ej's blog-o-matic

Day 33 of P90X

eric — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:19:15 +0000

Coming in at #1 on my 2009 resolutions was “get in the best shape of my life”. I know, I know…everybody has something akin to this in their yearly resolutions. Such is the reason why going to the gym in January typically sucks because it’s bursting at the seams with all the folks that have “resolved” to get in better shape. Without fail, come the middle of February…it’s back to the normal population levels.

I try to stay fairly active, but at 31, I’m starting to notice that I’m getting creaks and cracks in places they didn’t use to be. Or if I do happen to hurt/pull something, it takes just that much longer to heal.

I’m also the king of taking a program like P90X and “modifying” it to suit my needs (read: don’t do the real hard stuff, but expect the same results).

This go-around I told myself to actually stick with it and follow the program to the letter. So far (33 days into to it), I’ve not done it perfectly (I tend to prematurely hit the stop button on the ab workout and 1.5 hr Yoga workout), but I’ve stuck pretty close.

One of the hardest parts has not been the workouts, but trying to follow the diet plan. It’s safe to say that I’ve had a pretty horrible diet for quite some time. In my teens and 20’s, it seemed that my metabolism was able to counter-balance an endless onslaught of McD’s and TBell. This is not the case anymore.

I’ve finally started to take steps toward eating right, and I would say thus far, it probably has had the biggest effect on my waistline. On average, I’m burning about 650-700 calories per workout (the beauty of a heart rate monitor), and I’m doing that 6 times a week for a net of about 4200 calories burned per week. My guess is with my improved diet, I’m probably eating 300-400 fewer calories a day, 5 days a week (I let myself slip a bit on the weekends). This should net out another 2000 calories. So, all in, I should be dropping a little bit north of 6000 calories per week. At 3500Cals/Pound, I should be losing about 1.5-1.7 pounds per week.

So far I’ve dropped 4 pounds…so that would put me a little behind my above calculations. My hope is that I’ve been replacing that with some muscle, which weighs more than fat…so I’m not going to get to worked up that I’ve only dropped 4lbs.

I’ve also been told/read that I shouldn’t expect huge differences in the mirror in the first 30 days. The last 30 days of the program (apparently) is where the largest physical differences will become apparent.

Even though I haven’t seen dramatic physical differences thus far, I have reaped the following benefits:

Improved Strength
Pants are fitting a bit better…what was once “tight” is now comfortable
Vastly improved cardiovascular endurance
Reduced stress
Better sleep

I was hesitant to blog about this early on, due to my history of starting fitness endevours like this, but abandoning early and often. Now that I’ve got a good chunk of this under my belt, I think I’m in a good position to keep it going for the next 27 days, then finish off strong with the final third.

Expanding my beer palate

eric — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 02:07:23 +0000

I came pretty late to the beer-drinking party (senior year of college). I’ve always favored sweet over bitter and have not been a fan of tea, coffee, beer, etc. Because of this, I’ve historically not been fond of anything dark and basically stuck with American lagers.

For the last few years, I have mainly gravitated toward the pedestrian beers: Bud Light, Corona, Michelob Ultra and the like. About a year ago I was introduced to Shock Top (called Spring Heat – Spiced Wheat at the time), which is a Belgian Ale. Since then I’ve also come to find out Blue Moon (which I also enjoy) is very similar.

With this new found desire to expand the palate, I headed off to Lukas Liquor at the corner of Manchester and Clarkson road to “build my own six pack” (for $8.99, if you’re interested). Having never been there, I was quite impressed with the scale of the store. If you are a beer or wine connoisseur, I recommend you check it out.

Here’s what I ended up walking out with (with tasting results thus-far):

New Belgium Sunshine Wheat – Thumbs Up!
Boulevard Pale Ale – Meh…
Schlafly Hefeweizen – Thumbs Up!
Shock Top (Belgian Ale) – Thumbs Up!
Leinenkugel Honey Weiss – Would drink it if given to me, but most likely wouldn’t ask for it.
Czechvar (Wikipedia article describing the relationship with AB) – Not Yet Tasted

So far the experiment has been a success, with a .800 batting average after trying 5 of the 6 beers. I have high hopes for the last one, so I feel like I’ll end up in good shape.

