Day 131: Hip Joint Down

I was proud of myself. Today, I almost managed to pull in the trifecta! I did running on schedule bright and early, I did some pushups (not the whole set, but today is a "rest" day), and I was just doing my yoga when zap! I felt something pull in my hip! Ugh, it hurts really bad. That's okay, I'm sure I just pulled something and just need to rest it a little.

I guess with all the exercise this could happen. Though, to be honest, it's not that much exercise and it is very manageable. In fact, I read a study in which fat men who engaged in moderate activity actually lost more weight than those who engaged in heavy activity. The reason was because the heavy-activity group were so exhausted after their intense workout that they would eat more (to compensate for calories) and they would not exercise the rest of the day. The moderate group on the other hand was not so exhausted from their workouts that they were more active throughout the rest of the day and did not feel the need to recover the calories!

So, in effect, by keeping my workouts complimentary and light, I should be helping myself to keep my eating routine balanced and to feel more active throughout the day! I like that yoga balances my running by stretching and the strength balances them both by helping me feel stronger. So, despite the pulled hip joint? I feel good. Good enough to keep going and good enough to never stop!

Cheers!

Day 130: Ho Strong!

After an initial setback where I could not get through my second rep in the hundred push-up challenge,  I waited and then took longer breaks between reps and managed to get through the whole set without a problem, that's 97 total push-ups!! 

So that was pretty exciting! Unrelatedly, I'm trying to routinize my morning by ensuring that I get to the gym on. So starting tomorrow I'm going to hit the gym first thing in the morning!

Day 129: no ho, yes yo

Note: I'm typing this on a mobile device and apparently the geniuses behind the blogger app included an "undo" button. Well I accidentally pressed it and it deleted the entire post I wrote so eloquently. This, you will now be forced to get my second take at a first post, complete with fewer asides and more graphic imagery. Here I go and f you blogger undo button. 

No hundred push-up challenge, yes yoga.

More discouraging than failing to squeeze in my push-ups is that I weighed myself today. But even worse than that, I looked at my fat club pictures, the first set I've looked at since the originals were taken two weeks ago. 

I know I was not expecting any heart-stopping changes, but I was not expected to see so many round,  cellulite-infested, bloated bags of fat. Gosh, looking at my partially nude grease-filled fat folds was enough to make me hurl. No wonder people have trouble looking at me. Gosh. I tried flipping back and forth between the images on my computer to see the microscopic changes and NOTHING! Not a single cellulite, pock-filled, lard-infused fold out of place. No recession to the drooping layers of fat. Just spare tired from head to toe.  I could equip a car.

And yet, rather than continue to focus on my glaring lack of any progress, I will instead turn my eyes forward towards the mythical land where obese people can become just overweight. Where those who don't know me as a morbidly obese fat man will come to see me as a guy who could stand to lose a few, without knowing that losing a few is all I have been doing for months.  I choose to dream of the time when my thighs will not rub together on every fricken step, or when my fat fingers will not accidentally hit the undo button when I mean to get the space bar, I dream of a time when I too will be able to wear just a button down shirt to work and not feel so self-conscious that I hide in my suit jacket despite the sweltering heat of summer. 

This day will come. It may not be soon, but, oh, is it on the horizon. I just cannot wait until I am basking in the glow of a just modestly overweight man. When my pants are not so large that two normal size adults could use them as a tent to wait out another tropical storm. This day will come and I will be waiting. 

Day 128: Weekend Reset

I love the weekends because they give me a chance to reset and rest.

I don't do my cardio on the weekends, so it all comes down to beautiful yoga. I've been toying with the idea of letting my muscles rest from the 100 pushup challenge. My only hesitation is that the last time I did that, I seemed to lose strength the next time I tried to do some more pushups.

Thus far, I have not done my pushups today, but I think I will do them tomorrow to make sure that I don't atrophy down to nothing.

All in all, having more exercise routines each week, helps me make the weekends feel really light. Instead of before where I was doing yoga everyday and then the weekends I struggled to do my yoga because I felt like I wanted to take a rest, now I am doing yoga, elliptical, and pushups, so when I do just the yoga it does feel like a rest.

That's nice.

Day 127: Keepin' On

At this point, it's time to keep on keeping on.

