Hey bro, they gotta app for everything.

Over the years following my competitive swim career I took up relay swimming in Ironman distance triathlons. Open water swimming and swimming in an Olympic pool only have one thing in common; we all wear goggles! I quickly discovered that swimming in a lake required the ability to find a fixed point in the distance to keep me swimming straight. Without a point of reference to guide me in a matter of a few strokes I would drift off, usually to my dominate side which was also the side I breathe on. If your lost in a forest the only way to keep in a straight line is to set your eyes on a distant tree, because there is no way to walk in a straight line without a point of reference in the distance -- you will walk in a large swooping circle otherwise, pulled in the direction of your dominant side. Krause has a wonderful note on dominant side favoring... cue the expert.

Like the point of reference in open water swimming and Bear Grylls style nature waking, nutrition is the same. Recently I have relied on my knowledge of what is good food and what is not so good and what is down right Paula Dean (bad food that is, not being a cornball racist) to direct my eating habits. I removed logging in MyFitnessPal app from my routine for this challenge with the Pontiff of Pectoral Paralysis. MyFitnessPal is like the point of reference. Even though I have been eating good food, portion sizes have increased because that is my dominate tendency. By stepping away from logging my caloric intake my weight loss graph looks like the Rocky Mountains instead of a steady downward grade I saw during Destination 195. Brutal honesty is ODJ!

Jaron: 194.0 17.1%
Me: 221.2  19.3%

This past week Krause decided to modify the back and arms workout by changing out the alternating dumb bell curl for a more North Korean level crazy exercise called "forced negative." It lives up to the name!
1. Find your friendly bicep curl machine.
2. Put a light weight on, 65lbs for us.
3. Do 5 steady reps, which should be easy.
4. Have your partner pull down on the bar.
5. Do 5 reps trying to keep the bar up.
6. Avoid blowing an o-ring or pooping yourself.

We only did a trial set of this spawn of Satan... I can only imagine the disgust and colorful metaphors when we fully integrate the forced negative into our workouts after the winter break.

The blog will be taking a break for the Christmas holiday (Krause celebrates the full Bowl Championship Series, better known as Festivus of BCS, which goes thru the January 6th National Championship.) So thank you to our four domestic followers, our NSA handler, and all the Eastern Europeans for making No Fat Jokes Please the #1 blog in the 30-40 age group writing in the category of "Non-Nuclear Passive Narcissistic Fitness Bloggers." We could have never done it without our readers.

Post Script
Corrections from last week's blog. In an effort to keep a C+ to B- grammar standard Krause brought it to my attention that last weeks blog was polluted with an abnormal amount of spelling errors. Further investigation revealed that I replaced the word "plank" with "blank." I would chalk up one or two as a byproduct of sub-rural Tennessee public education, but the entire past was replaced. I can only assume that my subconscious had a Pavlovian response to my frontal cortex desiring to type "plank." Most likely the reptile portion of my brain recalled all the foul language required to execute a plank and over-road my mind-to-keyboard signal. Thankfully my moral filter caught the serpent beguile and inserted "blank" (a writers version of the bleep button) to ensure our PG-13 ratings stay intake.

I'm Henry the 8th

"You say, 'I wanna be out before the diaper years.' Have you considered going out with a bang riding the nose cone of a hydrogen bomb to the heart of commercialized sensibility?"
                                                                                     ~ anonymous

Don't call it a comeback! I've been here for years. If you were rocking it in the early 90's this lyric will surely bring back some jest bumping memories. LL Cool J could not have said it any better for how Dr. Strangelift and I rallied for week six. I'll leave the technical explanation to the professional - I merely provide the color and amazement of dropping poundage.

Jaron: 195.5 & 17.2%
Me: 217.0 & 20.4%

Chest and tricep day during this current phase is best described as "3 Charmins and a Colonic" -- The opposing cable press at 110 lbs each arm, plank push ups and single arm machine flys provide strength yet are soft on the pain rubric. With the workout equivalent of a muscle cleansing coming from the wonderful set of corn on the cobs I knew revisions were expected. Since the trainer is an active participant, Krause decided to bench the plank push up and call up from the minor leagues a fine set of standing cable tricep extensions. This little bastard is easy on the eyes with little sympathy for the uncoordinated. Either I screwed the set up by using abs or by taking a running head start with body movement to get the extension going. Either way, I do not look forward to my next go around with this little weasel since I now know the proper technique.

To fully purge the demons of Thanksgiving recently past, Krause and I decided to take on another micro challenge we failed last week; 5 sets of minute planks with descending rest (1:00, :45, :30, :15.) I didn't feel to confident when my trainer started singing, "Second verse! Same as the first!" However, the set was significantly easier following chest and tricep day versus our maiden voyage post leg day. It should be noted that no matter the muscle group day, plank challenges exploit the weakened muscles. Both of us nearly broke plank not because of tired abs or stressed backs, it was our shoulders. I'm glad to return to my regularly scheduled ab workouts next week... variety is the spice of life.

Post Script
I am up to 4:00 minutes without a break on the 20/15/4 Slow Grind challenge. If I don't make it to the 10:00 minute (half way mark) by February I'm calling this challenge a Tebow and moving to the 5-minute plank challenge.

Four right turns

I have come to accept that blogging my fitness journey is a personal celebration of accomplishments and ego boosting gains, with a few marginal fails sprinkled in for good ego check. A few of the epic fails to date; 6 minute tread mill run and the 20/15/4 slow grind (as of press time still not accomplished). I can now add Thanksgiving 2013. This week's weigh in put me on the verge of complete slide back to the initial weigh in five weeks ago. Luckily Krause treated the Thanksgiving weekend as a marathon of consumption (primarily the adult variety.)

 As we begin week six of our little challenge I am reminded of the great words of Trucky. "We was rejuvenated. You hear that? Rejuvenated. We was juvenated before, lost it...got juvenated again. Rejuvendated!" Krause and I were in our "lost it" portion of the challenge last week, so this coming week we are getting juvenated again.

Harsh reality in blogging is that the numbers don't lie. However, the good news for Kid Crochet and I, the only people reading this rag are from the NSA's outsourced 3rd shift South Korean intern team, and they don't have the updated translator for Gonzo.

Cruel reporting;
Krause: 197.7  17.6%
Me: 220.5  20.1%