Curt's Bod

Time To Acquire More Tools

2010-02-24T08:38:55Z

With my new adventure into physical fitness, I am finding that I need/want some new tools for working on my body.

5lbs rubber coated hex dubbells – needed for exercised above the head and such, where a heavier weight might be dangerous for now
20lbs (10# each) leg weights – the current 5lbs weights are great, but they are a little light
Stepper – I will be doing leg exercises and a stepper seems to be a key thing that a lot of people have that I don't.
Mat – the floor is kind of dirty sometimes, plus a floor doesn't have even traction
Grip – I would like to get stronger hand muscles, and think it could be a start.

I probably don't need half of this stuff, but it seems like most of it would encourage me to work out more often and also give me a more uniform experience doing so, but hey, I'm easily impressed by marketing babble.

Learning How To Workout

2010-02-22T18:18:09Z

I have been started on my plan for working out for several days now, becoming most serious about it last Monday. I have been approaching this slowly, since last time I dove head first into this type of thing I gave up after only a few days. This time I feel more comfortable with myself and with my abilities, but at the same time I am not going at it in the same way I used to. My old approach was just a general disliking of my body, or being really disappointed with my abs, and basically working from just that. Well, that doesn't work so well. This time I am selecting areas to target and going for it. I am trying to do an overall body tone, but I am doing it in targeted ways, not trying to do it all at once or anything like that. I select a general area or two to work each day, and I focus on that area. Once I know what I am doing each day I pay a little closer attention to the general muscle areas and try to work one at a time. I do not have a great about of fitness knowledge, even though I have approached this type of thing numerous times, so for the present time I have a somewhat distracted approach to working out. I will decide what muscles I will work and if I know the exercise I want to do, I do it, otherwise, I have a large collection of books and of course Google to help me out. When I find a new exercise, I enter it into GITI and log when I do it. I suppose at the moment with the way I am approaching things, I am teaching myself how to workout (and how to deal with pain, stress, etc), and at the same time I am teaching my body the correct movements for things. I am not working with large amounts of resistance yet. Most of my resistance comes from 10lbs dumbbells. Not a lot of weight, but enough to help me know if I am doing things correctly or not. The one other thing that I believe I need to do is work on learning how to stretch properly. I am staying sore for way too long for the amount of exercise I am doing.

Missing Component from Leg Workout

2010-02-21T22:46:39Z

Yesterday during my leg workout I missed one huge component, my calves. It doesn't seem to be a highly critical thing at this point, as I don't think that I could handle any more pain in my legs today, but it is something I would preferred to have gotten done. The key reason I was unable to work my calves yesterday was a lack of known exercises for the muscles. I have now found a few that I like and I will try integrating them for my next leg workout on Tuesday, although I must remember to get a basic exercise block, or else I am going to hurt myself on my step-ladder (which I used for step-ups, seemed to fit).

On another note, the muscles in my upper back are sore today, right beside the shoulder blades. This has me a little concerned, since I didn't intentionally do anything to work that particular area. Since that area is sore and my triceps are not, I believe it's possible that I was doing tricep dips incorrectly, so I will need to review and make adjustments to the way I do those.

First Day of Legs

2010-02-20T19:24:03Z

I worked my legs pretty hard today, and my abs got a fair bit of work too. I can barely walk up or down stairs at the moment because of all of the tension in the muscles in my legs. Overall I think it was a very successful workout. I'm a little concerned that I have injured by left bicep, since it is still causing pain when it becomes tense, whereas the right feels back to normal now. I'm hoping it will be all better by Monday so that I can do an intense upper body workout involving arms and back. I think I will allow the abs to rest that day. I have decided that I am going to take tomorrow as a rest day and try to use the time I would workout in as a time to plan the workouts for the week and enter them into the schedule.

On a geek note, GITI needs a CSV output for workouts, because this picture stuff just kinda sucks and Word doesn't seem to get the table.

