Day 9

A decent day:
Breakfast: slice of wheat bread and PB and a hard boiled egg cup of coffee

snack: slice of wheat bread and PB and a hard boiled egg

lunch: two small slices of pizza and a salad with a hard boiled egg.

Dinner: tofu small scoop of rice, veggies, and some chow mein.

Dessert: some cantaloupe

good on water.

about an hour of cardio: 40 minutes on a bike 10 miles and 20 minutes on elliptical. need to do treadmill sometime for variety.

Horrible habits

Sunday

Food
Celery stick with sunbutter
2 cups of pineapple juice
1 boiled egg
5 carne asada taco
1 pollo asada taco
1 quesidallia y naranja jarrito

No exercise

Monday
3 eggs 2 turkey breasts and guac
kabob , fried dough, lavash
chicken tomatoes and lavash
1.5 cookies

Exercise,
Snatches, clean and jerks, clean pulls, and front squats

No more eating bad, starting Thursday.  DONE AND DONE.

Day 8

So today did a lot better.

water 64 oz
no real plan for food. Had 3 slices with peanut butter in the morning up to lunch. Then for lunch ate a pb and banana sandwich followed by a kiwi. also had a cup of coffee.

dinner was a small serving of sitr fry and rice a string cheese some cantaloupe followed by two boiled eggs. had two cookies today as well

work out chest and legs. tomorrow cardio.

Day 6 and 7

Horrible weekend.
Here's how it started:
Saturday:breakfast - peanut butter banana sandwich with half glass pj and slice of pizza.
Lunch: nothing raspberry lemonade from cinnabon
Dinner: chicken and beef with various other food items. Beer too boot.

Sunday: Didn't have a regular eating schedule but more like what I ate throughout the day. Slice of pizza, 2 Porto's sandwiches one with a roll another with a corrsant. Ham roastbeef and turkey with veggies??? Some chips with salsa and a couple of beers.

Now it's time to get on track. Because I was never on track I can't say get back on track. :(

Weekend Recap

Short and sweet.

No exercise for three days unless you consider moving a type of exercise. In which case I helped move various people into their respective houses on Friday and Saturday. But we're talking pretty light exercise.


Friday:
Breakfast: Cliff Bar
Lunch: Clam Chowder in a bread bowl
Dinner: Shrimp Roll and Baked Scallop Roll
No snacks :(
Water: Because I didn't have any readily available like I normally do when it's a full day at the office, I had about 40 oz

Saturday:
Breakfast: Cliff Bar
Lunch: Shrimp Fried Rice
Snack: BBQ Pop Chips
Dinner: Falafel with pita, lettuce, tomato, and yogurt mixed with cucumber and dill


Sunday:
Breakfast/Lunch: Omelet with spinach, mushrooms, onions, and cheese with a side of multi grain tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole
Dinner: Spaghetti and Olive Bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil

I don't really keep track of water on the weekends. :)

Ricky Report #6: Sunday Surprise!

Other than that being my nickname from high school, this entry truly is a Sunday Surprise! Not only am I posting on the actual day (though I should be going to bed right now), but I surprised myself with a gym visit earlier this evening.

Here's what went down down down down down:

Brunch: 3 Kookie Tees cookies (Creamsicle, Ginger, Strawberry Oatmeal). Baaaaaaad, but I'm supporting a friend.
Snack: A papaya and banana
Pre Workout: String Cheese
Post Workout: Muscle Milk
Dinner: Leftover beef string bean stir fry. Papaya chicken soup.

