Last week, I was randomly browsing Craig’s List to see what’s around. I typed in “BowFlex” and came across a good deal. A BowFlex Sport for only a few hundred bucks, under half the MSRP. Well. Concidering I’ve been wanting to get one (and cancel my unused gym membership), I decided to go for it.

Yesterday was my “official” day of starting out on the BowFlex plan. And yes, I did by the book, too. I hadn’t quite read it yet, but I know enough about working out, I decided to jump into it (I DO plan to read the book, but right now, I just wanted the ramp-up workout plans). I did the first sets yesterday, determining where my strengths were. I did two sets of each exercise suggested, figuring out where my limits are. I have a good idea now.

It felt nice to get out actual weight resistance again. I forgot how rejuv the muscles feel after a good weight workout. Okay, not “good” — it’s still basics — but it was enough!

Like a traditional weight schedule, I plan to life M/W/F, following their lifting plan to a T.

Now, eating plan? hehe, well. That’s a little different. My food intake sucks, and I know it. I’ll work on that later. lol

Yesterday, my stats were:

157 lb. 18.7% bf. (which is actually down 2% from the week before. ha, already got results! lol)
I do have a photo, too. But it’s on my laptop. I’ll update later when I get it re-sized, cropped, etc.

Today, I plan to take a rest, and do some necessary shopping.

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I initially brought this up on a forum I religiously visit to get their opinion. Needless to say, it brought up quite an interesting discussion.

What side of the park am I on? That’s easy. Before I say anything, I will admit that I am a bit biased. I’m a 31 year old guy that is in perfect health. I do (kinda, ha) work out and keep myself in shape where possible. When I saw myself starting to gain a little flab in the past, I immediately stopped what was causing it and reverted back to my normal self. With that said, it should be obvious I’m quite for something like this.

Now, lets take the US Health care system into account. We don’t actually have free health care; however, we do have a horribly priced system. Healthy people have to pay the same price as fat people. If you work out, get injured, your costs are no more subsidized as, say, somebody obese injuring themselves for the 5th time due to their weight. To be honest, I think it’s bs.

I think we should have some kind of system in place where were you can get a substantial discount on insurance if you pass a specific physical couple times every year. It certainly would give people some motivation to work out. And then to go along the lines of this article, I think anybody that’s quite frankly overweight should be forced to pay their own medical bills. Especially if you’re dumb enough never to take your diabetes medication.

Am I sounding cruel here? Is it because I’m not in that predicament? Is it because I don’t have anybody close that is? I don’t know; I sure don’t think so. I’m not in that predicament because I intentionally keep myself out of it.

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Well, I know I need to make a change. And I actually like this site. I plan on doing random updates, personal updates, just for the heck of it from now on here. I need to get back into the habit of writing, daily. In order to do that, I need to write and write and write. As they say, the best way to write is to write.

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Then I got to thinking, this would be a great way to get some writing out. It’s small; It’s easy; I can write or think about it on the tran. Perfect! So, to start it off:

Ever since they left, my mind has been at ease.

Post yours, if you have one. Or better yet, lets see what you all can come up with from that first sentence. What questions does it bring up? Or just run with it — what story would to tack on?

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One of the major hurdles I’m working on with these sites of mine is the very simple, bottom of them all, skill: writing. I, like many others I’m sure, just never get the “urge” to write. The main problem, of course, is practice. Writing isn’t something that just comes to a person naturally. Many learn to do it and gain the habit through school. Other, like myself, build a dislike towards it (others more harshly) and tries everything to get away from it.

I have been working on trying to get my writing back up to par again. The fact of the matter is, I need to write. I use to be quite creative and during a small 1 month spurt where I did write daily, I was able to feel the creative juices flowing again.
As I stated before, practice makes perfect. And what’s the best way to practice? Doing. Writing every day, even when you do not feel like writing. This has been my bigger hurdles. Not only do I not “feel” like writing, I always wait until the last minute of the day when I am too exhausted to even think. It turns into a bed vs sitting at my desk writing.

Write daily.

That is what needs to be done. Do it before the end of the day, before you have already committed yourself to closure and before you get committed to another project. The key to writing is writing. It doesn’t matter what your write, all that it matters is you are writing. Even if you have to write an entire page full of “I hate writing…I hate writing…this sucks…what do I need to say.” All that matters is you are writing. Eventually, more ideas will start surfacing. I can vouch for this from past experiences.

Write when you do not feel like it; write when you do. Write in your sleep (okay, maybe that won’t work, but eh).

Writing has been my biggest hurdle. I am writing this post to pass on my knowledge in what I’ve learned in the past weeks and to write.

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Lets start the day off; I slept in. Yup, I slept in. Day two and I slept in! Thank god for my second alarm. So, I woke up to the first alarm, knowing it was 6am. I did the inevitable and rolled back over. I thought I would lay there, attempting to recall as much as I could of my dream — nope. I rolled back over and the clock said “6:25am” and the very next thought was “oh shit, already 6:30!” — next time, no more rolling in bed, attempting to recall my dreams. I hopped out of bed and proceeded to do my normal morning stuff.

I get to work, generally a normal day if you call getting pulled out of my Monday morning meeting for client based meetings; getting back to my desk two hours later; spend the next 3 hours trying to fix a windows bug which turned out to be because of a MS Windows patch; running system restore; reinstalling my IDE because system restore broke it; and having to stay late due to all the delays I had all day a “normal” day. Not to mention throughout the whole day I felt groggy; I assume that is just my body getting use to the new sleeping patterns — energy drinks did a good job to alleviate that!

