travis' brain dump

So the end of week 3, beginning of week 4 results are in:

239.4 lbs @ 21.33% bodyfat

Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I hit my goal of 2lbs for the week and managed to drop the bodyfat down further. 🙂

Summary of results thus far:

START:  246.2 lbs @ 24.31% bodyfat
EOWK1: 245.4 lbs @ 23.46% bodyfat
EOWK2: 241.4 lbs @ 21.94% bodyfat
EOWK3: 239.4lbs @ 21.33% bodyfat

Total Weight Lost to date:     6.6 lbs
Total BodyFat Lost to date:  2.98%

So far for the year it’s looking pretty good. I upgraded my version of my tracking software at the beginning of the year so I don’t have last year end summaries anymore since I couldn’t retain that data with the software. 🙁 Just looking at pictures though it’s pretty crazy. Amanda and I were comparing pictures of me last February to pictures from today and it’s amazing. I can’t wait to see the difference when April 4th rolls around. 🙂

It never fails…

You finish off a holiday season and you come back to chaos! 😀

Actually it’s not that bad. It’s just been really busy since I got back to work. I had fully intended on writing this blog out a couple of weeks ago only to be delayed consistently with things going on. Anyway, on with the show…

I had mentioned prior to the new year posting up results and such on my latest rounds of working out with Andy. One of those ‘let the knowledge that others are watching drive you to complete the task at hand’ kind of things. Well, here I am. Granted we’ve been back on it for 3 weeks now but it’s never too late to start posting up the fun.

Before I get started on me, there are some funny observations to cover and some advice to hand out. Anyone who hits the gym on a regular basis will understand fully where I’m coming from here.

Do you ever notice how trying to hit the gym in January is like trying to go shopping on Black Friday? Not only is it completely impossible to work with your usual routine without constant interruption to your normal flow, but it’s usually interruption by the absolute worst perpetrator possible, the gym noob. Most of the time, these poor souls make desperate New Year resolutions to lose weight that only ends in their own disaster and embarassment. They seem to come into the gym and see everyone in there busting out workout routines that they have been doing for months and try to “fit in”. They only end up getting in the way or more often getting hurt. Seriously folks, you will experience first hand the EPIC FAIL that will end your resolution as quickly as you came up with it. You will not meet your goal, you will not lose weight and you will only get frustrated and continue to get larger if you rush into something for some stupid reason like a New Year’s resolution.

If you are truly concerned about your weight and would like to take steps to resolve those concerns, take some advice and do one of three things:

a) Get yourself a trainer, someone who can review your current fitness level and help you with a plan to meet your goals. This individual will be your gateway to a new, more fit lifestyle if you take to heart their advice and accept the structure they give you.

b) Get a workout buddy who has lots of experience and will help you start slow and ramp your way into a full blown routine. While this is not exactly using a trainer, if you have a friend who you feel can really help you, try it. If it doesn’t work, you can always choose another alternative.

c) Do some research. Don’t just show up at the gym expecting to dive right in and learn what to do by looking at what other people are doing. You will not figure it out the secret to weight loss and getting in shape. Go online, pick up a book, talk to people, etc… learn what it is you can do to meet your needs and create a routine that works for your fitness level and beyond. 

Most importantly, please go see a doctor if you have any health concerns.

Regardless of the method you choose remember two things when you are at the gym with other people around you. It’s not about the size of the weight you’re using or how fast you can move on a cardio machine. DO NOT get caught up in what everyone else is doing and try to ‘fit in’. You will fail. If you are weight training, pick a weight that works for you. It’s all about form and motion, not about how much you can lift. If anyone gives you a bad time for using a lighter weight or moving a little slow, ignore them. More than likely they will be the one to fail due to poor attitude and lack of intelligence in the first place and so long as you stay focused you can exceed even your own expectations when you come out on the other side.

