Grass-fed beef and crushing goals

Today's Weigh-In: 215.2 lbs.

5-Day Average: 216.3 lbs.

The weight is continuing to trend downward. I guess this whole "eating clean" thing works pretty well. I also got a great workout yesterday, which pushed me to my limits and allowed me to tap into those strength reserves that you don't really know about until you need them.

On the food front I bought a share of a cow. That might sound a bit strange, but it's true. I paid for 1/11th of a grass-fed steer from a farm in South Dakota. The basic idea is that 11 people buy a share each, and once all the shares are paid for the steer is slaughtered (humanely, I might add) and shipped to your door in dry ice. I've been looking for a good source of grass-fed beef for a while now, and this fit the bill nicely. I should be receiving roughly 25 pounds of beef sometime this week, according to the email I received today. I purchased a chest freezer last month for just such a thing, so now I have to actually set it up and make sure it works! I'll let you guys know how the meat tastes when I get a chance to try it. If you're interested in something like this, visit the site. Total price for me was about $190, not bad for beef raised in its natural environment and fed the food it was designed to eat.

It looks like I'm well on my way to crushing my February weight goal of a 215 lb. 5-day average, so let's just hope nothing funky happens with my body to cause it to stall.

Doing pretty dang good

Today's Weigh-In: 216.2 lbs.

5-Day Average: 216.8 lbs.

It looks like my plan of conservative weight loss seems to be working so far. I'm averaging about a pound less than I was at the start of the year (I don't have any numbers from 12/31 to 1/4 so I can't really analyze my averages during that time). I've been counting calories online during the week, and trying to keep a running tally of calories during the weekend. I ended up having 2 cheat meals on Saturday due to unforeseen circumstances, but everything else has been really good.

On Friday I hit a new PR (personal record) with a 215# power clean, which was 20# more than the last time I attempted a max. I went and ran 400m sprints at the track on Saturday, but was only able to do 2 before my calves and hamstrings got too tight to function well. I did get another PR of 1:31 on my first sprint (down from 1:45 the last time, which was probably over a year ago), even though it's still terribly slow. My brother used to run the 400 in 51 seconds, if my memory serves, so I'm definitely not going to be winning any track meets in the near future.

Today my body feels good, and I'm ready to hit today's workout after I get off work. All in all I really have nothing to complain about right now. Let's just hope it lasts.

Obligatory new year goals

Today's Weigh-In: 215.4 lbs. (no 5-day average since I kind of slacked on weighing myself)

Happy New Year to all the fitness and weight-loss bloggers out there. Since it is a new year I would like to start by laying out some goals, both short and long term, that will get me to where I want to be. I took the time to reflect on the past year, and came up with a few things. First, I gained about 20 pounds; actually, looking back on my post from exactly 1 year ago I gained 17.2 pounds. This has some good and bad sides: I'm much stronger now than I was a year ago, but I'm also a bit fatter. The upside, though, is that I think I can lose the fat without losing strength through my Crossfit training.

I thought also about the habits that I used to have when I was successfully losing weight, versus what I've been doing lately, and came up with a few things. First was that I drink more, and more often, now than I did then. Also I have not been good with calorie counting. Gym attendance has been roughly equivalent, so my weight gain is close to 100% food/drink related. So then I thought "What can I do to remedy this?" and came up with a few simple daily goals that will allow me to lose at least 1 pound a week, but don't put a ton of stress on my mind.

So here they are:

1) Limit drinking to 3 drinks per day through January. 1 drink is one 12oz. beer, 1 shot of 80 proof alcohol, or 5 oz. of wine.

2) Starting February, limit drinking only to 3 days per week, and maintain goal #1 on these days.

3) Count all calories, get no more than 2500/day including alcohol.

4) Take fiber, creatine, fish oil, and vitamin D supplements every day.

5) Workout every day except Thursday and Sunday.

Now, let me explain that I have a very high alcohol tolerance, and 3 drinks does not even begin to affect me. But I averaged my recent intake to be about 6-7 drinks per day, and this has prevented me from dropping weight. Plus, it's just not a good habit to have. The ultimate goal is to take drinking from a habit to an occasional splurge, and I want to do it slowly so as not to cause myself undue stress, and also to allow new, healthy habits to form in the meantime.

Counting calories has been a great tool in the past, and I think it's crucial for me to lose weight. It's not that hard either; once I do it on a daily basis for a week or two it just becomes second nature.

My exercise goal is just to get 5 workouts a week. I can move my rest day from Thursday to Wednesday, so long as I get my 5. I just want to be consistent here.

I have some other goals as well. I know for me that the most motivating success stories are the ones with pictures in them. So I've made plans to take pictures of myself every Saturday morning and post them to the blog so I can see my changes over time. I've also made a goal of adding at least 1 run per week into my workout routine. I feel that running is a weak area of mine, and I would like to shore up that weakness a bit. I might do a 5k, or I might do sprint repeats. I just need to run more.

I think that's it for now. None of these goals are very hard for me, to be honest, and that's the way I like it because that means I can actually achieve them. I like having daily goals as well, because it's really the day-to-day stuff that gives us the results we want, and completing daily goals allows me to feel like I'm actually moving forward. I'm on day 3 right now, and feeling good. I'll keep you posted.