Gym:
Biceps day
Seated dumbbell curls (4x 6-10) 1 set with 35lbs weights, 2 sets at 40lbs, last set 35lbs.
Standing barbell curls (4x10) 65lb barbell
One arm preacher curls (4x10) 1 set with 27.5lb dumbbell, 2 with 25lb, 1 with 20lb.
Twenty-Ones (4x21) with 30lb barbell
Knee raises for lower abs 45

Went pretty late so didn't stay too long. But I haven't had an arm workout that great in a very long time. I spent the time to make my eggs for the next 4 days and also prepared a salad base for lunch. This is the real deal, until my brother and sister-in-law come into town and then it's bye bye diet.

saturday...tired

Food

breakfast- 2 boiled eggs 1 cup of kefir
lunch - 1 cup of iced coffee, 1 cup of kefir
snack - 1 cup of kefir
dinner - 18 buffalo wild wing chickens, some celery and 2 beers
dessert- ben n jerry's cherry garcia in a cone

workout
barbell
snatches, clean and jerks, and back squats
kettlebell (light)
swings, cleans, jerks, presses, push presses, snatches, and half snatches

In looking back, I can see the workout is not really the issue, but lack of good diet.  Things I need to do is cut out bad carbs, ice creams, and alcohol intake.  I don't mention my water intake since I intake 1-2 gallons a day and don't feel like that is an issue for me.  For all you vegans out there I'll be linking some great sites on how to get your protein intake (in the future).

Ricky Report #5: The Cyndi Lauper Sabotage

So I think it's safe to assume that if I didn't post an update, I didn't do a workout. I guess in retrospect you can also assume that I probably didn't eat anything? That's probably not the case. Here's me catching up:

Friday
NO DONUT! I don't need em and didn't get one. I like the taste and texture of donuts and all, but I always feel so shitty after eating one.
Breakfast: I had about 4 slices of cantaloupe.
Lunch: Wanted Kogi desperately but went healthy with a tilapia salad from Cilantro. Light and yummy.
Snack: Jerky
Early dinner: Smash burger from Umami and tater tots of the cheesy variety. Not good, but so good.

Then I went to the Cyndi Lauper concert which stopped my metabolism in its tracks. In fact, the music was so bluesy that I wanted to cut myself. I did have a large margarita which was yum-o.

No workout due to concert attendance.


Saturday
Breakfast: Banana and glass of OJ
Lunch: Cajun break! Fried lemon chicken and spicy chicken with spicy cajun rice and corn
Snack: Cantaloupe
Dinner: Bowl of beef string bean stir fry and 2 fried eggs

Meant to exercise, but there was this Back to the Future marathon and, well, you would watch too! I suppose I still have time for 20 crunches.

Day 5

Well it's been a grueling 5 days. Looking forward to breaking these habits now that I have some healthy selections; here is today's recap

breakfast: cantaloupe with orange shake - I need more fruit in there to sweeten it up and a doughnut and coffee. I consider breakfast from 6 - 10 since. So it doesn't seem like I'm eating all that at one time.

Lunch/dinner: Costco polish dog with ketchup, mustard onions and relish. two slices of combo pizza. one big one small. only one meal since it was a big meal and I wasn't hungry after.

few glasses of water and two cups of OJ.

For workout: got lazy and just did pushups at home. about 150 to 200 total.

bad days

Thursday

breakfast - 3 eggs with 2 turkey breast slices and guac with a glass of pineapple juice
lunch - el cholo chile colorado
dinner - pizza and 2 beers

workout - bench press and barbell curls

Friday

breakfast - donut
lunch - beef burrito with guac
dinner - umami burger with tater tots and 2 beers
supper - spicy bamboo with beef plus 2 beers

workout - rest day

Ricky Report #4: The Sacrifice

I did well yesterday! I was faced with temptation; for lunch, for dinner, for cookies, for cookies, but I held steady.

Breakfast: the usual (2 eggs and salsa)
Snack: Beef jerky
Lunch: Avoided El Cholo Mexican food and instead had a do-it-yourself salad. Cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, corn, roasted corn chipotle, olives, and roasted eggplant/squash. drizzled with EVOO.
Side Lunch: Was given a small bowl of chow mein and some chicken. Not healthy, but a small portion to curb my appetite.
Post Workout: Muscle Milk
Dinner: Red Robin. This was the first time I did not have a burger, as tempting as it was. I opted for the Ensenada Chicken Platter: 2 seasoned chicken breasts and a salad. Very light, but filling too.
Dessert: Cantaloupe

At the gym, it was late, so I was kind of lazy. But still blasted through my tricep workout.
Skull Crushers - 4 sets of 10-12 with 60 lbs barbell
Tricep pulldowns on the cables - 4x12 50 lbs
Single arm dumbbell overhead tricep extensions - 4x12 25lbs dumbbell
60 crunches on the floor
40 twisty crunch thingies with a 7 lb medicine ball
30 weighted crunches on the machine

So a good day. I'm feeling it. Tonight I won't have a chance to workout. Rest night!

