M.I.A. – Workout Journal

It’s been a few days (more like 11) since I wrote in my journal. These (almost) 2 weeks has been very eventful to say the least. I received a new job, really got emerged into this new novel I have been writing, been working on a video project with my siblings and have been trying to figure out other ventures to get myself into.

In the midst of all of that, I still adhered to my goal of losing weight and ultimately becoming more physically fit and healthy. Since I’ve started my workout regimen and better eating habits, I’ve lost six pounds! Now as minuscule as it may seem, seeing some type of progress is always rewarding.

My eating habits have improved a bit. In other words, I have not had any fried foods, candy, pop or anything fatty. Although, the best foods seem to be the worst for you I have felt better since cutting those out of my diet.

I made sure to get into the gym even on the days that I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t feel like running, lifting weights or anything on those days. Instead of working out, I wanted to relax and watch TV. But, last time I checked, relaxing and watching television did not contribute to my physical health. Maybe, my mental health but in the long run the TV and sofa would be there when I was done with my workout.

Sticking to a regimen is difficult. No matter what it is. It takes discipline and lots of it. Despite my negligence to write in my journal, I’ve adhered to a regimen. I read plenty of articles on what time to not eat after. One article I read was written by Deborah Enos on LiveScience.com. Enos writes,

“It takes about three hours to digest a typical dinner of about 600 calories that includes some protein, carbohydrates and veggies. If you finish eating around 6p.m. and then stay up to watch the news, by the time 9:30 hits you’ll be feeling hunger pangs.”

This was based on stopping eating around 6 p.m. which for me (and many others) is dang near impossible. I mean, I’m getting off work around 6 p.m. Personally, I don’t enjoy eating a large lunch while at work. Much of my eating comes after 5 or 6 p.m. We can try to live according to what the experts advise but it’s simply not realistic. I’m definitely not my dad who is always in bed by 9 or 10 p.m. For me it’s not possible. After a day of work, I have more work to do. My first job being writing. Which means I’ll be up well past 9.

So, instead of cutting off my eating by 6 or 7, I stuck to not eating past 10. I know it seems late but I’m not usually in bed until midnight or 1 a.m. Then there comes my other issue. Sleep. Getting enough rest is another part of being healthy and ultimately losing weight. I try. I really do try to get an adequate amount of sleep but that never seems to work out the way I would like it to. On a good day, I’ll get about 7 hours of sleep. That’s on a good day. Any other day it’s more like 6.

Having said all that, it makes it even more important to me that I make it to the gym and stay away from the delicious fried and greasy foods. I hit the treadmill/elliptical for at least 30 minutes, 4-5 days a week. After my cardio (and sometimes before) I take to lifting weights and doing aerobic exercises to strengthen my core.

This week has been difficult to eat right. Who can turn down barbecue chicken, ribs and mac n’ cheese? Memorial Day caused me to indulge a bit but, Tuesday I was back at it. Knocking off all those calories I took in the day before. Of course the gym was extremely humid. Five minutes in and I was looking like I jumped in the pool with my gym clothes on. Sweating is good though. As long as I have water nearby, I’d be just fine.

Water has become my best friend. I used to hate water. That tasteless, boring liquid! Since substituting water for pop and sugary drinks, I’ve felt a lot better physically. In addition to me feeling better physically, my workouts have become tolerable. I’m no longer cursing under my breath, 10 minutes in. Instead, I’m cursing underneath my breath at 20 minutes. Which is an improvement. Hopefully, soon, I’ll be able to stop cursing underneath my breath altogether.

I am beginning to feel much more comfortable with this lifestyle. I’m beginning to turn working out and eating healthier into a habit rather than a bi-weekly trial period. This is where it gets rough. Being able to stick to something like working out and eating healthier can be strenuous especially with the summer cookouts and holidays approaching. I encourage everyone who struggles with adhering to those habits to stick to it and have tenacity. Gains will come, even if it is shedding water weight.

