Day 5: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete.

Ah sorry for the late post. Yesterday was another great day for me nutrition wise, and decent exercise wise as well. The day started off with a trip to the beach, where I laid out, trying to even up my other half, for about an hour. I played Boche Ball with the rent's, and then we went to the bar for some broiled shrimp buckets. I had six largish shrimp, with cocktail sauce, and called this lunch. At around 3, I came home and chiled for awhile, which eventually turned into a nap. For some reason I just had no energy yesterday, probably a combination of sun and not getting quite enough calories. I woke up around &:30 and headed over to they gym, and my workout was ok. I got 20 minutes of ellpitical at about 2 miles, and then proceeded to do arms. At the time, I felt like I was working my arms pretty hard, but today there isn't too much of a burn. I know the weight was heavy enough because by the 4th set of each exercise, I was struggling. TOday I woke up and there dosen't seem to be much muscle soreness, so I don't know what's up. Anyways, I came home and fixed myself a chicken breast with a genrous side of mixed veggies, which was stupendous. And then I couldn't fall asleep for like 4 hours, despite my lack of energy. It was a prety downtime kinda day, and I really didn't have any energy for the entire duration, but today I am feelig much better. (Went Kyacking for two hours this morning, it was stupendous and invigorating.) However, I would like to adress something in this post that I have discovered about myself, something I find to be very disturbing and frustrating.

I'm the "all or nothing type", and I like things done fast. I'm visula, I want to see the results, I want to know that what I'm doing is the right thing. Without having taken daily pictures, there is no telling whether or not I would be able to keep up my pace of progress. It's just, I know in the back of my head, this isn't a one week, two week, on month, 6 month or even yearly venture... its a lifestyle change. Sure, I have harder days than others, but my life is good, I'm improving, but my desire to see these "instant results" is monopolizing my thought process. When I look in the mirror, sure I see little changes here and there, but it feels like for all the effort I put in, I should be on the cover of a bodybuilding magazine. I know it's ridiculous to even have those thoughts because I know that is not how things work in this department. But, something inside of me is gets furious about it, and then I start to feel my motivations slip away. I have to constantly remind myself of the reality in this situation, and it helps me move forward, but I'm so afraid of one day just completely snapping because of the "what's the point" attitude. It's. Just. GAH! I wish I was a more patient person, I wish I could eliminate those thoughts from my mind. I wish I could focus more on my past progress, and use that as a driving tool. I know most people go through this thought process, especially in the beginning. I just wish it wasn't a DAILY thing. It's exhausting. So yeah, that's my rant. Time to go make myself that lunch, Kyaking kicked my arse this morning. Good luck to everyone today!

Day 4: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete

Man, I was so tired last night. I don't know why really, maybe everything just caught up with me finally. I slept about 8 hours, then took a 3 hour nap. I had lunch around 1, same thing as always, and then walked about a mile to the store to buy some diet soda. I didn't really do much other than that, it was kind of a boring day. My parents went out to dinner to the best restaurant on the island, so needless to say I chose not to go with them. Instead, I went to the gym around 7 and got started on my supa long workout. Because I didn't play any basketball today, I ran for 10 minutes on the treadmill and then 15 minutes on the elliptical. Then it was on to abs, and yesterday was shoulders. It was kind of a depressing workout because it was REALLY hard while I was doing it, but today I hardly feel any burn. Makes me feel like I wasted my time, even though I know that is not the case. My abs hurt, though. So tomorrow, my mom and I want to go kyaking, problem is tonight I have arms. So... I either have to switch and do back tonight, or do arms tonight and suck it up if we do go kyaking. I guess I'll just have to wait for my mom to make a decision. Problem is, she can't make decisions. So0o0 anyways, that's about all I got for yesterday... I think the sunburn is healed enough, I will go down to the beach today. My mom bought Boche Ball, so I will probably make an afternoon out of that. Thanks for reading, and good luck with your goals today!

