I managed to squeeze in my workout before dinner, let me share it with you.
15 mins Treadmill
1 Dumbbell set
5 mins Treadmill
1 Dumbbell set
5 mins Treadmill
1 Dumbbell set
And then dinner happened.
Once again, I ate Wedged Potatoes and Sliced Beef Steak for dinner.
Sides: broccoli (vegetable), celery (unlimited vegetable), 2 tbsp of light bleu cheese dressing (fat) and a slice of wheat toast (carbohydrate).
It's Friday night, so for the unemployed dieter living in the country, that means video games night. Gots to kill me some people on the internet to sublimate my frustration with the job market. Don't these companies know how awesome I am?
Grabbed a quick microwave lunch, so I should be off to workout after I run this posting.
I had the Tomato & Corn Chowder for the first time for lunch today.
It was a surprise hit, despite the fact that it seemed to contain no meat. I don't know if I'll necessarily add it to my orders in the future, because I only order 14 meals at a time, but it definitely stays on the "edible" list.
I'm going to check a few job boards and modify my iPod Shuffle's workout playlists before I hit the treadmill/weights, but that shouldn't take more than an hour and change. Between that and getting a shower, that should take me through to dinner. It's an absolutely beautiful day out, here, so I may have to go for another drive where I learn just how bad I am with a camera.
Another day, another "thank you for applying for X position, we regret to inform you that X position has been filled" email.
Weight: 321.2 lbs
Body Fat: 46.9%
Water: 40.6%
At least the weight loss news is good. Getting these emails every day and having barely any other contact from companies for the last, oh, more than 9 months, now, is getting fairly discouraging. I know that many of my former coworkers are in the same boat, hell, a large portion of the country is in the same boat, but that thought only gets me so far. Ah, well, it's time to suck it up, eat a late lunch, and get back in the trenches. Today could easily be the day I start a new life with a new company.
Friends, dear friends, I am sad to say that I missed lunch in favor of a workout, earlier. I did, however, enjoy an afternoon snack.
BBQ Soy Chips are awesome, enough said about that.
Dinner was Wedged Potatoes and Sliced Beef Steak, because I apparently have a dozen of the damned things. While I enjoy it, I may have to start branching out soon.
For sides: cauliflower (vegetable), 2 tbsp of light bleu cheese dressing (fat), celery (unlimited vegetable) and a half cup of peas (carbohydrate). Now, time to watch TV while I recompose my shuffle playlists, because I need more phat beats for free stepping.
I became distracted by, you know, trying to find a job, so I forgot to work out until lunch time was almost over. I didn't want to eat, and then be unable to workout until almost dinner time, so I went ahead and booted up the Wii Fit.
Wii Fit Plus
Today's Time: 0:49 Minutes*
Today's Calories: 444
*(I think this counts time spent listening to instructions, ie "now RIGHT! LEFT! LEFT! RIGHT!" etc.)
I think it assumes laziness on the Free Step calories, because I work way harder when I'm doing that then when I'm doing the boxing (and do way more steps than they have as the goal, by about 1/3 or more) and it counts for far fewer calories. Ah well, workout done, time to shower and continue applying for jobs.
Enjoy this picture of a llama.
Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?" - Source
Good times, good times. I would have worked out before breakfast, but I forgot to fix my alarm last night, and didn't get up until 8. I will do my workout before lunch, instead.
For breakfast, I had the Berries & Multigrain Flakes Cereal.
I had my (now standard) wheat toast (carbohydrate) with a bit of chicken (protein) and a juice box (fruit) for sides. This combo of sides really fills me up in the morning, and I don't have any trouble making it to lunch.
Also, a partial gallery of yesterday's country adventure can be found here.
That is all until the workout and lunch update. Now, it's time for the job boards.
So I had my dinner, then I went for a bit of a sunset drive, whose pictures I don't feel like sorting and posting tonight.
Dinner was a Thick Crust Pizza.
As always, not as good as the frozen equivalent, but still good. For sides: cauliflower (vegetable), 2 tbsp of light bleu cheese dressing (fat), celery (unlimited vegetable) and a piece of wheat toast (carbohydrate).
The drive was mostly a success, but I've got about 200 pictures to sort through, many of which are dupes, or too close for it to matter without close inspection, so I'll put sorting them out until at least tomorrow.
