Run. Run. Run.

Well, so far I'm keeping up with my workout schedule. I'm doing my weight regimen with plenty of rest. I'm running three times a week. I'm pretty excited about sticking to this. Here's the breakdown:

Sunday: Chest/back/abs
Monday: Run
Tuesday: Squats (50), shoulders/biceps/triceps, ab work
Wednesday: Run
Thursday: Squats, lunges
Friday: Run, ab work
Satuday: Small hike in NH

One change I made is that I'm running in the morning before work. So yeah, I'm actually waking up earlier than usual for something that isn't quite fun. Plus, I shower at the gym...*shudders*. But the feeling of knowing you got a difficult workout out of the way is out of this world. It beats getting off work and knowing you have to spend an hour to hour and half working out and showering. Leaves time for the other wonderful mundate tasks of my work week routine.

Again, diet is still a toughie for me. Friday night, instead of going for Subway for a $5 footlong, I opted for Boston Market. Bad decision. The grease made me feel sick. Let's not even talk about the weekend. I know I might be a bit harsh on myself, but I aim for 100% adherence to my diet mainly because I know I would only achieve 70 - 80%. If I aim for 80%, I might only hit 50 - 60%. Hence, the bland healthy food during work. I know I won't eat as healthy at night and on the weekends, so I build insurance in. I work against my weakness. But anyway, with the consistent workouts and a critical eye on food, I've managed to lose quite a bit this week. Check it out for yourself.


Last weigh-in:
175.5 lb (on a Sunday!!)

Finally made it to the gym

So I finally made it to the gym for my cardio sessions. Only did one last week, but for this week, I've already made it in once. I'm on track for my 2-3/week. Here's the breakdown:

Sunday: Chest/Back/Abs
Monday: None
Tuesday: Squats (50), lunges (25 each), shoulders/biceps/triceps
Wednesday: Run
Thursday: Lunges (25 each), squats (50), weighted squats (20, 20), weighted calf raises (60 total)
Friday: None
Saturday: None

I'm not sure if it's because of my ab routine, but I was able to run longer than usual without cramping up (that's how poor my cardio health is). But I thought I made a great effort on the first run. I went back last night and made even better progress. I'm pretty excited about running 2-3 times a week. Weights-wise, I'm still sticking to my 2-3 times a week. I stuck to that pretty well, except for the legs routine. Hope to change that as I go to the gym a bit more.

I made a change to the weight routine. I went from 10-lb dumbbells to 15-lb dumbbells (will drop reps from 15 to 10). My muscles can support it. It's just the shoulder I have to worry about. I'm also going to cut out the rotator-cuff exercises like I did with the diagonal raises. I've already determined that my injury is not muscle related, so I want to limit the stress my joint goes through. When the shoulder gets better, I'll add the exercises back in as a preventative measure. I'm going to feel out how the heavier weight feels. I might start a cycle where I lay off the weights for a week or two at a time to give it more rest. In the past, whenever I took a week or two off, I actually got stronger and didn't have to lower my weights when I went back to it.

Diet-wise, I'm still pretty bad at nights and weekends. I'm still eating breakfast and good snacks to keep my metabolism up, but some of the dinners I eat are not what I'd ideally eat. I'm good in terms of keeping my portions in check. I'm pretty good with keeping bad snacks out of my system, such as skipping snack size Butterfingers (85 calories!) or a stick of Twizzlers (35 calories) and going for a handful of low or no sodium nuts instead. I try to keep sugar to a minimum, which isn't so hard for me as I don't have a tremendous sweet tooth and I love my coffee black and sugar-free.

My weight is mostly constant, but what I'm curious about is my body fat. Haven't tested since the initial test, so I don't really have a good idea where I'm at. I do notice I'm a bit leaner and my clothes fit looser, but no hard numbers. Anyway, looking forward to a good week this week. Already at day three!

Last weigh-in:
177.5 lb

Dry steak??

I went to Stockyard Restaurant in Brighton off of I90 the other week with some friends. I didn't pick it, but I always see it when I'm on the Pike, so I thought why not? I wasn't quite pleased with the experience.

The restaurant itself has a sort of charm to it. The interior was very woody and gives you a sense that it was around a while. Who knows, it might've been. We sat in the main dining room and there was a this huge bar in the middle. Very open. It took a while for us to get served. There was this larger set waiter that kept flying from table to table, and I was hoping he wouldn't be serving us. I was wrong. After managing to flag him down, he hastily took our order and rushed off. Our first impression of him was that he was either new or a very bad waiter. We mostly agreed on the latter.

I ordered a "Land and Sea" - 8-oz sirloin and three stuffed shrimp. As usual, I got my steak medium rare. We also ordered an appetizer sampler. The sampler was decent, but fatty appetizers tend to be good. Fat makes food tasty. Entrees came a bit later. My steak looked good, but I was very surprised to find that my steak was not seasoned at all. I'm used to places where the kitchen has seasoned the steak enough so that it complements the natural flavors. I very rarely use any other sauces/condiments on my steak, but this steak tasted like unseasoned beef. Salt and pepper kinda helped, but I maintained my no sauce on my steak rule (I probably should've given in to some A1). The steak was cooked right; warm red center. However, it was dry. I was stunned. How can a medium-rare steak be dry? That goes against all laws of nature for steak!! I know it was a sirloin, but come on, it was blood red! To top it off, one side of my steak had this tough chewy fat running along it. Great. On a good note, the broiled stuff shrimp was good. Again, fat makes things tasty. I had a baked potato, too, but you can't get that wrong. One of my friend's had this steak covered in this mushroom sauce. He liked his steak fine, but the sauce probably covered any deficiencies in the steak.

