Pyth

Okay so, step one is good I think. I tapered off the smoking instead of doing it cold turkey. Two weeks in I replaced my cigs with 1-2 colts a day, and after I week of those I cut them off completely. I've been 100% smoke free for a week now. I already feel a ton better. I'm amazed all over again by the insidious nature of smoking. You don't even realize how badly it's messing you up. It just creeps in so slowly. But I am feeling great, and starting to focus in more on goal #2. Didn't manage to make it full paleo, mostly due to a lack of focus. I was concentrating mostly on the smoking, and didn't want to spread my willpower to thin. Now it's time to get serious about this one. Next grocery day is this coming Friday, or maybe Saturday morning. In fact likely Saturday morning. I'm hitting up my farmers markets and local butcher for good, real food and I'm going to enjoy it. I'm firming up a plan for step 3 as well. I've been taking the steps from the bottom floor to the 13th of the building I'm working in about 5-6 times a day for a week now, just to get the rust scraped off a bit. I'm getting more comfortable with that, and now I'm getting ready to shift gears. I got a new phone the other day, a Galaxy S4, first smartphone I ever had. I put this zombies, RUN 5k app on it. It's apparently some sort of interactive story/training app. Basically it gives you missions and storyline stuff and what not to follow while you run. I got the C25K version of it. Really looking forward to giving it a shot.

Well, back in NS. Back to living at home, working in province. That's always nice. Since May I have also gone back to eating like crap, smoking (after 10 months quit, ugh) and not working out at all. Time to change all that and get back to a proper routine. So to put together a tentative plan, I need to quit the smokes again. Get back on paleo, and back in the gym a minimum of 3 days a week. That's not all going to happen at once, there's just to much there, so I'm going to break it down a bit.\ First things first, the smokes have to go. I already went smoke free today, and didn't even have a craving. I've only been back on them for about 2 months after being 10 months smoke free, so maybe they haven't had time to really sink their claws back in to me to hard yet. Regardless, this is my #1 priority. Get these damn poison sticks out of my life. For this week, that is the only step I am taking to I can concentrate fully on pulling it off. The second thing to do is get the diet cleaned up. I was pretty much full paleo last Winter until almost Summer and that's where I want to be again. Honestly this step I don't anticipate to much difficulty in implementing. I enjoy cooking, and I enjoy the paleo diet. It's not really a chore, just kind of fell off it when I fell off everything else. So this Saturday is grocery day, will be getting a full load of paleo groceries and cutting out all the garbage right off. Third, exercise and fitness. This is going to be rough. My lungs are in horrible shape from the smoking. Last time I went through this I gave myself 6 weeks after my last smoke before I started on the exercise, and even then I could hardly breath after a single beginners bodyweight routine. I'm going to ease in slowly, at least a month from the last smoke to give the inflamation in my lungs time to go down, then start with body weight again. Once I am comfortably doing my body weight routine again with running on my off days I'm going to transition back in to my 5x5 routine at the gym. So there we go, 3 goals, one extremely short term starting right now, one mid term in the paleo diet and one longer term that I expect to take a couple of months getting done. That's the plan, man it's easy to type out plans. But hey, day 1 no smokes complete, so it's already under way. Edit- Oh, guess I may as well toss this in for reference. Weight as of a week or so ago was 235. Put every last pound I had lost back on. Guess it really is like a yo-yo if you fall off the wagon. Mental note, don't do that again.

Whelp, fell off the wagon pretty bad. I was offered the job, and failed the background check due to some dumb stuff I did as a younger man, and lost my other job for taking the day off to go interview for the new one. Some of the fallout from that included losing my gym membership, and just all around being depressed as hell. But, Master Wayne says: "Why do we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up again." I'm enrolling in H2S Alive & First Aid courses, and I'll be heading in to Northern Alberta to work the oil patch. I have friends doing it, making 1800 a week as roughnecks. I'll be leaving my wife and daughter behind for weeks and maybe months at a time. It's a hard choice to make, but it's a hard world to live in. So this will likely be the last I post for quite a while, internet access is sporadic at best in the oil fields. I want to thank NF, if I hadn't of taken the time to get in to better shape I likely wouldn't have had this chance available to me. It's demanding work, long hours of heavy lifting. I'll likely be cut from granite by the time the snow flys again haha. So thank you NF and NF community for giving me the tools I used to get where I am, and the chance to get where I'm going. I'll check in now and then over the summer I hope.

Today is the day, T minus 4 hours or so. Preped as well as I can, just sitting listening to some music now, unwinding my brain, getting my head in to the zone. One way or another it's back to business as usual tomorrow morning. 5K run tomorrow, and normal lifting resumes Monday. Wish me luck.

