Zone update

Not a bad few days on the zone. Felt a little foggy today but think that was lack of sleep.

And last night . . . dinner was a salad (6 cups of lettuce, 1 cup of tomato), beef (5 oz), three cups of green beans . . .

At some point in there I realized I had 10 cups of vegetables staring me down . . . it was a long meal . . .

Weight was 168 this am.

Same thing, just different: Not Fran

Did want to do something today, but couldn't get to the gym and anyway, they were doing pullups and want to keep off the overhead stuff for a month and see what the shoulder does (under the theory: that if you quit f***ing with it, most injuries go away).

So anyway did this:

So not Fran:

21-15-9
Front squats @ 95#
pushups

8:01

I was hoping to get through that faster, but oh well. Didn't really have the get with it mojo today. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I can get lots better times at the gym than at home, since I think there's a shame factor . . . ;-)

I was tired at the end, but not wiped. My goal should be wiped . . .

deads and deads

Crossfit Plano was going to do "Daniel", but since that involves both thrusters and pullups, and my shoulder is doing well, I thought I'd leave her be and spend the morning futzing about with the family.

Later on though did pushup practice

3x15

Double under practice:

got 9 consecutive DUs

At some point in the jumping around I realized I was blowing the old mark of 5 consecutive out of the water and was basically in mid air thinking "keep 'er going!!" But DUs are easy to frack up.

Then did deads, 175x5x5

Hadn't hit them in a while so I didn't want to hit the 185s again just yet. Oddly, and maybe this is just me, but the warmup 135 x 10 deads seems harder for some reason.

I also want to make sure after the last fiasco that I'm keeping my trunk and back in flexion and extension for the entire lift. Posterior Chain people, posterior chain . . . .

To that great griddle in the sky . . .

The inventor of the Egg McMuffin has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil . . .

Now, this is a question I'd like answered, and I'm not sure it has, to my satisfaction:

Of all the things McDonald's sells, how many best sellers do they have from stuff the corporate stiffs invented in the bowels of the Mickey Dee's test kitchens?

Big Mac? Homemade, right?
Egg McMuffin: invented by a franchisee . . . . (who liked eggs benedict, and really what's a McMuffin but the eggs benedict of the proletariat . . . )

What else? McRib? What is that monstrosity?

Oh, and who can forget the McDlt!! Whooo hoooo!! Is America ready for lettuce AND tomato? Hold me back!! What is this?

Okay, I'll spot you the chicken nuggets, but really, that's about it as far as I can tell.

Other than that, I'm guessing McDonalds is really a front for the Monopoly Game Lottery . . . .

Zone Diet Update

Zone Diet Update:

Still hovering around 170-171. Had dipped below, to 169, but have since not been back to that.

I'm not sure exactly why that is.

I was expecting 1-2 lb loss per week at this point.

I'll review and see if there is anything I am missing and need to tighten up on.

I think I have some tweaks that would work well. I suspect a couple of things, one that I've been eating left over Easter ham and that has higher fat content than say turkey or chicken. That may be throwing my fat blocks a little higher, even though I know the Zone counts some fat grams inherent to every block of protein, but even I think its a little high. I mean, 99% of the time there's no visible fat on the turkey meat. On the ham, 99% of the time, there's visible fat in every slice. So by having more fat, I may be holding my fat blocks higher than necessary to lose weight.

I may just back off, retool, and buckle down a little more. Because I'm already doing it, it's not like there are great gobs of additions to make.

Another 8-9 lbs would put me at approximately 10% bfp.

So, going forward: more lean lean lean protein, and watch the fat until I get down where I need to be.

Crap Parenting . . . Dad is Great! He gives us carrot cake!

Bill Cosby was right:

There's no difference between cake for breakfast and 99% of the bready things you give out.

So the girl got carrot cake for breakfast.

She was happy.

I was happy.

Cake doesn't go to waste.

And since her mother is the one who started it . . . .

5k uphill both ways!!!!

5k: 22:50

I was happy with this, this workouts out to 7:08 minute/miles.

That means, a 30 second increase drops me into the 6:00 something range.

I'd ultimately like to get this under 20.

Now, here's the thing: There's some nice validation going on here.