After dinner, we passed on dessert and got the check. The waiter deemed our party of six as large and added an 18% gratuity on the bill. When I got my credit slip, there was a line for "additional tip". I laughed at that. For what I paid, I could've went to Texas Roadhouse for a dependable tasty steak. It's a "No" to Stockyard.

Taking glucosamine now

So, my shoulder is starting to feel better. I'm on the new weights schedule, and it's definitely enough rest for my body. Just not sure how severe my shoulder is, so I'm paying very close attention to it to see if I should stop the weights. Here's the breakdown:

Monday: Squats (50), lunges (25 each), Chest/Back/Abs
Tuesday: Calf raises (90)
Wednesday: Squats (50), Shoulders/Biceps/Triceps
Thursday: Calf raises (90)
Friday: Squats (50)
Saturday: None

I did manage to sign up for Planet Fitness. I just haven't gone yet. Haha. I do plan on going tonight for a quick cardio workout. Most likely a short treadmill workout. My diet is okay. Nights and weekends still are weak spots. But I'm pretty good at work in term so breakfast, lunch, and snacks. I'm missing my mark with the water, but I try to make up for it outside of work. I feel I am leaning out a bit, even without the cardio, but I'm sure the cardio will ramp it up a notch. Besides, I want the cardio to condition myself for the hiking I will be doing this summer.

I also started taking glucosamine three times a day. There are arguments for which one to take - glucosamine sulfate versus glucosamine hydrochloride. I solved that with a glucosamine complex with 300 mg of glucosamine sulfate and 200 mg of glucosamine HCL in each tablet. Three times daily makes it 1500 mg. Seems to be helping, but then again the progress in my shoulder could be from the rest I give it with my new weights schedule.

I really really want my shoulder to get better in a hurry so I can start some rock climbing. It's something I've always wanted to do. But I don't want to put any unnecessary stress on my shoulder until it's done. One of my friends who had a shoulder injury said it took him five months of no upper body training for his shoulder to recover from tendinitis. Yeesh... Like I said, I'm willing to stop the weights, but five months is a long time. We'll see how it goes.




Last weigh-in:
178.0 lb (on a Sunday too!)

Okay week...

I definitely overworked my shoulders. But I did switch to a schedule that's not as intense and has more rest time. I didn't make it to Planet Fitness to sign up; I had a few dinners during the week and didn't feel like walking in before bedtime to sign up. Here's the breakdown:

Monday: Squats (50), lunges (25 each), BBS
Tuesday: Calf raises (90), counter pushups (30)
Wednesday: Squats (50), lunges (25 each), CTA
Thursday: Chest isometric (60), calf raises (90)
Friday: Squats (50)
Saturday: None
Sunday: None

I'm still doing mini-workouts for the legs. I did take out any upper body exercises except for BBS and CTA at home. This week I plan on splitting my workouts differently with some cardio at Planet Fitness (I know, I say this every week). If after this week, my shoulder still feels weird, then I will stop all upper body workouts till it heals.

I'm still doing fine with my eating habits. Trying hard to resist certain foods. I don't deprive myself, but I'm pretty good during work hours. After hours and on weekends, I try to be picky with what I eat, but allow myself not-so-good food in moderation. For example, I had some sushi with spicy mayo (gasp!), one Popeye's Cajun french fry (soooo good), and sugar-free non-fat frozen yogurt with peanut butter cups mixed in (sugar!!) on Friday night. So I try to cut when and where I can while allowing myself some guilty pleasure. Besides, I know once Monday hits, it's back to bland-food-city.

Last weigh-in:
179.0 lb

So...maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all...

I've had my Acer Aspire One for a bit, and while I appreciate the ultra portability very much, I'm not quite satisfied. I don't miss the CD/DVD drive that much. I barely use it, but it does stink a bit not having one. The main thing I'm frustrated about is the performance.

At first, I thought performance wouldn't be an issue for me. I mean, I only use my machine at home to surf and play music/videos. Problem with that is that I multi-task and I'm impatient. When I surf, I have multiple tabs/windows open. Sometimes, I might even have music playing. When I click on a program to open, I expect it within 1-2 seconds. The Intel Atom chip just can't provide that performance. So, as much as I hate to say it, the Aspire One probably wasn't a good idea. I suppose it's great for a vacation computer. I did take it with me on my road trip. It was very nice to have a computer last 5 hours. It was very nice to have it be so portable. But when I'm at home, it's lacking.

Another thing with the Aspire One was a manufacturing design issue. They placed the HDD too close to the right speaker. There was an article online that certain songs played at full volume causes vibrations from the right speaker to affect the HDD. It can disturb the HDD to the point of permanent damage/data loss. Anyway, I think that kinda happened last Monday. Now, my machine is sluggish with certain actions. Songs and videos lag now too. I suppose it didn't help that I've dropped my Aspire One a couple times, though it was a short fall to carpet. Powering on and hibernating is taking longer now too. So my slow machine has become even slower.

Overall, I miss having a full-powered laptop. I really really like the Aspire One's portability, but for me it sacrificed just a bit too much. I'll be looking for a deal on a nice 13.1" or even another 14.1" laptop now. And with my luck, I will go for a Dell with a SquareTrade warranty (I'll probably put in a claim for my Aspire too) or a machine from Best Buy with an extended warranty. I don't believe in manufacturer's warranties anymore.