Been ages since I posted. Combination of being sick as a dog with a chest infection, 2 birthday weekends in a row in my house and studying 6 hours a night for a new job. Not done any exercise in a week. Feel gross for it. The big interview is Friday, so back to business as usual then. No more studying every waking moment not at work. Until then, I'm out.

Another fast log post today, no time to blog on as I usually do. Study...must study..subnets,...binary math..protocols. My eyes are falling out and melting down my cheeks. Todays Exercise Squats: 1x5@45lbs 1x5@85lbs 5x5@125lbs Hard work weight today. OHP: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@90lbs These were vicious hard today. Got them all done, but really grunted it out. Deadlift: 1x5@135 1x5@180 Tore these apart. I am growing to love deadlifting. Feel like a beast lifting heavy things, making weights clank every rep..RAWR Chin up: 2x5 Edit-- Going to sign up for next 6 week challenge I think. Have a few diet & weight related goals that I think the challenge might help me focus on.

Have you considered going to a longer time under tension instead of high reps? Check out some of the bar brothers vids on youtube to get an idea of it. They do some insane body weight stuff, and they're incredibly strong.

You could always just unsubscribe to her feed.

Fast log post, did get in to the gym. Studying or not, need to make time for my health. Got through workout awesome. I thought by the time I got to this weight, things would be getting difficult, as 25 pounds lighter then what I am at now I was finding it hard. Not the case at all, powering through it good. Back to studying. Todays Exercise: Squat: 1x5@45lbs 1x5@95lbs 5x5@120lbs Bench Press: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@100lbs Barbell Row: 5x5@100lbs Chin ups: 1x5

I was offered a huge chance yesterday. Good job with a global tech firm. Foot in the door as a level 1 network tech, but room to move in to virtually any position I want. Right from Oracle DB admin, to system engineer, to L4 networking. The issue I have, is I haven't been involved in IT in nearly a decade. I am still a enthusiast one could say. I'm a techy and a nerd at heart, but I'm rusty. My posts may get sporadic over the next week or two. I'm cramming the entirety of a Net+ certification module in to a two week span. I want to go in to this chance with my guns loaded. It seems only prudent.

It took me about a month to get a proper unassisted pull up done. Or what I think is a full pull up. I touch the bar to my collar bone. Not sure if that's what they really are or not but it's what I set for myself as a pull up. That was about 1.5 months ago. I started out just doing 1 leg assisted pullups with a chair about 3 feet in front of my bar. I would crank off max rep sets of those every single time I walked past my bar. Which was hanging from a doorway in my hall, right by my bathroom and bedroom. So essentially any time I walked down my hall, max rep set of pull ups. I still do this now, and I'm up to 5 now. Six chin ups, just set that PR yesterday. More or less just work at it, work hard. Do the most difficult form of assisted pull up you can do, and do them constantly until you can do one. Then do 1, a lot, a dozen sets of 1 a day. You'll be at two before you know it.

Set a PR for chin ups today, up to 6 now. Still at 5 for pull ups, but still hitting the bar every time I walk down my hallway.

I also have a tendency to put away/organize messy plates. It bothers the shit out of my OCD, especially when two different weights are hung on the same peg...no....NO

Just poked around their site to see what the deal was. If people could get skinny by sitting on their asses, drinking milkshakes and popping what appear to be the same old diet pill (appetite suppressing stimulants, though 'natural ones' in this case) the entire world would have been filled with perfectly thin people 30 years ago. This crap doesn't work, maybe you'll lose 20 pounds...but what happens when you finish your two '30 day paks'? You go right back to eating the same old junk and gain all the weight back. This doesn't do the most important thing, it doesn't build/teach better dietary habits. Without that, it's doomed to failure.