Great Soreness

2010-02-17T06:41:39Z

After only 2 days of working out, my arms, abs, and legs are sore. The only thing I have done to my legs is walk, but I think I was walking more seriously than normal because of the soreness in my abs. So far I am enjoying waking up and having something to do that makes me actually feel good for the rest of the day. I am looking forward to working out in the morning so that I can try the Iron Gym and see what all I can do with it. I am really easily amused. Today I had to workout through the pain, which bothered me a little, but at the same time made me feel pretty good since I am this dedicated to it.

Trying Again

2010-02-14T20:33:03Z

I tried this last year and it went no where, absolutely no where. I don't want to do that again. I can't let myself do that again. I have been on a very much day-light waking pattern lately, and I kind of like it. As a result of this pattern, I have more control over my body and what I do during my day. Over the past several weeks I have lost weight, a considerable weight by the feel of it. I am making a point of not using scales this time as that really seems to do nothing more than discourage me and make me do the wrong thing. So, instead I am going to be doing this a little bit blind. I am going to be using GITI to track my actual workout information, but I will be avoiding doing any quantitative measures on myself for a while. I have been losing weight due to a change in diet primarily, but also due to a little more increased physical activity. Today is February 14, 2010, Valentine's day. This is the day reserved for things related to love, and to the planting of the love apple (tomato). At this point there is about 6-8 weeks before planting season begins, which also gives me 6-8 weeks to work on my body, and I intend to do so. I will make it a crucial part of my wake up routine to exercise. While the weather remains cold I will concentrate on doing my workouts indoors, but once the weather warms up a bit I will likely add running to my activities and try to in general exercise outdoors away from distraction and annoyance. For hot weather, my only option will be to exercise before the sun comes up completely.

I have managed to collect a large amount of supplies for this particular activity from previous attempts or just times that I thought I wanted to do something about the way things had become with me. For this particular attempt though, I do have one more piece of equipment on the way, an iron gym, for pull ups, dips and assisting with ground exercises. Other than that, I believe I am set and ready to get started immediately. Initially my goal is to exercise about 5 times per week, Monday through Friday roughly. I intend to define my schedule starting this week so that I have a set routine.

Things failed last time because I managed to let my sleep and everything else slip about the time I was starting. I can't allow myself to do that again. I want to be my ideal body image. I want to get there, and stay there.

Interesting Workout Video

2009-02-27T08:28:57Z

Yesterday morning I was browsing Fitness TV On-Demand and came across some videos by Tom Morely. My trouble spot has always been my abs. My arms, legs and chest have been pretty much self-maintaining, and as far as an ass, I have none and I suspect there is genetic code to cause any attempt to build them to fail. I do not enjoy crunches at all, and sometimes they can be very painful for me. Tom Morely takes a different approach to abs using yoga. I found his technique to be rather interesting, and is something that when I look at him doing it, I don’t feel “ouch, I can’t do that” or “Umm… thats way too hard”. I actually feel interested by his poses and feel compelled to join in. My plan for today is to return to those videos and follow along with him. I think it will be fun.

Blog Reactivation

2009-01-27T03:53:06Z

Upon the recommendation (direct order) of a friend, I am reactivating this blog, and will soon begin making posts about my progress again. I am not happy with the way I let things go last year and I realize that I did not have enough of a plan to make things work last year. I focused too much on nutrition and not enough on physical activity. Moving towards a healthy way of life will require a focus on both. I have a nutrition class this semester as part of my academic schedule, so I will have nutrition flying out my ass, so that only leaves the physical to work on.

I miss being able to blog on this blog and spending time with my body being a focus of my daily life.

Intersting video about working out

2008-06-12T02:37:58Z

24 Ghetto Workout

I don't really like the approach taken to this video, but it has a very good and simple idea. I don't think of gyms as a productive place to workout unless you have friends there. The sense of community creates a reason to workout more than just going to the gym alone and looking at all of the buff guys, wondering how you can get that way... or how you can get a date with one of them. I think being out in fresh air, and around real people is a more beneficial environment. I would love to see what guys could do in the woods for working out... I envision something like "Survivor", but with a lot of workout-addicted buff jocks who have to fulfill the need for having their muscles worked.