I've been locked for the better part of 3 weeks in an ongoing campaign to better myself. And yet, I find that only 3 weeks in I'm struggling to stay motivated. At this point, I know I want to keep going so that I can start to see some tangible changes in my body type. I've heard that you don't start to "see" any real changes until 6 weeks, which means that I'm about halfway to where I need to be!

With that in mind I know I need to just keep doing all of my activity and my body will begin to recognize that this is the proper course for where it needs to go!

The good news is that all that week 3, day 2 work might have paid off. I just finished my week 3, day 3 set and I was able to do it. Of course, over the weekend I will be repeating it, but so far I managed to be able to get it going! 

Day 126: A Further Struggle

Thursday

Thursday was pretty good. I had a bunch of errands to run early on in the day so I got my workout done early. Even so, I'm still surprised that I can't really do more than 20 minutes without issue.

Not having much more luck with it than yesterday. I can say that I like using Yoga as a way to stretch out and make sure that I am actively moving everything around.

As for the pushup challenge. I am still stuck firmly in week 2. I finally got to the point where I can do week 3, day 2 without much issue. But now Week 3, Day 3 is staring me down and it is another major jump!

I am going to try keep pace with everything, but it's proving more and more difficult!

Oh, well I'll keep trying!

Day 125: The Struggle

With all of my exercises, I seem to focus as much, if not more, on the pain and struggle of the exercises, but I think that is because they always seem to be hard. If exercise were so easy, everyone would do it.

It's not that it's hard per se, it's just that it sucks.

Anyway, as you know, I've been using the elliptical at the gym as my first "real" form of cardio exercise in over a year. It's been going well except I find that I can't really do more than 20 minutes on it. That's just sad. I know I'm fat and that's definitely a factor, but my energy levels just seem so low.

The one time it was not a problem was when I went right after lunch. I noticed I had much more energy and was able to do 30 minutes without problem. Even as it is, I find myself doing anything I can to help me distract myself from the pain of the activity - usually by watching a half-hour episode of something on Netflix.

Anyway, it sucks. I need to look into a good workout routine for making the elliptical worthwhile.

Day 124: Where does the time go?

Can you believe that it's almost 20 days since I renewed my pledge and caught up?

It's hard for me to believe that time flies so quickly when I'm doing things that are difficult. I also don't know where the time goes in each and every day. I feel like I never have time to get the things I need to get done, done.


But that's okay!

More tomorrow!

Day 123: Damn its hard

I'm seriously struggling with week three of the yoga challenge. I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to do it in just 6 weeks. It is clear that I will need to keep pushing forward, but this is a problem. I'm not recovering as quickly as I was during the first week. I'm struggling not just with the last in the series of reps in the set, but often with the last 3.  It's like my arms just won't do it.


With that said, I've really enjoyed seeing myself grow stronger. While I have not made any tremendous gains yet, I know with perseverance and dedication, I will be able to get to that point and I'm not going to give up!

So here's to getting stronger!

Day 122: Mixing It Up

Saturday I decided to mix it up. I got up and went for a long walk in a nice hilly area. Later in the day I started week 3 of the hundred pushup challenge, and topped it off with a half of yoga session.

All in all, it was nice to get a chance to mix it up and try something new. To do something new.

Like the elliptical I do during the week, it feels good to try new exercises, you know shock the body up!

Day 121: Ups ide Down

Running today went great. I'm embarrassed to say that there is nothing worse than doing 20 minutes on the eliptical and just wishing it would stop! Today, however, I was rocking, I got to 20 minutes and then ramped up my pace, basically sprinting for the next 7 minutes!

The worst part about the gym, though, is all the fit people. There should be a gym for fat people where they won't be judged. And yes, there is Planet Fitness with its claim that this is the judge-free zone, but come on. There is no such thing. Any time a fit person sees a fat person they die inside a little bit.

Well, the gym I've been frequenting for my new cardio routine has a tremendous number of fit people. The worst kind of fit people are high schoolers or post high-schoolers. They have these highly sculpted bodies and are like, "yeah, I play sports, and I do things that others can only dream about" And they look at you like, "ew, like, if I were you, I'd just die." I just want to tell them, wait a few years sweetheart, just wait until everything in your life is going poorly and look at your body and see if it is still in shape!

It might be. Some people have incredible control and keep their bodies in shape their whole lives. But for the rest of us, just screw you stupid high school jocks! There I said it. And not for the first time. The truth is, once you've been fat it is biologically easier for your body to gain the weight back. We are at a metabolic disadvantage to people who've never gained a lot of weight!

