Day 5

Although I didn't immerse myself completely into this nutritional adjustment on Saturday, I still consider it the beginning. Baby steps had been taken in the week prior by removing calorie-laden beverages from the menu and replacing them with water and green tea (sometimes flavored with Splenda, which has its own issues...Interestingly, it was discovered by scientists developing pesticides), and now I have completely given myself to this new way of eating.

Probably one of the greatest tips I've received in the first 5 days is the art of "sneaking" calories in and out of your diet. Although many people are in the diet game to lose weight, there are still plenty looking to put on muscle. Sneaking is effective at both. The basis behind it is that you are not technically going to be consuming less food, but you will be consuming fewer calories.

For example, you can take replace the sugar in your coffee for a no-calorie sweetener like Splenda or stevia, switch up your yogurt for low-fat yogurt (or vice versa if you're looking to put weight on), or you could just switch from high fat ground beef to a lean grass-fed variety. All of these are great ways of tricking your body, and will be put to good use in my current set up.

Cooking and Preparation

Even though there really isn't any format to this particular post, I really thought these pieces of the nutritional puzzle needed to be emphasized. Cooking and preparation are really the most important part to being successful. I'm realizing this more and more as we move forward. I mean, we've heard it hundreds of times... "
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." I've been lucky enough to have spent some time in the kitchen already, so chopping veggies, pre-cooking meats for the week, and putting together a meal on the fly hasn't been quite the struggle I've seen in others. The idea is that you need to set aside some time each week or even day to preparing for the next few meals. This is easily done!

Cooking more versatile foods during this time can help keep anyone from dietary boredom. My favorite choice is a package of chicken thighs (although now I've completed the "sneak" and I've moved to breasts). 8 chicen thighs are easily roasted in the oven in about 25-30 minutes. That's 8 meals I can use. Chicken can be chopped up for salads, eaten plain, mixed with curry sauce, added to soups, or really anything you can think of. So, as I look forward to the rest of the week, I know I've got a load of pre-cooked breasts just sitting in the fridge waiting to be consumed. All I have to do now is decide the arrangement....

So that's just a little insight as to what I'm going to be doing/changing over the next few months. Keep in mind that this includes 4 days a week of resistance training and another couple days of cardio work.

Certified.

So, I finally got my results after a long weekend of skiing and checking my email for news from the certifying agency. I am now a NSCA Certified Personal Trainer, so that's pretty fun news! Those questions about what to do now are still out there, but at least I have the credential to back up any job search I may do. I'll most likely look into some part time work on the weekends and evenings with a potential foray into the realm of pre-breakfast training... We'll see what happens, but that's pretty exciting for now.

In other news Dave and I will be starting a bit of a diet soon, so we'll take some pictures and get back with more of that accountability stuff that I mentioned earlier. I may wait 8 weeks to show you before and afters... We'll see what happens, but hopefully I'll have some fun results for you. Biggest change for today is moving to nothing but calorie free beverages... I love milk (2% is the best!) and I usually enjoy a bit of coffee with my cream and sugar in the mornings. It'll be tougher once we start taking away more, but at first glance it doesn't look too severe. Like I said, I'll keep you updated.

A Good Day for Blogging?

I've always thought that boring days at work were good days to blog, but I'm finding out otherwise today. Not only does a lack of work feel unproductive, it's spreading to my mind.... I'm even having issues reading through articles this morning. It must be a combination of boredom and just being anxious to get to Vermont this weekend. I haven't seen Megan in over a week, and we're doing a long weekend ski trip with some friends if we can ever get out of work and get to it!

I do have a bit of a story from this week though. It involves heavy weights and having them delivered to work... I bought a weighted vest online a few weeks ago and have been waiting for it to arrive. As I waited, two other items were shipped and dropped off in an office on the first floor of my building. I made mention of a third package that would be "fairly heavy," and that they should have the delivery man bring the package to my office on the third floor. I probably don't need to say that they didn't really heed my advice.

My 84lbs. weighted vest came wrapped up nicely in a box on Monday... I happened to be out at lunch, and the office downstairs wanted to unload the box into our office. Of course, they didn't ask the delivery guys to do it, so they pushed it into the elevator down the hall and pressed the 3rd floor button. My poor coworker had to walk out in the hall to greet the elevator with my vest, and now, to her surprise, she finds this ridiculously heavy box in the middle of the floor. She made it clear that it was a struggle to get it down the hall and into our office (I guess I owe her?).

