New Years Challenge!

I have a Challenge, not only for myself but for all my readers, whoever you may be.

When you think about a task you want or have to do, what is it that determines your success or failure? It's your willpower. Also I think the size of that goal determines your willpower. I can say that next year I'm going to be fit and eating healthy and I'll barely sit down. But that's a lifestyle change and it's a really huge step. I'd fail right away because I'm trying to accomplish too much at the one time.

Let me give you an example. My fiancé had read a diet book and we decided to try it because apparently it was "easy". They said to cut out all sugar and carbohydrates from your diet. So, all eager with our newfound goal, my fiancé and I headed bravely into the cupboards and got rid of everything with sugar and carbohydrates. We had barely anything left but meat and chicken. It was depressing but we trudged on, determined to make a go at it. We took about 5 cloth shopping bags full of food and handed it out to the homeless people around town. We got our new food and tried new recipes. They weren't very good, and let's just say that both my fiancé and I have been put off of cauliflower for a long time. It didn't even last a week. That's because we tried too much at the one time. Mind you the rare few are good at such a drastic lifestyle change, but the rest of us find it hard.

I usually eat a lot healthier when I'm working my 6 day cycle because I have to plan my meals. But on my days off my fiancé and I go crazy cause it feels as if we are free to eat whatever we want. Not good cause I'm confusing my system.

My Challenge to myself and my readers is this: avoid eating fast food for as long as you can. Anything that you can order over the phone or get passed to you through a window is off limits. My fiancé and I are prepared to see how long we can last and I had the idea to challenge my readers to do the same.

I will be avoiding all that I had mentioned before and the only food I will be having that isn't cooked at my home will be from a restaurant where they serve you such things as steaks and are properly proportioned. I will keep my progress posted on this and how long I last. I encourage YOU to do the same, I want to hear your progress as well.

It's small changes like this that need to be overcomed first. Like I said in the beginning it took me a while to get used to going to the gym all the time. It's the same thing, you have to adjust your body to something new. Im keeping chips and very little pop at home and junk food and stuff, but that will all go away in time. Like I said, take small steps. I barely eat chips and pop at home anyways, but chocolate? That's a different story. Hahhahahaha.

Good luck to anyone else who is brave enough to try this with me.

Merry Christmas

I don't know if anyone is still reading my blog, or I've just gotten lost in the black hole of the Internet. But to whoever is out there, even if it's only my fiancé Raychel, then Merry Christmas.

Indulge over the holidays and come back right afterwards. Cause I've got a special announcement and a challenge for my readers, whoever you may be.

Health Regime

Everyone's got some type of health regime, whether it be just brushing your teeth, or something that takes two hours to do. I'm not one of those people that it takes two hours to do. Too much time for someone like me who isn't much of a morning person. The last few weeks I have been mulling over my future and where it's taking me. In the next year I'll be going into real estate and starting my future career, this is one reason why I'm trying to get a better health regime into my life. It's not easy, but one step at a time. When I think of the possibility that my face could be on a billboard, that scares me a bit because I'm not exactly the best at taking care of my face, and I should be when I'm in that type of business. If you're face is the size of a building, would you want to look your best, or mediocre? Also with my fiance and I going forward in our lives, hopefully kids will come into the mix in the next few years, and that comes along with another poke in the back. Everyone wants to set a good example for their kids, and like I had said before, I want to get in shape to hopefully inspire them to lead a healthy lifestyle as well, but along with that comes taking care of yourself. So not only would a good body, and eating right help them lead a healthy lifestyle, but having a health regime and taking care of yourself helps them along that road to a healthy lifestyle. So, I just thought that I would share some of the things that I use all the time, and stuff that I'm working into my health regime. I'm going to start off with the basics and I'll give some explanations why I use them. First off on the docket!

Good old toothpaste. I love this one especially because just after a couple uses you can already notice you're teeth getting whiter and I also love the taste of it.

There's may a debate of what type of toothbrush to use and why to use it. I've tried the normal, non battery, non sonic, non pulsating, non-whatever, and I don't find they get my teeth clean. I like this one by Colgate because it has a sonic head and it seems to get my teeth cleaner.

Gilette shaving foam. I've tried the gel style, but I don't find it lathers up the same and it doesn't seem to lift the hairs like the foam kind does. Also you'll notice that I have the one for sensitive skin. I find that this one is so nice that I don't need aftershave.

I have been using this Gilette Fusion razer since it first came out. Before that I had the mach turbo, then it went out of commission and now I have this one. I find it even better than the last one. This has four blades, gets nice and close, and the best part about it, is it has that green strip where the blades are and when the green strip goes white, you have to replace the blade. Nice and easy for the lazy people like me who forget when to change the blade.