Regardless, I had some downs today as well. I am struggling with this third week of the push up challenge. My task today was to do 12, 17, 13, 13, 17. Wow, I got through 12 and 17 fine. But on the first 13, I was wiped! Then by the second 13, I only made it to 12 before my arms collapsed. I didn't even get near doing 17! Ohmegerhd. So, I waited all day and then attempted it again. I made sure to do slightly more shallow pushups and got all the way through the last 13, before I hit some real problems. By 17, I was taking each pushup one at a time.

I just hope I can keep up this pace. I might have to do week three for a few weeks to ensure that I can build enough muscle mass to keep going. I mean, c'mon, I'm a huge guy. The fact that I can do ANY pushups is amazing. The fact that I couldn't do 72 today does not seem like that much of a surprise. I would like it if I could manage to get a few more done, but I do understand.

I'll report in tomorrow and tell you how the repeat of the set goes. Right now I can barely lift my arms. Haha. Who knew.

Day 120: Fuel

I've written a host of information about the workouts I've been doing but I have neglected one of the most important parts about losing weight. Specifically what I've been eating.

What I've learned on this journey from fatter to fat before is that you really can't have one without the other. Working out alone, is not enough. (Yes, I see the irony in that I have a workout goal but not an eating goal). The point of this blog has never been about losing weight. It has only been about being more active and getting a chance to see if exercising on a daily basis can help me manage being fat.

Good news. So far it has. But eating right is important too. It ensures that you are actually losing weight. Obviously, the formula that every heavy person knows is as long as calories burned are greater than calories consumed, you will lose weight. While that is true, it's not the way to feel good while losing weight or how to fight many of the urges that keep us fat.

Look, I'm no expert, but I have listened to a lot of people who are and they all say the same things. What you eat is just as important if not more important that how much. Obviously, you can't be stuffing your face with every single thing, but what you eat can put your body into a homeostasis that will help you control your energy, mood, cravings, and more.

Suffice it to say, I have been revamping my diet this summer. Making sure that I eat a lot more green, fruits, and staying away from processed wheats and sugars. It's not just about cutting out the cookies and sweets, its about cutting out the foods that mimic those processed sweets in your bodies. The way I've been finding to do it is to focus on eliminating traditional carbs and focus on lean protein and vegetables.

Surprisingly, it's really helped me to feel good. I'm nowhere near a normal fat person yet, but I'm not feeling bloated or overly large either!

To eating right and feeling good.

Day 119: Half a Realization

Last night while I was doing my yoga, I realized that technically speaking, in order to fulfill the terms of my goals, I only need to do a workout a day. I don't need to do two. So, if I need to take a day off from yoga every now and again, I can do so.

One of the lessons I took away from the first hundred days of this challenge, was that I can improve my overall flexibility and power for yoga if I rest every so often. This same rule holds true for running. I can run five days a week, and make up for it with yoga.

Now, obviously the biggest benefits will come from doing yoga along side the running, but it is nice to know that I can take a break without ruining my goal.

This is even better now that I only have 1 spare day left!

Day 118: Rocking Week 2

100 Pushup Challenge meet the END of week 2. Say what. Now each set is up to 61 pushups at a time. That's awesome. I'm still struggling to get through the sets, but it's always encouraging to see that I'm stronger than I was just two days ago. And even more than that, I am hopeful and confident that I will keep getting stronger.

I also like incorporating my cardio into my exercise routine. It doesn't feel like anything. It sucks for the 25–30 minutes that I'm doing it, but then I just don't think about it again. I shower and its over. It's not until my yoga that night that I think about it again. I can really feel it in my hamstrings.

Let me pause for a second. It is so weird that I'm using phrases like my hamstrings. "Well, I was shockin' my pecs for a 10-spot and got my delts all fired up" Who am I? I'm not saying I'm becoming a meat head. I'm just noting the gradual changes of incorporating exercise into my daily routine. Just simeple changes that are, hopefully, helping me be better.

Time in.

While doing my yoga, I can feel the lactic acid buildup and it feels good to have an rena to let it go. Just to ease out the tension.

All right, I'm pleased that I have yet to miss a day. I'm pleased that I have been going strong and will continue to go strong all summer!

Day 117: Exercise Galore

All right, today was day 1 of adding another element to my fitness routine. I'm sure if someone who knows a lot about fitness saw my goals and then saw my implementation for the first 117 days I have been exercising this year, they would laugh at me. I know I need a cardio portion to my workout routine, but it's just that cardio is so HARD.

