so hopefully I can sneak out and make better exercises and food choices and at least hit another five pounds of weight loss this week as well. The goal for now is 165. I may actually go down to 160. When I get to 165 I'll see how I look, feel, and perform.

Shoes? Where we're going, we don't need shoes.

My parents came into town and saw my new house for the first time last night. They stayed until fairly late and of course the rest of my free time prior to their arrival was spent cleaning the house to the wife's exacting specifications. As a result I didn't work out. I'm sorry Tony Horton I don't mean to neglect you I'm just not ready for that sort of commitment. It's not you, it's me. P90X is pretty enough. Plus running is the priority since that is my weakness at the moment and my core and upper body strength is pretty decent at the moment.

I knocked out a barefoot 3 mile run this morning. I didn't go terribly fast, just a 9 minute pace, but I felt pretty strong. My form is improving and I feel that next time I'll go longer or faster. The limiting factor is no longer calf strength when I do the barefoot running but is now arch strength in my foot. I think that will come in time. I really wish I would have got into the barefoot running earlier. When I think of how many painful years of running I've done for good ole Uncle Sam, it's kind of depressing to think of how simple of a fix that barefoot running is to my form. Now when I do wear normal shoes it feels like I'm walking around on giant foam stilts that are bungie corded to my feet. My running shoes feel the way that my dress shoes used to feel.

The diet is still going well. I weighed myself before I went running and I'm down to 172 for a total loss of 5 pounds since Sunday. Not bad. As a bonus my wife said that my abs and hip flexors are coming back in already. So motivational merit badge is awarded to the wifey. The diet makes me feel a little tired just before meals and bed time, and I tend to be dreaming of food just before bed time. The first time I realized I was kinda zoning out and thinking about food it made me feel like I was back in Ranger school for a second. As long as I limit my carbs I don't really get hungry though. It's more of a desire to snack. Kind of like when you watch a movie, you're not actually hungry but you still wanna munch a whole bucket of popcorn. Anyways I'll knock out some P90X tonight or tom morrow depending on my schedule.

Side note, my stepdad and I are going to the spec op/airborne museum today. That should be pretty sweet.

Sneaky Ass Burrito

I've been doing pretty well with the low carb thing and it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I've had at least 40% of my calories from protein everyday and made sure that my carbs were as low as possible. Kinda got hosed today because I ordered a chicken burrito not realizing that it had rice in it. Oh well. That thing alone was 47 carbs. Despite this I came in at 930 calories for the day. I ran 4 miles in 36 minutes this morning and according to livestrong.com that's around 700 calories so I think it will be alright. Just before bedtime I knocked out another 3.3 in 30 minutes with my vibram fivefingers so that I can keep working on my form and strengthen up my calves. Livestrong.com put that at another 550 calories burned. I think this is a bit optimistic being how this puts me at a total of -300 calories for the day, but whatever I'm just a dumb pilot.
It's probably mostly due to the run but I do notice that the more carbs I eat the hungrier I am. With meals that are high protein I have the urge to eat more but it passes after about 10 minutes. It seems like carbs just burn off faster and leave me less full. I'm down about 4 pounds so far but I suspect that most of that may be water weight. Once the week is up I'll see what the actual results are. Despite the lower calories I felt stronger running today than I have in a long time. The barefoot running is getting easier too. I still have to watch my form to keep my feet from slapping but the form is feeling more and more natural. The first run I did barefoot left my calves shredded before I even stopped running. As I sit here writing this I just finished my longest barefoot run to date and I can report no pain. Well back on the P90X wagon tomorrow.

Eat Less Fattie

I've never done the food diary thing but then again I've never had to get taped to determine my body fat because I was overweight on the Army height and weight chart. It was kind of an eye opener. I'm currently 177.8 and I want to get down to 169 by the end of June. I've been totally shrugging off the P90X nutrition portion of the program and I'm now reconsidering the wisdom of that decision now that the thirty pudge just dropped in my lap. I started using the "my plate" program from Livestrong.com. I tried to do a program on my phone initially but it was to time consuming and I really like the Livestrong database. You just search what you ate (by brand ussually) and add it to your meals. You can also save entire meals that you eat frequently. By the breakdown for today I had 41% protein, 22% carbs, and 37% fat for a total of 1216 calories. That's not too bad especially since most of those carbs came from the small BK fries I had at lunch. I ordered apple fries but they screwed up the order and well it was a long ride home. I'm weak and fries are yummy. Side note BK serves ribs. WTF? They actually weren't too bad. I was planning on just getting a grilled chicken sandwich and not eating the bun but curiosity overcame me.


Came up with a super easy recipe for dinner.
4 cups steamed broccoli
1 lb chicken
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 soy sauce

Heat oil. Add chicken and stir til white. Add broccoli. Add soy sauce. Season.

Doesn't get much easier than that and it's pretty good. Did the same thing last night with shrimp. My wife bought these bags of frozen broccoli that you can just pop in the microwave so there isn't much excuse. It serves 3 with 306 calories each, 9 grams of fat, 9 carbs, and 55 grams of protein.

KFC Double Down Sandwich Selling Like Hotcakes - Fried Bacon Smothered Hotcakes

This is kinda crazy to me. When I first saw this commercial I thought it was a gimic, but I guess people actually eat them. Clearly I am wrong.
"KFC said it has been one of its most successful sandwich launches ever. Later this month, KFC expects to sell its 10 millionth Double Down."
It actually suprises me that it is as close to a Big Mac in calories as it is. I thought it would be way more. One thing to note however is that the "healthy" grilled chicken actually has more sodium than the fried chicken.

FOXNews.com - KFC Doubles Down on Bunless Chicken Sandwich

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