1) I'm not at my best running weight (need to drop about 4lbs for that)
2) I'm not eating anything near a high carb diet . . . . muahahahaa!
3) I'm not training running . . . at all.

And yet, I'm coming in at times I used to have to train (run run run run) months for. I mean many months.

So, thank you crossfit, thank you zone . . .

Lordy pushups suck . . .

Three RFT

500 meter row
30 reps body weight bench

The scaling involved pushups. Porch was 90, pack was 60.

I did pack and that still rotted.

27:45

I was hoping this would have been a 20 minute workout.

I was down to doing 2-3 pushups at the end. It was just a fargity fargin slog.

Ah well.

I do wonder if I need to work those into my repetoire. My thinking is that they are baseline exercise, like the pullup, but not nearly as sexy and I need to be able to crank out like 50, which should be EASIER than pullups. From now on the warmup will always include sets of pushups, starting with 10 and moving to 15-20-25. Today was just embarrassing.

Outta da Zone . . .

Zone update:

I went into this diet not trying to be a masochist. Most diets tend to be such all or nothing affairs, it's no wonder you fall off the wagon at some point.

Also something to keep in mind, is that this whole thing is like anything physical related, it's an experiment of one: No one training regimen, diet regimen, will be perfect for you without a little good old fashioned trial and error, with correction.

So, I wanted to experiment, and with Easter Sunday yesterday, I went off the zone for 24 hours.

I had pizza and drinks Saturday night, had Easter dinner on Sunday with Mom, and had ham, potatoes, jello, crescent rolls, etc, no measured portions, etc.

Today I'm up 5 lbs. Ha!!!

There is NO way I put on 5lbs in fat overnight. So most of that is probably excess water held by my need to process the jinormous amount of carbs I ingested.

It was fun, but I don't know I'll do that again for a while. If I cheat, I'll probably just do a small one meal cheat.

Crap Husbanding . . .

Step one: Buy the Mrs. some Godiva truffles for Easter.
Step two: After she goes to work, check the box, see that there are three left . . . enter the candy stealing decision tree:

1) Is the it the last piece? Yes? Leave it. No? Go to question 2.
2) Is it the second to last piece? Yes: Go to question 3)
3) Was I a cheap ass who bought the 4 piece box? Yes: Leave it. No: eat a truffle . . .

It was good too . . .

Crap Parenting: Easter Bunnies

Dear daughter on waiting for the Easter Bunny: I can't wait for the Easter Bunny.
Me: You'd better get to bed then, so he can come visit.
Her: It's okay, it's just a guy in a suit . . .
Me: Um, who told you that?
Her: Mom.
Me: But you want him to bring you stuff for your Easter basket, right?
Her: Mmhmm!

I'm not sure what's worse. That mom told her what was up, or that she's perfectly cool with the idea of some guy in a rabbit costume dropping candy off throughout the neighborhood. And that she can hold both ideas in her head: Easter Bunny, the magical some guy in a suit!

No time fo' nutin . . .

So I did 100 pushups.

As always, the number I thought I wanted to get was wrong.

So, recap:

100 pushups

11/12/07 = 9:11
1/15/08 = 8:06
3/22/08 = 6:50.

So, 1:16 better than 1/15 and 2:21 better than 11/12/07.

I also haven't eaten in a couple hours. Which isn't any good on the zone . . . .

I'm curious about gaming strategies. How best to do this to maximize pushup time, and minimize rest, without getting completely gassed early on.

Why don't boys like girls' sports?

Funny question by Ms. McArdle: Why don't boy's watch the girls play?

I left a comment on the site, but it was getting too long for a comment and was better served as an observation:

Ever run a softball league at work? If you work for a big company where you could actually field a team, you almost always end up in a co-ed league for various reasons, most of them to do with gender discrimination. Fine and well, and really I've got no problems with that, but what happens in reality is that you end up in these weird leagues where "co-ed" means like three girls on a team. Really. It's like when you learn about food labeling and that "lite" means x number of fat calories, yet "diet" means something else entirely.

The reason for this, as far as I can tell is so that you can actually field a team. Because it seemed like every week (in at least three organizations) it was a mad scramble to find the girls. We had to have a coed team . . . but we could find no coeds. But we had guys warming the bench.