Day 5

So after a much needed r&r day, I was back at it. I had promised myself that I was going to dedicate more time to working out today. That idea seemed to fade. More time working out? I have so much stuff I have to do. Or so I liked to tell myself.

After going back-and-forth mentally, I finally decided to go ahead and get my workout over and done with. I love working out alone. I never really understood why I didn’t like to work out when it was crowded. Maybe I was a bit self-conscious of my weight. To some, I was not even overweight. I don’t need a scale to feel overweight. I can just feel it. I can also see why many people are discouraged to work out. Getting into the gym is tough, especially with a life going on. Many people get caught up in poor habits. Work and family life consume our time. Working out becomes a novelty rather than a necessity.

I don’t fault anyone who struggles with their weight. It’s all relative. You reach a certain weight or size that you feel is unacceptable. Once you determine that, you now have to push yourself to do something about it. If I sit here and complain on how difficult and hard it is to work out then nothing gets done. Just pointless complaints.

Now back to my workout. There was a couple in the gym working out. I don’t know why I thought twice about going in. We’re all there for the same reason, right? I noticed how my expectations began to dwindle. I went from wanting to do a full workout to only wanting to do cardio. Of course I began to conjure excuses as to why cardio would be the best decision.

“Nope” – That’s how all of it starts. The process of slacking off. First there’s a goal, for example: Getting a full workout in. Second there’s a drop off in the goal expectation, such as: Because there are people occupying some of the machines and weights, I’ll just do cardio. Third, there’s the repetition. If I choose to slack off in one aspect, I tend to do the same in another area. Fourth, there’s a repetitive cycle of goal setting and drop off until finally it is completed. Your goal is now depleted (because of the goal drop-off) and now we’re stuck in slack-off mode.

So now that I’m saying ‘no’ to myself, I have to push myself even harder. I’m going to do my full workout as intended instead of slacking off. I made my mind up…final answer.

I ran for 30 minutes. Surprisingly my back did not ache at all. Usually that was a common thing during my workout. Ten minutes in and I felt like Mike Tyson after he fought Clifford Etienne. This only motivated to go harder. There must be some type of progress achieved if my back wasn’t giving me problems.

Mike Tyson explains his hurt back.

Once again, after 30 minutes of jogging/mild sprinting I took the weights. I vowed to do a complete workout today. I dedicated a hour out of my day to work out and that was what I was going to do for the remaining 30 minutes.

In the next 30 minutes, I did burpees, squats, chest presses (incline and decline), curls, overhead rows and sit-ups. By now, I was looking like someone threw a bucket of water over my head. My face was red, sweat covered the bench and I could feel my body groaning from the workout.

So far so good. Today, I didn’t eat particularily poorly. Plenty of water, some Chipotle (I had a B.O.G.O. free coupon; I had to use it!), another smoothie, my vitamins and some Raisian Bran Crunch. I’m really trying with the whole healthy-food kick. I’m getting there slowly but surely.

I noticed some changes since my first workout that I’m proud of. No longer am I “dying” after 10 minutes, I am able to keep a faster pace for longer which means I’m able to work harder. This is all good. It’s what I call progress, as small as it may be.

It’s pretty funny because my little brother and I used to be on this healthy-living regimen years ago. He’d run miles a day and I’d visit the gym almost daily. Well like I said that was years ago. Recently, he was seen my one of our uncles who said that he was starting to “get big”. He texted me right away. It was the same uncle who made sure that he was the first to notice my belly. No one wants to hear that they’re getting big. I’m pretty sure the individual who has gained weight notices that they’ve gained weight. I’m sure a reminder of how much weight we’ve gained would surely make us run to the gym (sarcasm). My point being, that we all fall off but our goals that we once had can still be put in place and achieved. Because I really don’t want to hear him talking about my “belly looking like my dad’s” anymore.

Day 4

As you can probably tell, day 4 was my rest day. I rested a bit too much yesterday and didn’t even bother to write in my journal. So today, I don’t have any sweaty exploits to speak about. I know it’s saddening.