Thank goodness the holidays are almost over

Today's Weigh-In: 217.2 lbs.

5-day average: 217.7 lbs.

Okay, so this past week did not go so well. Lots of candy, fudge, and chips. Very little exercise. I got 2 workouts in last week, on Monday and Tuesday, but all the Christmas stuff prevented me from going later in the week.

Thankfully that's all over. I ate great yesterday and did a good Olympic lifting workout. My muscles felt amazing afterward. They just crave activity now. Also, I find that when I eat crap food I get really stiff in my muscles and joints, and my flexibility (which is usually decent) goes to hell. If I eat right and take my fish oil (10 caps a day, now) I don't have any issues. Just something I noticed.

The year is coming to an end, and I'm glad. I know it's cliche but the new year does provide a fresh start, at least mentally, and that's what a lot of us need right now. A fresh start, and a kick in the pants.

Better than expected

Today's Weigh-In: 218.2 lbs.

5-Day Average: 217.4 lbs.

After all the fuss I made yesterday, it looks like my back is starting to get better quicker than I expected. I guess it was just the muscles getting used to my spine being straight again. It's a little sore today, but nowhere near the level of pain I was in yesterday. I went for a short run to test it out, and also did some squats, push-ups, and stretches to see how it felt. It felt pretty good, so I'm really happy that I won't be out of commission much longer. My lower back fatigued pretty quickly during my run, but that's most likely due to the fact that I haven't been running much in the past few weeks and I did heavy deadlifts twice this week.

I have a Christmas dinner to attend tonight, but I'm going to stick to mainly meat and vegetables. I really want to get under 215 within the next 2 weeks.

Screwed up back

Ugh. Just when I start to get some motivation behind me something bad happens. Somehow I screwed up my upper back. It wasn't from lifting, because it was bothering me on Monday during the day (and I hadn't worked out since Saturday). I was sitting at my desk, and my neck felt tight, so I moved it around to try to crack it and loosen it up. What happened instead was it locked up, and I couldn't turn my head to the left. I figured "okay, that sucks, but it'll go away." Well the neck pain did go away, but I could feel my upper back and left arm getting really tight and sore. I've had issues in the past where my back being out of alignment has caused pain down my left arm, so I pretty much knew nothing was actually wrong with my arm (but it hurt like a son of a gun). I went to the chiropractor yesterday, and he re-aligned my spine. This has caused the pain in my arm to disappear, and my neck feels fine as well. But my upper back is crazy sore today, and I can feel that it's the muscles and not the spine. So I'm thinking that it's caused by my spine being so out of alignment for so long that the muscles sort of got used to the bad configuration. But it's got me sidelined from exercise, because I really can't do much of anything without excruciating pain. Right now I'm rocking NSAIDs, and when I get home I'm going to use my foam roller and jacuzzi to help loosen it up. I'll probably go back to the chiro early next week for a follow-up, but I'm hoping it doesn't last that long.

I guess there's a lesson in this: if you don't take all aspects of exercise recovery seriously you can jack yourself up. I'm usually pretty good about my recovery, but I know I should be visiting the chiropractor every few weeks at least, and I haven't been. Lesson learned.

New PRs and a change of direction

I know, I know, it's been a long time since I posted a blog entry on here. Looking back at my last post, it was right before my last Crossfit Total. I ended up getting 870 (325 back squat, 170 shoulder press, and 375 deadlift) which surpassed my goal. Yesterday I did the Total again, and this time got a score of 905 (335 back squat, 170 press, 400 deadlift(!)). I finally reached one of my oldest goals, which was a 400 pound deadlift. I went for 405 as well but it just didn't go up. I just looked back at my first CFT score (from this post) which was 670. It feels great to know objectively how much stronger I am now than I was then.

Now for some bad news. I pretty much weigh the same as I did in January 2008, when I did my first Total. This morning I weighed in at 217.4 lbs., the highest I've been in a while. 2 months ago I weighed in at 207, so I've gained 10 pounds since then. It's time for me to buckle down and start using this blog (once again) as a resource to help me along on my journey.

I'm going to be changing the format of my blog posts a little bit, to reflect the changes that have occurred both mentally and physically since I've started this quest. Most of the posts on here are focused solely on weight, and, while that is important, I've come to believe that things such as athletic performance, quality of rest, and quality of food are just as important to me. Let's face it, I could have 6 pack abs and be completely unhealthy, but that's not what I want. I want to be strong, powerful, quick, agile. I want to have good indicators on all my bloodwork. So what if I never get "ripped." This is really about so much more than that. So my posts will reflect that mentality, with a focus on performance and food quality as a means toward health and fitness, and not just some arbitrary number on the scale.

That being said, I do need to lose some fat. My body fat percentage is higher than I would like, and it's hindering me in some aspects of my athleticism (mainly bodyweight stuff). There are only 2 weeks left in the year, so I'm not going to go for some drastic cut to meet an arbitrary deadline right now, but I want to be consistently under 215 by the new year. That's easily doable, and it gives me that bit of momentum that I'll need to see this through. I'll try to post a couple of times a week as well, to keep myself on track.