So today was my second weights day, but I ended up mucking about with technology. One of the cords for the DDR mat was found last week, so I spent about 45-50 minutes doing that (actual play time ~30 minutes), during which I discovered that one of my old game discs was probably thrown away with an old ps2 that had gone bad. After that, I did my first weight set. I decided to do the lying flat parts of the routine on an incline instead of flat, so as not to be incapable of breathing properly. I then spent 5 minutes on the treadmill to .31 miles, followed by a second weight set. After that, it was lunch time.
Today, I had the frozen Chicken Quesadilla for lunch.
It was a most delicious meal, and I'm sad that I won't have another one for more than a month (I need to seriously deplete my stockpile of foods before I can get another monthly delivery of any kind).
It is a cold, dreary day here, so I'm going to go get my oil changed and then go out on a drive through the countryside with the camera. I sent out a few new job apps this morning, and my heart is full of hope, so cross your fingers for the fatass.
Got up a bit late this morning, and ate breakfast around 8:30, so I think I'll probably work out either late this morning or this afternoon.
For breakfast, I had Low-Fat Granola Cereal.
This is really the best of the cereals (if you like granola) and my favorite shelf breakfast. I also had a slice of wheat toast (carbohydrate), some sliced chicken breast filet (protein) and a juice box (fruit).
That's all I've got for now, I'll report in when I exercise/eat next.
So I forgot to cover dinner last night, breakfast this morning, snack this afternoon, and dinner/dessert this evening, so it's time for a massive update.
Last night, I had the Wedged Potatoes and Sliced Beef Steak.
It was delicious, as always, and I had celery (unlimited vegetable), broccoli (vegetable), 2 tbsp of light ranch dressing (fat) and a slice of wheat toast (carbohydrate) for sides.
Breakfast this morning was the same as it was yesterday, Nutricinnamon Squares Cereal with salmon (protein), wheat toast (carbohydrate) and a juice box (fruit).
For afternoon snack, I had BBQ Soy Chips.
I'm a big fan of these, and they were a very welcome meal since I forgot to eat lunch.
Dinner tonight was the Cheese & Spinach Ravioli with Meat Sauce shelf meal.
For sides, I had 2 tbsp of a new light bleu cheese dressing (fat, and oh sweet jesus, was it worth it), celery (unlimited vegetables) and some cauliflower (vegetable).
With the ravioli, I also had a slice of wheat toast (carbohydrate). These are on the list of non-frozen Italian dishes that are really good, though I didn't enjoy them as much as I usually do, because I've recently had the frozen equivalent.
For dessert, I had a Creamy Fudge Bar.
As previously mentioned, it tastes just like a normal Fudgesicle to me, and is quite a fantastic dessert.
All right, that's all I've got, I promise to get it all out of the way in a more orderly fashion, tomorrow.
I haven't gotten around to posting dinner from last night or breakfast/snack today, so I'll roll them into the dinner entry for tonight, but I thought I should report on my workout.
Wii Fit Plus
Today's Time: 0:33 Minutes
Today's Calories: 268
I did 3 minutes of one of the stupid games at the beginning, some marching band crap, which didn't burn crap for calories, so I probably won't repeat it. I followed this with 10 and then 20 minutes of "Free Step", where you listen to a metronome and step about however you please for a set amount of time, with the intent being that you should take 800 or 1600 steps, respectively. I did a bit better, pulling over 2100 in the longer one, and over 100 in the shorter one. I put on my iPod shuffle because metronomes don't do it for me, and listened to a mix of rap and various flavors of techno.
I love forgetting to turn my alarm on in the morning, it just keeps life so exciting and fresh.
Weight: 323.6 lbs
Body Fat: 46.9%
Water: 40.3%
I've got some emails to write to possible job contacts this morning, and I'll be checking my usual job boards to see if there's anything new happening. I realize I forgot to write a dinner entry last night, and will roll it into the breakfast entry this morning.
Progresso Light, if you're ever curious, is almost exactly like regular Progresso soup, but it's almost entirely broth (I bought a case of it a year ago by mistake). The noodles are a bit off in this stuff, and the "vegetables" component is about 6 peas and a bit of carrot.
This is the 100th entry in the blog (which is ridiculous) and we have a lot of material to cover.