Had a great workout tonight. Was really focused, adjustments to form seem to have cleared up those knee issues I was worried about. Still a tiny bit sore, but I think that's just leftover from the injury that hasn't healed yet. I don't lift again until Monday so hopefully two days of rest will have it healed all the way up. In a way it's a good thing that I got to experience a small injury like that. Shows me just how fast I can get jacked up if I'm doing something wrong. Anyways, the workout itself felt great. I was a bit apprehensive before going to the gym when I checked my weights for tonight. "Deadlift 175...fuck" is what I was thinking. That seems awfully goddam heavy, it was heavy Monday, it's gonna be vicious today. But I did my 135lb warmup set, and it felt like I was lifting a feather. 135 was hard two weeks ago, doable, but I could feel the weight. I just kind of smiled to myself, because if something that used to feel heavy now felt light, then dammit that's strength gain! So yeah, 175 like a boss. Squats went good, powerful, good form. OHP was a little shaky. I have really long arms, they weeble and wooble on the way up sometimes. Even if my drive isn't slowing. Have the same issue with my benching. I figure as I strengthen them that will iron itself out. Birthday tomorrow, and I'm having an eat whatever day. I had been looking forward to some pizza and ice cream cake for a month now. I'm not going to deny myself that, it's my birthday afterall. Rigid strict week/month to follow it though. Had a solid week overall this week to. Today Diet Had some sweet potato fries and roast beef for lunch. Going to BBQ some pork chops and roast a pepper pretty soon for dinner, even though it's 11pm. I find I prefer to eat an hour or so after going to the gym rather then at all before hand. Much prefer doing the gym without a full belly. Not super hungry mind you, I need to have energy. But I just don't like going full to the gym, makes me feel sluggish. Todays Exercise Squats: 2x5@45lbs 5x5@115lbs Four more sessions and I get to use the big boy plates for my work weight, hurray. OHP: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@85lbs Deadlift: 1x5@135lbs 1x5@175lbs

Maybe it makes me closed minded, but as soon as I hear the phrases 'toxins' and 'cleanse' come out of someones mouth I tend to just tune out everything that follows.

So I'm doing good, despite working off weight I had already lost. Damned holiday weekends. Next time someone offers me a heaping plate of turkey and gravy...well I'm going to eat it. But I'm not going back for 2nds and 3rds...and not eating hot turkey sandwiches for 3 days afterwards..and scads of chocolate. Bleagh, Anyways, eating good this week. A touch heavy on the meat and light on the veggies, but that's always the case in the last couple days before grocery day. Having some trouble with my left knee. I think it's something in my squat form. It feels fine when I am working out, and fine generally for the rest of the evening. But when I wake up the next morning it's stiff. And if I extend it to full lock it hurts. If I extend it to full lock while I'm standing on it, it feels like it wants to hyper extend in the wrong direction. Like just totally collapse backwards. Hurts like hell. More or less fine unless I extend it to full lock though. This is also only lasting a day and a half or so. By the time 48 hours or so have gone by it feels fine again. Happened after my last two workouts. I felt really strong in my squats tonight though. Kept really good tight form. I did notice my knees were rolling out a bit the last couple times. I made sure to keep them in and tight tonight, drove more from the heel then the ball of the foot. Addressed an issue I was having with raising my butt first before my torso got moving. All in all I hope these form corrections fixed whatever was tweaking my knee and I can get on with business as usual. Todays Diet Ate well today, and by that I mean I fasted most of the day. Had sausages and eggs when I got home from work. Going to have some more leftover sausages here in a few minutes. Thinking fish tomorrow...but don't have a damn thing to make with it. Out of veggies, bleagh. Todays Exercise Squat: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@110lbs Might almost be time to add a warmup set @ 75lbs or something. Bench press: 1x5@45lbs 4x5@95lbs 1x12@45lbs Final set I just felt like going to failure, just to see what I had left in me during my final set. To quote a favorite band 'You have to cross the line to know just to remember where it lays.'. All things considered I'd say I have at least a couple more weeks to go of easy weight progression. But then that's exactly what Stronglifts is designed for. Start it out slow, build the habit, put more weight on the bar. Every workout is a little victory. Barbell Rows: 5x5@95lbs Edit: 1.6lbs of the 8.8 gone.

Here in the great white North, land of socialist health care, specialists require a referral from your GP, and then you wait 6 months for your appointment. But at least it's free! In all seriousness, I'm going to give it another few sessions. Work on correcting any little mistakes that are tweaking my knees. If in 3 or sessions the issue hasn't begun to resolve I'm going to rest it for a week and see a doc I guess. Really loath to rest it for a week though. I've got a great routine going...don't want to screw with it. Bleagh.

Yeah, if I squat Monday, the leg is usually fine again by Wednesday afternoon. It tends to be worst Tuesday morning right when I wake up. And gets progressively better as I rest it for my off day. I guess I'll make a doc appointment and see what they say. In the meantime I guess I'll just be careful.

So I'm doing my squats, and trying my hardest to keep good form. But I have found over the last few times, my left knee is giving me some grief for a day or two afterwards, It only hurts when the leg is fully extended and the knee is locked. It almost feels like my knee is going to collapse backwards in hyper-extension. I'm guessing I am stressing a ligament or tendon in there somewhere. Now the issue- My gym doesn't allow capture devices of any sort on the gym floor. It's a policy that makes sense to me honestly, but it does make it hard to take a form check video to diagnose what I'm doing wrong. So can anyone tell me what I might be doing that is putting to much strain on me knee? My only theory is maybe I'm not driving out of the right place on my foot, I tend to drive from just behind the ball. Should I maybe drive from the heel?

