Ward

[Howie]

Sounds like you, sir, are the former CEO of an excuse making factory! LOL. Glad to see ya back around these parts.

[wardjf79]

Robots are taking my job, so the excuses will be manufactured on an assembly line.

[Howie]

Fuckin Robots! First our jobs than we become flesh batteries!

[wardjf79]

Alright, I'm back in the saddle. Took a little break to overcome the cold/flu I was battling and to get my ducks in a row. Day 2 back officially. Been doing small workouts in the interim to stay somewhat active. I've been putting off putting together a workout month to adhere to. I'm getting the rush fit workouts and hoping to implement some of those as well. The computer I was using to watch video files is a POS so I have to burn my one on ones to dvd which isn't a problem, just a pain. I have to do this with Rush Fit as well. I want to put a workout together using Rush Fit, volume one one on one, P90X, X+, Insanity and Turbo Fire even Chalene extreme possibly. I now have enough workouts I think I could do a workout each day of the month and not repeat one. The only hang up is the learning curve. I'm not familiar or as familiar with some workouts. I want to have a healthy mix of cardio and weight training. I still have some weight to lose so I don't want to phase out cardio all together. I want to do at least one full cardio day and probably two others with 15-20 min HIIT before the main workout. Any feedback on the subject would be nice, directional or workout recommendations. I need to lock a good diet down and stick to it. It's going to be even harder and at the same time potentially easier now that we're eating as a family most of every day. I am trying to eat breakfast every day, Steel Cut Oats with blueberries and or 1 or 2 eggs, I need some lunch ideas that are healthy but will give me the energy to get through a workout and a light dinner that will "fill" me up enough to help me avoid impulse "shitty" snacking (part of this I know is dependent on my commitment to having healthy snacks). I stopped monitoring the calories so much, but need to get back on that for a while to better guage what I'm taking in. I want to cut back on carbs, but most every food I/we enjoy is loaded with the shit, but if I ever want to see those abs, something has to give. Thinking of revisiting the P90X nutrition plan for some mean ideas and doing some continued internet research for healthy meals to make from home. Any help on all subjects posted in the appropriate topic would be greatly appreciated.

[Howie]

You'd like a calendar that alternates cardio/strength, and has a new workout from a different program for each day of the month? 3 weeks on, 1 week off? or 4 to 1? I can put something together for you if you'd like.
Diet....Hmmmm. It's hard for me to make suggestions here because I am from a completely different diet camp. It sounds like you know what needs to be done it's just a matter of pulling the trigger. Cut your carbohydrates to 50-100g a day. I would start at 100g and see how that goes for a week or so, and if you don't see any weight loss start dropping it by 10-20g a week until you do. I don't know what your calorie intake is but if you drop your carbs than increase your caloric intake you probably wont loose much weight. You'll need to drop your calories as well but don't go crazy or it'll impact your performance and you'll hate it.
Depending on where you're at in your fitness you are going to have to accept that when you're in a cutting phase you are probably not going to see much gains in performance and strength. Loosing fat and gaining muscle are polar opposites.
If you can keep the bulk of your carb intake for after you've worked out but not immediately after the workout that would be best. I know you'll read a ton about taking in post workout stuff to replace muscle glycogen and reduce catabolism of the muscle, but don't eat/drink anything other than water after your workouts. This is the time where your body is going to be looking for energy and if it can't find it in food it's going to get it from fat (and unfortunately muscle). Just remember, you are in a "Cutting" phase NOT a "Building" phase so get your head right and accept it, commit to the process for 8 weeks, and make adjustments as needed.
Additionally you'll need to understand you're not going to feel awesome during this phase. You shouldn't feel like shit but you are not going to be crushing personal bests (PB) during your workouts either. Just keep in mind that you are making a necessary move in the direction of getting your insulin levels in check...also you'll look better. LOL
Hope that helps a bit. It might be fragmented and such but it is what it is.

[wardjf79]

Yeah, if you have the time and would like to throw something together using those workouts in addition to your resistance band workout, that would be greatly appreciated. Gonna get Asylum today.

[wardjf79]

I have been being lazy and slackish these last few weeks. Tonight I went back to the very first workout I did when I started back in April. Chest and Back. I pushed myself hard because I felt like I haven't been giving it my all. I bested or equaled all my previous numbers, but man it was tough and I am still trembling now. I love the feeling though and it was a good reminder of why I began this to begin with. Howie turned me onto the book "The Paleo Solution" I've read the foreward and prologue and am looking forward to digging into it. If I can apply at least some of what I learn to my diet, I think I will start seeing some more success in the diet part (which is honestly the more important aspect) of this journey. In the meantime I need to center my focus and for the next two weeks I'm going back to where I began. I'll be doing week one and week five of P90X subbing Yoga for an Insanity workout and Kenpo for an Asylum workout to up the challenge in one and defeat the boredom in another. For the stretch day, I will probably take full advantage and actually stretch, then possibly chase it with a short Turbo Fire HIIT. Over the next couple weeks in doing this I plan on working on a plan for the month to follow, but in the meantime I need to get refocused. I am also going to work a fit test in there somewhere. I'll be posting daily to hold myself accountable.