Now, I agree, there are fairness issues at work. If only the guys are allowed to form the teams I can easily see how it the girls would get excluded.

Essentially, it boils down to the fact guys like sports, not a little more than women, but like on an entirely different level. Like guys like sports, the way women like relationships. I mean, you ask the girls, they will know in the office, who is dating, who is not, etc. Try finding that info from the guys.

Another anecdote that doesn't prove a thing besides my apparent insensitivity. When I started work at my present employer, my department was 10 people, eight guys, two girls. We had fantasy leagues for every sport, the guys went out every day for lunch, talked sports cars, computers, etc.

Fast forward: Same department, three guys, five girls: no more guy lunches (not enough critical mass) no one is running the fantasy football leagues and the march madness pool has gone away. (Note, I'm not complaining, I don't like organized sports enough to care, just pointing some things out.)

And now when we go to lunch, the places are less "beer wings pizza" and more "salad". (Really, one time we were all standing about casting for some lunch ideas and the first three the ladies came up with were versions of salad places. :-) )

Row row row your watts . . .

Fun and funny workout last night:

First the warmup was funny:

Four rounds of overhead "Cindy":

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 overhead squats (with pvc)
samson stretch, each leg 10 sec.

That was kinda fun, not having to bust a move on the whole thing.

Then the workout was a rowing step test:

Tabata style, row for watts, attempt to average body weight and then increase 10% each round.

For me that works out to 170, 187, 204, 221, 238, 255, 272, 289

Made all eight rounds, i.e., never failed to get my 10% increase.

Then I did a minute of max calories. Should have gone for three, but by then the time was slipping away.

Next time I think I'll try and bump the step, either starting at a higher point, or by increasing more each time. I did manage to get up to 350 watts, on the last row, when I had 20 seconds of going for broke.

Update: Metric pointed out I left ya hangin' there: 30 calories in one minute. Usually in FGB I go anywhere from 17-20. (Or actually, more like 20, 17, 15 :-) )

From Hardy to Laurel . . .

I don't know how much of this I can lay at the feet of diet yet, but since I'm down 10lbs in 26 days, Sunday being an official 4 weeks on the zone, I'm going to say a bunch of it is due to the diet. But here's a two year body composition pictorial.


The picture above is I believe January 2006.


So two years later, and a lot of Crossfit and and a little diet later, here's what you get.

Doubleundersidewaysdown

For my warmups lately, instead of jogging around the block and hoping the kids aren't on fire when I come back to the house, or the house isn't on fire, or the dog, I needed a warmup that wasn't burpees, so I've been practicing double unders with the jump rope.

Those are very tricky because unlike a lot of exercises, you can't fake/bad form your way through it. If you screw it up, it's over, full stop.

And as full disclosure, one spring, for sports training class, we did jump rope as our aerobic activity all spring, and all we used was a crummy piece of rope not some fancy jump rope. Long story, but at my High School, your P.E. Class could be sports training, so that if you were on the football or, in my case, wrestling team, you could start your sport an hour before school got out. When you weren't on a team, you had general conditioning training.

I took a lesson from one of the crossfit videos where you practice them by doing single double unders, like so: hop hop big hop (and hopefully a doubleunder). So, getting singles was pretty easy, to get, but then I moved to hop doubleunder hop, which is harder, but last night for some reason, I managed to get 5 doubleunders in a row. Good stuff that.

Not joshin' at all . . .

Couldnt make it to the gym tonight, so I did what Crossfit Plano did yesterday when I was resting:

"Josh"

I used the Brand X pack scale for a couple reasons: First, I hadn't taken any weight overhead in a loooong time. But I didn't want 75lbs, and our next scale at the Pound, would have been 55lbs. Had I been at the gym, I would have done a scale on the board so that I could compare with others, but since I was doing it on my own, it was just easier this way.

21 ohs @65lbs
42 pullups
15 ohs
30 pullups
9 ohs
18 pullups

20:53

First time doing Josh, so I took it "easier" than I will next time. I think I got to 15 ohs in the first round before having to break the set. It all disintegrated on the pullups. I can take a lot off this time.

Couple of notes: ohs were fine, if a bit shaky. Next time: solid core, drop down, weight on heels. There were "balance issues". But, since it's been months since I've been willing to hold an ohs, it was okay.

