Howie

[Howie]

Cutting out carbs is a mistake but reducing them is key to getting BF to sub 10%. 50-60g is still a fare amount of carbs if you are keeping your sources to veggies, and such.
So far today has been my best attempt at the new diet. I fished up a bit cause I ate about a cup of white cheese macaronie shells. That is three things I shouldn't have (egg, dairy, wheat). All I can do is try again tomorrow.
Had a great workout with speed and agility tonight and burned 635 cal.

[jeremy]

WTF is wrong with egg, dairy, and wheat!? Egg - awesome source of protein, dairy - awesome source of protein, and wheat - FIBER and good carbs.

[Howie]

Dairy causes massive insulin spikes, and GI inflamation. Eggs are fine in moderation (no more than 5-6 a week) but contain a lot of Omega 6 and will throw off you O3/O6 ratio. Wheat causes GI inflamation as it contains high amounts of gluten.

[Howie]

Great workout last night my chest is feeling nice and sore today so that tells me I did my job last night. I got a nice pump during chest and back than finished up with a satisfying workout with Abs Core Plus. 625 cal burn, I've yet to have a night under 500 caps with this new program. I love it.

[Howie]

Had some really great workouts over the weekend. Last night I did Total Body+ & Cardio Abs and burned some massive calories for a resistance program. I don't recall the exact calorie number but it was approx. 750 calories.
I did Gameday & Overtime the day before and also burned some serious calories as well! Gameday by itself does not burn as many calories as Max Interval training, but it does come VERY close. When combined with Gameday's 2nd part, Overtime, it actually burns quite a bit more.

[Howie]

Monday's workout was rough. It would seem my last workout (Total body Plus) incorporating weights with lunges and such had really sapped the energy reserves from my glutes and thighs. This made the whole jumping and squats part of Max Cardio Conditioning a real bitch to deal with. It was also making keeping my form tight nearly impossible during certain parts of the routine.
Overall I'd give myself about a 95% for the workout but I know I can do much better.
Today I do Upper Body Weight Training from Insanity Deluxe. I've never done this workout so I really don't know what to expect. As I recall it is a blend of Insanity-Style Circuit training with weight lifting between. I'm really looking forward to this workout mostly because I love doing new stuff.
I think I am going to pick up some pre-workout supplement today after work. I really need just a touch more energy pump before my workouts to help push my body during this level of training I'm doing this month. I'll post up what I get later but right now I'm leaning toward Jeremy's suggestion of "Jack3D".

[Howie]

Wow! Did Chest Shoulders and Triceps yesterday followed with Abs, Core Plus and did well. I don't think I blew it out of the water but I did it all with good form and certainly got a great burn from the work I put in. I feel like I could have probably added 5# to some of the sets which is why I don't feel like I crushed the workout. I got a great calorie burn around 723kcal so that tells me I was puttin in the work.
This week has been solid and I've not burned less than 600kcal during any workout. As I am writing this, however, I am feeling pretty battered and worn out. Today I will make my recovery day but that doesn't mean I'll be sitting at home relaxing. I am gonna go out this eve and play Airsoft from about 5-9. Even with the breaks between I'm sure 4 hours of play will have a significant calorie burn.
I'm getting pretty close to the end of week two of this custom program I put together and although I love it I am defiantly pushing my fitness endurance. No single workout is excessively over the top for me (it's all stuff I've done several times before) but they are all elite workouts from all the programs that I've chained together which had made quite a formidable opponent indeed. Additionally I'm pushing harder than I have every pushed before during each workout by really focusing on pulling the most from each move, increasing weights where I can, and increasing speed/intensity.

I have a neat little resistance band total body program put together that I've been wanting to fully test out from start to finish but haven't had a recovery day to do it. Perhaps if I am feeling randy I'll do a double workout on Sunday and give it a test run. If not I may just post it up here on the forums for you guys to look at and test for me.

[Howie]

So I did Max Interval Circuit & Relief last night at 100%! 100% for me on this one was doing EVERY exercise as fast as the person doing the exercise on the video. The interesting thing about that though is that if you do every exercise you are actually doing the workout at about 105% considering there is not one person (including Shaun T) in the Max Interval Circuit video that doesn't take at least one mid-set break, and most take several.
I know I can do better than I did last night but I was dealing with two issues...well maybe 3.
1) My shoulders & Biceps are a little sore and depleted from my heavy Back & Biceps sesh over the weekend.
2) My legs (quadriceps) are still a little sore and depleted from Airsoft on Friday (although not as bad as my biceps).
3) I had eaten too close to my workout so my stomach was jacked up.

All-in-all a great workout that I'm pretty impressed with. My HRM was not keeping a consistent connection to my chest strap (running low on batteries I suspect) so my kcal burned didn't break any records but I think had the connection been consistent I would have seen amazing burns. My HR was consistently around 170-175 during most of the workout which is really pushing toward my MHR. I normally work out in the 160-165 range.

