Brother, can you spare some motivation?

Yeah, it's been over a month now. Halo has done a pretty good job of both keeping me indoors and killing any and all motivation for lifting. Well, it's not just Halo, but there really is not coincidence that I go off the grid for a month and Halo released a month ago.

I've really found myself without any type of motivation. I dunno if I was just depressed or something, but my life just fell into a cycle of trying to do as little as possible. I'm still not terribly motivated, but maybe if I just start up again, I can get some momentum.

I've only got around 2 1/2 months until my son is born. I really want to be in better shape so that I'm not a bad fitness role model for him. I think I'm gonna use his birth as a goal. I'm going to try to get in as good shape as possible for when he gets here. The clock starts now.

I plan to keep lifting during lunch breaks, but now I'm thinking I will stop by the gym on my way home and get around 30 minutes of some kind of cardio. If I can keep that up(or even start to begin with), I believe I can find myself at a much lighter weight by the new year. I also plan on putting big red X's on days that I complete this. So here I go.

Motivation fight

I find that during my quest to stop being fat, I seem to stay within this pattern of extreme motivation turning to apathetic sloth and back. Right now: apathetic sloth.

I'm heading to the gym this morning so I should soon find myself heading back to motivation. I've also noticed that the more I focus on fitness, the shorter my laziness phase lasts. Hopefully, if I keep cycling like this, my less productive phase might actually go away or become a little productive.

The latest release of a Halo game on the Xbox 360 has definitely slowed my progress. It may as well be the blame for my recent disinterest in all things that deal with motion. I enjoy working out, but it hardly compares to giant robot men fighting aliens with lasers. I'm amazed at how bad that reads.

Also, I am hoping to start swimming soon. Running, as I used to do, is over for now. It's very counter-productive to run a small distance and then avoid exercise for a whole week due to the pain. I need to find a way to reduce weight so that running does not continue to destroy my feet and knees.

You'd think I'd write more

It feels like I just updated this blog, but obviously I haven't in 10 days. I guess I just get lost on the web sometimes.

Well, stuff is going good. I've started running again and I'm lifting too. I've noticed that the lifting alone has been helping me drop body fat faster than the running has. I guess there's a reason to believe all those people that tell you that muscles constantly burn calories. The only problem is that I'm not really losing weight as I build muscle. I have a feeling that the muscle gains will drop off after a while and I'll go back to weight loss, but it just seems counter productive sometimes to see that I've gained 6 pounds on the scale. Luckily, my scale reads bodyfat so I can see that my percentage has gone down.

I'm thinking about really sitting down and finding a better running plan. I need something that won't hurt my feet so bad. I guess I can go back to running once a week and trying to swim or bike on the other days until my feet don't hurt anymore. I'll figure something out.

Do'h

Well it looks as if I'll only be posting three times for the month of August. Strangely enough, I've been pretty good as far as exercise goes despite the fact that I keep forgetting to blog about it.

I've been holding up my lifting plan pretty well and it's starting to pay off. I find myself in much better moods and I wake up much easier. Then again, that could also be attributed to the fact that I've been going to bed earlier. I probably get around 7 hours of sleep on average. People keep saying that I had better get some sleep now, because there won't be much of that when the baby gets here.

Anyways, I'm going to begin running again today. I just had to get this new lifting plan locked down before I could really hit the road again. There's something about running with sore calves that really didn't work for me.

The weight loss is still ongoing. I've noticed that the pounds I gained from vacation have started to peel off. I think running and lifting together should really push me pretty far. I'm hoping to see at least 250 lbs by January.

Sore again

I forgot how much I love to lift. I'd completely neglected lifting while I was focusing on the running aspects of my training plan, that was a huge mistake.

There's something about a good weight workout that makes you feel absolutely great. I'm pretty sure it has to do with elevated testosterone levels, but I really can't say. Anyways, I've been in the best mood for the last couple of days and I find myself thinking about hitting the weights because I really have missed being in the gym.

The soreness has hit pretty hard in this pursuit of strength. Both my brother, Bryant, and I have been doing that shambling, stumbling walk that only new strength trainers seem to have. Bryant, at least, gets a week off while he goes through law school orientation. I'm still going without him so that I can get used to the routine of what our schedule is. Once I'm done with the soreness of it all, Evan and I will start a newly designed running plan.

The old running plan was good, but I didn't account for how heavy I had gotten. The weight was way too much for my feet and legs to carry for the distances that we were supposed to hit. I'm hoping that a revived running plan plus strength training will expedite the weight loss and lead to longer distances achieved.

It's a boy

I took a little time to be AWOL. With everything that is going on, it's hard to focus on my running. I think I'm finally able to get through all the clutter.

First off, we found out a week ago that the baby is going to be a boy. I'm very blessed because a boy is just what I wanted. I'd have been happy with a girl, but I like the idea of a little girl having a big brother(protection and all that).

I'm still trying to figure out how to keep running without all the pain. My feet really haven't hurt since we went on vacation, but as soon as we got back, my knees started giving me trouble. I noticed that if we travel somewhere, I don't ever hurt as much. This has led me to believe that our mattress topper is the problem. It's memory foam and it is ridiculously comfortable. I googled "memory foam joint pain" the other day and it came back with many responses with people having the same experience as myself. I'm not sure if it is the memory foam, but it does seem like time for an experiment.

Today, I start lifting with my older brother, Bryant. He's going into law school and all of his law books say that a proper exercise regimen will keep you from killing yourself while under the stress of law school. That really puts exercise in perspective. So, I bought him two months at the YMCA for a law school present. Now we'll be lifting at lunchtime. I gotta say, I'm really fired up about getting back into the gym. On my way home, I hope to hit up the Y again and get some running done.

Vacation over

So, I got back from the beach on Wednesday and I feel great. My feet haven't hurt in days and I'm ready for a good run.

On the downside, my running plans for the beach fell through completely. I was hoping to get in my run before my wife woke up everyday. It seems that while she can sleep to 11 a.m. when at home, she rises with the sun when she is on vacation. Before I could get out the door, she was ready to hit the beach already.

Today, Evan and I are going to go try some hill repeats. It's not part of the schedule, but my aching feet have really thrown us off the schedule anyways. I really hope we can make up the lost time in phase 3 of our training.

One more thing: the scale is saying I gained around 5 lbs. at the beach. That's what you get when your vacation diet consists of milkshakes.

Now, that I've fallen off the horse, it's time to dust myself off and get back in the saddle.