Pullups were just plain weird: my grip was losing it and preventing me from doing more faster. It was weird, like I could always make the pull, but if I started losing grip, my hands would give way before i could kip and pull over the bar.

Like I mentioned, I think I could do a lot better on this than I did in this round. I wasn't in near enough pain. =8-)

Week three, in da zone . . .

Quick facts:

Days in the zone: 23

Starting weight: 179
Weight this morning 170 (and a smidge.)

So three weeks, 9 lbs or so (most in the first two weeks, and slowing down now).

Downsides: measuring out everything. I can get really hungry fast if I go too long without eating. Note to self, I need to take a snack to church, because that don't work . . .

Upsides: I want more information, but my workouts are going really well. I mean, I get tired, they are crossfit workouts, after all, but there is something different. I want to see how it goes for a couple weeks, but I'd like to know if this will last.

Next up: Fish oil supplements. ;-) I've heard you can get it orange flavored! Yay!

Hells Kettlebells . . . .

Cool day at crossfit.

Kettlebell class.

W/U

10 "halos" (each way, so around the head both ways)
10 swings (american)
10 goblet squats

Then a pullup ladder warm up, everyone did one pullup, then two, etc. up to 8.
So, 36 total. That's kinda cool.

Then the big show, which had a weird (weirder than normal for cfit) rep scheme.

21-7-15-5-9-3 of

SDHP @ 32kg
Russian Swings @ 32kg
Box Jumps

I scaled down to 24kg

9:10 (first one done! ha! Means I need to go to the full deal next time . . )

Interesting, in that you get a long rep set, then a short one. I didn't have to break the sets, but did take some rests between exercises. But it was fast, so there wasn't as much muckin' about.

And this was the third hard workout in three days. I'm looking forward to my rest day like nobody's business.

Crap Parenting: Don't look a gifted horse in the mouth . .

Got some info from the school, regarding the girl.

Evidently, the government, had been, unbeknown to us, had been conducting secret tests on the girl.

Turns out, there was some "gifted and talented" testing going on. So they give you a whole page of blah blah, testing, blah blah, testing, final tests completed, blah blah, the results are on the next page.

So down at the bottom, under a bunch of graphs and checks and columns, are two check boxes: one for super genius, one for super normal.

But it's phrased as: qualifies, does not qualify.

The long and short of it is, she does not. Fine by me, for reasons I'll get into in a minute. But what's funny is 1) We had no choice in the matter (for instance, I was tested, my sisters were not), 2) the checkbox system is basically a "nope! Your youngun' ain't all that smart!!"

I heard this from a friend who was in one of those programs, that the reasons it's great not to be in one of those G&T programs is this: 99% of the time, what they do for you is give you extra work. Think about it: the smart kids see the tards going to baseball games, but your REWARD for being a little sharper is something like "Okay, here, have 50% more to do".

And, it doesn't take long for it to dawn on you that they don't want you to leave high school early unless you're so wildly gifted you can't even be in a normal school. What if instead of afterschool programs or extra work, you actually got an advantage: leaving school as soon as you had acheived a certain level of proficiency. Why not put kids who aren't going to college out in the workforce sooner? Why not put the kids who would just as soon be done with the whole mess into college that much sooner?

Furthermore, from my own observations, being sort of gifted is like being pretty. Nice, but it doesn't show how hard you work, or any other much more important characteristics that allow one to acheive sucess. So as for me, I love having a normal (within a few sigma anyway). Anything beyond that is gravy.

It was a bear alright . . .

Did the "Bear" complex today. I may not get into the gym from Tues. on, so I figured I'd better do something tough today.

Good lord.

All sets unbroken . . . ha! That's a crossfit joke . . .

Anyway:

5 rounds of 7 reps each of:

power clean, front squat, push press, back squat, push press

The rules are as follows:

In a set, the only time the weight touches the ground is when you do your clean. You can't even regrip. You may get the weight up by power clean, deadlift then hang clean, squat clean (but, that doesn't count as your front squat . . . at the end of the clean, prior to the front squat, you must be standing). Front squat, back squat, self explanatory.

You can rest any way you want during your seven reps, but the weight can't be on the ground. And, you can rest between rounds as needed. You will need.