I decided to try breakfast before workout, today, and had Nutricinnamon Squares Cereal.
My sides were wheat toast (carbohydrate), leftover salmon (protein) and a juice box (fruit). This is a slightly unorthodox breakfast, but I was really looking forward to that salmon, and it was delicious.
Sadly, deciding to eat first was not my greatest decision. Some people recommend you eat a small amount before working out, and I'd figured my meals were small enough to qualify. It took me until around 9 for my stomach to settle enough to go and work out, and it was hardly a routine worthy of the moniker.
Here are some of the highlights of my workout routine. As you might guess/know, I have some considerable back problems from various sources, including a certain difficulty with my neck. Additionally, I do not often lie flat on my back, because of the enormous weight on my gut that makes it difficult to get a full breath. Of course, several of the exercises require that you lay flat on your back on the weight bench. I did this today, to my great personal and private embarrassment, and may decide to try these on an incline in the future. Well, this whole thing is partially an exercise in self-flagellation, so I might just keep lying on my back and gasping like a dying trout during my workouts until I can do so comfortably and sexily, like I do everything else.
I did one set of weights, preceded by 15 minutes on the treadmill (walking at 3.5 mph) and followed by 3 minutes on the treadmill (walking at around 3 mph). The thing that really killed me was the lying on my back. This is almost certainly my most pathetic workout on record.
BUT I TAKE HEART! All first workouts are pathetic, and seem more so if you've worked out in the past, because your most recent/fondest memories are of workouts much further along in the process of weight loss/muscle gain. Soon, my pathetic T-Rex arms will be bulging masses of masculinity, and my keg will turn to a six pack, which I will be allowed to fill from a keg, but only if I run in the morning!
The important thing with a beginning workout is to remember that's all it is, your first workout. It gets better, but you must not give in to the shame and despair demons. I'm a firm believer in doing these things at home, if it's at all possible, until such time as it is not completely pathetic to do them at a professional gym. Now, I've got some expensive equipment at my disposal in the treadmill that I'm using, which is necessary for a SERIOUSLY fat man who wants to use one, but there are a great many alternatives for an aerobic workout that can be done on the cheap.
Workout tapes: These are soft and womanly, and your drinking friends will laugh at them. They are also the cheapest and most effective workout you can do in your living room without equipment. The best stuff I've seen are things like the Billy Banks Tae Bo workouts and Step Aerobics. Anyone who's tried these and put in the effort they require knows they're a good fucking workout, and a great many of us who went through gradeschool in the 90's were forced to do Tae Bo in gym at some point.
Craigslist-purchased Equipment: You might get raped by a man in a fur suit. If you're not entirely comfortable with the idea of buying something from a person on Craigslist, you are sane. Keeping this in mind: any exercise equipment you purchase from a classified ad is something that you are going to be responsible for picking up and bringing home, and there's about a 25% chance that the person selling it might be willing to trade sexual favors rather than cash. You're probably primarily going to want to look at machines with few electronic components that are absolutely necessary and few parts that are under high stress. Stationary bikes are your best bet, followed by rowing machines, ellipticals and treadmills.
Test it at the seller's location (just to make sure it works, don't try and actually pull a full workout or do a load of laundry, like SOME people, you know who you are) and only pay or accept cash. Checks, credit cards and PayPal have no place in a classified transaction. Don't meet sellers at night or on farms (replace fur suit with bondage harness), and try not to meet them alone. It's always a good idea to bring a friend (especially because you don't want to lift that 1950's rowing machine into the back of your hatchback alone).
I'm not going to go into all the many rules of internet safety for Craigslist, because other people have written fine guides for the old and the stupid, although the stupid will never listen. Look to the Internet for your answers on that front.
The other thing anyone looking to up their shape at home before possibly joining a gym needs are a couple of dumbbells. You're probably going to need 2 sets of dumbbells to start with, and the 2 weights are going to be determined mostly by biceps and triceps.