Day 3: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete

Ah, another day here in South Carolina, and another victory for me. Today was great, though physically and mentally the most demanding thus far. The fatass inside of me tried to escape, but I prevailed. Woke up at about 6 this morning, and went deep sea fishing with the whole family and Captain Jim (whom we've gone out with every year). It was a great run... I of course caught the largest creature of the deep, a 6 foot wide, 6 foot long stingray. Let me tell you, besides the tuna I caught back when I was thirteen, this monster gave me the hardest fight of my life. We had to pull up the anchor and trail the fish because it pulled off about 500 feet of line on top of what was already out, and the coolest thing about that is there is nothing you can do while the fish is running. It took me about 25 minutes to reel the son-of-a-bitch in, and but I finally did it. Man, after doing chest and abs last night, my upper body was on fire at the end of that struggle. As soon as I find a chord for my camera, I'll post a picture sometime in the near future. It was too large (and dangerous) to fully bring into the boat, so unfortunately I did not get to hold it while a picture was taken, but hey, we got it about halfway out of the water, and some pretty nice pics. My dad came in second with a 4 foot blacktip shark, weighing in somewhere around 60-70 pounds, but we had to throw it back for legal reasons. But, everyone in my family did catch something, so it was a good morning to say the least. I was exhausted when we got back to the condo, so I took about a 4 hour nap and consequently missed lunch, although I did have two eggs and some cheese for breakfast. After I woke up, I headed down to the basketball court and got about 25 minutes of shooting hoops in, again just enough to work up a sweat before dinner, to help my metabolism bypass the fat storage. We went to the salty dog cafe, and I put our name in while at the same time flirting with the incredibly cute hostess. She said it would probably take two and a half hours, but due to my wit and ridiculous charm, we were seated within 20 minutes. The weight loss and lifting might have helped as well :)

So for dinner, I sported the chef's special, a daily catch of grilled Grouper, brown rice, and mixed vegetables. I ate half of everything on my plate, and opted to just leave the rest as I have plenty of food here at home. I think that will be the new rule: only eat half of what they bring me at restaurants. It seems to be working pretty well, and hit helkps me practice protion control. Anyways, we came home afterward and I once again headed out to the gym, and tonight was mentally the toughest. It was just one of those night when I really didn't want to do anything. I ran for 20 minutes, roughly 2 miles, and then did a full leg workout. It took about a hour and a half to finish everything, but it seemed like 3. But, I got everything done, which is important. I hope to have a little soreness in my legs tomorrow, I hate working out and then feeling fine the next day.... I mostly had to use machines for my routine tonight as they do no have a barbell, and I'm worried it won't have benefited me as much. Only time will tell. I had another great day, positives on both the nutrition and working out, so I can't complain. Tomorrow is going to be tough, I've got shoulders, abs, and cardio.... meaning it will probably be the longest night thus far. But, I'm going to do it. Like I said, I will not fail. Hope everyone had a great day today, and good luck with the days to come!





(10 hours later) P.S

I just wanted to say, I'm pretty pissed off with my genetics. I'm like super tall, and all my weight sits on my stomach. Like.... ALL of it. A little bit on my chin, but that's mostly gone now. I mean, I read a lot of blogs and I see a lot of pictures... and its really frustrating to see pople who looked SO much better physically when they weighed the same as I do now. I have a decent amount of muscle mass and I do a good amount of cardio, and I eat right, but all my fat just sits there. I remember 3 years ago when I weighed 190, I STILL had fat sitting on my love handles. It just pisses me of that I got these crap genetics. I mean, I'm probably he only 6'4 person who could weigh 190 and still have fat hanging off me nearly shoulder width apart. I don't know what I can do to fix this problem... because most people I see don't have it at my weight currently, let alone 190-185 (my eventual goal). Anyways, when I get home and have the opportunity to show you the last two weeks of progress, you'll see what I'm talking about. I have slimmed down, but nowhere near looking like I want to. I know you can't core train fat away in certain areas, basically the only thing I can do is keep up the nutrition and work my abs like crazy. I'm just frustrated... I know this is only my tenth offical day and I should be proud, (which I am), but long term seems like such a distant venture. 300 Days from now? 600? Man, even a month seems eons away. Maybe its because I'm on vacation, everything moves slower out here, but just worke up in a frustrated mood. I'll feel better after my insanely long workout tonight, hopefully.

