Visiting the Dirty South on a diet

Last week my company hosted the annual national sales conference outside of our Atlanta based corporate head quarters. Hotlanta. The ATL. Dirty South! Typically going back to the South, my mother land, is like giving Adam Richman and Takeru Kobayashi tape worms and then daring them to an all night buffet bender. My southern food vice comes in little white boxes, steam cooked, and served with a pickle and mustard. If I'm within a 20 mile radius of a Krystals restaurant there is few things on a long list of possible distractions that could keep me from ordering ten to fifteen of those luscious little squares of steamed meet and rehydrated onions... It might not be divine intervention, but I feel strong that living 1500 miles from the closest Krystals may have kept me from eating myself into the grave.

So I am not exaggerating when I say there was a serious fear of falling off the wagon with a feed bag full of soul food and Krystal boxes in my pockets. These conferences are all day butt-numbing meetings, with food breaks as frequent as the watered down management cliche's. However, I should have feared the travel workout Krause packed in my carry-on more than anything on the menu. With a fitness center that lacked all things fitness, his work out offset the buffets of gluttony. Being a newly skinny man with a fragile fat guy inside, a sales conference with three hots and a cot to veg out on, and the aforementioned snack breaks, this trip looked like a disaster on paper.

The circuit was very simple; :45 seconds on, :20 seconds rest. He said to do push ups, lunges, burpies, and mountain climbers. I was shocked at how mentally tough it can be to do push ups on a timer. The killer came at the end of each round with the heart rate elevated by constants burpies and then a quick switch to jello arm producing mountain climbers. I didn't know that your ear drums could leach sweat and brain gravy at the same time. The 20 minute run at the end of the work out was the only time I got to rest. Freaking Krause is good in such an evil mastermind kind of way!

Week Twelve: Getting sidetracked is a fallacy

As an avid journal writer and personal historian, I look for seminal moments in life. For my personal fitness life, finishing competitive swimming marked the end of my youth experience and the beginning of adulthood. My last competitive swim meet was in 1998 US Nationals, on August 20th. I got out of the water after the 100 Backstroke, didn't warm down, and with no fanfare drove out of the central California town of Fresno with chlorine water still dripping from my head and a pretty darn good career behind me. I did not know that my fitness would be a roller coaster ride for the next fifteen years.

Burnt out on chasing the black line in the pool, my work outs switched to the mega gyms of the early 21st Century; yoga pants, meat face beef-cakes, and herds of Turbo Fit queens. Even though I had a new cathedral of narcissism and a journey void of teammates, my eating habits stayed the same post-swimming. It took me nearly two years of bad eating and to make matters worse, there was no metabolic assistance after the internal calorie burner died off in late fall 1998.

The ancient fat cells still celebrate March 2nd, 1999 as the day their minority party took control of my temple. That was the day I became a career man; working 9-5 Monday thru Friday, drinking Jack and Coke by the gallons, with a backer of ranch injected Buffalo wings, and 4th and 5th meals depending on the line at Del Taco at 4:00 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday. I knew things were getting a little Oprah when the only topic of conversation with my Tennessee family was my ballooning weight. So I jumped on a crappy diet and strength plan... wake up early, go to the gym for an hour (using a lifting program from college), and try to eat less of the same crap.

In all honesty, from late May to October 1999 I did a good job of losing a few pounds and gaining a few curves in the arms and chest. Those bastard fat cells had yet to fully inflate the spar tire, so things were pretty stable. Then over a long weekend in October I went out of town, which I got sick from to many "she·nan·i·gans". That week of illness knocked me out of a solid work out schedule, then the days led to weeks, then to months. I had never been the type to be sidetracked. What escaped my mind was the fact for all the years of swimming, a team had been there to make sure days did not turn into years. Then the fat cells won.

Even though I started swimming and working out in the pool later in 2000, I was not committed to really trimming the weight or getting into shape. It was more of maintaining and not letting my waist-line to require me to buy bigger pants. Finance became the saving grace. I did not want to buy more cloths, so I would crash diet and increase cardio to get myself below the "pants button busting" critical mass. 

Then over the winter of 2003, in a great moment of personal vanity, I looked at pictures and realized that if I didn't do something quick, our wedding photos would be immortalizing my defeat. I refused to look fat in my wedding photos! So in January I committed to working out five to six days a week and eating a very aggressive diet until our wedding on June 21st. The day I signed my contract with the gym the scales tipped at a solid 235 pounds. The diet consisted of eating a six inch Subway chicken sub for brunch and the other half in the afternoon, then a fish or chicken dinner in the evening. At the gym, I did :45 minutes to one hour of the stationary bike, plus some pull ups and crunches. In five months I got down to 195 pounds. I was working toward a destination, versus enjoying the journey.

As great as that goal to not be a chunky monkey in print, the destination became the stumbling block to making the change last. In a matter of a year all the weight was back on. Over the next nine years my weight hovered around 220 to 245, with an internal set point of 225 pounds. This included, three Iron Man relays, two master swimming nationals, a half marathon, five months of P90X, 60 days of Insanity, and trash talking challenge by my boy Scot "Easy-E" Eliott to lose weight (which was the birthday of No Fat Jokes Please). All of these silly challenges and activities were easily sidetracked by the fallacy of a destination. There is a neon sign reading "No Vacancies" at that end point, because everyone is there who think this journey has a stopping point.

I have a goal to live to see our country's Tricentennial celebration, which will be four months after my 100th birthday. With that written goal stated, this journey I'm on has just set sail through the waters of the second third of my life. But if I'm cut off short of my goal, it'll still be a lot more fun than dying of one of those self inflicted lifestyle deaths becoming more and more popular. Anybody up for taking a trip to Philadelphia in 2076?