Declaration of Blog Change

2008-06-12T02:33:20Z

This blog will no longer be only about my personal progress. My personal updates will be posted, but I will now be focusing this blog on health and exercise in general. I wish to become part of the fitness community and as such, I can no longer be self-focused on this blog. I feel that moving to a more communal feel will allow me to be more motivated.

Progress

2008-06-04T06:59:09Z

I'm still working on the whole body improvement thing, but not as insanely as at first. I am still eating better than before, but not as insanely as at first. I am actually allowing some sweets in my diet now and I am in general teaching myself how to eat healthy. This process will take longer than 90 days, but I will reach my ideal body. I am dedicated to it. (Also now armed with a new book: "Mind Over Muscle").

Finally! Gloves!

2008-04-17T07:58:48Z

After over a month of wanting gloves for my bar, I finally got some. I went to Sports Authority looking for some, but didn't find any (literally, there were no gloves like I was looking for there at all). These are almost perfect, judging by the description, but I guess I won't really know until they show up next week.

On Target

2008-03-28T00:52:20Z

I am about 3 weeks into my personal fitness plan and I have lost about 7 lbs. I am on track at losing about 2.5 lbs per week, and considering that the maximum safe amount to loose per week is 3 lbs, I feel like I am doing well. Since my last measurement 1 week ago, I lost 2.2 lbs. I am still having a hard time balancing carbs and proteins, but I seem to be doing ok. I am building some muscle and I am slimming down where it counts. The most important thing for me in all of this, is the progress is occurring and I still don't feel like I have given anything up or like I am having to do any excessive work to achieve it.

Getting Over the Taste of Whey Protein

2008-03-25T07:30:34Z

As expected, whey protein supplements don't taste good, especially not in water, and not in whole milk. Today I tried mixing it in almond milk, and that was awesome. It still isn't a taste to be craved, but it isn't as bitter as the taste of the protein in water and not as overpowering as the taste in regular milk. Almond milk is low in calories, carbohydrates and unfortunately, also protein. It contains 40 calories, 3 grams of fat, 2 grams of carbs, and 1 gram of protein. Once I finish off the almond milk, I am going to give soy milk a try. It contains 80 calories, 4 grams of fat, 4 grams of carbohydrates and 7 grams of protein. It is a little heavier than the almond milk, but I believe that the addition of the soy protein may be beneficial. Now that I have had time to adjust to taking in less calories per day, I am no longer having any issues staying under my limits for the day, so the excess 40 calories would hardly be noticed, if anything, they would be welcomed muscle fuel.

100% Whey Protein

2008-03-23T02:01:57Z

I have been trying to get through my plan without any type of supplements, but I am finding that with my eating habits, it simply cannot be done. I am having difficulty keeping my protein up and my carbohydrates down, but somehow, my fats are right on target, their daily percent of my diet usually matches the recommended percentage. The one day I managed to keep my protein almost at its goal and my carbs right where I wanted them, I had my fats low and only consumed about 60% of my required daily calories. Due to my genetic pre-disposition to having a high percentage of my body weight be fat (either that or there is pecan pie and german chocolate cake between the strands of my Deoxyribonucleic acid), it is essential that I keep my calorie consumption on target (not above or below) as well as keep enough protein in my body to protect my muscles. The human body has a hard time consuming more than 1000 calories per day from its stored fat supply, after that, it begins eating at muscle.

To summarize what I am babbling about.... I have decided that I need more protein in my diet, but a lower amount of carbohydrates, so I have purchased a whey protein powder. It has enough calories to help me meet my daily need there, and will provide me with 20grams of protein in each serving, which is like 12% of my daily requirement.

The container pictured above is what I obtained, it is 5Lbs of whey protein, in vanilla flavor, somehow I doubt it will actually taste anything like vanilla, but it can't be worse than pureed seaweed.