Day 2: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete

Oh man, what a day. I can hardly type. I can hardly focus on the screen. I'm barely awake. Today was intense. I couldn't fall asleep last night, as I was up talking to some great people and also, was just wide awake. Also, I had taken a nap earlier that morning. Anywho, I finally fell asleep around 4:30 am, and woke up around 11. I didn't eat breakfast because honestly, I forgot, and by the time I remembered, it was lunchtime. So I went down to the basketball courts and shot some hoops for about 20 minutes, just enough to work up a sweat and get the ol' heart-rate going. I came back to the condo around 12:30 and fixed my standard lunch: turkey sandwich, two reduced fat cheese sticks, and a handful of pretzles. Oddly enough, it really filled me up. Then I headed down to the beach with the rent's, we sat out for about 3 hours and although I applied gratuitious amounts of sunscreen, I look like a tomato on one side of my body right now. Tomorow I'll have to lay on my stomach for awhile, just to even things up. And boy, does going to the beach make you humble... there are so many perfect people walking around, its like watching an episode of Laguna Beach or something. Oddly depressing but stranger still, nice to know that one day I will be one of those Calvin Klein models walking around in the little world of physical near-perfection. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people out there much worse off than me, but it was still a little unnerving to take off my shirt, though my progress visually I think is great. It was a nice dose of perspective. Anywho, we ame back to the condo around 5 and I headed off for another round of basketball... probably played for 30 minutes that time round. Then my parents went out o dinner and I opted to stay home, during which time I went to the gym. Today was chest and abs, and I got a solid hour and a half of lifting in as well. Not bad for no music, doing it by myself. They had no bar for bench, so I did freeweights, which I discovered are INSANELY MORE DIFFICULT than traditional bench press, incline, and flys. I was planning on doing some pushups afterwards, which I tried to do, but I couldn't even hold myself up. Needless to say, I maxed out the muscles I set out to max, and that is a great feeling. Oh, and since I've been reading so many great tips and articles on all your blogs, I decided to incorperate cadrio into my nightly workouts, beforehand. Tonight was the first night doing both cardio and lifting, I did a sort of variation of HIIT in my head for twenty minutes, and it was the perfect amountof warmup... 2.5 miles on the ski machine at multiple speeds. That will definitely be a part of my weekly workouts from now on, even though my construction job knocks the crap out of me and I will probably have to jog, jumprope o play basketball with Mike once I get home. No pain, no gain... right? But enough about me, its time to make some dinner and CRASH. On the menu: Chicken breast sauteed in olive oil, asian spice, and a bit of garlic powder, topped with a generous pinch of sharp cheddar, and some broccoli on the side. And I counted today, which I consider an average because I didn't change anything. On average I drink about fifteen 12oz bottles of water a day, and maybe a diet coke or two. I've never had a problem with the whole getting enough fluids thing... weird. But yes, anothe perfect day, and one step closer to completing this vacation better than I started. My spirits are high, and I hope your are too. Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week!

Day 1: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete

Ah, my first full day at HH is over... and it was a great one. This morning me and the rent's went to the grocery store, from which I was able to stockpile all my food for the week... which is great. After we got back, I walked over to the basketball court and shot some hoops for about 20 minutes... and in the 90 degree, 100% humidity, it was quite strenuous. I came back to the condo, took a nap, and then it was off to dinner for fathers day. We went to the Aqua grill, and despite the many temptations I was able to find something on the menu to fit my requirements. I had 7 grilled shrimp, about half a cup of green beans, and maybe a quarter cup of rice. I only ate about half the rice they gave me, but it's pretty hard to judge the exact amount as I don't often make rice and it it smaller before you cook it. And I had a diet coke/water to drink... which was definitely the hardest par what with my entire family drinking gallons of alcohol all around me. And, I said no to the bread. It was suprisingly a very filling meal... probably because I've been eating such small portions as of late. Then we came home, chillaxed for a bit, and Dad opened his Father's Day gifts... I got him the Die Hard Quadilogy, and he was mucho pleased. Then around 9, I headed over to the gym and did another 30 minutes of elliptical, just to keep pace with what I do during the week. The machine said I burned something like 450 calories over the course of 2.75 miles... but I don't know if that is entirely accurate. I was sweatin', thats for sure. And as this was my second night, I saw the same guy in the gym as last night. Though I can't remember his name, he plans to be there tomorrow too so at least I will have someone to talk to during my workouts this week... which should make things easier. Anyways, tomorrow is chest and abs, and hopefully another perfect day of eating. I sat down and did the math today, and I have to eat roughly 2300 calories or less if I want to weigh 185 pounds by September 24th. It's a pretty big goal (2.7 ppw) but I think with enough effort and focus, especially with my construction job, it is attainable. I will make it. And I'm doing Jared's 60 day missouri challenge, unfortunatly I have no way of uploading the picutes I have taken this past week, but I do have my camera here and will continue to do so until I get home, at which time I will upload every day since the 15th. High point of the day: The guy I met at the gym thought I weighed 190 pounds. YEAH, right. I'm 222 give or take (I weighed myself at night, after I ate) which I know is terrible of me... but still he thought I looked 32 pounds lighter than I actually am. Rock on. Well... time for bed. Good luck this week everyone, make it a great one!