Dental floss sticks. Great for the way I live my life now because I can just grab one when I wake up half dead in the morning, and I can floss my teeth on the way to the bus stop. Also when I'm at work I have some of these in my bag and when I get something stuck in my teeth I just get one of these out.

This is where my health regime all started. I started taking multi vitamins, I think it was about back in march. I started getting used to taking these things everyday and then once I got into the system of taking them everyday and not forgetting, that's when I slowly started incorporating everything into the mix. I didn't brush my teeth on a daily basis, but once I had this down pat and I was taking them everyday, I moved them into the bathroom, and then got into doing my teeth everyday, and flossing, etc.... Anyways, the one on the left is called Coenzyme q10, great for anyone who has low energy levels like me. I'm not the most energetic person, but these have seemed to help get my energy up, and the ones on the right are multi vitamins from Costco, which is a bulk place to buy anything you can find in a grocery store. Love this store, big sized stuff, lower prices, except be careful what you buy as some of the stuff isn't the best. Now onto the stuff that I'm going to be trying to work into my new health regime.

This is called Clarisonic, by a company called Maia. My fiance started using this about the beginning of the year or late last year, and it helps exfoliate your skin. She bought me the funky looking brush in the lower picture so I could do my face too. Believe me, it wasn't by choice that I started using this, but it does start to work, I'll admit that. With a 750 square foot (roughly) apartment, there's not much room to hide from someone who wants to use new things on you. Another thing too that I forgot to put in a picture of is a moisturizing lotion. One thing I use sometimes is Johnsons baby lotion. Soon I'm going to try that new lotion by Dove for Men, and see if that's any good. Up here in the winters it gets really dry and I find that if I don't use something to moisturize my face starts to hurt bad from being so dry. There are some people I know at work who get really bad hands from the dry winters up here and they have deep cracks and scars from not using a moisturizing lotion. Now mind you, I don't shave everyday cause I don't have to, I shave about every second day. But everything else is kind of basic, I think anyways. What health regime products do you find help you and why? Be interesting to hear.

Willpower

Actor Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion:

Courage. What makes a King out of a slave? Courage.


What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.

What makes the Sphinx the 7th Wonder? Courage.

What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?! Courage.

What makes the Hottentot so hot?

What puts the "ape" in ape-ricot?

Whatta they got that I ain't got?

Dorothy & Friends: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again.


The Wizard of Oz being one of my favorite all time movies, I can almost recite that excerpt from memory. I'm of the belief that courage coincides with willpower very closely.

When we have a goal in our mind Willpower is the key factor to us getting up and out, and doing what we set out to do. Courage takes a big part in that. If I didn't have any courage I wouldn't have been able to go to the gym. I feared the gym. I've feared very few things in my life, and I wasn't going to let a simple thing as a gym have power over me. If you fear something, then that "something" has power over you. The thing that drove me to get my courage and overcome my fear, was my willpower. When I seen that first video about the Sixpack Shortcuts program, that ignited my willpower. Gave me that fire to get up off my ass and get in shape.

It is that moment, lately, that I've been having to reflect on. As the weather fluctuates and gets colder, I found my willpower doing the same thing. Usually what I had done until the weather got colder (provided this was only when I was working) is I came home, grabbed my bag and off I went. For me, if I keep going and don't stop then I'm good. But if I come home and have to wait ten minutes or more for the SUV to warm up, I get too relaxed. Especially when it's winter. Get off the bus, walk home and it's freezing out. Get inside and it's nice and warm. Who wants to go back outside, go to a cd vehicle and go to the gym? Plus the wait for the vehicle to warm up, gets you relaxed and warm. Hard to leave when you're that comfortable.

The winter poses a greater challenge than I had anticipated. It challenges me to find my willpower, to dig down a d remember the reason why I wanted to get in shape in the first place. With me lately I've been slacking off for the last month. I've been going to the gym off and on for the last month. I'm trying to get myself back to that discipline I had in the first month and a half. I've found my willpower again by watching YouTube videos about people getting in shape and reading fitness blogs. The only damper part about the whole thing is that I still am not good at my nutrition. Hard thing to get in control.

Willpower I've found is the easiest thing to get but the hardest thing to keep. I'm not perfect with my willpower and I've had many days where it's nowhere in sight. The days that I do have it are the days I remember. Those are the days I remember why I chose to get in shape, why I'm doing this to better my future career, why I'm doing this for my future family, and why I'm writing this blog.