[Howie]

this 100% challenge is proving to be quite a bitch indeed. I did Asylum's Strength workout yesterday and HOLY SMOKES! That workout is flippin' rugged. There is a part I think he calls Strength Progressions and at first it's not all that impossible, but as they build it takes just about every ounce of focus I could muster up just to keep up with Shaun T.
Ab Ripper X didn't pose much of a problem this time around. It is still a bitch and I hate it (but love it) with everything I have but I'm finding it's not as impossible as I used to. Oddly enough the ab workout I'm having the most challenge with now is the Cardio Abs routine from Insanity. I can only assume that my body just isn't as used to that video as it is to ARX because when I did Insanity way back Cardio Abs seemed easy by the end of the program and ARX has always been a challenge.
So today's 100% challenge is Speed and Agility & Relief. I don't know that I've ever been able to do S&A at 100% but it's time to put my shit to the test. The real challenge is going to be Friday doing Game Day + Overtime.....ughhhh gonna fucking hurt me.

[Howie]

Ok so last night I had the 100% challenge doing Speed & Agility and it wooped my ass. I rated my performance at 98% based on my usual standards (Meet or exceed the test group in the video). Unfortunately the test group in the Asylum videos is pretty hard-core and even though I put in what I feel is 100% of what I could (never stopped and consistently pushed beyond what I thought I could do) I still didn't keep up with the test group 100% of the time. I attempted to make up for where I fell behind by exceeding the test group in certain areas, but all-in-all I feel like I fell behind by just a bit and that is why I give 98%. I'm actually pretty disappointed in that rating just for the sheer fact I didn't meet the challenge but at the same time I know I have to be reasonable and say "hey I don't know that I could have physically done much more". My form was starting to compromise and in a lot of the Asylum workouts your good form is forced by using the jump rope and agility ladder. The jump rope basically speaks for it's self in that if you mess up you've gotta stop, regroup, and start all over again. The Agility ladder forces you to stay focused even when you're tired because if you hit that ladder you've not only got to stop and fix the ladder but Shaun T. asks that you also stop and give 20 push-ups.
We'll see how Gameday and Overtime on Friday goes....

[Howie]

100% challenge week went great! I wasn't able to meet every workout at 100% but I did give em hell!
This week is my recovery week and I plan to keep things real simple and light so I can do a full recovery. I'll probably do my planned recovery schedule and toss in some turbo fire hear and there if Bri wants to do a workout during the week some time.
After this recovery week is finished I think I may just repeat the schedule I did this month. I may look into that P90X ripoff program called "Supreme 90 Day" and see if there is any redeeming value in it.

[Howie]

So I ate like shit yesterday for dinner and ended up feeling like crap so I took my rest day early.
My meals had been great all day and I was prepping to rev up my body for some intense lifting but toward dinner time something flew outta wack and I had uncontrollable hunger. I ended up eating until I felt like crap and knew my lifting was going to suffer. Rather than do a miserable workout where I knew I wouldn't get out of it what I wanted I chose to instead rest up and get to sleep earlier than I normally would.
Here's to a better day of lifting, eating, and health. Cheers

Tonight I'm looking forward to doing my regular weight training as scheduled than pulling one or two of the "Supreme 90 Day" workouts and giving them a go later in the evening.

[Howie]

Did S90D Back & Biceps/ ARX last night and really dug the workout. I was able to really focus on my biceps and spent most of the workout holding 30# & 40# dumbels with a 20# and 50# tossed in here-and-there.
I burned about 650 calories according to my HRM and feel like I really got something in on my biceps and shoulders. I also got to incorporate my balance ball into my weight lifting which is nice because I don't want it to feel totally weird when I get started on P90X2!

Keep you posted.

[Howie]

I tried S90D again last night just to keep things fresh in my workouts and also to help get a better idea if the program is even worth owning.
I chose "Tabata Inferno" sense it was the longest cardio workout in the program. I wrote up my impressions of the workout in the programs section but overall I liked the workout and burned a satisfactory amount of calories. The good thing is that the workout was short enough that even if the calorie burn wasn't enough for me to be satisfied with I could have probably just done the workout over again and still have only put in around the same amount of time as the P90X Yoga video! LOL
I have Chest, Back, & Triceps in the line-up for today but I may swap that out for the same named workout from S90D just to keep this review moving along.

[Howie]

As a follow-up of Jeremy and my talk about certain foods being good or bad, eggs are just fine.
I was under the impression that they should be eaten sparingly but now that I've been looking into it more I'm finding out they are just fine and are actually a great source of fat, protein, and calories.
So eat all the eggs you want damnit! This is all experimental to me as well and I put in hours and hours researching nutritional information EVERY day so my understanding of how the body works should get better and better as I go.
Hope this clears things up a bit.