Jay's Thursday Recap

Quick post as I head out the door this morning starting with yesterday's recap...

breakfast: lowfat peach yogurt

snack: banana

lunch: rice, tofu, vegetables, soy sauce

snack: 1 handful of caramel popcorn

dinner: salad (greens, tofu, cheddar cheese, turkey, tomatoes), 1 McChicken sandwich

exercise: 20 crunches

Overall, not a bad day save the minimal of exercise.

A quick update on progress -- since Monday, I've dropped 2.4 pounds, maybe not a statistically significant amount but encouraging nonetheless. Hopefully, this is fat not muscle loss...

Day3 and Day 4

Combo post: pretty much forgot what I ate for day 3 but here goes, I'll start with Day 4:

DAY 4
breakfast: mango shake with yogurt and half banana - not that tasty. The yogurt overpowered the fruit.
snack: erick shats bear claw - small slice. It's all gone now so no more cheating there
lunch: greasy chinese food - small bowl so not too shabby as I can usually finish a whole thing
snack: small bag of peanuts
dinner: royal red robin burger with thousand island spread. I was good though, I asked for no mayo.

workout: back, legs, and abs - 3 exercises 4 reps each for back and legs. abs was 3 exercises 2 sets (50 reps each)

I think i'm still full right now. and thirsty

64+ oz of water

DAY 3
breakfast: Banana shake with 1 tbsp Peanut butter. seems to be the best so far
snack: peanuts/walnuts
lunch: chinese leftovers from the previous dinner.
dinner: some stir fried veggies - until I found a hair in there. Then it was a big slice of the bear claw. followed by string cheese

workout: 30 minutes cardio and triceps. 3 x 4 sets

64+ oz of water

I think its time to go to costco and stock up on healthier choices. Good thing the weekend if coming up

The week drags on...

So, today I was told that I need to be blogging every day, whereas I was planning on writing every two days. I get it though, if I’m not blogging every day then it’s not in the forefront of my mind and I might stray from the plan. So, here’s my two day re-cap which I’ll try not to do again.

Yesterday was an okay day. Nothing too impressive and in actuality it was a partial fail since I didn’t make it to the gym.

For breakfast, I cooked ¼ cup of egg whites with some low fat Mexican style cheese and wrapped it in a whole wheat tortilla with a Morningstar breakfast patty (it’s a low fat meatless breakfast “sausage” which is decent).

For lunch I went to a sushi restaurant with some co-workers. I normally order a baked scallop roll which is a California roll with little scallops literally swimming in sauce on top. I can’t do that anymore, so I had to find something better. I chose a lunch special that let me choose two items from a list. I ordered a shrimp tempura roll and chicken teriyaki with the sauce on the side. The meal actually started with miso soup and about 2 tablespoons of a seaweed salad. Also with my two items, I got a side salad. So it was a really big lunch. I topped it off with a few bites of my friend’s green tea ice cream.

Around 4, I started to get a bit hungry so I snacked on 7 small rice crackers.

Dinner wasn’t until 8, so by that time I was famished. I had a 4 ounce steak with a whole plate of mixed greens. For my salad, I used Marie Callender’s brand low fat balsamic vinaigrette and about 1/3 cup of croutons. After dinner, I split a Haagen-Daz Coffee mini cup, so I had about 2 ounces which is literally a few bites.

Water: about 60 oz, maybe more; I lost count.

Today

Breakfast: Whole wheat tortilla wrap with egg whites, spinach, onions, and mushrooms
Lunch: A single pita, 3 falafel pieces, lettuce, tomato, and non-fat yogurt with cucumber and dill. (Approximately 250 calories in total)
Snack: More rice crackers
Dinner: mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, 4 large grilled shrimp and a small potato. For dessert, I had half an ice cream mini cup.