Anyway, needless to say, due to my “normal” day, I got home much later than I anticipated, too late to make the gym. Fear not, however, I did managed to get a good workout with a little 15 minute workouts DVD I got from Men’s Health. I know many of these 15 minute workout things are gimmicks, but I tell you, this one kicked me hard. I’m not out of shape, very much, but I do admit my legs suck. By the end of that workout video, I could barely climb up my stairs! Nooooooo! That’s where my computer is.

On to day three…Tomorrow I plan to meet up with a friend, and just hang out. Gym Wednesday and I signed up for some monthly “Big Summer Party” with the YAP Club. I signed up to the club months ago, but never got to any of their events. So, this will be my first time with them; we will see what happens. Funny part, I recongise one of the RSVP attendees as somebody I saw on Match.com. Think I play that angle? Probably not — like a computer geek, I suck with the girls.

Lets see, details for today.

Specs:

Height: 5′ 11″
Weight: 155lb
Body Fat: 18%

Workout:

2 Circuits
15 - Squat to Curl Press
15 - SwissBall Bench Press
15 - each side - Stationary Lunge and Row (that one killed my legs!)

Diet: (Yes, I need major work here)

Breakfast - Frosted Cheerios, Red Bull
Snack - Missed it, meeting all morning.
Lunch - Potbell Italian Sandwich, mini bag of Cheeze-its
Snack - Sobe Energy Drink, Protein Bar
Pre-workout - Protein Shake + Muscle Defender addition
Post-workout - Same as above
Dinner - Nothing, lack of time
Evening Snack - Slim Fast Optima French Vanilla

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I am quite the fan of their use of positive and negative space to depict a person trap in his or her “fatter” self, trying free themselves. Makes you think twice the next time you decide to munch on that fried chicken, ice cream cone, or soft drink.

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I decided to perform an experiment about getting up early. Like many, I hated the idea of waking up before 9am. So much so, I intentionally set my clock ahead 45 minutes to give the illusion it was actually later than the reality, but even then, I would quite often sleep in until post 9am. This was a habit I needed to change, but didn’t have the motivation or discipline to do it. I decided to change all that.

Here are the facts of sleep, as I know them:

• As you get older, you actually require less sleep — an average adult only needs approximately 6 hours sleep.
• As a teenager, I found a “money shot” sleep time of 5.5 hours where I was able to wake up freely and never had to worry about an alarm clock — that lasted 2 weeks, until the first day I decided to sleep in.
• Sleeping too much is just as bad as not sleeping enough.
• When you first wake up, your initial decisions are generally wrong, especially your decision to “sleep a few more minutes.”
• It is better to wake up at a specific time, every day, but go to bed only when tired.
• If you hold the same pattern for 30 days, it becomes habit.

Last night, I told myself I cannot rely on my thinking in the morning to get me up. I ingrained it into my mind, “don’t listen to my reasonings in the morning.” I will get up when the alarm rang, no later.

Like most people, I have a clock radio next to my bed which has two alarms. I have always just used the second alarm, tuned to a local radio station, cranked 45 minutes ahead. My first step was to fix that.

I decided I wanted to get up at 6am, a real 6am, not some cozy, 45 minutes padded number designed to make think it was later than reality. I removed the false 45 minutes “buffer” from my alarm. Then I adjusted both alarms; the second was backup in case I “convinced” myself to sleep in, again. I set the first alarm for 6am, the time I wanted to wake up. I removed the local radio station from my second alarm and set it to buzzer for 6:15am. Finally, I stayed up until I could stay up no more: I think I finally went to bed around 11:30pm last night.

This morning, the alarm rang at 6am. For the next 45 seconds, my brain raced wondering why the alarm was even going off. I was just about to it off, and sleep “a few more minutes” when it dawned as to why. I took a deep breath, stretched my entire body and got out of bed. At 6am, I was up and moving! Well, looks like I didn’t need that backup this time.

Step one, completed successfully. Now, lets see if I can hold this out for the next 29 days.

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So, who am I?

I’m your average computer geek: I spend most of my time indoors; I always say I want to work out more but never do; I always say I want to get out and meet people but never do; I always say I will go to an event but never do; I always say I know what I need to change but never do…you get the idea here, no?

Last year, beginning of 06, I can honestly said I did it. For 6 months, I was out and about, going with an outdoors club, hitting the gym 3 to 5 times a week. I even went to Costa Rica for my 30th birthday. Unfortunately, just like majority of “us”, after I “did it” I became satisfied and fell back into my gutter. I have been here ever since, over a year now.

What is this site?

Two things I have learned in the past year is you need tracking — you need something to go to, write down what you did, why you did it, why it made you feel good and what you plan to do next. And you need accountability — people never do something if they feel they won’t be accountable for it. If I don’t have somebody, or something, constantly reminding me “get off your ass” I don’t do it.

I’m building this blog to fill in these two gaps: tracking and accountability.

What will be here?

In time, I plan to have a fully documented progression of what I have done to get off my ass. I will have photos of myself as time passes, so that I can see physical improvements and hopefully inspire others.

I wish to eventually build a community around my site to help motivate myself and others into “getting off our asses.”

Where to go from here?

This is my move; I will start hitting other productivity sites, health sites and attempt to inundate myself with them in attempts to not only change my mental mind set but also my physical habits in hopes to build a life style around them.

If you wish to post a response, giving me feedback, tips, kudos, please do. This is going to be a up hill battle. I am doing this all by myself, without any significant other to kick my ass if I slack. Any and all feedback is greatly welcomed.

On that note, wish me luck and feel free to subscribe! My goal is 4 posts a week, if not a full 7. That means updates often!

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