Even though I may not be on the treadmill or lifting weights, I still have to make sure I eat right. I can’t sit around and make excuses to why I went out to grab something to eat. Part of losing weight is eating right and not choosing the easy way out. An out I’m very familiar with.

I’m far from perfect when it comes to what I eat. It’s hard out here for a picky-eater. Especially one who is not “adventurous” in trying new foods. I started the day off with a smoothie. I’m not a big breakfast person but it is the “single most important meal of the day” (I heard someone say it like that once). So I started off with a pineapple, mango, strawberry and peach smoothie, a banana, a vitamin and to top it off a granola all-natural energy bar (might I add it was safe for vegans).

I didn’t have to work so I would have a few more food options at my disposal. Instead of snacking on chips and sour gummy worms, I snacked on grapes, bananas, strawberries, celery, a few hard-boiled eggs and some Greek yogurt! (YUM!)

During the course of the day, I ran a few errands, cleaned out one of the cars and a whole bunch of other boring stuff that wasn’t very interesting. I fought off the temptation of Coca-Cola, french fries and sugary sweets the whole day. Instead, I had water. When I wanted that mocha frappuccino I turned to a bottle of water. When I saw that $1 any size drink on the billboard for McDonalds I suddenly wanted a coke. But…I had a bottle of water.

For dinner, I had tacos (which I made) with some lettuce, tomatoes (I’m not a big fan of un-melted cheese), tortilla and some delicious water. I’m trying this whole half-healthy eating thing. I decided to ease myself into the healthy eating world. I tried jumping in head first. It only lasted a week. So I hypothesized that if I ease into it, I’d be able to stay on track for longer than a week.

I hadn’t weighed myself since I started working out so I saw no need to start now. I’d weigh myself in a couple weeks and see where I’m at. For now, I’m easing into healthy eating and working out. I was able to finish some writing, even though my journal never was touched, I did accomplish something.

Day 6, wouldn’t be a rest day and I’d be back in the gym. I figured I pick up my work out routine as well. Add in some more weight lifting and more cardio. My soreness was subsiding and I was awkwardly anxious to hit the gym.

Day 3

I slacked off. The morning came around I stayed attached to the bed. I could feel the aches and pain from the previous day. Maybe I’ll make this my rest day, I said trying to comfort my mind into agreeing that it was okay to stay in bed a bit longer.

It was my off day, so I would work out once I ran all of my errands. I had other things I had to do which were “FAR” more important than my daily workout. I just HAD to run to the store to get some hair moisturizer and batteries and I just HAD to play that one NBA 2K16 game. Oh, let’s not forget an interview to go to later on. There was just no time to work out.

Time passed. I wasted my day away getting unimportant items (even though the batteries were for my scale) and the interview proved to be only a waste of time. Yet another dead end. It always seems that on your days off the day seems to be on fast forward. Before I knew it, it was 5 PM and I was lounging lazily on the sofa watching re-runs of the First 48.

A whole day of lounging and lying around wasn’t going to benefit me in no type of way. The hours spent in front of the television wouldn’t make me feel better in the morning. Pain leading to gains is much more rewarding than relaxing and gaining (pounds).

I dug deep and pushed myself to get ready. I was not interested in going to the gym but knew it was a necessity. Just like many of us are not interested in going to work but you have to sustain a living, the same goes to working out. If you want to lose weight you have to put in the work.

Today, I decided that I’d take a rest on the weights for today and hit the treadmill hard. I’d dedicate my whole workout to cardio. The gym was humid, yet again. This only meant that I’d be drenched in sweat in about 5-10 minutes. I was ready. I stretched out making sure my muscles wouldn’t tense up on me after my work out.

I started slow, gradually speeding up until I was at a steady jog. I was surprisingly able to maintain this speed for some time. Usually, after about five minutes or so, I’d start breathing heavier. Not this time. Hopefully, this was a sign of improvement.

