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%

A holiday in the life of our trainer.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Black Friday programming to give those in the know a calorie by calorie run down of our fearless trainer's Thanksgiving Day celebration. It is our policy at No Fat Jokes Please to avoid celebrating the fruit of vice, but we made and exception since Jaron's dietary execution is one of the avenues he is using to beat yours truly in the challenge to end all challenges. Yesterday's redacted text messaged can only be best described as four cheat days, two mulligans, and a Jim Morrison rolled into one 13 hour holiday.

9:28am  194cals ~ 1 Bloody Mary breakfast
10:31am 230cals ~ IPA (poor Utah transplant drinking 8.5% booze)
12:55pm -1100cals ~ Leg work out
2:23pm   1100cals ~ First food of the day and that damn box wine
4:06pm   275cals ~ More food and a few sips from the box wine
6:41pm   230cals ~ Beeeer!
9:03pm   650cals ~ 1 beer, 3 glass of that wine, and one cigar
10:01pm 300cals ~ Night cap of more boxed adult drink!

All in all Krause saved himself by doing a mid-day leg workout. He is still very serious about our competition -- however, I know from anonymous sources that he is out on the town tonight and getting VIP treatment at the UNLV football game on Saturday. Oh and who could forget the Aussies! Any ordinary man would put ten pounds and fold like a taco during this week of craziness, but Krause is the master of clutch performances so I would not expect him to take a major weight gain before our next official weigh in. (But I can hope.)

Bite the dog that bit me

Nearly every early morning body ache is preceded by a wonderful work out the day prior. This phases leg day has become a muscle hangover mini-series. After Saturday's brutal round I struggled through Sunday with the usual grunts and groans, which convinced me to just suck it up and bite the dog that bit me. First thing Monday morning I jumped on the StairMaster and climbed the Sears Tower (70 steps per minute for 20 plus minutes) and then 10 minutes of the slow grind (10 minutes, 15% incline at 3mph). Oh the hair of that dog!  

During our weekly workout, Jaron came clean that his Thanksgiving plans may result in a complete backslide of all progress gained -- three football games, an industrial grade 7-Eleven Slurpee straw plunged into an adult juice box for a Vegas turkey day of underwhelming proportion. And he is going to need to arm himself... to the teeth!

It should be noted for future lawsuits and or movie rights, we at No Fat Jokes Please do not promote or condone vice or debauchery -- our choice is always to recommend a clean lifestyle promoting prolonged life... that is until it comes to Jaron. He is the trainer not the example. So as the numbers below indicate his slide toward his original weigh in could possibly come true in a few short days. Ooooh and one must'n forget the Aussies... the sweet Aussies are expected to arrive in Vegas sometime next week. (Get caught up on the reference in last weeks post "Taking odds on one-legged tortoise") All the gastric and malted love Krause will partake in makes my expected Thanksgiving menu look like a long-haired freaky people's rabbit food buffet.  

Bitter transparency:

JBK: 194.9 & 17.9%

Me: 218.3 & 20.2%  

Taking odds on the one-legged tortoise.

The below stats will show Krause is off to a good start with a solid two pound per week average. One could compare it to a steady 8 minute mile pace for this marathon of weight loss. I would say my effort is more like the Black Knight on a bad day... It's just a flesh wound.

Krause: 193.6 lbs, 17.9%
Me: 218.3 lbs, 20.3%

Disneyland was two days of ten hour slow grinds, burning calories one step at a time in the line for Its a Small World. Keeping a thin thread of sanity was the only thing I accomplished. As expect, my Old Testament rituals went unanswered -- instead of notching up a few pounds, the dietary deities blessed Krause with the stomach flu, trimming more off his mark. I have a chance to make significant gains over the next two weeks; Krause is a sucker for Thanksgiving and his good buddy from Australia is arriving in Vegas for a 36 hour bender post Black Friday. Please let the outbackers bring some good old excessive calorie consumption.

Post script:
It has been brought to our attention by some loyal No Fat Jokes Please readers that our naming convention for Kraus and I can be confusing at times. The following are the most common nicknames we will answer to:

Jarvis, aka: Marlow, Yours Truly, "J", and my inbred name "JT".

Jaron, aka: Krause, JBK, Kraustian, Professor of Pain, Doctor of Fitness Funk, Maestro of Muscle Ache, Minister of Misery, Prognosticator of Possibility, Mayor of Hurt Town, Dr. Frankenstein, Prodigal Son Returns, and THE ODJ!

I am the mine.

In the mid-1990s a pharaoh size Colorado mine operation stopped production. The Environmental Protection Agency informed the owners that the closure of the mine would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in clean up fines. For nearly two decades the mine stayed open with a few guys sitting at desks to keep the mine "open" so the company did not have to cough up the funds. I am the mine!

Krause had another week of weight lose while I did my best impression of World War I attrition. Thank goodness we built in a little clause that the winner can not collect on the challenge until the loser drops his total twenty pounds. At this rate I will be executing diabolical plan code named "second place is first loser if and only if I'm the loser, at which time I will not cross the finish line." Full transparency requires proper weekly reporting.

Krause: 196.3 (4.7 total loss) & 18.1%
Me: 219.0 (2.0 total loss) & 19.3%

My hopes that Krause see a significant gain in weight after a weekend of "wine tasting" did not materialize. In another parallel universe the mass consumption of industrial grade grape juice and free cheese would've worked in my favor, but it is my unqualified opinion that his body has yet to acclimate to the Mojave's lower elevation resulting in weight loss. Frantically keeping pass with one of our favorite Vegas characters, the original Ole Girl, I expected Krause to fall off the wagon by week three. No luck. But it is Las Vegas and Krause has been know to implode at the hands of Lady Luck. If I'm ever to catch up with him on this challenge a fast acting stomach flu needs to take hold of my guttural region.

Unfortunately for yours truly the wife has requested my company at the Magic Kingdom during week four... two days of the happiest place on Earth. (So much fun on the horizon that bleeding from the face could only pull me away from Walt's pleasure palace.) Not to mention we'll be traveling through the same lonely desert that was the last known home of the Manson family and dietary options on par with a Long John Silver's grease trap. I have been considering an abbreviated fast over this coming week to at least make this competition look respectable, but then a mental video played in my head of me jumping out of the boat in "It's a Small World" and gnawing on happy hippo... the snozberries berries taste like snozberries!