How do all of you find your willpower? How do you keep it?








I will be doing more frequent updates from now on. Now that I'm back on track for good. Don't forget too that if you would like to recommend my blog to someone I've made it EVEN EASIER to follow my blog. There's a "subscribe by e-mail" option at the top right.

Feel the Burn? I don't think so....

A word of warning to everyone who reads this, that the popular phrase, that usually runs along the lines of "work out until you feel the burn", I don't agree with that at all. It can cause nausea, headaches, and it can be mentally unhealthy. I say mentally unhealthy rather than physically unhealthy, because usually you can tell what your muscles limits are and how far you can push yourself. The media tends to brings along this idea though that we should be going til we "feel the burn", but what if we do? Ok, so lets expand on that for a minute. Your brain (cause of the media) is telling your body that you should push yourself til you "feel the burn", so you do. What happens on the way to feeling that burn? Your muscles get tired and they can feel weak. But HEY! There's that burn everyone's talking about, that must be a good sign that I'm doing something right. Right? Say you're doing a benchpress and this whole thought process occurs. Is it still right when you feel the burn to keep going, and your muscles can't go any farther and you almost drop the bar on your neck? Or if you are doing lunges and you feel the burn, but cause your only focusing on the burning feeling in your leg, you lose concentration and almost twist an ankle? Does the "feel the burn" theory still apply there? I would value anyone's opinion on this matter. As tonight when I was busy doing step downs I almost twisted my ankle and it got me to thinking about this whole "feel the burn" mentality. Also, just if anyone is curious. I haven't posted for the past few days because I've been suffering from a severe migraine and had to go to the hospital last night to finally get relief. No idea what caused it, and I've only ever gotten one migraine before this. But this one was bad and I was constantly losing my balance and I found it hard to concentrate on anything. All better now, and since I was unable to go to the gym in fear that it would make my migraine worse, I stayed home. But now I'm back at the gym and feeling good about having gone. Good thing I went when I did cause there's a midnight release of a new game I've been looking forward to. Honestly, I'm such a geek, I don't know how I ever found the inspiration to get my ass to the gym like I do. How has everyone else been doing lately?

OK to have a day off

Last night I was doing my switchover from days to nights. Now, how this always works for me, is that I get home about 9, have something to eat and I stay up til about 2am. Sometimes it's not easy to do. And usually right after I get home, I do a workout. But yesterday was my day off for this week. Then after going to bed about 2, I sleep as long as I can which is usually about 1pm, then get up and do my errands and then I'm off to work for my 3 nightshifts.

I got to thinking though that some people are so strict about their diets they don't allow themselves a cheat day or a day off. In my opinion, when you do that, your setting yourself up for failure. As the age old saying goes "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", plus I also like to enforce the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you do your workouts and eat healthy and 20% is your time off and cheat days.

Now I'm done my first of three nightshifts and I'm on my way home. Then grab my gym clothes and off I go. Then come back home, chill and then off to bed. Then I start the whole day over again tonight.

HEY! LOOK! Another entry..

Well I have a few topics to cover and I couldn't figure out a title first of all. Hahaha.

So, I'm back at the gym and it feels great. Only have been back for one day, but that's better than nothing. When I went there and I was paying my monthly fee, the woman looked at the computer and said in a funny tone "oh wow. You haven't been here in a whiiiile". Come on, I only missed two and a half weeks, plus if we never fall off the wagon and make a mistake, we never learn. I must say too, that I had his happen to me when I first started at the gym. For some unknown reason I would get a headache. I think from lack of hydration. But after a few days the headaches went away. Any of you had this when you started working out?

Also I'm looking for your input. What kid of low carb meals can I make? I've got some ideas already but it's hard to keep things fresh.

Also I said I would give you some info on fall fashion. Living with my fiancé, you get to know the fashions of each season and if they repeated it or it's original. Apparently this one is pretty original, a while ago she was sifting through her new Cosmo to find out what the fall fashion was. After a few pages she joyfully announced that the fashion for fall was Leather and Knit. Interesting combination I think. Hard edgy leather mixed with the sweet seduction and innocence of knit. What do I mean by knit? Anything that looks like its been knitted, that could be a scarf, top, gloves, hat, etc........ So to see for myself if it was true I looked through my Men's Health when I got it, and sure enough in every ad, each person was wearing leather and knot. And this goes for men and women.

Depending on what you guys say, I was debating making a short video about my work days. My workday is long enough, but adding exercise to the mix was hard cause it lessened my time at home. If I can fit a workout into my busy workdays, then ANYONE that wants to get in shape, surely can fit it into their day.