Nutrition

I have a formula when it comes to building muscle and losing fat. Exercise is the base and nutrition is the exponent. Kind of like an algebra equation, no matter how good your exercise program is, it won't go far without the nutrition to multiply your gains.

What is my nutrition like? What makes good nutrition? I have a very simple nutrition plan:

• Anytime your not working out stick to combining a protein with vegetables. Proteins include fish, beef, pork, chicken, beans and tofu. Veggies are.... veggies! Veggies do no include corn or potato, those are starches.
• During your workout or pre-workout you have two choices: 8oz of fruit juice with BCAA and whey protein. Or whole fruit with a lean protein.
• Post workout (should be completely consumed within 45 minutes), 16oz of fruit juice with whey protein.
• 2-3 hours after you workout should be your "big meal", starchy carbohydrates with a lean protein (that means protein with as little fat as possible).

It's actually really simple and you'd be amazed at the gain of muscle and loss of fat you start to get.

Temptation

I worked out twice today and today overall was a rough day. So after clearly not eating enough for two workouts, I'm at the grocery store returning some Red Box DVDs and there is a special on cereal, from Golden Grams to just about everything I like.

It's hard not to eat that stuff when you really want it, when you've had a bad day, workout really hard and you think to yourself "it's okay you can justify it because you've worked out...."

NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T!  God dam it, don't be such a pussy, you want that flat belly, you tell those corn pops to shove it up their ass! In my case I want Ninja Warrior so I told those taste treats to jog off.

Anyways... What I ended up walking out with was atkins low carb peanut butter cups. Not the best choice because of the sugar alcohol, what I really should have done was Cinnamon Almonds or done celery with peanut butter and dark chocolate chips. But at the time all I could think was "Green Warrior needs food badly" (Gauntlet Legends reference for those who don't know), so the peanut butter cups did the trick.

It's mostly my own fault, not planning and having food ready is the reason any kind of diet other than the "eat everything in sight diet", fails.

The Numbers

I received my equipment that should help me with some grip strength, got it from Ironmind, check out their website a LOT of great stuff on there. Unfortunately I already worked out twice today so I don't think I'll be playing with them tonight.

But tomorrow for sure. Like a kid playing with a Transformer until he breaks it.

The awesome metal ones they made back in the day, not the cheap plastic ones of today, but I digress.

Today I took my body fat percentage, here are my stats:

Weight: 212
Body Fat %: 18.4%
Lean Weight: 172.9
Fat Weight: 39.10

Post holiday season I'm doing pretty good so far. Healthy average body fat percent for men is 20%. When I'm eating right and training regularly I'm around 13-14%, obviously me stop and go training for a few months and eating everything in sight has not helped my percentage out any, I can only imagine how bad I was January 1st.

Lean weight is how much my bone, muscle, organs, ect, all weigh together, when you are regularly taking your body fat percentage and your lean weight goes up, you can generally contribute that you increase in muscle mass. The last time I took my body fat percentage my lean weight was about 169, meaning I've already put on about 4 pounds of muscle.

I've generally found AT BEST, that you can lose fat and add muscle at a 2:1 ratio (at least this works that well for me personally). Lets just pretend that each week I lose 2 pounds of body fat and gain 1 pound of muscle.

PRETEND.

That would mean to get to my target of 5% body fat it is going to take about 15 weeks. I will need to be very consistent with my diet and exercise, not cheat meals or skipping workouts!

Well maybe an occasional cheat meal, like for a special day or something.

I feel as though I could probably drop my body fat percentage faster, but I just do not want to sacrifice any strength or muscle gain, so I'm going to take it nice and slow.

Wish me luck.

Health and Heart Rate Monitor

I've used a couple different type of heart rate monitors before. Normally a heart rate monitor has a chest strap, which is fine for me, but there are a lot of benefits using a heart rate monitor with a client and unfortunately a chest strap is not the most convenient thing to had to a client and be like "hey stick this thing on you."

However a decent wrist monitor seems to be hard to come by, until I saw this:

https://mybasis.com/

or you can watch the video about it here:

Tracking all that information with ease. Can't wait to get one when it comes out. For $200, I'd have to say I'm going for it. Might help to look down at the info and be like "I'm being too lazy must push harder."