[Howie]

good to see you putting together a game plan. I think it is a solid idea to jump back into P90X and stick with that. I am starting Asylum today and plan to stick with the standard calendar as close as possible. My goal at this time is to lean out as much as I possibly can until I have my hands on P90X2. I'll probably repeat Asylum until I get P90X2. I plan on continuing my goal of leaning out even during P90X2 if I haven't achieved a level that I'm good with.
The Paleo Solution book will almost certainly shift your focus a bit and hopefully give you the tools to get the results you are looking for.

[wardjf79]

Update was late but I have a good excuse. Still did Plyo last night, and got an additional workout packing my (new to me, but honestly doesn't look used much) Parabody GS4 Home Gym down my stairs in pieces. The biggest chunk was hell and I should have had help, but I'm impatient, so there it is. I have to take a tight corner before going down a narrow stairs with the backrest on my shoulder, then once in going into the laundry room I had to crouch and waddle to avoid some low hanging duct work. I thought I was going to get away with not having to hassle too much with the pulley system, but had to redo most of it. I downloaded instructions last night and got it all in place today. I wanted to get something like this eventually, but couldn't turn up the steal of a price at $150. The ones I was pricing ranged in price from 1500-2100 and the cheapest used one I could find was $600. My wife is a member of a mom's marketplace in our area and she found it on there. So happy with it. Tonight...Shoulders and Arms I believe.

Attachments:

[Howie]

Very cool bud! Good find.

[wardjf79]

Okay, so I'm bad at doing daily updates, but I feel like I've been getting back on track. It seemed like I was having a harder time getting in good workout time when I lost my job than when I had a regimen in place. The diet is improving somewhat, but I still have my glutinous moments. Did a combo of some weight training on "my new" home gym and Interval Plyo. Feeling pretty good.

[Howie]

Good to see you back on here bud! Glad to see you are enjoying your new fitness tool too!
Have you read through the Paleo Solution? What do you think of it?

[wardjf79]

Okay, so I do only come here to brag on myself, haha. This morning I popped in ChaLean Extreme's Burn Circuit 1 DVD following fit test for the program. Burned 595kcal. I then had a protein powder smoothie. My guilty pleasure was the waffle for lunch. I'm taking a lot of good from "The Paleo Soluiton" as suggested by Howie and am easing into it. I have much work ahead. This afternoon I came back and knocked out about 75% of P90X Plyo (time constraints) for a 480kcal burn, making the total burn for the day 1075 kcal. Overall I'm pretty happy with the day so far, just have to mind my diet going into the evening and hit tomorrow with a good Insanity workout. On a side note, I gridded my 8x6 workout area (2 stall mats from a farm and home store) for the Asylum workouts and put an X in the middle today for circle runs on Plyo. That proved beneficial in a lot of today's exercises for accuracy. I think it will help to have an eye marker in the future for overall coordination.

[Howie]

Great work man! Yeah those markers on the mat will help with coordination and form for sure. The agility ladder has definately helped force me to improve my form and agility. You may even try fabricating something to mimic the slats of a ladder to give you feedback when you hit the ladder. The annoyance of hitting the ladder and having to fix it is very motivating to get better. Also if you hit the ladder you're supposed to drop and do push-ups.
Sounds like your doing great bud. Always keep in mind that it's not the workout that improves you, it's the recovery from that workout that will bring on those results. While reading through that book pay extra attention to information regarding cortisol as it's Very important to weight loss.

[wardjf79]

Mixed it up a bit today using my USB player to my advantage. I have P90X, TurboFire and One on One loaded to a 16GB flash drive enabling me to bounce around on workouts a bit for some variety when I want to. Today I started with a little 30-15 one on one for about 3 sets of each and saw that while it would be a good total workout, I could get bored doing it for the entire time, so then I jumped to a HIIT 15 turbo fire then to about 1/2 of Legs and Back followed by ARX. Whoa! I jumped all over the place, but it was fun and I feel good. Overall I burnt about 860 kcal, nothing remarkable, but I was pretty spent by the time I got to ARX. I tried a different approach to my diet yesterday and discovered almost immediately, that I'm gonna need to re evaluate my approach and slow down/alter when and what kind of calories I'm taking in. I did breakfast and lunch for a total of about 1100 calories and no caffeine, something I've depended on too much and need to ease away from, but not totally abandon straight away. It ended up crashing my whole day, the sweet tooth kicked in and everything was blown. Today I had a larger breakfast, 2/3# bacon and 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and some coffee. This all helped the day go much better.