Your triceps are pathetic, I just wanted you to know. Anyone who doesn't lift has pathetic triceps, and most people who lift have pathetic triceps compared to their biceps. So your tricep weights are going to probably be much lighter than your bicep weights. Men, you're probably going with 10-15 lbs weights for most of your initial tricep exercises (as shown in the previous Lunch and Working Out article, and at the contained link here) and 20-25 lbs weights for your bicep exercises. Ladies will be anywhere from 5-15 lbs and 15-25 lbs because that is the least sexist way I could come up with to say that they have weaker arms (but often stronger legs). Weights can be picked up cheapest at a place like either Wal-Mart or Target individually. Weightlifting/fitness stores tend to have a ridiculous markup on their dumbbells, and you only need to bother with them for the larger weight sizes (upwards of 40 lbs).
You should feel just fine doing 12 reps with a set of weights in the store, because we're not interested in useless muscle, and you're going to be doing many more than 12 reps. No, we are here to build muscle that helps burn fat, and that means lean, strong muscle that can be punished for hours. High reps and sets are the most important thing. I only did 1 set on everything today, partially because I needed to gauge my reaction. A good beginning set is 3 sets of 12 reps. Eventually, you'll want to be doing many more sets in the same weight class, and then you will move on to higher weight classes where you'll do fewer sets, increasing your number of sets until you are ready for the next weight class, etc etc.
There are other schools of weightlifting, which are mostly designed to produce vanity muscle or competition muscle. I'm not a bodybuilder, I'm not interested in putting oil all over my essentially naked body and flexing on a black stage next to women with a penis-like clitoris. I'm primarily building muscle to be used in other aerobic activities like swimming and climbing (which are both a long way off) and that's what motivates the types of lifting I'll engage in.
You fat folks out there are going to want to pay attention here. If you've been fat for any length of time, and you've not given up and gone Rascal on us, you've probably got slabs of leg muscle under your slabs of fat. You've also got this nice, central weight which is going to be a major impact on anything that is a core or leg exercise. What I'm trying to tell you is that you probably don't need to think about adding weight to your squat or lunge routine just yet
(radio edit)
Now, fat people, the next thing I'm going to tell you is this: fat makes you luckier than your skinny friends. You are luckier, because even as you lose weight, you will burn more calories at a similar weight doing similar activities to your friends, because of your ridiculous thighs. Bigger muscles require more energy to contract, it is that simple, yes? This doesn't mean you can slack on your leg exercises, because your sweet muscles ARE covered in layers of disgusting fat, and you want nice, defined muscles to impress the ladies/guys/albatross.
NB: women with cut thighs kind of scare me, you can keep some meat on those things.
A quick note about gym people. There are going to be basically 3 sorts of people you run into at the gym.
1. People who understand what you're going through and think it's great that you're working out, and are patient with your pathetic ineptitude. Men, you'll find many women like this, both fat and skinny. Women, you're kinda fucked, here. Women are bitches to you, and we men aren't interested in fat chicks. Look for fat guys, they will be your friend (or the secret former fat guys, they will also be your friend)
2. People who understand what you're going through and think it's great but don't really give a shit about you and want you to get the fuck out of their way so they can continue their workout. Patient to a point, but not really ready to help you figure out the Nautilus machines.
3. People who want you to get your fat disgusting ass out of their way so they can workout. Certain types of teenage athletes, bodybuilders, and gym rats are these. There's nothing to be done but avoid these people. No matter what you do (fat or thin) they are angry and impatient (and quite possibly dealing with profound testicular shrinkage).
You're going to most often run into type 3 at Bally's-type gyms, which should be avoided by people trying to get through serious weight loss. A much better bet are YMCA or Gold's Gyms, where you'll run into plenty of regular gym folk who are courteous as well as plenty of other fatasses.
Damn, I went pretty far afield with this entry.
SNACK!
I ate another salmon morsel and a juice box for my snack (protein and fruit) and now I need to get my shower.
Dinner was a fairly typical affair, with foods you've seen before, but some exciting dishes for the other members of the household.
I had the Glazed Chicken Tenders, which are a decent meal.
For sides: celery (unlimited vegetable), a slice of wheat toast (carbohydrate), broccoli (vegetable) and 2 tbsp of light dressing (fat).
I've been really hungry today, and dinner did a good job of hitting the spot.
Dessert was the Fudge Swirl Sundae sans accompaniment.
It's about what you'd expect from a fat-free ice cream cup. It tastes alright, but there are certainly better frozen treats in existence.
Other members of the family enjoyed some nice salmon baked with mustard and seasoning (no oil).