Now the issue of getting this thing to my car... I park about a quarter mile away from work, so that's not really a bad walk, but I couldn't exactly carry 84lbs. to my car - esp. down 3-4 flights of stairs and back up another. I decided the best way would be to load up the vest (turns out that 84 lbs. comes in 1 pound increments! Awesome.), and just throw it on underneath my jacket. I've got a heavy, loose pea coat that I figured would cover it up pretty well.... I should've taken a picture of it, but without a picture let's just say that I could barely get my buttons together once I had the vest on. It's a little skinnier without being fully loaded, but it adds a good 6-8 inches to your waistline when fully stocked up. I felt like one of those barrel-chested strongmen. Maybe like I belonged in the circus a little bit...

We don't work in the best of neighborhoods over here, so I fit in great. Like some red-faced, slow-walking, scared dude with a bullet-proof vest conspicuously filling out my jacket. The walk wasn't horrible though, but it's hard to imagine having to get around as a 295 pound man all the time...

Accountability

I'm taking the Certified Personal Trainer exam tomorrow afternoon. I guess I'm writing this so I make sure I study tonight... If everyone knows I'm taking the exam then you (all 2-3 of you who read this) can call me out if I don't manage to pass the thing. I'm pretty confident though, and as long as I show up for the test on time I should manage just fine.

Once I complete the test it raises other questions... Should I start working at a gym? Will I pick up some clients for the home gym? What's the next bit of education for me?

So there you have it, now I'm accountable to you for whatever happens tomorrow at exam time. Who knows, maybe I'll go beyond the lifting and exam taking and branch out into my diet! Ha, that would most likely be a fail of epic proportions...

I'll try to answer those other questions in the next few weeks...

Too early to start talking resolutions?

I know it's just December 2, but we can start looking at some changes to be made during the new year. I think I've been doing a pretty good job staying active and maintaining my body, but I could always do better.

That being said, I don't want to lay everything out in this post, I want to spread things out a bit and not limit myself to my train of thought this morning. On top of that, I know I'll find some interesting tidbits on maintaining and improving yourself that I'll want to share.

The first resolution has to do with encouraging an active lifestyle for those who work at a desk all day. It's sort of a two part resolution that will not only help us get on our feet just a little bit more each day (which will add up over the course of a year), but will help to keep my body functioning at it's peak.

Active Resolution #1:
I will never use the restroom closest to my office while I am at work again. As part of this resolution, I will also strive to drink more than 5 cups of water at work each day. These two parts will not only force me to use the restroom more often, but will mean I walk 3 flights of stairs down and 3 flights of stairs back up each time I need to go to the next closest restroom.

I probably go about 3-4 times a day now, so we're looking at a possible increase to 5 trips while adding 6 flights (3 up, 3 down) of stairs a trip. Using this resolution through just 100 work days will add 3000 flights of stairs to my energy usage. If I assume a bare minimum of 15 calories burned per 3 flights of stairs, I'm looking at an additional 45000 calories burned over 100 days that I previously did not. There are a number of opinions here, but presumably it will take a 3500 calorie deficit to lose a pound. These numbers will never turn out exactly, but that means that 12 lbs. of calories can be burned by just adding this small task to my day.

I don't exactly believe calorie-counting can be an exact science (since the body can be pretty stubborn concerning weight loss/gain), but the bottom line is that I will definitely add steps to my day and will most likely expend more energy doing so.

So there you have it, resolution #1.

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

So I haven't been the best blogger out here.. to be honest, I mostly use my blog as a base for browsing the blogs in my "scratch and sniff" section. It's probably the best way I can think of to stay current with the fitness blogs I follow and with my friends that are out there as well.

Some things going on for me recently:

- I cooked my first turkey last week. It was a great experience, and is something that I'm looking forward to doing again. It's always a bit of a hassle to do something for the first time.. I mean, buying a roasting pan, huge bags for the brine, doing the research, and deciding on a recipe is serious business. Well I think it was a resounding success. So you guys can share in that, here's the recipe:

Coca-Cola brined Pilgrim's Pride turkey with Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnut sweet and savory stuffing*

Coca-Cola brine
1 1/4 cups salt
1 quart Coca-Cola
2 bay leaves
1 medium onion, peeled and halved
2 cloves
1 10- to 12-pound Pilgrim's Pride Whole Butter Basted Turkey
1. Place salt and Coca-Cola in a large deep pot and whisk until salt crystals dissolve. Whisk in 4 quarts cold water. Pin bay leaves to onion halves with cloves and add them to brine. Let mixture cool to room temperature.
2. Add Pilgrim's Pride turkey, placing a large heavy pot or sealed zip-top bag filled with cold water on top to keep bird submerged in Coca-Cola. Place pot in refrigerator and marinate overnight.

Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnut sweet and savory stuffing
6 cups Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnuts, chopped
2 cups diced onion
1/2 cup butter
2 cups cranberries
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1/2 tablespoon dried sage
1 cup chicken broth

Cook onion in butter or margarine over low heat until soft. Add doughnuts, cranberries, rosemary and sage, chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste. Mix gently but thoroughly.

Roast Turkey
Remove Pilgrim's Pride turkey from Coca-Cola brine. Thoroughly rinse turkey under a slow stream of cool water, rubbing gently to release salt and soda residue, both inside and out. Pat skin and both interior cavities dry.

Remove neck and giblets. Begin lightly spooning doughnut stuffing into the neck cavity, then into the body cavity. After the bird has been stuffed, secure the legs to the tail. If the band of skin is not present, tie the legs securely to the tail with string. Twist the wing tips under the back of the turkey so they won't overcook.

Roast turkey, breast side down, in a preheated 325 degree F oven for 2 hours. During this time, baste legs and back twice with Coca-Cola.

(Taken from the White House chef... here's an interesting article to follow-up: http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/02/white_house_che.html)

- Team Schaefer dug out two universe point wins last weekend. Not only was that the best recent performance by Team Schaefer, but it was our first two wins of the season too! Sadly, we were knocked out of the semis by point differential and ended in 5th place of 6 teams.

- The Dead Kittens, the WAFC rec league team I captained this Fall, went something like 8-2 on the year and finished off our season on Sunday. I think we were rained out something like 5 or 6 times this Fall, but it was a great season with a good group of men/women. I will put together a brief highlight video from the season when I get a chance.

- Got my NSCA-CPT practice exams in the mail yesterday.. I'm hoping to take the first one over Thanksgiving to get a feel for when I can comfortably take the exam prior to the new year. I'm on my way!

Cressey Performance - Day 2

Even though I woke up sore from my first day with EC, I was more prepared for what he had in store for me. At this point I know I can do everything that's thrown at me, and it's even nice to have a little shot of adrenaline that comes with being in a strange place and trying to impress strangers.

I knew there were 3 things in store for me today: EC was going to take a look at my sprinting "technique" (I put this in quotes because I'm not sure what I do can be called technique), we were going to have an upper body workout, and I was probably not going to be mistaken for a baseball player now that we answered those questions the first day.

First up we needed to work through the foam roller routine and take care of my mobility work. Pretty much the same set up as the day before, except I didn't really need someone to hold my hand through it. My intern of the day today was Connor, and he seemed extremely knowledgeable about the body as well. He's about to graduate with his bachelor's and will be starting PT school soon. From our conversation, he seems really passionate about it, and seems to have found a good home at CP.

Here's that foam rolling routine:


After the warm-up, I ran a series of 6, 40 yard sprints with critique in between. I started with excessive heel-striking (which could lead to the pain in my heel) and didn't utilize the full arm motion in my stride. The arm motion is linked to the opposite glute muscle through the lats. My arm motion apparently didn't engage the glutes enough and I was potentially losing speed that way. After a few runs I was looking better according to EC, but was told that I would see noticeable difference in my sprinting once I could deadlift 315... I took that a little mixed... I've deadlifted 375 before, but not with good form, so I can see where he could say I haven't lifted 315... but come on, don't I look like I could pull 315?!?

Anyway, I'll take that to mean that I need to lift 315 with some more authority. Speed up the lift and get a little more explosive, and then maybe I'll be a little faster. The only thing I'm concerned with here is the difference between my running technique sprinting on a 40-yard track and the technique I use on the Ultimate field. Hopefully I can make the two match.

After the sprints, we moved into the upper body routine. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it was good to hear that I had good power on my chins and I was able to do a set of 4 close-grip bench press at 225. I haven't done that before, so that was kinda cool. We moved to some single-arm bench press, seated rows, external rotations, and split-stance cable lifts. It was a pretty good workout and the timing was great so that I could ask plenty of technique questions. One of the only bad things I took out of the session is that I was using 75's for the single-arm bench press when I max out at 60 lbs. at home. That just means I get to spend more money...

A good nugget I took from my questions was about mobility and stability. Your body needs alternating mobility and stability to perform properly. Mobility in the ankles, stability in the knees, mobility in the hips, stability in the lower back, mobility in the thoracic spine, stability in the scaps, and mobility in the shoulders/arms. It's a good way of looking at it, and the reasons behind finding that mobility are to limit the amount of compensation the stable areas have to make. Basically, if you lack mobility in one of the areas that should have mobility, then the closest stable area will have to take one some mobility to perform the function. This is where injury happens.

So now I've got my plan and I'm a week into it before I got this post up. It's painful so far, but I think some of that is due to a little extra Ultimate lately. One more big Ultimate weekend and I'll be free to concentrate on my iron.