Another vacation.

I'm in Pennsylvania right now, for a family reunion tomorrow. Been here since last night. It's been pretty good so far, haven't gone off my eating, and my sister has a bowflex in the basement, so I was able to do a decent arm workout, but not as sore today as I would like to be. Ran two miles last night as well, and today is my last day for the week, abs, back and running. I'll be getting to that later tonight. My brother might be coming over, which is pretty cool because I have never met or spoken to him before... I guess him and my dad had a sort-of falling out sometime around the time I was born. We will see how that goes...

Vacations are hard, we went out to breakfast this morning and of course the menu tried to kill me. I had two eggs, a piece of sausage, and a slice of toast, and took the other half home for my sister. Last night it was sausage and chicken pasta, and I had a chicken breast. I just keep reminding myself that Sunday is my official picture/weigh in day, and of course every say comes closer to my finishing the Missouri 60. I will be halfway done on Sunday, so it should be easier to judge and predict the type of progress I can make in the next 30 days.

Interesting note, I found this website that calculates your maximum fitness potential based on your height and wrist/ankle circumference, a lot of bodybuilders use the program because it is very accurate, suprisingly. With a calculated body fat percentage of ten, my maximum muscle potential is a 53' chest, 15' forearms, 19' biceps... and I can't remember the rest off the top of my head because I'm on a different computer and don't have the link available... but let's just say I have a long way to go.


Time for family time, have a good day everyone.

Success is a state of mind

We all have rough days, no doubt... and sometimes they can be to the point you begin making excuses for why you DON'T have to do something, or why TOMORROW is a much more opportune time. Sometimes it is completely unavoidable and in fact you will not be able to do what it is you set out to do, but when your just sitting around making excuses simply because they exist, well, your not being serious about what you want. A lot of people will say that fitness begins in the kitchen, but I would have to say that the true source of power comes from your mind. I know that most of you probably think about food, exercise and what you have to do later pretty much 24/7... I know that it is never off your mind. I know because I am the exact same way, and I know just how exhausting it can be. I guarantee that whatever your making an excuse for, right now, is complete bullshit. You can actually do whatever it is you need to do to get the job done and you damn well know it just like I do. It starts in your head, and there is no way around that, so just make the decision to do it. Your going to feel better, live better, and overall just be better.

When you don't want to do it, do it. That is the weapon of this war.

Value The Work

"We must remember that confidence kills. It will rob you of your desire and cheat you out of future victories and success. The ones who stay successful are those who realize the hunt is never over. One touchdown or one hundred touchdowns are the same thing if you don’t value the work."
- Animal

I've been so fired up this week. I got home on Sunday and saw my progress decline, I felt completely desolate and unworthy of all my sacrifices, and then a moment of clarity. It was when I realized that this is for good, and nothing is going stop me from getting there. Just knowing that kind of power exists inside of me is a refreshing sense of reality. But confidence can be a downfall. Knowing that I can does not mean that I will, and it is important to stay focused even when it begins to seem easy to dig deep and nail out the struggles. I have struggles left, demons to face, plenty of obstacles to overcome. What am I willing to give, knowing what the results will be? The truth is, I do not know what the results will be, for certainly I could die tomorrow and never get to where I want to be. But that is kind of the magic, that I will never be where I want to be, and the struggles will rise and fall just as they always have before. I'm just climbing higher mountains now. I'm climbing two right now, and I know that when I reach the top, there will be another. And another. Till the day I die, I will be climbing mountains and reaching out for what I desire. That mentality has been with me for the past few days, and it has never wavered. It has transcended my need and by desire because I have embedded it into my character over the course of this summer, and I think Sunday was something of a breaking point. I value the work, and I understand not only why I must continue, but why I can, and how to tap into that source of my mentality whenever it is needed. And I need it, all the time.

Weekends, so bittersweet.

I went up to Columbus for the weekend, and lets just say things didn't go so well on the nutrition front. I don't really know what I was thinking, or why I ate the things I did, even though it was not completely terrible. I drank a good amount and with that came the food, but I'm back on track now. I retained a shitload of water, I about threw my scale out the window last night when I checked the damage, and I'd rather not say exactly how much I fucked up yet because it would be inaccurate, I'll get a better reading tomorrow once my body has gotten into the swing of things.

I came to a hard realization this weekend, and I'm almost glad it happened. I'm glad that I went up there this weekend and more or less did what I do during the school year, and saw the damage when I got home. I have realized that my body is not designed to process efficiently, and it will probably never do what I want it to do. Simple fact of the matter is, despite my size, my muscle mass, and the amount of exercise I do, my metabolism is just plain crap. I can not afford to eat and drink like others despite my size, and if I seriously want to transform myself, I'm probably going to have to eat like I do now for the rest of my life. I won't be able to just splurge every once in awhile, or have an extra beer, or eat a cheeseburger now and then. It is probably the first time in my life that I have come to accept that bitter fact, and right now I'm struggling to see it becoming a reality in the long term. My mental toughness is not where it needs to be.

As far as losing weight is concerned, it is just the first step of this journey. Unlike most people, I do not necessarily want to be skinny. In fact, I want to be huge. I want to rip shirts, press ridiculous amounts of weight, sport arms the size of watermelons, and crack walnuts with my pecs. It has always been a dream of mine, one I thought was unattainable until I started lifting regularly, and coming to discover that I can actually keep consistent and enjoy myself as well. The problem right now is that I am trying to lose the excess body fat that hinders me from doing more difficult, highly efficient exercises, as well as sap my energy. Also, I am not able to fully benefit from a bodybuilding diet because the amount of protein and complex carbohydrates should be designed to maintain current body fat percentages and maximize muscle growth. As much as I want to drink creatine and protein shakes, eat half a dozen eggs, two chicken breasts, two bowls of oatmeal, and two turkey sandwiches every day, it is not going to help me lose the excess body fat. That is a diet designed specifically for maintaing and rebuilding, not losing and building. I eat a decent amount of food every day, I always shoot for about 80g of protien, 80f carbs, and somewhere around 2400 calories, but bodybuilding requires much more. I have to tweak my goals a bit, and do some experimenting, but I can not do those things until I reach my desired weight overall, which right now is 180lbs. Once I do reach 180, I think I will take a week or two to determine exactly how much I have to eat (calorie wise) simply to maintain that constant weight, and then subsitute it with bodybuilding style diet high in protiens, viatamins, and aminos at that exact calorie mark. I have been doing a lot of reading and most people who lose weight first do essientially the same thing, so I think my plan is solid. Ideally I would like to weigh about 200lbs, but I want that 20lbs in muscle. So, its going to be a long, tough journey, and it is not going to be easy. I'm scared of the next five years, to be honest, just as much as I look forward to them. Hopefully by the age of 25, I will be where I want to be.

Ok, so I'm rambling... I just had to get all that off my chest. Whew. Have a good week everyone.