Back at it, finally!

We hauled our squishy asses out of bed at 5:15 this morning to get a workout in for the first time in a long time and it feels good to be doing something again. To be clear we are not exactly starting a new round today since we are going out of town this weekend but at least we are working out. The plan is to use this week to get back into the swing of things and figure out how to use our new workout space at the new house and then start a round next week when we get back. The space worked well for us with what appears to be enough room for both of us to workout. We have a TV and DVD player mounted on the wall in the corner with mirrors mounted on both walls adjacent to the TV. We have the same weight equipment we used at the old house but because of the construction materials used in the house, engineered wood I-beams, I was unwilling to mount the pull up bars I made for the old house to the ceiling. To get around this we bought a couple of pieces of equipment. We have a Stamina 1700 which we picked up on ebay for $50 and a Fitness Gear 360 we picked up on sale and with a gift card we won so it cost us $100. The Power Tower fits under the Fitness Gear piece for storage so we have more floor space for Plyo and other such workouts but for today, Chest & Back, we obviously needed to use them both. The equipment worked out well with the exception that my pull-up bar on the Fitness Gear piece is textured and I need to get a pair of weightlifting gloves. There are a few improvements to the room we may make but all in all it was a good space. I will try to post a picture of the new room soon.

As far as the workout goes it was not nearly as bad as I think I was expecting. I did have a hockey game last night with a bunch of kids half my age and I have another with them again tonight so that makes things a little more difficult. I intentionally did not go back and look at the numbers I was getting, reps and weight, when we stopped because I did not want to discourage myself but I am sure my numbers today were much lower. Neither of us were able to knock out very many pull-ups, that is one ass kicking exercise, but we did push through and do as many as we could. I was sweating like crazy by the end of the workout and then remembered we still had 16 minutes of Ab ripper X to go. Holy Crap!! This is where the real slide showed itself. At first everything seemed reasonable as we struggled through the In & Outs, Bicycles, and Crunchy Frogs and then we came to the Crossed Leg Wide Leg Sit Up. Neither of us could get our asses up off the floor very well but we did struggle through and get some of these done, not sure how many as I was struggling enough to not even count. The rest of this workout went pretty much the same but we did get through and I suspect we will quickly get back into the shape we were in before. One nice thing is the knee did not bother me at all during the workout although this one does not use it much. I was thinking some of the warm up stuff might be a problem, like running in place, but no pain.

I am just now thinking about how crazy Plyo is going to be tomorrow, that time off is probably really going to show in that workout. Oh well, Bring It!!

Getting Close

The gym in our new house is coming together. We have all the equipment assembled and the TV and DVD player are now mounted on the wall. One wall is now mirrored and the other will be done tonight. Now all I need to do is make sure my knee is OK. It is still a little sore when I run, seems fine playing hockey though strangely. I do not want to jump in too early with Plyo and set myself back again. I will keep you posted but looking like we will be starting another round very soon.

Another bit of a setback

Well we finally got some equipment put together in our new "gym" at the new house. I still need to mount the TV and DVD player so we can have that where it belongs but it could be used where it is now. The diet has been OK but not great and I am feeling soft. I wanted to get some workouts going at least a few days a week but I injured my knee this past week in a hockey game. The doctor says I probably have a small tear in my meniscus and am to let the pain be my guide as to when and what I do. I apparently am not going to hurt it more but I was not able to do steps very well at first and it is still feeling pretty unstable, there is no way I could do something like plyo right now. It is getting better though and I am planning to try to play hockey Sunday and see how that feels. Hoping to get back into at least some workouts, a prep run of a few weeks before starting another round, maybe next week or the week after.