Water: About 80 oz (plus a large glass of orange juice)

Gym: 45 min of cardio (I could have gone for longer since I was watching movies on my ipod, but sadly my family wanted to leave)

I need more snacks to get me through the day, so a trip to the supermarket is in order. :)

Ricky Report #4: First Real Day

Keeping this short and sweet, though I'm cutting out the sweets. So just keeping this short.

Food:
Breakfast - two fried eggs with salsa
Snack - beef jerky
Lunch - big burrito, but with very fresh ingredients (it felt lighter than usual burritos)
Post Workout - Muscle Milk
Dinner - 1 tofu square before we found dad's squiggly hair in the dish. 2 bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds and organic milk, some beef leftovers
Dessert - String cheese

After lunch I was so tempted to get a cookie or gummi bears or anything. Instead, with the support of all of you, I summoned the strength and will power to avoid the sweets and drank glasses of water.

Gym (Chest day):
Bench press machine - 4 sets, 70 lbs plates on each side, 10-12 reps.
Decline bench machine - 4 sets, 80 lbs plates on each side, 12 reps.
Free weight butterfly - 4 sets, 45 lbs dumbells, 10-12 reps.
Row thingies on the cables for lower chest - 4 sets, 25 lbs on each side, 10-12 reps.
50 crunches on the gym ball before my back started to hurt.
15 minutes on the step machine/elliptical.

Starting off okay. I refuse to give in and declare it a cheat week!

So lets just call the first week, cheat week

Yes that's right, this whole week will be pretty bad with the dinners and lunches I have planned for the next of the week.  Now to me bad might be bad and good for someone else.  So let me classify what I think is bad:

Processed crap
Certain carbs
Fake chemical stuff

Thats basically it.

Usually I fall in the certain carbs...breads and potatoes (also known as fries from the people who brought us the statue of liberty).

My original plan was the green faces diet, but with my current high volume exercise load, I don't think that was a smart idea.  I am now considering a paleoish/primal diet with dairy.  There are loads of resources online about both these diets.  From Primal, just google primal blueprint (or go here http://primalblueprint.com/), for paleo there is Robb Wolf (http://robbwolf.com/) of crossfit fame and urban gets diesel who has a 30 day challenge (http://whole9life.com/2009/07/the-w30/).  Plus there are the multitudes of paleo diet books as well as the anabolic diet by Dr. Di Pasquale.

Here is my food intake today:

Breakfast:  Eggs with red pepper, onion and turkey sausage
Lunch: Chicken Burrito with guacamole, sour cream, y tapatio
Snack: Celery sticks
Snack: 2 boiled eggs
Snack: Protien shake (meh I hate these things, almost done with the container though)
Snack: 2 handful almonds
PWO (post workout) drink: MILK
Dinner: Wheat lavash with some sheik kabob and some indian fried dough substance from the south plus more milk.  Had an inch of 85% dark chocolate and a teaspoon of sunbutter (with flaxseed)

Exercise:  Snatch from blocks, jerks, snatch pulls, back squats, I was pretty gassed by the time I got to my back squats that I didn't finish my original plan, so I should eat a bigger meal an hour before hitting the weights on high volume days.

Tomorrow brings a coworkers birthday = unhealthy lunch, plus some indian food for dinner = gluten ridden naan, so we'll see how that goes.

My Worst Fear

The idea of starting such a blog makes good sense. Public accountability (pretend along with me for a second that this blog has a multitude of followers) on a regular basis should act as a postive motivating force for someone trying to achieve a long-term goal.

It's sort of like enrolling in a course taught by a professor who's notorious for giving quizzes on the assigned readings.

In this case, my homework is to eat right and exercise. The pop quiz, of course, is blogging to millions (again, pretend) whether or not I did my homework as assigned.

The hope here is that the occasional failed quiz will be outweighed by the numerious "A's" or "B's" I receive in the long run. My worst fear is that my blog entries will serve as a model of "what not to do" for future individuals hoping to improve their fitness and health.