Not only that its tiring and messy and it takes time! Regardless, I'm going to try to implement 25–30 minutes a day of cardio on top of my 100 Pushup Challenge and Yoga activities.


Today I spread them out. I did cardio before 8, pushups in the middle of the day, and yoga at night. This was a semi-efficient system, but I will work on how best to incorporate the exercises.

The good news: I'm still in the running to complete my goals!

Day 116: Easy Groove

I have not attempted my strength exercise yet, but I can say that the yoga today was smooth and refreshing. Despite not getting much sleep and consequently being very tired today, I can say definitively that today's workout ran much more smoothly. I worked hard and was more exhausted at each point, but that was because I was focusing intently on each pose and was able to move gracefully from pose to pose.

I am excited to start incorporating the elliptical into my daily routine. I know that I need to lose weight and I know that I need to do it soon. I have a major life event coming up in August and I'd like to look better than I do.

But, as you're no doubt sick of hearing, there are tremendous benefits to losing weight. In fact, losing just 5-10% of you current body weight (if you are significantly overweight or obese) can:

• Increase energy
• Restore confidence
• Increase labido and testosterone development
• Take you out of the pre-diabetes category and move you away from developing diabetes
• As well as the more obvious clothes fitting and mood elevation

They say that adominal fat (for men) is extremely unhealthy and even modest decreases in size of the belly fat can produce tremendous positive health effects.

For this reason, I'm going all in. I'm giving it my best and then some.

Here's to a better me!

Day 115: Strength!

This is not my first time being a fat man and putting myself through trials. In fact, weight loss, and sustained weight loss at that, is a journey.

Well wind the clocks back to 2009 and I set out and joined the Fat Club (the first rule of fat club is you shall not talk about fat club), well it disbanded and so I feel okay about it. Anyway, I lost 30 lbs in fat club. Today I was looking at the photos and in a three month period, I literally transformed. The most apparent thing to me was the size of my triceps. My arms got skinnier and skinnier over the photos, but my triceps actually looked real!

I realize now that it was because of the 100 Pushup Challenge. That was the one point in my life, where I was able to do 50 pushups at once. But more than that, I was doing them on a consistent basis and so my triceps were huge!

It was really motivating to look at those photos. At the same time, when I compared them against pictures I took today (I'm starting fat club 2), I was much thinner than I could ever hope to be. I did read that when you lose a massive amount of weight, your body goes into a mode where it wants to get you back to your normal (which at this point is a fatass). So it actually makes you crave bad foods and slows down your metabolism! Your body is fighting against you. That's part of the reason why it is not uncommon for those who've lose weight to gain it all back and THEN SOME.

My goal, however, is to hit a lower weight and keep myself at it for a year or two. I figure if I can do that, then I can help reset my body's internal sense of what the proper weight is and get myself back into a normal body size.

We all deserve it. I will keep fighting.

In fact, last night I struggled to complete my last reps of my pushups. So I got up, took a break and finished them. Then this morning I got up and did the whole set, without a problem! It's amazing how fast you can see muscle growth.

Here's to strength and changes!

Day 114: Winded but Trying

So, I guess starting back up has finally caught back up with me.

The first couple of days were fine. I would do the yoga and no big deal. Today, I felt "winded" for the first time. Which is weird, because Yoga is not a particularly strenuous activity. I suppose I just need to get used to it again. It will get easier.

Anyway, today is the last weekday that I have before I begin picking up my exercise routine. In order to get in shape for the end of the summer, I've decided I need to start doing some real cardio activities. In line with this, I've decided to attend a gym. Starting on Monday, I am going to be using an elliptical for 20 minutes a day. I will attempt to add that to my routine of yoga and 100 pushups.

It's time to make some changes!

Here's to change.

Day 113: The Darkness creeps and I fall

It's amazing. During the daytime, when I manage to squeeze in yoga, I'm clear and balanced. As soon as I attempt to do Yoga without lights, boom! I fall. I have absolutely no darkness balance. It's like a switch is flipped in my head and I can't balance anymore. In particular, there is the tree pose. It's very simply. You take one foot, hook it into your other leg and stand there. And yet, without fail, whenever the lights are off, I'm like a tree in a tornado, right on over.

