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Sunday Week in Review

Its been a tough week for me.  This week I have been dealing with work, a back injury and aches and pains due to ageing (arthritic hip and shoulder).   This week also was the start of my re-commitment to hitting my goal of fluctuating between 220-225 pounds and/or between 15-16% body fat.  This week was also awesome because of several people who reached out to me and let me know that my story was inspiring to them and they took action and improved themselves significantly!   That always warms my heart and gets me especially motivated.

So my report for the week –

Weight: -4.5 lbs.

BF: -0.4%

Inches – took first set of measurements

Work out – 5 out of 5 workouts done

Steps – 75% of the goal.

Eating – had 2 bad meals was 90% of the goal.

So for the week not bad, but needs improvement.  One lesson learned is that I need to get my butt in the workout room each morning before 5am or it is difficult to get the workout in.   Also – injury is not an excuse to  NOT work out, but an excuse to find a way to adapt the workout to accommodate the injury.   You can work up a good sweat just stretching and doing isometrics.  All stuff I’ve heard before but the stuff I really lived this week.

On a side note.  I listened to an Audible book “Great Cources” series audio course “Changing Body Composition Through Diet and Exercise” by Dr Michael Ormsbee who is the Associate Director, FSU Institute of Sports Sciences & Medicine.  It was a lot of information, I don’t think I learned much more but I did get a lot of confirmation on what I’ve been doing.  But may need to rename this site Eat Less (and better) and Move More.  🙂  Have a great week everyone!

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Getting Real on Wednesday Morning.

So this morning the alarm went off as I was already awake – I woke up at 0420 and was lying there in a state.   My back has been in knots since last Wednesday when I went Kayaking and did not do it right after not doing it at all for 2 years and regularly since 2012.  Needless to say, I’ve had some back pain, but have not let that stop me from doing what I need to do.  I was planning on doing a HIIT on the elliptical this morning so when the alarm went off – I wanted to roll back over and say – to heck with it.   But I knew “discipline equals freedom” and got up and thought – ouch!  My back was really telling me to not bounce it around.  So I decided to do some much lower impact exercise first thing, and if my back loosened up over the course of the day I would do some more.  I did some stretching while upside down on my Teeter Hangup and then did some more stretching on the floor.  I also did some crunches and other core work.  Feeling better, and got a workout in even if it was not what I had planned – I got my breakfast and on with my morning.   I also had a great time talking about some really important things with my 12 year old daughter so my morning was awesome when I woke up in pain and not wanting to move.   Go get after it!

 

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Today is a new day – a new challenge.

Well, folks – yesterday and the weekend were a time to sit back and revel in the progress I have made over the last two years. Today it is time to get honest again. It is incredible how easy it is to fall back into the crap of lies and deceit we play with ourselves. In April I was going strong – I hit 239 and was over 110 pounds dropped. I was on the Path after cruising through the Holidays and then getting back on track with some buddies Dan Hollender and Michael Weiss. I was through what I thought was a mental breakthrough. This was an excellent feeling! Well as my history of life shows – I get through the storm and then turn around and head back into it. I could make excuses – but the reality is all the injuries and other reasons I have slipped back are lies. I did not keep on the Path because it was easier not to get up and move and not eat less crap. I did. I ate crap and moved less. No, I sit at 266 and have left my self with 26 additional pounds to lose and shed them I will.

Yesterday – The things I do to my self to interfere with my success came back to bite me. Both of my fitbits were uncharged so day one of my new beginning started without a mechanical means of tracking. So my numbers from yesterday are missing all my steps through the day. I did, however, take the dog for a 3-mile walk when I got home – that I tracked – so not a total loss. I also followed my eating plan to a tee- so double bonus.

This morning started as I planned – 0430 up make coffee 0440 lifting weights in the basement – 0510 on the treadmill for 20 min. Drinking coffee and posting this blog post before 6 am! First steps are the hardest. Here we go!

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Monday Leg Day – Not the usual way!

So Monday was supposed to be leg day done in the Gorman home gym.   But God had a different plan.   Most of you know that the last few days in the mid-Atlantic we have had been dealing with excessive amounts of rain. Well that fact and the fact that Murphy is in non stop motion I went down to the basement to push weights and did my first set of squats only to think – “its unusually damp down here – what is up with that?”  Well you know what it was – the stairwell flooded and leaked into the basement.   Of course there were 4 inches of water still in the stair well and tons of crap – like the whole flower garden dumped its topsoil in the stair well.  I go find the sump pump I used to empty the pool.  It was in the green house, set that up and it did not have enough umph to get the water out of the well and away from the house.   So off to find the other pump that I knew I had somewhere not in the Greenhouse, shed or basement.  Finally found it in the garage, then to get a garden hose. Now the water is emptying now I see that there is a ton of crap – looks like dirt.  Really good topsoil dirt.  Lots of it!  Off to get a bucket and shovel from the shed.  Filled up first 5 Gallon bucket with slop. Carried it up and over to our “pollinator garden” really a mound that was once covered with really nice flowers the previous owner planted and now is a mix of wild flowers and what is left of what they had planted – the butterflies like it.  I dumped the muck on top of the existing 6 foot mound.  4 more trips and the stair well is empty but the rain is still coming down in buckets.

Now the well is empty but I am an hour and a half later I still haven’t gotten my workout in and I’m feeling my self getting frustrated because I have to leave for work.  I look at my fit bit and I have done 14 floors (5 woth a 5 gallon bucket full of wet dirt and water) and 7000 steps taking care of that mess – got my cardio done, now today I have to the leg workout.   🙂   Getting my workout in when having plans messed up is a huge change for me.   Looking at it like this and rolling with the things life deals me is one of the big changes in my self I have seen – not getting frustrated and angry at the world but accepting the challenge and overcoming it – happily and gracefully!   Progress!

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Weekend of Diet Destruction (not)

Well that was fun!  We had a family party on Saturday and I went with out preparing my self for it.  So instead of making sure I had healthy alternatives to the junk I knew was gong to be there I first gave into that one little cookie, then the Bacon Mac and cheese then the Lasagna then the cake, then the cupcakes then more cookies  – then the killer straight form the sugar devil himself, a concoction of whipped cream, angel food cake, strawberries and sugary syrup – and before I looked up I was on the other side of a 3000 calorie “lunch” – if you can believe that I was able to count everything.   On top of that – I spent 4 hours in the car getting to this event and getting back to it.  Katie had a play that night so of course I used it as an excuse to skip out on my work out that day (“no time” – reality just too lazy to get up earlier to do it)

Now in the past because I would have used that as an excuse to berate myself and say oh well the day is gone the weekend is gone and tomorrow I have 2 planned meals at a restaurant with family for lunch and church small group for dinner so the weekend would have been lost and I would have eaten at least 6000 calories in 2 days.   Not any more.   Because I failed to plan and then was weak on Saturday I decided to make Sunday a day of fasting.  So on Sunday I only had coffee and water.  At the Outback Steak house – my table was filled with steak and salmon and French fries – I had coffee and water.   At dinner at a local Mediterranean place the table was full of Pasta and Steak salads and Gyros – I had coffee and water.   So instead of a 6000+ calorie weekend I ended up with about half that!   Back on track and off to another week of driving the needle down on weight and up on healthier living!