Shortly after 10 minutes on the treadmill, I began to feel it. There was an aching in my leg (just one) and a slight pain in my back. If I stopped because of a little pain then I’d just be copping out. If I wanted to feel good about myself, I would have to challenge myself to finish. That’s exactly what I did. I turned my music up and concentrated on breathing and less about the pain. I kept my pace, every so often I’d check the time. Doing so only discouraged me. For how tired I was, I’d expect to be at least three-quarters of the way done. Negative, I was just about halfway through.

Just like the day before, I was drenched in sweat. It poured off my forehead into my eyes, fell from my arms and dripped from my face. It was uncomfortable, but it was also uncomfortable to haul around the extra 30 lbs. One way of thinking of it was that I was halfway through and a lot further than I was ten minutes ago. If I was able to put in 20 minutes, I’d be able to grit through.

I didn’t pay attention to the time. Before long, I noticed that my workout was nearing the end. Twenty-eight minutes in. Only two more to go. I was hurting but it was manageable. I was just happy to be done. I did some seated rows, back and bicep exercises after jogging.

I know I slacked off today considering all I did was a brief weight lift and 30 minute jog. I was just happy to get off the couch and do something productive. Day 3 was over!

There’s so much to losing weight outside of exercise. It’s about eating right, getting enough sleep and (for me) keeping a positive attitude. The days of late night snacks and sugary drinks are over. I would have to limit my carbohydrates, eat foods that would provide me with the nutrients I need for the day. Caloric intake is another thing I have to watch. I have a pizza addiction. Knowing that all the best food (including pizza) is not necessarily good for you is depressing. But I have to rationalize that losing weight is ultimately worth more than slice of pizza.

Day 2

This morning was rough. I felt the pain from the day before and it made me think twice about working out. Laying in bed wouldn’t help out in the long run. I’d be better off just sucking it up and going in and doing my 45-minute workout.

It was a slow walk. Almost void of motivation. The only motivator was the fact that I made it out the house and it would be a discouragement later in the day, knowing I didn’t even go through with what I set off to do. Another cold May morning. I was getting tired of these types of mornings.

Empty gym, which means that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Yell, grunt, groan or cry, I didn’t have to worry about anyone looking at me crazy. I figured I do my workout in reverse today; weights first then cardio.

I focused more on my legs today. Yesterday was mostly arms and upper body. I decided to keep it simple, squats and lunges. Four sets of twelve, just to get the blood flowing. It hurt. Every bend, stretch, rep, set, all of it hurt. Every set, I was closer to the end.

Next was the elliptical. The first day it kicked my butt pretty good. That’s what happens when you choose to forget to work out. Thirty minutes and I’d be done. Finished! Finito! Fin! I pushed through, fighting through the aches and slight pain that shot through my back. Every second I pushed harder. The harder I work, the better I will feel.

Ten minutes in. My shirt drenched like I jumped in the pool. Just think how my shirt will be after twenty minutes. “I have to push through” I said to myself over and over. “I’ll be happy with the outcome,” I had to reassure myself.

You never really feel satisfied until it’s all over. The process is sweaty, stinky and painful. In order to see gains…or a loss in my case, this was all part of HAS to be done.

Twenty minutes in. Ten more minutes to go. My shirt stuck to my body, drenched with sweat. It was uncomfortable. The gym was humid which made me perspire even more. Twenty-five minutes in. I could see the finish line. I just wondered if my body had the same vision I had. Every movement had me aching. I’d take the pain if it meant no “charlie horse”. I worked out weeks ago, just like I did today. As soon as I hit the stairs in my house I was laid out like Lebron in the 2014 Finals. Sprawled on the landing ,helpless, sporting the ugliest Jordan crying face. Pain shot through my legs. “Lord, take ’em – take my legs!” It was painful. All I could do is grit and bear it. Definitely didn’t want a repeat of that.

Finally it was all over! I’d cool down and day 2 was over. I took a bit of a push early on but the feeling after was refreshingly sweaty and a bit stinky. I can’t wait until these workouts are piece of cake. I little less huffing and puffing, but until then lets focus on day 3.