The overhead movement can be pressed, push pressed, or jerked. Which is a good thing . . . . as you'll see.

My weights were:

65-75-85-95-105

Thoughts? Fargity fargin tough. starting late into the 85 round, and the next two rounds were all jerks. That is, I couldn't get the weight above my head without dip-drive-jump under it.

Even then, I lost my form on the 4th rep of the 105 count and the weight came down . . . crappy part about that, is to finish, it's still gotta go up . . . . I had just finished the front squat and it went up about half way then came crashing down . . . yay. But I just backed off for a couple counts, and cleaned it back up, then it went overhead and I watched what I was doing from then on.

Take that Chuck Norris!!

Suffer on Saturday
Crossfit Plano, TX

Chuck Norris is 68

Yeah . . . you know what's coming . . .

68 box jumps
68 jumping pullups
68 kettlebell swings 16kg
68 walking lunges
68 push press 45lbs
68 back xtn
68 wall ball shots (20lb)
68 burpees
68 doubleunders (squat jumps)

I did porch scale: 50 reps, same weight

25:40

Last time I did this, it took 50 minutes!! What was my problem?
I did a pack scale of the normal filthy fifty at 35 reps on 11/27/07 and did 20:36.
So, I did roughly 42% more work, in only a 25% increase in time (iffn' I got my math right)

I'm still wondering about that 50 minute workout . . . what was I doing?

In the husbandly zone . . .

Wife says she's setting the table. Meanwhile, I'm puttering around, grilling up a london broil (a kind of top round cut, kind a chewy, so you grill it fast, slice it thin, it was $2.99 lb, so cheaper than decent sandwich meat).

Come back in, look at my place setting: there's a scale, and a measuring cup.

Very funny wifey, very funny . . . .

Whither the Zone . . .

Why, would anyone do the Zone diet, given the negative treatment it's given in the sports and training journals?

My thoughts, and to let you know where I'm coming from, my primary fitness activity BC (before Crossfit), was running. Specifically the mid to long distances. Not super speedy, but have clocked a 36-37 minute 10k in my faster days. I have "raced" at distances up to a marathon, best time in that about 3:38.

I've eaten the high carb diet for a long time.

Two weeks ago I started the zone, the first week wasn't perfectly strict, in the sense that I was still eating some unfavorable carbs: bread, etc. But week two, was bread and sugar free ('cept for one cup of crappy car dealership coffee!! Doh!!).

So, my thoughts all purely anecdotal: From what I gather, most folks don't start seeing actual results for about two weeks.

My first week in the zone was kind of weird. I was a little foggy mentally. Not that anyone might notice, but yeah, a little goofier . . . than normal. :-)

Now, here's another thing: from everything I've read about weight loss etc., fitness, etc., LSD is the greatest thing ever! You can burn fat and get in shape in 20 minutes of moderate exercise! I"m not a fast weight gainer, but when I would run an hour a day 5 times a week, over a year and lose 5 pounds, compared to doing crossfit for 4 months at 20 minutes a day at MOST, 3-5 times a week, and losing 15lbs, well, that kind of got my attention.

Futhermore, my heart rate (just checked) is about 57pm (not resting, after loads of coffee) which is pretty good. If I checked it before getting out of bed, it would be lower, probably 5 bpm. When I was running 45 miles a week, I could get it down to somewhere around 45 bpm, but goodness, 45 miles a week is about 6 hours of running a week. So the trade off, timewise is fine by me, because at most in a week I might have 6 hours of workout "time" but that includes warm up and things like heavy lifting, metcons like Fran, et. al.

So, when I realized that what was supposed to work, really didn't, but crossfit did nearly the same thing, then I realized that the thing crossfit adds to workouts, the hideous intensity, was doing as nearly as much for me as pure aerobic workouts. AND i have upper body strength (so to speak) . . . if you've seen most runners and bike riders, they look like they keep their shoulders at home in the closet. :-)

Now, I thought the zone looked a little flaky too, based on my past "knowledge". But since crossfit was absolutely right about what I could expect physically, why not just take a chance with the diet, right? What have I got to lose.