I should also note that a couple of catalysts for this experiment was the InBev/AB merger (acquisition) and going to the Schlafly Bottleworks a few weeks ago. It’s given me a desire to support the local/little guy a bit more these days.

Given the list above, what beers would you recommend to further expand the Danker beer portfolio?

100 Push-Ups: Week #3

eric — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:49:56 +0000

It was self-test time this week. I was able to crank out 29 pushups this go-around. I started the challenge being able to do 21….a 38% increase from day one.

29 pushups puts me in the 3rd column workouts for week 3…and that’s going to make it pretty rough. I did my first workout of the week last night (25-17-17-15-25). The first 4 sets went well, but the last set of 25 got the better of me. While I was able to do 18 normally, I had to finish the last 7 on my knees.

If I do the same tomorrow night (workout #2 for week 3), I feel that I’ll probably need a do-over for week 3.

100 Push-Ups: Week #2

eric — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:20:09 +0000

Week one was a success! I was pretty sore after the first 2 workouts, but that seems to have passed now. The first workout of week 2 has gone well. I think I should should be able to make it through this week fairly easily, but looking ahead to week 3 (if I stay in the 3rd column after my week 2 test) scares me a bit. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

100 Push-Ups

eric — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:01:29 +0000

A link to the 100 Push-Up challenge came across my Twitter feed tonite. I need to get back into strength training, so I decided to give it a go.

On the initial test, I could 21 well-formed push-ups without stopping. For my age, that put me at a “Level 3“.

I decided to blog about it to make it part of the public record. Being shamed by my co-workers is a pretty compelling motivational tool. I’ll try my best to subsequently blog about it each week of the program.

New Street Fighter…must…be…purchased.

eric — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:26:05 +0000

If you even midly played video games in the early 90’s, it’s pretty much a given that you spent a good chunk of that time playing some variation of Street Fighter II.

After much tweaking/futzing with the Street Fighter formula (Alpha, EX, etc), Capcom has come to their senses and is just releasing the good’ole original version, just updated with “HD” graphics. I like that.

After checking out these videos, the deal has pretty much been sealed that this game will be purchased when it’s released.

JJ Twigs Pizza and Pub lives up to it’s name

eric — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:48:43 +0000

I met a fraternity brother out for dinner/drinks the other night. We went to JJ Twigs at the corner of Big Bend and Dougherty Ferry. The two things that rocked:

Pizza: Their specialty is a unique twist on deep-dish…it’s a double-decker thin crust pizza. Doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it’s damn good.

Beer: I’m not much of a beer aficianado, but I always had a soft spot in my heart for the AB spring seasonal brew: Spring Heat – Spiced Wheat. Unbeknownst to me, AB has decided to make it available year-round and have given it the unfortunate name Shock Top. Sounds like something I would drink while I airboarded from 20,000 ft on my way to compete in the X-Games. If you get the draft variety, it’s served with an orange slice, which to me, is a great compliment. Stupid name, great beer.

Former Clinton Superdelegate Switches to Barack Obama

admin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:31:12 +0000

“I now support Barack Obama because he has brought about a new wave of hope and energy to this country, especially among our young people, who represent our future. People want to see change. Barack can help unite this country and help us embrace our diverse nation.”

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Microsoft Has No Answer For Their Broken XBOX Live DRM

admin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:25:52 +0000

I’m quite fond of my Xbox360, but I too have fallen into this trap because I’m already on my 3rd 360 (2 previous boxes had “general hardware failures”). So, if you’re like me and have quite a few XBLA games, pray that your 360 doesn’t break.

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The number of 5-Year Olds I could fight

eric — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:01:45 +0000

Not that would necessarily like it, but here’s my results…