Ok, enough with the advice column and on to my workout progress thus far. 🙂

Prior to heading out on vacation I had come close to hitting my previous goal of 230 (from 264). A little bit of a bummer but hey, I still lost 25 lbs coming in at 239 and hitting a bodyfat percentage of 19.83%. I can’t complain. Of course, like the holidays do, they added back some of that weight. I did pretty good considering all the fun stuff I ate and tallied in at 246.2 just prior to starting this latest round of working out. The more sad thing was having the bodyfat land at 24.31%. Oh well. That’s why I started another round. 🙂

So far so good, the results are as follows:

Week 1 -> 246.2 lbs/24.31% BF
Week 2 -> 245.4 lbs/23.46% BF
Week 3 -> 241.4 lbs/21.94% BF

I’m interested to see how this week will turn out, hopefully pretty decent but we’ll see. With a huge jump in week two I may be looking at something more modest this week. 2lbs/week is the goal though so as long as I stick to it, I should see 220 by April4th. It’s been hard to get in all the cardio I want but the drive is at least still there. I’ll actually post up some pictures when I hit the end of this round since it will give a good view of a year worth of changes. If that’s not something to motivate me to get this goal I don’t know what is, lol.

What lies beyond? Probably not much… lol 220 would more than likely put me back in a pair of 34’s with the rate I’ve been changing out fat for muscle so going beyond that may be futile. We’ll see though as I start to creep closer to my goal. Either way, 25 lbs down, 21.4 lbs to go. 😀

I will be posting up the weekly results to keep myself in check. Even if they are bad. *shrug* it’s not like I’m on “The Biggest Loser” and have Jillian or Bob in my face about not hitting a good number in a week… I just want to post losses in the form of wins, no matter how big or small.

Wow, so Andy brought something incredible to my attention… I have gone almost two months without a post. 🙁

I guess to some degree I have some decent excuses, but not really. I can’t really blame non-blog activity on being thrown on your butt by H1N1 for a few weeks… If anything my blogging activity should have gone up but instead it was only my gamer score did on Xbox Live, LOL. 🙂 Alas, I was sick for a few weeks, hammered with some projects at work that destroyed my evenings and when that stuff wasn’t going on I just plain didn’t care. *shrug* I know, it’s bad.

So let’s see here… I added some new pictures of the kiddos and some misc stuff out there. Feel free to check them out. Some pics from Halloween, Travis Jr’s 1st birthday and some pics in between. Nothing too major, but the pictures are pretty much up to date at least.

Events of the last month and a half…. Halloween, Travis, Amanda and Andy’s birthdays, a couple four day weekends and reconnecting with a much missed friend that I lost touch with for almost 15 years. All in all, pretty productive on the personal front and most definitely some definite positives in there. The only real negative in there was getting sick… As I said I’m pretty sure I ended up with H1N1 literally kicking in the day after Halloween and leaving some lasting effects which pretty much destroyed most of November for me. In between days when I was so tired and hurt so bad that I didn’t want to move I found a way to work so I didn’t blow up too much of my PTO. I also managed to squeeze in a few hours a night about twice to three times a week to catch up on projects and work that was lingering so I didn’t get behind. Let’s just say by the time I made it to Thanksgiving weekend I was happy to see a 4 days weekend and repeat the process a week later and alas, here I am.

Only one more week for the most part and I get to journey home for Christmas. I can’t believe I haven’t been there since 2005. The time has flown… somehow in the last 4 years I’ve pretty much managed to completely change my life from the person I was then. Kinda strange. In no particular order I’ve re-married, had another kid, quit drinking, got really physically motivated and started up a cyclical workout plan that has increased my muscle mass quite a bit and dropped 10 points of body fat.

