Pumped

02/25 - I'm still here

So Nicki has successfully guilt-tripped me into making an entry for this side of my resolution site, and rightly so; it's been weeks since my last update. Yes, admittedly, getting fit has been on the back burner this month. The past weekend was particularly bad. Why?

Val and Nicki came to SoCal to visit.

Them coming wasn't bad. (It was quite the oposite, in fact!) But within the span of three or four days, I'm pretty sure I made up for not eating junk food the last month and a half. :x Since then I've been back to eating healthy, but I haven't been going to the gym. My work/internship has started getting a little more hectic as of late, and I've been coming home exhausted. Couple that with the hour and a half long commutes? Sleep > Gym always.

What it is is a test of my will power and how effectively I can convince myself to go to the gym in spite of my body telling me to just crawl into bed after work. I think what I'll need to do is build my way up to doing the gym as often as I should instead of jumping head-first into it and then getting overwhelmed by it all and ultimately slacking because of it. So, it's mini goal-setting time.

STARTING MARCH:
Gym twice a week: once on weds, once on the weekend.

STARTING APRIL:
Gym 3 times a week: mon, weds, weekend.

STARTING JUNE:
Gym weekdays after work + weekend. (Not weights every day, of course.)

Can I do it? Is this too intense? I'm most definitely open to suggestions. I'm looking at it now and it seems reasonable enough (I may just be a bit delirious from lack of sleep, but that's beside the point).

Not all has been lost, though. I've been pretty good (barring this past weekend) on the nutrition/eating front of this resolution. Of course there's always room for improvement. Thanks to Val and Nicki visiting, I've been reminded of my tendency to eat extremely fast. I've been working on it since and have consequently been eating less and getting hungrier more. THANKS, YOU TWO. I guess because of that, it would probably be good for me to adopt the whole "5 small meals per day" shtick. I might as well, right? The trouble would be figuring out how to coordinate those meal times... I think I'll tackle that on a later date (ok, wrapping this up soon; my eyes are starting to close on their own). Oh, and Poon suggests I post more food-related posts and I agree. Maybe you guys will see more of that in the future.

Anyway, I think that's that. I'll keep you guys posted! (HAPPY, NICKI??)

zzz..

02/12 - Being Sick

"I've been sick these past couple days, so I haven't been able to hit the gym as hard as I could have."

That'd be a perfectly valid excuse since I have been sick and I haven't been exercising like I should; but to be entirely truthful, it isn't so much that I'm sick as it is I've just been slacking in terms of sticking to my resolution. It's been almost a week since my last real workout session and if it wasn't for Jacqui dragging me out to the gym today, I probably wouldn't have been active this whole weekend.

Chest Fly: 50lbs - 3× 15 reps (-20lbs)
Chest Press: 60lbs - 3× 15 reps (-20lbs)
Ab Machine: 110lbs - 3× 15 reps
Lat Rows: 80lbs - 3× 15 reps
Lat Pull-downs: 80lbs - 1× 15 reps (struggled)
Bicep Curls: 70lbs - 3× 15 reps
Shoulder Press: 40lbs - 3× 15 reps (+10lbs)
Cardio: none (was congested and couldn't breathe, so running probably wouldn't be the best thing to do.)

Yeah, while I've backtracked a bit, going to the gym today felt really, really good. I think slacking may have been the reason why I got sick in the first place; I feel a lot better than I did this morning.  Not having internship work to do this coming week will give me a chance to bring myself back up to where I ought to be and hopefully give me the momentum to keep going. Wish me luck!

02/06 - January Progress Report

A little over a month has passed since I started taking on the challenge of getting fit.  It hasn't been the easiest thing to do, especially with life getting in the way, this past week I didn't exercise as much as I should have because of work and things but yesterday I managed to have a really good (frustration-busting) workout, so today I'm very sore and feeling lots better now.

I figure now's a good time to tally up my progress for the month. I think I'll be doing these recaps on a monthly basis to see how far (or little) I've come from the previous month.  Here goes:

Chest Fly - 40lbs => 70lbs
Chest Press - 50lbs => 80lbs
Lat Rows - 50lbs => 80lbs
Lat Pull-Downs - 60lbs => 80lbs
Bicep Curls - 35lbs => 70lbs
Ab Machine - 75lbs => 110lbs
Shoulder Press - 35lbs => 40lbs

Not bad, I suppose.

If there's an area that I've been neglecting, it's definitely the lower half of my body. Legs, I figure, would get worked out via my cardio routine (and they do), but I definitely should pay more attention to it.  Also, I think I should eventually start breaking up my workouts to target specific body parts per session as opposed to whole-body workouts.  For now though, it feels like my body can repair itself in time for the next gym session, but once I can't, it'll be time for me to switch over.  (As you can see, I've been doing my homework on this stuff. Pretty good, right? :p)