But still, if the zone was a detrimental diet . . . guys like Greg Amundsen, et. al., wouldnt' get better. They would lose weight, lose muscle. But they continue to perform well if not better than before increase performance.

At the very least, I could conclude that if nothing else, the diet wasn't a hindrance to performance, and why not see if it would benefit me? If it caused me to lose a little weight, well, heck, then I've got less to pull on the pullup bar. I mean, really, what do I have to lose? If it doesn't work, it plain doesn't work.

Now, after two weeks, I've lost about 9 lbs. Did a workout at the gym day before yesterday, and cranked out pullups really well. Was tired at the end, but after 60 negative hspus and 60 pullups, I darn well better have been.

And I wasn't really interested in the zone because of any issues with my weight. What I was more interested in was the idea set out in one of the CFit journals that they thought one reason the diet works so well is not that it improves performance . . . but that it improves recovery, allowing you to come back to push hard next time. And frankly, I hadn't stalled in my cfit goals, but felt that at 42, I could tell I wasn't recovering nearly as fast as I used to. A hard cfit workout could follow me around for days.

In essence, because Crossfit was right about how to do exercise, I'm willing to keep an open mind about the diet.

One toke over the line . . .

Maybe this is why they got lost on a three hour tour . . . .

Sorry, but this is FUUUUUNNNAAAAAAYYYY.

Okay, let's spot all the funny things about the story:

"When Gutierrez asked about a marijuana smell, Wells said she'd just given a ride to three hitchhikers and had dropped them off when they began smoking something. Gutierrez found half-smoked joints and two small cases used to store marijuana."

Oooooh, good one!!! Mystery Hitchhiking Dope Smokers!!! Yep. Now maybe I'm cynical but 1) Do you ever see hitchhikers anymore? 2) Three of them together? 3) And you're a 69 year old lady, and you pick up multiple hitchhikers? 4) Who then proceed, to "smoke something"? Which you apparently don't recognize? 5) The hitchers, evidently, got so much money/and or dope they can just leave their stash in the car.

More: Wells' lawyer, Ron Swafford, said that a friend of Wells' testified that he'd left a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle after using it that day, and that Wells was unaware of it.

1) Changing stories!! Yay!! The prosecutors best friend!!! 2) The classic: "Uh, that's not mine . . . it's, um, a friends." Sure pal, try and sell that to someone who's buying. Evidently, every doper in the world says that when caught. You'd think that because two unacquainted dopers can find each other in a Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve, they'd all agree to a new story. Because basically you have to believe that the guy who works at Whataburger for 6 bucks an hour, has rent, a crap car, just left his stash somewhere, accidentally. I agree it probably happens. But not every time.

Crap Parenting: No really, I didn't put her up to it . .

Wife and Daughter playing together, talking about farm animals:

Daughter, to Wife, in an offhand, just confirming what I know sort of way: "Daddy is smarter than you, right?"

Wife: "Depends on how he reacts when I tell him this."

Daughter is now my favorite child. :-) Speak truth to Mom Power girlfriend!!

The boy has some serious kissing up to do . . . .

Inside Outside Upside Down

Today's WOD:

30 HSPU (negatives)
10 pullups
20 HSPU
20 pullups
10 HSPU
30 pullups

14:56

I scaled to porch, which was negative hspus.

Really fun workout. Of course, I had no grip by the end, so on the drive home, every time I turned the steering wheel one handed, that hand would cramp up . . .

Training notes: pullups felt really strong the whole workout. I broke them into sets of 5, and at the end down to threes, but I was recovering really quick, for me anyway. Good day.

Actually managed to whip out the pullups fast enough that I actually got the nausea feeling. What's sick is it made me happy. That means that I'm actually doing them fast enough in rapid succession to keep my intensity high and my metabolic distress right where it oughta be . . .

Bad day at Dead Lifts-So not a pr

Deadlift Day: (see update at bottom)

1-1-1-1-1-1-1

176
198
220
242
262
282 (f)
272 (f)

Goes to show the benefits of prior planning. I had thought that my 5 rep max was 250. It was not. It is 231.

But having that 250 number in mind is what I used to do the progression today. Had I remembered properly, I would have scaled back.