Fortunately, since it was prepared this way, those of us on Nutrisystem will be able to partake of these 1 oz portions I measured. The portion on the scale is a bit less than half an ounce (it was what was left after I portioned out the rest). I was sorely tempted to consume the morsel (it was only half an ounce) but I kept the faith, and remained strong! I will speak to you tomorrow of newer things.
The morning has flown by, with little to nothing getting done. This is not such a bad thing, as it was time booked for sleep, anyway.
Lunch was the Toasted Ham & Cheese frozen meal.
I'm still kinda hungry, post-lunch. I'll be keeping busy for the rest of the afternoon to try and ignore that fact, I might even eat my afternoon snack. I'll probably just read for most of the afternoon, but I may actually get some job application research done. Oh, I also finished up a preliminary workout sheet that I'm going to use:
Dumbbell Side Bend
#/set
Sets
Weight
Bent Arm Lateral
#/set
Sets
Weight
Flat Dumbbell Press
#/set
Sets
Weight
Bent-Over Two-Arm Dumbbell Rowing
#/set
Sets
Weight
Seated Side Lateral Raise
#/set
Sets
Weight
Standing Dumbbell Triceps Curl
#/set
Sets
Weight
Seated Bent-Over Triceps Extension
#/set
Sets
Weight
Seated Dumbbell Curl
#/set
Sets
Weight
Stanidng Inner-Biceps Curl
#/set
Sets
Weight
Seated Palms-Up Wrist Curl
#/set
Sets
Weight
Dumbbell Front Lunge
#/set
Sets
Weight
Dumbbell Side Lunge
#/set
Sets
Weight
Standing Dumbbell Toe Raise
#/set
Sets
Weight
Elliptical/ Treadmill
Speed
Time
Distance
E/T/DDR
Apparently, Excel copying and pasting into blogger doesn't work all that well, but you get the general idea. I'm sure I'll be adding to this and modifying it as the days go on, but I'm thinking that I'll be doing a MWF schedule, with initial goals of 3 sets/12 reps for each exercise. Interval training, where I hit 15 minutes on the treadmill/elliptical/DDR between each set (15 minutes sounds like a good number, right?).
Edit: Reference this for what I'm doing. I basically took this routine and created easy documentation for it. We begin after breakfast tomorrow.
There are a great many lovely features to a new home, networked fire alarms are not the best of them.
Breakfast this morning was a bowl of Cluster Crunch Cereal.
I had my typical egg (protein)/wheat toast (carbohydrate)/juice box (fruit) sides combo and a diet soda.
Of course, it's Sunday, and I'd had no intention of waking up on time for breakfast. I stumbled out of bed to use the washroom around 8, and was on my way back to bed when an alarm started going off above my head. The damned things are awful, the one on the first floor gets set off by sausage being cooked with the vent off, and all the bedroom ones go off 5 seconds later.
I mean, it's not like they're trying to lull us into a false sense of security, waiting for us to finish letting our guard down so they can take over and destroy us all, right?
So I didn't eat all day, and there were some intestinal issues that kept me from getting much done, but I did manage dinner.
The frozen Ravioli Formaggio is, as with the other frozen foods, much better than the other non-froze equivalent.
Along with the ravioli, I also had some celery (unlimited vegetable), broccoli (vegetable) and 2 tbsp of light dressing (fat).
I also had a piece of wheat toast (carbohydrate) with the entree, which is always nice to have to mop up sauce.
For dessert, I enjoyed a Double Chocolate Almond Cookie.
This is one of the better of the non-ice cream treats.
The other members of the family enjoyed the fruits of a journey to the farmer's market, after some appetizers and beer.
Some nice highly fresh turkey sausage on the grill. This stuff smells just like regular pork Italian sausage, and was mighty tempting, so I decided to hide in another room from the delicious sausages.
We may or may not engage in the gaming this evening. At least one member of the standard crew is out for the evening, and I'm not totally stoked about the idea, right now. I'm in the mood for some ODST firefighting tonight, so maybe I'll try and convert some folks to the cause. Since we don't have the achievement hanging over our heads, I think it may be amusing to go for some higher scores on other maps. I know I need a fourth to round out the crew, at least, so maybe I'll turn to the internet for a random player.
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