Ahhh Pudding

Well we settle on the new house next week and I can't wait to get unpacked and get back to working out. We have been pretty good as far as eating goes and no weight gain has occurred, it is amazing how easy it is to maintain once you reach the weight you want but how fast you can gain when you eat wrong. I am sure the first few weeks will be tough given the fact that I am turning from a rather tight in shape to something more resembling a squishy bowl of pudding. This is another interesting thing I am learning, weight is not everything. I am certainly much more healthy today than 2 years ago but I am also not as healthy as a few months ago although I am still the same weight. It should be relatively fast though to get back to where we want to be once we get unpacked and ready to start the daily workouts again. Another interesting thing about this program has been the long term affect on our diet. I had mentioned previously that I felt that it had been life changing and we would never go back to eating like we had before but i is hard to know for sure until you stop the daily workouts for a while but the diet stuck and I don't think I could ever go back to the way I was eating before. Don't get me wrong, we eat things that are not on the plan, desserts mostly, now but only occasionally and in much smaller portions than we used to.

Can't wait to start bringing it again, stay tuned.

Still here

Well we finally completed the sale of our home but are still staying at my mother-in-laws and there is little space there for working out especially ow that we have put all of our various junk there. We are currently scheduled to settle on the new house on May 28th so hopefully that will happen on time and we can start back up in earnest shortly thereafter.

Came across this article in the NY times today and I have to say I have some real problems with some of it. The basic point of the article seems to be that we as a society are unfairly treating overweight people as if the fa=ct that they are overweight is their own fault and we should not be doing that. The author says "I’ve sat in meetings with colleagues who wouldn’t dream of disparaging anyone’s color, sex, economic status or general attractiveness, yet feel free to comment witheringly on a person’s weight." Well I am sorry but the only one of these other things that is even close to analogous is the economic status one. To somehow compare someone being overweight to them being Black or Hispanic or female or even ugly is ridiculous.

I don't totally disagree with the writer and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt in most cases but when I see some grossly obese person ordering a burger with a diet coke it doesn't exactly make me think they are not responsible. I also see every day at my work overweight people taking the elevator up the 3 floors to our offices instead of the stairs that I am taking, I had a woman at one office that would not take the stairs up one floor and would sit there and wait for the elevator. We also have a shuttle bus at my work to take you between buildings and the same overweight people consistently take it as opposed to walking the 500 yards to the building they are going to so I am sorry but I don't feel as if they are somehow not responsible for their situation.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing in this article is the assertion by the author that somehow the stress caused by peoples "lack of understanding" is somehow to blame for the health problems associated with being overweight. "Over time, such chronic stress can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes and other medical ills, many of them (surprise!) associated with obesity." Give me a break! I understand that we are not all genetically wired to be really thin but we also are all responsible for our own lives and our own health and more importantly for setting a good example for our kids as far as healthy eating and exercise. If you are comfortable being a few pounds overweight I think that is fine as long as you generally eat healthy and remain active but there is no such thing as a healthy obese person, sorry. All it takes is for you to lose the weight and feel how much less stressed your heart and lungs are walking up and down steps to realize that even a 30 pound difference, what I was carrying around, is huge and can really stress your system.

The problem is people don't want to hear that it is real hard work, like an hour or more a day of pretty high intensity exercise, to really get yourself in shape. Once you get there you can usually maintain with less than this but it is very hard work to lose the weight once you have put it on. This makes perfect sense if you consider the kind of lifestyle we lead today compared with what it would have been through most of our evolution. We evolved to work best with lots of exercise and today we spend most of our time siting on our fat asses eating junk and we wonder why we are getting fatter. Get up and get moving and start eating right. Take control of those portion sizes and skip the junk, that includes diet soda. But whatever you do don't try to say that me not understanding your weight is somehow the reason for the health problems you are having or are going to have because that is just a cop out.

Just checking in

I am still here. We have settlement on our current house next week and are working hard to get it all cleaned up and ready to go. We also found a new house so that is taking some time with getting everything ready for that. we don't move into the new house until the end of May so we will be at my wifes mothers house until then and it is pretty tight. I am hoping we get a chance to do some workouts starting after the sale of the current house finishes. We will absolutely start another round once we move in. My wifes high school reunion is in September and she wants to finish another round before then. Just wanted to let everyone know we have not forgot about the workouts and we will get back to it.