I got up at 3:15 a.m. and headed out to the gym.  Today was my cardio day, so I got on the treadmill and cranked out a nice HIIT session with 1 minute intervals.  I did that for 30 minutes and then went to work.  I had a jam packed morning followed by a meeting filled afternoon.

After my afternoon meeting, I headed to the gym for HIIT session #2 for the day.  It felt great to be consistent and get to the gym as scheduled.  I had alot of energy during the workouts.  I am looking forward to more deadlifting tomorrow, but for today, the cardio work will suffice.

I spent some time in the car today listening to the new Led Zeppelin station on XM and thinking about what it means to be consistent.  I am not talking about the obvious meanings, I'm talking about the deeper meanings.  Consistency means so many different things.  The following are some quotations I found on the matter:

“A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance.” — Benjamin Disraeli

“Without consistency there is no moral strength.” — Owen

To me, being consistent means doing things regularly.  It means not missing a workout as best you can.  It means working hard constantly.  Consistency is what brings you to the gym to do your workouts.

Until tomorrow…

 

So here I am at Day 24 of my first mission.  As my previous post today mentioned, I had a decent workout today and did a good amount of cardio as well.  I am aiming towards my goals and can't believe that I beat my first goal milestone. 

 

I just wonder about people sometimes.  I see people at the gym and they have all been going there for as long or longer than me.  I notice that most of them have had no results at all.  It is so common that the gym sells their personal training packages based on the idea that it is normal for people to see no results without a personal trainer's assistance.  But what I wonder is how these people can continually put in such effort and be satisfied with not seeing any results.  Yes, there are those that aren't really putting in an effort, but I see many who are putting in an intense effort at the gym.  I can only assume their lack of results is due to their nutrition.  Why aren't they at the point where they have to do something about it?  I mean, I got to that point myself.

 

I couldn't go another day without results.  I thought “Why am I spending so much time sweating if I'm not going to see results that I like?”  That's when I decided to do something about it.  I wonder what it will take for these other people. It makes me want to stop them and ask questions.  In fact, when I hit my ultimate goals, I plan to bring a picture of my old self and stop them and ask them why they can't go from what I looked like (and they currently look like) to where I will be at that point.  The idea isn't to say “Hey, look at me” but rather to say “I wish you would take control of your health and do something about it.”  Obviously these people care because they wouldn't be at the gym if they didn't, but they really need to take control like the Shredders are doing.  I'm not really sure yet why this bothers me so much.

 

I had a little surprise waiting for me in the mailbox yesterday. 

 

Here I am with my RTP Shredder shirt! I love what this shirt represents and that's why I picked one up. Yes, my RTP shredder shirt arrived!  I will wear it proudly and can't wait until my stomach is so flat and chest so big that the words pop out at you when I wear the shirt. I plan to wear this shirt when I workout tomorrow to remind me that I need to Eat Clean Shred Hard Think BIG! Well, I've rambled enough for one day.  I wish I could figure out why certain things bother me so much.  I wonder how much of it has to do with how my own mindset was for so long? “Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” — Edward Stanley Until tomorrow…

Today is the start of the RTP Group Shred Phase 2.  You can read more about it at Adam Water's blog. 

I got up today and headed to the gym straight away.  I got there and started my workout.  The first and second set went smoothly with me achieving the goals I had for those sets.  The third set was disaster.  On my front squats, the bar slipped a little and I was unable to complete the 11 reps (doing only 10). I was severely disappointed and headed on to the next exercise, assisted chin ups.  Due to my disappointment, my mental state wasn't strong enough and I also failed to hit the goal for the chin ups on that set.  I powered ahead and when I hit the 60 second rest period, I visualized myself completing the front squats even if the bar slipped.  I stepped up to the bar and started the 4th set.  On rep 6 the bar slipped again.  This time I powered ahead and finished off 5 more reps for 11 total.  I also managed to make my goal on the chin ups and finished the giant set strong.