Week Eleven: Shutting off the mind!

I might be stating the obvious for those familar with geography, but to those who know not, it is important to note that Jaron is 425 miles away from my gym. Prior to our seminal porch conversation on July 10th of this year, I had the belief that a successful trainer needed to be all up in my grill like a rabid drill sargent with a small man complex. Now entering the third month of the challenge, and more importantly, the third month of the rest of my healthy life... I can preach that having a trainer next to me is not needed. Accuality, with a full work load, five days of swimming, three kids, a beautiful wife, and a dogmatic writing addiction -- having a trainer in town would hurt my progress. We would have a difficult time cordinating our schuldes. I put my six day work out week down mentally on Sunday, and by Saturday all of the planned eight our nine workouts have been "gotten'dun." However, there is not a week that I don't have to call a mid flow Peyton Manning audible. I would never want to screw with a trainers valuable money-making time, even if my trainer is a long time friend who would love to be in town dropping smackdowns on me.

If you ever decide to take on a life changing exercise program, and can come to the table with the simple dedication to do the work, I highly recommend you speak with Jaron Krause. He is no snake-oil, infomercial, get fit "without doing a thing" type of guy. He calls "bull-stuff" (in honor of our dear vice president Joe B) on any gemmick that tries to sell people on cutting corners to getting in shape and living a better life. Heck, Jaron is a dealer in the wonderful acronym, "K.I.S.S." and a mad genius workout tactioner. I just walk into the gym, take out my handy workout sheet, and go until I'm done. No need to think. No need to be motivated. No need to have music playing. No need for team mates pushing me. That damn little piece of paper has the number of reps, the amount of interval, and the rest is just breathing in and out.

This doesn't mean I am not a fan of home workout programs like P90X or Insanity (I have done both, and I believe Shawn and Tony gave me a touch of PTSD). But having a guy like Jaron to write specific and targetted workouts is light years above these programs. It is worth every dollar I would've paid Jaron if he wasn't indebted to me for that thing, in that town, with those midget circus freaks... I still can't get the smell of cabbage out of my favorit fedora.

    

Week Ten: 25 no mo!

If Jaron's theory is correct, I should be able to strap a 25 pound plate to my body and do the early workouts he lined out from the early weeks, now that I've shed 25 pounds of gut butter. That seems like a little stretch for me right now since this past week, and the ones to come, are endurance focused. Higher reps, lower recovery, and added weights... those freaking bicep curl 21's (7 full motion, 7 lower half, 7 upper half). This phase is really exciting because the strength workout shoots the heart rate up, giving me an opportunity to have three cardio workouts on my double days with swimming.

My fitness level is the best it has been in my thirty-somethings, and possible a distant second to my collegiate swimming years. However, the biggest difference to my earlier years has to be the time it takes me to get going. Just this past Wednesday morning the master's coach gave us 6x400 yard freestyle swims on a descending goal. The last two, (over a mile into the set) felt drastically better than the first four. Where I would typically fall about on a set like this in the past, I was able to push myself through the 400, which is like a runner repeating mile runs. With a strong back half my final 400 was 4:24. It is not surprising that warm ups are longer and my best sets in the pool or best running laps come at the later end of workouts. Learning patients thru a traditional weight loss program; who would've thought?!?!

Weekly weigh in: 206.8
Lbs dropped since last weigh-in: 5.0
To hit 195: 11.8
Weeks to go: 6

Week Nine: Challenge #2... "20!"

Shortly after Jaron and I agreed to undertake our various roles in order to accomplish Destination 195, he mentioned an interesting pushup challenge set that consisted of a bunch of them in a short amount of time. While sitting on my lovely couch watching the Food Channel and stuffing my face with the last of my food vices prior to the start of week one, Jaron sent me a cryptic text, "20!" At first I thought he was calling the number of Running Rebel wins in the month of January or his 50 yard freestyle time if he ever came out of retirement.

Having known Jaron for nearly twenty years I have never seen him get really excited; he is kinda like a really hip and suave Stewie Griffin. He is not the type of man to throw around exclamation marks all willy-nilly in a text. "Dude... what's the '!' about?" He simply wrote back, "fractional."

Not being a man of strong math skills I had to consult the mystical portal known as Google to find out what fractional meant. Some nice math teacher in the great homeland probably attempted to educate me on fractional numbering, but I was more a PE and lunch type of student in those wonder years. The oracle of all things information stated that a fractional numbering of 20 is: 20-19-18-17-etc. That would be 20 pushups, rest :30 seconds, then 19 pushups, rest :30 seconds, so-on and so-forth until I've hit 1. If your playing along at home, that is 210 pushups in less than 30 minutes.

This morning at 6:00 a.m. I lined up a stop watch and got going on my "20! PUSHUPS" challenge. 25 minutes later I finished the challenge... To make sure I wasn't just on an adrenalin high from getting down to the last 3, 2, and 1, I busted out another 20 to grow on. It felt great to leave the gym without a brain aneurysm, no spaghetti arms, or violent convulsions. With the dawn morning sun to my back and the great Spring Mountains to my bow, I recalled another text Jaron sent me as we set up this challenge. "If you want to get stupid," short-hand for challenging yourself to the limits of your ability, "you should go back up." That would be 420 pushups in less than an hour... WTFreak!!!

So next month, somewhere around week 13, I'm going to accomplish the "20! Valley of Death" pushup challeng. In honor of Jaron's fallen comrade, this workout was dedicated to Sydney.