As it was, I left the gym feeling a little punked, thinking I should have had more in me. When I got home, and realized this is a huge pr, so what in the heck am I being whiny for? The fact that I thought I could do 5 at 250, but only one at 262 and none higher should have clued me in, but man, my clue train was late today . . .

Update: Just went on the crossfit plano website, and saw a hideous picture of one of my deadlifts. My back is rounded so much I can't honestly say I made the lift. I didn't. Crap. Not to mention that one of the girls put up 250. Sheesh. This measurin' all my food better come to something.

And I went to the gym especially for this lift. I was feeling good!! What crap. Bleh.

Zone Diet, Two weeks in:

Okay, impressions:

Overall, things are going very well. I"m settled into a routine of foods I can have and I think I'm getting it right when I do eat out, more on that in a minute.

1) First week, I was mentally fuzzy at times. That's largely gone away. Not sure why, but I don't feel like I did the first week when at times I couldn't recall things rapidly.

2) Routine is your friend. Having everything at hand and having an idea of what you're going to eat day to day is a lifesaver. Mainly I"m eating this:

Smoothie 5 blocks (recipe in previous posts)
snack: 1 block each of lunch meat, fruit, nuts.
Lunch: 5 blocks each lunch meat, fruit, nuts.
snack (same as above)
Dinner: 4 blocks: protein (meat/cheese), salad, tomatoes, fruit, salad dressing.
Snack 1 block each protein, nuts, and a 4oz glass of wine or 8oz of beer.

3) Have a backup plan: Our cafe in the building has a cobb salad that's probably pretty close to zone, all the elements are okay and half of the tub of salad dressing is probably close to 2.5 tablespoons. There's also a store that sells milk and nuts (they sell other things, too, but for snack purposes, this is all I need). Cup of milk, three nuts: one snack.

4) You start learning to count in blocks: "Okay, got my five protein, and five fat, and am up to 2.5 on carbs . . . "

5) Results so far: Weigh in this morning: 171lbs. One week ago: 175. Two weeks ago: 179. Still fast, but as Mr. Kempie has pointed out, keep an eye on performance. Did Fight Gone Bad on Saturday, and went up 15 points. And I seemed to come out of it much better than previously. Usually Sunday's are a day of rest from the hammerin' I take the day before. Really wasn't so bad this time.

6) Eating out: Salads with meat on them are my favorite fall back option. If you dont' have enough carbs, have a piece of toast and you're pretty much there. Here in Texas, I can eat at Mexican places, because we have fajitas or carne asada almost everywhere. Black beans are a great sub for refried beans (one cup is four carbs blocks).

7) Cheats, they're gonna happen, by accident or otherwise. Overall I've been good, but sometimes, shoot, you just forget. I ate a couple mints one day (like york peppermint pattie things) not even thinking about it (wife was handing them to the kids in the car, and unwrapped them and handed them to me, I just chomped away!).

I probably can't sustain a a 4lb loss every week (well, I could, for 42 more weeks . . . but even my bones will weigh something . . ) but so long as physical performance and mental acuity stay things will be fine.

Next up, getting my supplments right. Helllooooooo fish oil capsules!!!!

Of course there are no WMDs in Iraq

Because Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080310/people_nm/iraq_norris_dc

This one was new to me: "Chuck Norris puts the "laughter" in "manslaughter"".

Although, I don't remember in his movies where he took out a group of men with one kick . . . the way it's phrased, it sounds like they went down like bowling pins. Not to say he didn't take out groups of men by kicking them . . . . because everyone deserves a little roundhouse chuckylove . . . .

I'm also odd on the "Chuck Norris has become" a cult figure. Dude is a legend. He's not a cult figure, he was a martial arts champion, he was a fargity fargin movie star, and a fargity fargin TV star on NETWORK TELEVISION.

Yeah, he's a bit of an odd duck, you know, an aquired taste. Jebus christo on a jet powered pogo stick . . . . He's been a celebrity longer than 99.9% of the ones you can name off the top of your head, actually was a real athlete before his movie career (Hmm, Arnohld?), ran a chain of martial arts studios, and now, that some guys in the Military like him, he's a "cult"?

On a slightly less excited note: Is it just me, or are the Chuck Norris "Facts" basically more American "Tall Tales"? I mean, if you take some of the old "Paul Bunyan" facts: "Paul could blow out a candle and be in bed before the light went out", Paul did them before Chuck did. But I don't know that Paul B., counted to infinity twice . . . once maybe . . .