That said, today I give myself a "D", my day ruined by the three-headed monster of unhealthy snacks, snacking after dinner, and a lack of exercise.

breakfast: lowfat peach yogurt
snack: 1 banana
lunch: subway egg white & cheese sandwich with lots of veggies and no sauce
snack: a cup of ice cream; few handfuls of caramel popcorn; 1 Oreo cookie
dinner: rice, chicken, vegetables, watermelon
snack: yogurt; couple handfuls of almonds
exercise: none

Ricky Report #3: Dairy Day

Blogging yesterday's update on the train into work today because I forgot last night.

Let's get to the diet cuz I love me some food talk.

Breakfast: 2 fried eggs topped with salsa. Made enough for the next two days. Keeps me away from the breakfast burritos and Danishes.
Snack: 2 large strips of beef jerky original flavor. Straight up protein.
Lunch: Benny's Salad - light chicken salad with corn, tomatoes, avocado in a very light dressing. I'm making this a regular lunch item each week because it's so fulfilling and light.
Dessert: Cool Haus - PB ice cream in Ginger cookies and Balsamic fig and mascarpone ice cream in oatmeal cookies
Snack: chocolate dipped strawberry
Dinner: shitload of chinese food

Some may question the two ice cream sandwiches as overboard. But I overheard a co-worker talking about bulking up by eating 1 gallon of ice cream a day. Sounds good to me!

However, I did feel terrible after dinner. Like sick. I also took one fat incinerator pill somewhere during the day. I'm a little disappointed I only drank one glass of water. That's a big part of curbing your hunger pangs. Need to step that up. Really need to step the program up in general. Today is like the official start. Cutting out the sweets starting today except very special occasions.

Just as a gauge: breathing = very special occasion.

Hello world!

If 90% of success is simply showing up, then I've already done quite well.

Thank you, powers that be, for the privilege of using this space to document my successes and tribulations, my ruminations and brain farts.

Let's cut to the chase and take a look at today's boxscore.

breakfast - 1 pop tart
snack - a few handfuls of a caramely, almondy, Popcornopolisy treat
lunch - Subway eggwhite & cheese sandwich with lots of veggies, black pepper
snack - small bowl of cheerios, nonfat milk; handful of almonds
dinner - 2 chicken fajitas with grilled veggies, watermelon
miscellaneous - two cups of coffee, each with a shot of creamer (oh, the saturated fat!)
exercise - nothing to write (home) about

Day 2

Started off with another shake: banana, with 5 oz milk and 1 peach yogurt. was alright

then ate a handful of walnuts/peanuts followed by rotisserie chicken, some fries and an eggplant dip.

COOLHAUS: peanut butter and choco chip cookies.

Dinner killed it. all out lunch special chinese dinner. up side - only had one bowl of rice and protien; nevermind that it was pretty greasy.

worked out biceps and shoulders. three exercises each - four sets. polished off with an ab workout. recovery snack - string cheese.

didn't drink nearly as much water as day 1.

The first 2 days are cheat days

Like I said Cool Haus ruined it for me today...

All was going well I had my 3 celery sticks with cashew butter and my 2 farm organic no corn fed chicken eggs with slice of turkey breast plus some guac.  Then for lunch I had a chicken burrito with guac and sour cream.  After lunch is where it all went down hill I had a peanut butter ice cream sandwiched in between to warm wonderful, lightly spiced ginger cookies, it was delicious.

Had a few almonds through out the day.  Had half a cup of popcorn, plus 1 nasty protein shake, I hate these things, but I must get rid of them.

Todays workout was very low volume.  Today was OHP (overhead press day)  Work set was 3x5 @ 85 lbs.  Did some pulls ups and barbell curls.  I am still fried from yesterdays workout so that was all, accomplished what I needed to in the OHPs.

After working out I was starving.  I had 10 oz of Broguieres whole milk.  Had some afghani bread and some lamb curry.  The lamb was definitely needed in my system.  Anyways, tomorrow is another high volume workout day, so I need my rest, plus I need to finish reading practical programming by rip and kilgore. peace

So it begins...

