Good bye bad habits, Hello new me?

So I've been promising myself to get back into shape for a while now, i've watched my wife lose 25+ pounds over the past 3 months and she looks great! Meanwhile I have done pretty much nothing in the way of eating right and exercising.

So today begins my renewed journey back into eating healthier and exercising daily. I will regret my past laziness much in the coming days as I'm sore from working out.

As a reminder Here are the 12 keys to a healthy diet.

RULE # 1 — Be tough. Stay away from nasty fats, excessive salt and simple sugars. This eliminates ninety-nine percent of the fast foods, munchies and soft drinks. Who needs them? In a few short weeks, you won't want them, wonder why you ate them and feel sick if you do! I don't mean to be rude, but … junk is for dumpsters.

RULE # 2 — Eat a basic breakfast of complex carbohydrates, protein and fat to establish your metabolism for the day and provide fuel and muscle-sustaining ingredients. In a nutshell (and setting aside for now the hormonal and enzyme chemistry taking place at all times), protein builds muscle while carbohydrates and fats supply fuel for energy. Breakfast can be an easy-to-prepare meal from a quality protein shake to a bowl of oatmeal, scoop of cottage cheese and fruit. If you don't feed yourself a wholesome meal in the morning, your body will draw on your muscle stores as a source of energy, putting you in a slump and muscle deficit. Major insurance policy: Add a good vitamin and mineral formula and a gulp of flaxseed oil (essential fatty acid) each morning to protect your system and put order and efficiency in your body chemistry.

RULE # 3 — This one can be the rascal — with whatever effort it takes, feed yourself every three to four hours throughout the day; again, each meal consisting of protein, fat and carbohydrate. Any combination of the following is perfect: tuna and brown rice, hamburger patty and red potato, cottage cheese and fruit, chicken and salad, etc. You'll notice that sandwiches are not in my top-five list. Discover Tupperware and packet-size meal replacement powders.

RULE # 4 — Newsflash: To gain weight, eat more. Assuming you're hitting the weights, be prepared for solid bulk weight; lean muscle mass exclusively is a daydream. To lose weight, eat less, still as often. Don't starve the muscle.

RULE # 5 — I have always instinctively leaned toward a higher protein intake over carbohydrate to build a lean body. Emphasize protein. Vegetarians, take particular care in order to get plenty of protein in your diet.

RULE # 6 - Between-meal snacking for the trainee looking to gain weight is okay if the snack is truly nutritious - no junk. Don't let snacks be a substitute for a complete meal or become a weak habit. You, who are seeking weight loss, consider snacking counter-productive. Good snacks are fruits or vegetables, jerky, protein energy bars, yogurt, cottage cheese and light protein drinks.

RULE # 7 - Simple carbohydrates (sugar, honey, soft drinks, candy and cakes) provide us with a quick pick-up but let us down just as quickly. Excessive sugar plays havoc with our insulin metabolism and leads to fatigue, poor performance, fat storage and diabetes.

RULE # 8 - Fuel up before your workout. Eat a small, easily digested meal about an hour before you train. With protein and complex carbohydrates in your system, you'll train harder, longer and with more enthusiasm. You won't experience low blood sugar jitters or dizziness; you'll get a great pump and probably hit that last rep. Big Tip — whey protein drinks work great here and work well as post-workout muscle repair food. Convenient, inexpensive and effective.



RULE # 9 — Similarly, you need to eat a hearty protein meal with sufficient carbs within forty-five minutes of the completion of your workout. This is necessary to provide the muscle-building materials to repair depleted tissue and support the process of building new muscle.

RULE #10 — The most important ingredient in your body is plain water. The quality of your tissues, their performance and their resistance to failure is absolutely dependent on the quality and quantity of the water you drink. Detoxify. Flood yourself throughout the day, especially during exercise.

RULE #11 — Sleep, rest and relaxation are of prime importance. It's during periods of sound sleep that our bodies recuperate and build muscle tissue.

RULE #12 — Regard the twelve rules listed as a regular life-long, life-rewarding priority, one that hones discipline and is honed by that same discipline. Next time we meet, I'll introduce you to the commercial gym and what you can expect there. Remember, also, that laughter builds strong bodies and healthy minds. It restores the soul.

