JWMFitness

I’m still here.  I won’t let this turn into one of those blogs where the author posts a bunch of big goals and then disappears.  I will be posting daily once the 52DC starts, unfortunately this past week I let things get in the way.  Let’s just say when the account responsible for over a third of your work throws a tantrum you have to attend to it.

I’ve officially set my goals for the 52DC

• Clean Eats: 80
• RT: 23
• CT: 20
• PG1: 5% weight loss challenge: 12 pounds
• PG2: Wake-up at 3:00 am for 48/52 days

I’ve spoken about the CE, RT and CT goals before.  I’m excited about the 5% weight loss challenge, seems like a fun little sub-group to the 52 DC and it’s another way to help hold myself accountable when I’m tempted by fast food or whatever…I’ll feel like I’m letting them down if I cheat.

The 3:00 AM wake-up is something I’ve been working on the past few weeks but it hasn’t quite clicked into place yet.  I don’t consider myself a morning person, but since I joined cubicle-land I can’t seem to get anything done in the evenings.  I want to be more productive and I’ve found that I have more energy and more motivation to get things done early in the day.  Plus I spend less wasteful time sitting in front of the TV at night (I’m usually in bed before “prime time” even starts).

If you’re looking for some motivation to get up early check out Leo Babauta’s (of Zen Habits) post 10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It.  The only suggestion I would add would be to buy one of those programable digital timers and connect it to a lamp on the far side of your bedroom.  Use a low wattage bulb (i.e. 40W or even lower) and set it to go off 5 minutes before your alarm.  For me the light helps me wake up and I’m guessing there is some scientific reason behind it (i.e. simulated sunrise, etc).  Whatever it is, it works.

I’m really excited about the upcoming 52 Day Challenge at the Men’s Health Forums.  I guess timing is everything and being able to join in this challenge right away is going to help me hit the ground running (it starts on Oct 21).

The challange involves a group of posters on the forums setting goals and then holding each other accountable and supporting each other throughout the 52 days of the challenge.  You set goals in four areas: Clean Eating (CE), Resistance Training (RT), Cardio Training (CT) and then a personal goal (PG) of some sort.

• Clean Eating (CE): Broken down into 104 half-day units.  You set a goal based on how many half days you want to “eat clean.”  It looks like they leave the specifics up to the individual to determine exactly what they consider clean eating, but there are some good links farther down in the FAQ that lead to a wealth of nutrition information.
• Resistance Training (RT): Weight lifting or body-weight training.  I’ll be using the Turbulence Training body-weight program I found.
• Cardio Training (CT): HIIT,  Steady State Cardio or long-walks.  The cardio portion of the TT workout program will fit into this
• Personal Goal (PG): They have some good suggestions and some other side challenges that have sprung up during the evolution of the 52DC.  I like the idea of doing the 5% weight loss challenge.  I’m not sure I completely understand the 3600 Challenge (I guess you basically do 3600 reps of different exercises).  I really want to get into meditation as well so maybe I’ll throw in a goal about that too (you can do as many PG’s as you want).

They say that 80 CE’s are a good goal for first time participants.  I think I’ll stick with that since I expect diet to be the most difficult area for me to improve.  That would work out to a little more than 3 cheats per week which honestly will probably be tough for me but I think it’s still atainable and not too high.

They recommend only 15 RT’s for first timers.  I’m guessing they’re basing this number on a full body workout with weights.  I plan to do maybe 3-4 body-weight workouts a week which would put me closer to 25 or 30.  I think I’ll set a goal of at least 20…maybe 23 which would work out to 3 per week.

They recommend 10 CT’s for first timers.  I know I can go higher than this…cardio will be the easiest for me to do.  I’ll set a goal of 15-20.

For PG’s I’m going to do the 5% weight loss challenge.  At my present weight (237 this morning) that would mean 12 pounds (how cool would it be to weigh 225 by mid December??).  I’m just starting to read about meditation and haven’t started practicing it yet.  I really want to get into it more before I set a goal, but I think I can decide by next week when the challenge starts.

In a nutshell, I’m a fat guy in his early 30’s who wants to get in shape…

I’ve been overweight since college when the freshman 15 led to the sophomore 20.  I was a smoker back then and when I quit after graduation I put on another 25 pounds or so to bring me to my current weight of around 240 (I’m around 5′9″).  This puts me at a BMI of around 36 which is obese.  No surprises there.

To be successful in my fitness goals it’s going to require some major lifestyle changes.  I lead a pretty sedentary life…sitting at work, sitting in front of the computer/TV at home…I sleep laying down.  I also have a fast-food and take-out pizza/Chinese habit that rivals that guy in Super Size Me.

I’ve tried to get in shape in the past but rarely got past two weeks of working out and healthy eating before I fell back into my old habits.  I’m optimistic that this time will be different.  We have a group program at work that teaches us about healthy eating and I’ve made an appointment to meet with a dietitian at the end of October.

The main reason behind my bad eating habits is laziness.  I actually enjoy cooking on the rare occasions I do it.  My main struggle is with spending an hour or more preparing and cleaning up a meal that takes 15 minutes to eat.  My plan to combat this is to do most of my cooking on the weekends and then freeze portions to eat during the week.  Of course I’ll need to figure out healthy foods that are freezer friendly but we’ll get there.

As far as exercise goes I’ve managed to build up a pretty good collection of fitness books, dvd, and miscellaneous exercise equipment over the last ten years.  Nobody ever told me I have to use this stuff to get results.  Although, I guess I’ve used this equipment at least twice at every place I’ve lived…carrying it into and out of the apartment.

Clearly to be successful I’ll need to start a regular exercise program and strive to be more active outside of my workout time as well.  This weekend I rearranged my apartment and moved all my equipment into my extra bedroom.  Turns out I have a pretty kick-ass home gym with treadmill, bike, dumbbells and a bench.

I plan on starting slowly and focus on building healthy habits.  Walking to work.  Intervals on the bike.  Not stuffing my face with General Tso’s chicken.

I found a good body-weight program that I intend to use for the first couple months.  It’s called Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne.  If you go and check out his site you’ll see he’s pretty aggressive at marketing his products (to the point of being annoying), but with that caveat he does seem to be very knowledgeable and I like the design of the program so I’m glad I could find something to help me get started.

I’ve started this blog to keep myself honest and hopefully learn from others in the fitness blogging community.  I’m learning how to use wordpress so the site will look pretty basic until I get the hang of things.  I plan to update several times a week.  Thanks for reading.