Training for Ninja What?

Last week I trained 4 days out of the week, with the last day of the my week being on Saturday. I wanted to get cracking again today but I decide it would be best to have two solid days off in a row. Why? Because I listen to my body, when you feel an overall bodily fatigue don't push yourself, your just asking for injury. Now this overall fatigue is not too be confused with being just plain lazy.

My new equipment comes in tomorrow, I ordered some equipment all specifically for strengthening different types of grip strength seeing at that's primarily what Ninja Warrior is. Speaking of Ninja Warrior here is a good introduction video:

Now when watching Ninja Warrior you might think "good god that shit is wack!" But really like any sport it has a common theme that if you strengthen your body in the right way it will allow you to conquer the course. I've picked out the following:

Lets start with the lower body:

• Vertical Leap, you've just got to be able to jump and jump high, no if ands buts about it. That half pipe is high and having a coordinated run to jump is critical.
• Leg strength on the frontal plane, it means strong legs that can move side to side really well, I was watching a video the other day about a contestant trying the course and his side to side leg strength was poor and it was obvious right from the first part of the course.
• Lift with your hip not your back, there is a part of the course on the second stage where you have to lift up 3 walls of increasingly difficult weight. I can't remember what weight the walls where, I want to say the heaviest of the three walls is 135 pounds, right now I can deadlift over 300 pounds so I feel like I've got that part covered already.

To the most obvious part, the upper body:

• The back, all those pull ups and finger grip whatevers, the big muscle mover and shaker is your back, and its got to be tough as nails. The most amount of wide grip pull ups I've ever been able to do is 20. I feel like I'm going to need to be ever stronger that that.....
• Finger Grip:  THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE FAILS. You need to strengthen your fingers, go to a rock climbing gym or order some Eagle Loops and train them. That edge you have to finger across is the thing that defeats everyone. Fingers.... not just for gaming.
• Crush and Pintch grip, there are really three types of grip, finger grip, crush and pinch. Crush is how you can hold on to a solid object, my goal is to be able to farmers walk my body weight, so about 90-100 pounds in each hand, I'm up to about 75 right now. And Pinch grip, which makes my hand hurt to think about so I don't want to talk about it.

The obvious and now the not so obvious body part:

Your core and all other connecting muscles have to be strong! When building a house all the walls of the foundation need to be as strong as the other or it tips over, you're whole body needs to be solid and you need to get rid of any extra fat, its just going to slow you down.

Easy right? .......... on paper its so straight forward, the action however is a tall task.

Reward System

It's important when training for anything or to any type of goal that you have a weekly award when you've actually accomplished what you sent out to do.

For example, this week I did stuck to my diet and did my workouts... my reward a Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero from Five Guys. That may not seem like the most epic reward, but when you don't normally drink soda throughout the week (because its not on the diet) it is the sweetest most amazing drink you can have.

New Year Resolution

In 2008 my New Years resolution was to lose weight. That year I went from a size 40 to a size 32 and lost 30 pounds.

In 2009 my New Years resolution was to make a career out of fitness, mid summer of that year I graduated from the American Academy of Personal Training and have been helping other lose weight ever since.

In 2011 my New Years resolution is to compete in the American Ninja Warrior challenge that will undoubtedly be sometime this summer, giving my 6 months to get "warrior ready" to take on the course.

I've built a program that I feel has the needed strength and conditioning to conquer the course. Its a few days into the new year and I'm right on schedule. In addition to a physical program I also have created a nutrition program to help lose as much body fat as I can. I'm going to have my body fat taken next week, my weight as of today is 213.6 pounds, one thing that a majority of the competitors have in common is a small frame, light weight and great strength to body ration. Standing at 6 feet the lightest I can physically be before I start cutting into muscle and other lean body mass parts is somewhere in the 180 ball park.

Obviously I've got a long way to go, but I'm confident that being consistent with the proper nutritional plan and regular exercise that I will reach my goal.

I'm going to make regular updates with this blog to help keep me on track, along with pictures, videos, training information and nutrition information, this is just the beginning, just something to get on paper and get my mind going.