So a little background: I’m the only girl in this group, so I’m not quite sure a 6-pack is attainable or even wanted, but I’d settle for being fit with nice abs especially in time for my trip to Vegas in December. I’ve always been on the heavier side but in spring of 2009, I joined extreme boot camp which really whipped me into shape for the 12 weeks that I was really invested in it. But since I quit that, I’ve slowly regained the weight and lost all the muscle I had. My biggest issues are lack of exercise and irregular eating habits.

Day 1 was pretty bad.
Breakfast: Nothing. This is the norm for me. I usually don’t eat until 11:30am.
Lunch: Large Chicken Tortilla soup with chips, cheese, and diced onions on top.
Snack: A chocolate chip cookie
Dinner: 4 ounces of pork roast with a green salad with balsamic dressing
I didn’t exercise like I planned. I was just too tired.

Day 2 was better, kind of.

I had egg whites and cheese wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla for breakfast. Not only was I able to start my metabolism going early but it kept me full until lunch which is great for me.

For lunch, I picked up a quarter piece of rotisserie chicken (white meat) from the cafeteria; also good for me :). With the chicken I got to choose two sides, so I got a side salad with a mustard dressing and hummus with pita. Looking back I probably should have chosen all salad, especially considering I went out for dessert with three other people and we shared a large slice of chocolate cake and a slice of cheesecake.

For dinner, I had a sun dried tomato and shrimp Caesar salad which I topped off with a ¼ cup of ben and jerry’s milk and cookies ice cream. So the food wasn’t the greatest but I’m getting better.

Today I tried a workout I read in Health magazine. It’s a 9 part 3-mile walking workout.

1. Walk briskly for 1 mile. Ideally you should do this in less than 15 minutes. It was my time exercising in a while but I was able to do the mile in 15 minutes.
2. Alternate forward lunges for 1 minute. My thighs were burning after this one.
3. For mile 2, alternate walking for one minute and running for one minute. I was able to do the first ½ mile like this and then I switched to walking 1.5 minutes and running for 30 seconds for the second ½ mile.
4. Pushups for one minute, as many reps as you can do.
5. Toe touch squats for one minute, as many reps as you can do.
6. Elbow-knee touch (in plank position) for one minute, as many reps as you can do.
7. Mile 3, walk 1 minute, run 1 minute, high skips 1 minute, repeat. I was so tired after the first 6 steps that I walked mile 3.
8. Side Planks (t-pose), 30 seconds on each side
9. Triceps tabletop dips for one minute.

The next two weeks are to get me back into the swing of things. I’m going to join a fitness group (similar to boot camp) when it starts up in two weeks and then I hopefully will see even better results.

Day 1

All started off well

breakfast milk shake with about 5 oz. milk, 1 banana and 2 tbsp of peanut butter. lasted till about 8 am

Goes down hill from here. around 10 am had a slice of bear claw from Erick Shatz bakkery, 2 spam macadamia nuts, and 6 honey covered mac nuts.

lunch at 12:30 pm teriyaki Chicken bowl. Then at 2:30 hand a slick of red velvet cake and a scoop of ice cream.

work out: 30 minutes elliptical followed by 25x4 crunches and 15x4 chest presses and butterfly with 25 lbs bells. slowly returning after being away for a week and suffering some shoulder pains.

Then for dinner had a plate of veggies green beans and onions and a small scoop of white rice. topped off with two small mac nut and chocolate chip short bread cookies.

on the upside, I drank over 72 oz. of water.

First day = HUGE FAIL!

Looks like I'm not going to be following green faces, or green feces anytime soon.  I need some milk, kefir, or yogurt in my diet.  Today was horrible.
These are things I ate:

2 Celery sticks with cashew butter (good, except maybe the cashew butter, but I have some that I must finish).
Salmon with oranges, tomatoes, and herb salad (consisting of parsley, spinach, romaine and red lettuce, arugula)
Kettle corn = not good
1 biotest vanilla flavored protein shake (meh, I don't like it, but I must finish it, and will most likely never buy protein powder ever again!...all natural baby!)
After working out I had 6 chicken flautas with sour cream, guacamole, y tapatio.  I could have gone without the flautas, but I needed something to eat my sour cream with (notice how I buy stuff to finish off other foods and use that as an excuse for eating it : ) )
I also had a cup of kefir.