My wife is awesome

I love her dearly, but she probably doesn't believe me. She has been awesome the last 3 months and I rarely ever tell her how I feel about it, I don't speak in emotion or feelings that much. But I am very proud of her for her accomplishments over the past several months!

she has gotten into shape very quickly over these past several months and is sexy as ever, I should probably tell her that...

She rocks, most of the time... :)

I love you honey!

horrible at updating this stupid blog

So, it's February already and I haven't made an update for several months... What's new? I don't have much motivation to post updates here and iv'e been flat out busy being a dad, husband, and busy bee worker for a while.

quick updates:

• The son (V) is currently in select football and track. basketball is over so the formerly little guy is keeping me busy with his athletic endeavors.
• The daughter (Cora) is busy getting excellent school grades, participating in the middle school newspaper and gymnastics...
• The wife is busy trying to better herself and getting more healthy.

there you have it, those are my updates and I'm sticking to it.

catch all of zero of you following this later...

Dan

Google Wave - Week 1.

Google Wave - woohoo?

So i've had my googlewave account for a few days so far, waved with a friend of mine that sent me the invite on Saturday, and looked around a bit.

Interesting things you can do:
1. Search for public waves, in the search box simply type "with:public" this will show all current public waves.
2. Specify a public wave with a tag "with:public tag:mma" I like mixed martial arts.
3. Create a public wave, add public@a.gwave.com in your contact list. Ignore the message and hit enter. Then simply add the public contact to your wave and everyone in the world can see how stupid you are :).

Other than that I don't have enough contacts on googlewave to really give it a good go yet and determine my thoughts on it, it seems to be an interesting tool for now but I'll revisit it more later after I've had some usage with wavers that I know.

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Just another day?

Being Healthier.

So yesterday was the first day back into the healthier lifestyle, though I didn't eat well yesterday I took my first steps by actually doing a small workout! Though my upper body muscles are getting tighter by the hour it feels great, (mentally), to be getting back into the swing of things. Today i've made a lot better food choices, I'm going to be restricting my caloric intake over the next few weeks to shed some fat that i've gained over the last several years. At this point I'm not to concerned about gaining muscle mass, but rather much more concerned about my overall body composition. That means getting rid of a good amount of fat tissue before I tackle any other goals.

I joined back up at http://www.fitday.com where I'll be tracking my basic activities as well as what I've been eating to better help track where i've been and where I'm going. It's a good website for basic activity and food journaling.

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Another Month is almost gone...

so it's once again been over a month since i've written anything... 

I SUCK at this.

Living Vicariously through my son

So Yesterday Evening was our sons first football game for this season as an 8th grader. To set the stage a little bit, he plays for the Little Elm, Tx Lobos in North Texas. Last year playing on the first team for the 7th grade team they had a spectacular season having only 1 loss, and avenging the loss during the championship game for the District killing the team 40-20. Last year Daniel played mostly tight end on offense and some outside linebacker on defense, as well as all the special teams.

So here we are at the beginning of the 8th grade season. Prior to the first Scrimmage last week all Daniel had practiced was defensive end this year. The coaches basically wanting kids to be focused on either an offensive position or defensive position. So they scrimmage last week and I see they put him in at tight end on offense for a bunch of plays, he was pretty happy about that because last year he scored a couple touchdowns at tight end.

Ok, so between last weeks scrimmage they decided he would be starting defensive end and play some tight end too. Yesterdays game was pretty crazy, we returned the kickoff for a touchdown and it was called back for a block in the back. The ball was put on our 22 yard line and our offense had the ball, first play from scrimmage and it's ran 78 yards for a touchdown! and to top if off our 8th grade team has a kicker that during warm ups was making 45 yard field goals!! so 7 to zip. Our defense takes the field and basically kills the other team. So a couple minutes into the 2nd quarter and we are winning 28-0 starters are now out. Daniel at this point has played Defensive End and a little Tight End. by the end of the game they had him play middle linebacker and fullback as well.

What a great exciting first game!