My Fitness Diary and How it Works

Hello everyone,

This is the first post to the new (well, almost new…I do believe I created the blog a month or so back, but never got around to posting in it) fitness blog of sc. I'm fairly sure that this won't be a Onion blockbuster hit, but at least it'll keep me motivated to get in a bit better shape. So here's how its going to work:

Every week I will do my best to make some time to write here what I've been up to in regards to my fitness sessions. Nothing fancy, just your average college guy working out in an attempt to get his body in shape. I am 5 foot 10 inches male who weighs, last time I checked, 161 pounds and 14% fat. My goal is to bring down the fat percentage to 9% by the end of May, and to then work on gaining more muscle. The reason for the separation of these goals? Well, as I implied, I am a college student, and I'm a student who has tests every 3 weeks and an immense amount of reading to catch up on. Finals are on the first week of May so time doesn't really allow for hour long workouts, even if it's just every other day.

How I'm doing the first phase:

I love to run. Period. Everyday after school I will stop by our local metropark and run for 30 minutes, with the help of Podrunner Intervals. Intervals are supposed to help you lose weight faster as your body has to keep on readjusting to your tempo and energy needs. The park has rather steep hills, as I found out on my first run 3 weeks ago, and is thus perfect for exercising my legs and bum at the same time.

So far I've completed the first, second and third weeks of Podrunner Intervals successfully, with no cheating except during the first week when my body was not ready for the onslaught of cramps that would complete any workout. I started running during spring break just around the neighborhood to see how running with music in your ears would feel like. It felt great. Everyday I cannot wait until the next day to go running again, no matter how tired I am. I learned to like running. Imagine that!

Diet:

Nothing particular, I'm going to do what I've done for the past year or so, which is following the Abs Diet and the diet plan therein.

1. Eat 5-6 times a day in the following manner:
   
   1. 6:30 AM: Breakfast, cereal/oatmeal/pancake with blueberries/protein shake
      
   2. 10:00 AM: Snack, one power bar
      
   3. 12:00 PM: Lunch, usually a Zone bar
      
   4. 3:00 PM: Snack, yoghurt or banana
      
   5. 5:00 PM: Dinner, whatever my mother made
      
   6. 7:00 PM: Snack, a small bowl of cereal
      
2. Why the power bars in the morning? Nothing scientific or philosophical, it's just that I have classes on weekdays from 7:30 AM till 2:00 PM usually and thus have no time to make myself a real lunch. I get 15 minute breaks between classes from 10 to 2.
   
3. For breakfast I usually mix weigh protein into my cereal or oatmeal (vanilla whey with cereal and chocolate whey with oatmeal is absolutely irresistible)
   
4. The running fits in at around 2:30 PM Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and at around 12:30 PM Tuesday and Thursday.
   

And the second phase:

At the end of May, if I don't get into the school of my choice and therefore cannot go to France over the summer, I will begin the second phase:

1. Working out in the basement of our home for 1 hour every other day using the HGM Workout. We will see how this one goes, if it's not going well then I will be switching back to my normal 30-minute workouts every other day.
   

Progress:

Will be measure with the Anabolic Growth Tracker 5000, a nifty little tool that lets you input your weight, fat percentage, size of various body parts, and will in turn track your progress and even produce charts! As I said, I will post on here every week, most likely on Saturdays, and will update myself on my progress. At the end of the month I will post a screen shot of the charts. Before and After pictures will also be posted, but they will be in my profile so that it'll be easier to find. My face will be edited out. J

So that's it for now and I will be back next week. Until then,

G-d bless and hope we can get through this together!
sc