Overall this was a good workout. I  did my weights and finished with 20 minutes of steady cardio.  I kept my heart rate at 80% of max.  I listened to a podcast from Marc David about Nino Savona, a bodybuilder with a severe disability who has overcome that disability by using the attitude of no excuses!  It motivated me to say the least and I just spent a few minutes looking at Nino's blog.  I suggest you read it for some extra motivation.  Christy, you are gonna find it as amazing as I did!

My workout log is below:

Exercise	Weight/Reps
Front Squat	135 x 11 135 x 11 135 x 10 (Bar slipped) 135 x 11
Chin-ups (assisted)	(150) 11  (150) 11  (150) 10  (150) 11
Step ups	35 x 12 35 x 12 35 x 12 35 x 12
Dumbbell push press	45 x 11 45 x 11 45 x 11 45 x 11
Back Squat	75 x 20 75 x 20
Lat pulldown	75 x 20 75 x 20
Step ups	20 x 20 20 x 20
Dumbbell overhead press	35 x 20 35 x 20

This wasn't an incredible workout by my standards, but it did the job.  Some days you have a great workout and others you don't, but the key is to just forge ahead.

My day 24 pictures will follow later today along with a topical post.

Until later…

I just completed my second cardio session of the day.  This time I did it Body for Life style.  I started out at 3.5 MPH for 2 minutes then I did several intervals.  My cardio workout looked like this:

Minute	Speed
1	3.5 MPH
2	3.5 MPH
3	4.5 MPH
4	5.5 MPH
5	6.5 MPH
6	7.5 MPH
7	4.5 MPH
8	5.5 MPH
9	6.5 MPH
10	7.5 MPH
11	4.5 MPH
12	5.5 MPH
13	6.5 MPH
14	7.5 MPH
15	4.5 MPH
16	5.5 MPH
17	6.5 MPH
18	7.5 MPH
19	8.5 MPH
20	3.5 MPH

Looking at the above picture lets me know that I can, indeed, make my goals.  Just 23 days into this and I can already see how my stomach is really thinning out.  My chest is tighter and after measuring today, I've lost fat in my chest area as well.  It is odd because I would have thought my stomach would first have shrunk inward from front to back and then from side to side, but the opposite is happening.  I am thinner on the sides than I was 23 days ago.  It is all very motivational just when I need it the most.

Yesterday I talked about being exhausted in my workout (see Mission 1, Day 22: Exhaustion).  The feeling, as I described, was an awesome one.  I woke up this morning with the feeling that I had definitely worked my lower back (deadlifts) and I could feel my traps were quite sore (deadlifts, 2 point row).  My one disappointment was my chest.  It didn't feel sore at all…until I touched it that is.  Well, the disappointment quickly went away when I discovered that. Obviously, the exhaustion I felt was from working out to the fullest of my abilities.  I left everything I had on the gym floor yesterday. 

Today is a cardio day. As it is still early, I went and did a HIIT session this morning.  I will do another tonight.  It feels good, so good!

My nutrition is driving me crazy.  Yesterday ended up way too high in fat.  Today I'm struggling to meet my ratios.  It is a low carb day, but the carbs are honestly way too low right now.  I have not been having my usual yogurt and fruit and I think that is why my carbs are way too low at the present time.  I am going to have to make some small adjustments over the next few days to get things back to where they need to be.  I know my body and soon it will start complaining if I don't get things back to where they are supposed to be.  At the same time, it is all an experiment anyway. 

Tomorrow marks the next big milestone for the Shredder Council.  We begin a 12 week shred that ends on January 8, 2008.  I am so excited about the prospects of what we can all do during the next 12 weeks.  It is an amazing feeling really.  When you have the support of complete strangers who are all seeking the same types of goals as you it is possible to achieve anything.  The fact that I know they are there holding me accountable drives me forward.  I work alot harder because of their influence.  It is strange but wonderful at the same time.

It is about time for me to change up my cardio workouts. I am still sticking with 2 cardio sessions on non-lifting days and 1 on lifting days, but I think I'm going to go back to using The Cardio Coach workouts as they are structured and I need that.  Because the cardio coach workouts are longer, I think the plan will be to use them for 3 workouts each week.  I will have 8 cardio workouts a week, so I will use cardio coach for just less than half of those workouts.

That's it for now.  Until tomorrow…