Good workout tonight, addressed an issue with my deadlift. I have long lanky arms, and very long legs. I was having to lean to far forward to clear my knees with the bar. Well I was watching some strength camp videos on youtube by Elliot Hawse, and he had one dealing with exactly this issues. Just widened my stance a bit, and turns my toes out more and I am able to keep a good chest up shoulders back form now. Don't have to lean out to clear my knees with the bar. That was the good news. Now for the bad news. I had a 'let myself go' weekend. It's Easter, family dinner, chocolate all that. I gained 8.8 pounds from Thursday night until tonight. So that erases a month of work. Disheartening a bit, but a real shock to see how fast that weight can come back if I'm not vigilant. I will redouble the efforts, it will be again as it was in January, 100% paleo, every day for a month. No excuses.I will be stable under 200 pounds by May. Todays Diet Crap. Chocolate, Soda, leftover turkey sandwiches with gravy. Same thing yesterday. Chocolate the day before. Ate shit all weekend. Need to lose this 8 pounds again. I'll do it, whole30 style full paleo month inc. Todays Workout Squat: 1x5@45 5x5@110 OHP: 1x5@45 5x5@80 Deadlift: 1x5@135 1x5@170 Wider stance as explained above. Really helped keep nicer form.

Was going to post last night, but the gym was closed. Holiday and all, went down at 9pm, and yeah, closed. So I went at 8am when it opened this morning. Normally I would have ran this morning, but I had to get my lifting done. And I did, and may go back later today and try to get that running done still. But that's a big may, very busy today. A lot to do. Todays Diet Bacon and eggs for breakfast, going to make spaghetti squash for dinner. Had a great dinner last night, fired up the BBQ, made pork chops, kale chips, roasted yellow pepper and sweet potato fries. Sometimes eating paleo meals just kicks so much ass. Todays Exercise Squats: 2x5@45lbs 5x5@100lbs Did two warm up sets, it was first thing in the AM and I felt a little stiff. Wanted to get loosened up better. Bench press: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@90lbs Barbell rows: 5x5@90lbs As usual, easy to handle weight, didn't want to unload my bar.

I found what helped me a lot was simply not buying 'bad food'. When I went for groceries, it was easier to say 'I'm going to buy nothing but good healthy food!" and I'd do it. It's easy to buy stuff after all. Then when I'd be at home later, and go 'man, I'm hungry, gotta get something to eat', there wouldn't be an option in the house for junk. It was healthy or nothing, so I ate healthy. That was the method I used anyways. I'm by no means a professional and your mileage may vary.

Time for The Post. Was a gym night, And things are starting to get challenging, Much faster then I thought they would. I don't feel like I'm going to fail reps or anything, but I can feel myself starting to really have to work to get my last set or two done. Deadlift especially, I don't think I took enough rest time for. My form suffered on my work weight for it. Still really enjoying the lifting though, I look forward to my hour or so at the gym. Just awesome me time, I can unwind from the day. It's awesome stress relief. Todays Diet: Had some pepperoni, couple of bunless burgers and some sweet potato frys today. Nothing special, not enough veggies. Going to roast a pepper when I finish this post. Todays Exercise: Running: 5m@3mph 10m@5.4mph So I have a strategy for my running now. I am going to bump up by .1mph on my 10 minutes warm up run I do M/W/F, then on my Saturday morning 30m run, I am going to work that speed. So my speed this Sat will be 5.4, next Sat 5.5 etc. When I hit 6.2 I break the 30m/5km barrier and hit a goal. Squat: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@95lbs Finally I have 25 pound plates on the bar. I don't look like I have such a sissy weighted bar now full of 10/5/2.5 plates. Got some of the med sized buggers! OHP: 1x5@45lbs 5x5@75lbs Feel good on these still. Need to work on slowing down and keeping form. Deadlift: 1x5@135lbs 1x5@165lbs At 135 I was good, but I don't think I rested long enough, only 60 seconds or so before I went for 165. I felt like my shoulders were rolling forward instead of staying back and low. Consequently my back was rounding on my last couple reps. Very sloppy imo. I'm going to count it as a finished set and adjust my rest time for Monday, but if my form is that bad at 170 on Monday I am going to count it a failed set. Pull ups: 1x5 Going to start doing sets of these on my off days. Need something to record on off days.

Sit on a bench, watch TV. Gym was only built 3 months ago, they have real nice TVs. Catch my breath...I may be a creep for saying it, but I won't lie, sometimes I check out cardio girls in the mirrors. Who doesn't, honestly, cmon...right...god I'm a creep >_>