The workout has tough today...lots of volume, can't remember exactly the weight, sets, and reps, I'll update it in the future, but it was snatch, clean and jerk, clean pulls, and front squats.

Tomorrow the COOL HAUS truck comes by our work, so the first 2 days are cheat days : )

Ricky Report #2: Seeing Red

The birthday parties are over and it's time to get down to the nitty gritty.

But man, why is temptation so tempting?

For my birthday I ate pretty bad. I actually went to bed on the eve of program start dehydrated and overly stuffed with a belly ache. So this morning I was excited to get things going.

Breakfast: Cantaloupe and orange juice

All was well until...

Snack: Red velvet cupcake
Lunch: Chicken teriyaki bowl with rice and carrots
Snack: Slice of red velvet cake, scoop of ice cream

All the red velvet was for my birthday thrown by my department. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Exercise regimen: shoulders (4 x 4), abs (100 crunches on a gym ball), and 10 minutes on a cardio stride machine.

Dinner: Kept it light with string beans in black bean sauce and sauteed onions, beef in watermelon sauce, muscle milk.


So in summary, slow to start, easing into it, first week is always the roughest.

Ricky Report #1: Preheating

This is my first post on this blog, so the title of my entries will probably change. Even though we haven't officially started the Road to 6, I'm getting somewhat of a head start.

A little background:
Seventeen years ago I was on a gymnastics team where we worked out 4 times a week. I had always been skinny as a kid, so with the amount of crunches and conditioning in general that we did, it was no surprise that I had a six pack then.

Several years and cupcakes later, the six pack is still somewhat there. It's more of a 4 pack under very specific lighting. I feel that my crunches were not for not; that the abs are still in place. It's just that over the years a layer of fat has steadily been building.

My plan:
I think my journey will involve more cardio and healthy eating than ab conditioning. It's tough though when you have an office desk job. Previously I had taken thermal fat burner pills. Long ago I had tried Ripped Fuel (which I found pretty good) and Xenodrine and Hydroxycut (which I only took a few times because they made me very nauseous). Today I'm taking the Betancourt Nutrition brand Ripped Juice. I can only handle one pill (a quarter of the dosage) but find that it warms me up pretty good inside, makes my feet heat up, suppresses my hunger, and gives me a jolt of energy. So, I'm back on this supplement.

But also I'm running again. Previously at the gym, I would only focus on weight training. But now, starting today, I workout one muscle group (4 sets of 4 exercises to failure) and then either ab work or treadmill cardio (alternating days). I think this will also help me get over this gym burnout I've been experiencing by changing things up a bit.

So that's my plan. No more excuses. No more being lazy. Nom more cupcakes.

(What spelling error? I ain't giving up my cupcakes foo!)

Aug. 16, 2010

Today's training (for me) consisted of (note these are work sets only):

 Snatches
1x1 @ 42.5 kg (93.5 lbs)
2 x 1 40 kg (88 lbs).

Clean and Jerks
1x1 @ 57.5 kg (126 lbs)
1x2 50 kg (110 lbs)

Back squats
1 x 1 @ 85 kg (187 lbs)
I forget the sets, but 2 reps @ 75 kg (165 lbs)

Diet = bad today loads of bread and cookies.

First post

The obligatory first post.

So the idea of this whole blog sprung up at a discussion at work.  My coworker and I have always talked about the elusive 6 pack for a couple of years now, but I have never achieved it.  So we decided to hold each other accountable and create a support group to log our training and most importantly our diet.  We were also lucky to recruit a few other folks to join our efforts.

Our official date doesn't begin until August 23, 2010...I know I know, some would say start now, no excuses and all that other stuff, but we have our reasons.

I will be following a green faces diet for the first 30 days, not sure what everyone else will be doing so here we go....