Anyway, I did day 3, when combined with the 100 Pushup challenge, I really feel the strain its putting on my arm muscles. My chest and back are fine, but my triceps struggle when I get down into pushup pose.

I'll just have to keep pushing forward!

All right, on to more work!

Enjoy the evening!

Day 112: Easy as Yoga

I'm pretty pleased that my body did not just give up on me. The yoga has not been that taxing despite taking two weeks off. In fact, my body remembers all the moves and I find myself easing back into them. Of course, my flexibility has gone to pot and I'm still worried about my lower back. Everytime I bend over to do a forward bend, I worry that I might injure it more or that I've done some permanent damage. Despite that, yoga makes me feel amazing, so I'm going to keep pushing through.

Another update, I'm on day three of the hundred pushup challenge. I am reluctant to admit that I can now do 12 pushups in a row! Haha, the way the system works is to make you do a series of pushups in smaller increments. So, my max was 12, but in reality in the one session (day 3 for example) I did 44 pushups overall. So, it pushes you forward and helps build your strength by making you do more and more pushups per set, but also by increasing the number of reps in each individual set. Next week, I'll build up to doing 50 pushups in one set. Then eventually you build up the 100 in the set, while doing more reps (25–50) per set. Then, and I've never made it this far, some magic happens and you can just do 100 pushups in one sitting.

I'd be more than happy if I can do 50 pushups in one sitting. My goal is to be able to do 50 pushups when I wake up and when I go to bed. This way I can start and finish the day with some strength exercises.

All right, off to fight the good fight.

Day 111: On track and not willing to fail

Being reluctant to fail, I pledge to keep going! I pledge to fight until the bitter end. For Fat Men everywhere, for all the fat people, in all the fast food joints, in all the world... I will meet my goal!

Day 111 is a go. As I alluded to in my last post, I did a rousing round of Rodney Yee yoga to get me on track!

It's amazing, while I'm definitely fatter and could not bend down quite as far, my body still knew exactly what it needed to do to do the yoga routine!

It did not miss a beat, or forget a pose!

So thank you Rodney Yee for 110 days of pain!

Here's to 210 more! 

What I missed: hope?

Days 104–110

Total number of days to June 3: 154 days 

Total days I've missed:  44 days

Number of days I can miss an still meet my goal: 45

Spare days from now until January 1, 2014: ONE

Oh shit.

So, my fat ass had managed to get back on track just in time. I have one spare day from now until the end of the year. This means that no matter what happens, I will have to so yoga every single day or risk not meeting my goal.

Wow.

I knew meeting the goal would be hard but I figured the ability to miss 45 days would be more than enough to carry me through. Here we are, six months into this year and I've blown almost my whole quota. 

Challenge Accepted.

As any true procrastinator knows, it is the pressure situations, the times when there is no room for mistakes that motivates us to perform our best!

Moving forward , I know that I will have absolutely no leeway or room for failure!

So.

Here.

We.

Go! 

My apologies

Hello friends. I apologize for my delayed hiatus. I had to take a trip for work and I've been so swamped with work that I have neither worked out nor blogged about it. I have, however, done some workouts that I have not listed here. 

For the sake of preventing more terrible posts, I will list all of my missed days in one long post.

Moreover, I am making a firm commitment to get back in the game. After I tally up how much time I missed, I will be able to see just how close or far I  to completing my goal. In fact, I will be able to see if I can still make it. Regardless of the answer, I will continue pressing on for the rest of the year despite my half-month failure.

I figure it is better to get back on the horse and attempt to keep working at y issues, rather than to give up entirely.

I will say that I have started the one hundred push-up challenge to see if I can get back to the point where I can legitimately so 100 push-ups. Tomorrow will be day 3 of the program but supposedly in 6 weeks I will be able to do 100. While I am skeptical, my last experience with the program taught me that I can reasonably expect to get up to about 50 in about 2 months. The reason is that there are some weeks that you just cannot complete, so you need to go back and redo that entire week! 

I know most people like to work out in the winter to get a "beach" body by the summer, but since I've failed in that endeavor, I will push forward and start work now for a normal-size body.

Today was interesting because I finally did some yoga. It was amazing how much lactic acid buildup I had.

I could just feel the yoga helping to release the acid from all my "muscles" (read: flabby parts). 

Anyway, I'm back on track ad ready to see these goals through until the end of the year. And hey, if I get into shape while I'm at, so be it!