Speaking of the fitness related stuff… That front hasn’t stopped. It’s been lingering there all along despite having dropped blogging about it all the time. I think perhaps when Andy and I start up again in January I might get slightly more religious about putting up some results on a regular basis. Andy, wow… He started up with me 3 months ago and we have brought him leaps and bounds from where he was. He’s even quit smoking! I can’t wait to see him hit round 2 of this in January and see how well he does. As I stated, I’ve made some major progress.. I’ve gained a few inches on my chest, biceps and forearms while dropping ~5-6″ off my waist. Currently I seem to be stuck at about 240… it’s soo hard to drop the weight when you’re at a point you’re just packing on muscle as you’re burning off fat but at least I’m seeing measurement results that keep me motivated while the scale struggles. Regardless, it’s still nice to see that despite gaining some weight back in mass, I’m still down 25+ lbs from where I started so there’s a win. 🙂 

Well, I think that sums it up for the most part… I’m going to try to get back to my mischievous posts and updates over the next few weeks. Wish me luck… LOL

So,  I guess I succesfully went a whole month without a single post. That NEVER happens. (lol)

Not a whole lot to report. Sure I’ve had my ideas of rants, but not time to put them down. They finally assigned some help to me at work so hopefully I’ll see some of the workload balancing out sometime in the near future. I certainly hope so as much more of this and I’m liable to lose my mind and “off myself” as James so delicately puts it when describing his bad days, lol. At least I have 4 more days off work to look forward to. Maybe I can find something constructive to do other than sit around playing video games the whole time. 🙂

On that note, working out has been going well. Amanda and I just started actually doing some really good recording at the beginning of August and I’m actually seeing much better results in both of us. It renews the goals and keeps us focused. When we started recording at the beginning of August I was at about 25% bodyfat. EEEK! However, within a matter of a few weeks I’m already down to 22% and steadily dropping. If the trend keeps up I should be somewhere closer to 20% this weekend when we take our measurments. We’re still keeping up with the P90X routine with some other stuff tossed in along with it. I took up running again, except this time I got a bit more serious with it. My long runs are about 3.5 miles and my short runs are 1.8 miles. I typically put in a long run Mon-Wed-Friday and short ones on Tues-Thurs-Sat. Typically Saturdays over the summer were skipped due to push mowing a 1/3 acre slot of grass but with winter approaching I’ll probably start throwing that in as well. All in all it feels really good to run, the only thing keeping me from increasing the distance on my long runs is really time. 40 minutes is about all I want to take out of my day in the evenings for “working out” due to my daily schedule. Up at 430, workout til 530, shower, head to park and ride at 6, work by 645, home at 5, run til 6, dinner, shower, hour to relax/read/whatever, then sleep… rinse repeat. LOL

All in all I can’t complain. Despite being extremely busy this last month has been a pretty decent one. At the beginning of August we piled into the Highlander and headed up to Bear Lake in Utah for a famliy reunion on my mother-in-law’s side. It was definitely a trip with it’s ups and downs, lol. It was however, good to see Amanda’s family and participate in some activities out there like seeing the Minnetonka Caves. Arwen had a blast of course playing with all her bazillion cousins and being spoiled by Amanda’s parents. We also had the chance to go to Chase’s wedding in Logan, Utah. Talk about timing, the guy got married the day after we arrived and only 30 minutes away. Chase of course jokes that he planned it that way… crazy guy. It was definitely good to see him again and meet his new wife, Shelly. Congrats again to you both! 🙂 

Arwen is just growing in leaps and bounds. She lost her first tooth (pictures will be uploaded after this post) a couple of weeks ago and she started first grade just a couple days later. It amazes me to actually think about it since it seems like just yesterday she was born. Travis Jr, is growing like crazy too. The lil guy has officially figured out that ‘ ma ma ‘ gets his mother’s attention and has proceeded to use it whenever he wants her. It’s cute and annoying at the same time. Despite the fact he’s been saying ‘ da da ‘ for a couple months this is the first sign of him actually “using a word” so the win goes to Amanda for him saying “mama” first. 🙂 The lil guy is also crawling around now… not proficiently but none the less he is mobile and dangerous. I also suspect it won’t be long (few months) before he’s trying to take his first steps as he is able to hold pretty steady on those legs. Considering how quickly he went from sitting assisted to sitting up on his own, I think we’re in for it for sure. 🙂

Ok, well if I’m going to upload some photos before going for a run, I’d better end here. Perhaps September will hold more time for me to get back to blogging. 🙂