And So It Begins

Can I just start by saying that the more I search for images to capture the spirit of what I’m writing about the more I realize I have to start taking my own pictures! That means I have to start living in a way that I have something worth photographing. That is not my bike, but someday maybe it will be!

In that vein today is the big day. I “officially” start the physical portion of my self improvement plan today. I know, what was I doing up until now, right? Well, everything up to this point has been about getting the pieces into place. This isn’t a new year’s resolution. It’s more a lifelong resolution that just happened to launch on New Year’s Day. The gym has been set up, the equipment purchased, and the baseline data has been secured.

To review: Starting today, and for the next 30 days, I will eat and drink clean. For me, that means no alcohol, no sugar, and no commercially prepared food. I will attempt to eat a fresh, organic, and plant based diet. In addition, I will increase my intake of water. In short, I’m going to drive my family nuts.

I will use my fitness pal to track meals, and I will try to stay within the caloric guidelines for my goals, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. With no alcohol, sugar, or ready to eat foods in my diet I’ll have my work cut out for me just to eat enough calories. Especially if I’m working out as much as I plan.

In terms of exercise, I will work out at least 6 days a week. I will alternate P90X with spinning(See “Forward to the Past” post for details). My goal is to also add at least two stretching or yoga sessions per week to my routine. I’ve been through the P90X cycle once thus far this year, but it was, admittedly, a very disjointed effort. I did not track my gains, I did not have access to actual weights (I used bands only), and because of a hernia surgery(not related to the workout program!) and some minor back issues, I was not consistent. I’m choosing to do my own cardio instead of the Kempo(kicking) and Plyometric(jumping) offerings in the program. This is just a personal preference

(I should note here that I purchased two Powerblocks (pictured below). Now that I have tried the bands for an entire P90X cycle I just don’t trust that they offer workouts of the same intensity as true weights. The advantage of an adjustable dumbbell like a Powerblock is that it takes up a fraction of the space as a set of traditional dumbbells at a fraction of the cost. Plus, for me, Powerblock is a local company and I’m all about supporting Minnesota made. In addition, it seems like every retail outlet, and many online equipment providers are completely wiped out of inventory because of Covid.

Here are some baseline measures from P90X so that there is something to compare to at the end of this experiment. Again, the use of weights is going to seriously affect my performance on many of these exercises. When I go through my first series with the blocks I may need to discard this initial data, but for the sake of a blog with the motto, “An Attempt at Transparency” I feel like I need to put it out there.

I weighed myself one last time before the start of this experiment. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have only put on 0.6 pounds over the holidays. Beginning weight: 217.6. With a goal of losing a pound a week(not really, because I’m also trying to maintain muscle mass) I’m allowed 2660 calories per day. Here is evidence from My Fitness Pal that the ball is rolling. That’s my breakfast smoothie below.