Fight gone Badder . . .

Crossfit Plano, Suffer on Saturday

Fight Gone Bad . . . practice . . . . long story . . .

Three rounds of one minute each of:

Subs noted:

Wall ball 20lb reps (16lb)
SDHP 75lbs (55lbs)
box jumps
push press 75lbs (55 lbs)
Row (calories)

273 points - PR

did the pack scale, as noted.

Previous FGB, 9/29/07, 258 points (and I show I did a 35lb sdhp . . . which is odd. I don't know if I wrote it down wrong, or did it wrong . . .)

Now, either I did write it down wrong, and did the 55lbs and got the 258 OR, I did do 35lbs, and got the 258.

Don't matter a bit because I still cranked out 15 more reps this time. However, if I did the 35lbs last time, on the sdhps, the increase is more impressive, because by adding more weight, I still went up. Even so, I can't complain one way or another.

I'm not sure what my goal should be on this. I'm really close to 300 on the pack scale. Considering I do porch more often than not, I don't know if I should go to the rx'd weights, and just chug through knowing that I'll take it in the shorts on the 20lb increase on the sdhps and the push press. Still . . . if I dropped to half reps on those, say 8 instead of 15-16, I'd be down by like 50 points. Somewhere around a 230-240. If I didn't lose that much, I could get a 250.

Getting a 250 as rx'd, within several months of doing that at pack is a huge increase in lots of things. Anyway, sumpin to think about.

Stop the shoulder presses!!

Yesterday's wod.

w/u and Skill work: double unders Got 10 with the two hop technique: i.e. hop hop doubleunder hop hop

Got 5 with the one hop technique: i.e. hop doubleunder hop

And got two consecutive . . . Also got one dog (she got too close) and one weedeater (I got too close to the wall . . . )

I was jumping in the garage, much to my son's delight and the dog's chagrin . . . but she won't wander so close next time. :-)

(Oh don't worry, it was just a flesh wound . . . )

Besides, practicing jumprope for 10 minutes is more fun than chugging outside in an ice storm and trying to run around the block, and I can do it and "watch" the kids, though I think officially the kids were watching me and/or tv.

Shoulder press:

5x55
5x65
5x75
5x85
5x95(f, 3x) That ticked me off. Everything else practically flew up. So . . tried again
5x95 (f, 4x) at least I got four reps . . . Gah.

Maybe I shouldn't have done the pike presses to warm up beforehand . . .

But this is an area of weakness.

Practicing my deads has brought them up quickly. Squats have likewise come up quickly. Shoulder press needs more work. I want a 135lb press . . . . eventually. Nice round number . . . . therefore, reasonable attention to this ought to produce similar gains.

Crap Parenting: "As seen on TV!"

Who here has turned on the tv so the kids will stop bugging them . . . amen brother . . . bonus points if it's not Wrestling . . . .

True story though: They had this tv station we really liked for the kids, called Noggin. No ads, nice calm shows, including a pretentious intro for each show "Franklin Demonstrates group dynamics and creative thinking!" beats binge drinking, I suppose, but I digress . . .

Anyway, it was only on like 12 hours a day. Yeah, the station shut down the kids shows at 6. But did the station go off the air? No. Next up was some Canadian lesbian soap opera . . . teenage lesbian soap opera . . .

It was tame, I mean, it wasn't Spanktravision, but helloooo people, we just got done counting and naming shapes . . . . lets lay off discovering our non-mainstream sexuality for a couple minutes, at least . . .

Goblet Squat Buttwink

I'm sorry to be so juvenile, even though I have no idea what that would mean to someone outside of crossfit . . . it's crackin' me up thinking someone ended up on my site because of the search terms "goblet squat buttwink".

BWAHAHAHHAHAAA!!!!!

It sounds like the winner of a "worst secret phrases" contest. And first runner up "goulash craptite hornrim"!

Woe is "Linda", wait, "Linda" is woe . . .

Frankenlinda: 10>1

DL @ 120 (2x60lb dumbells)
BP @ 115 (on a machine . . i know I know I know. There's a reason)
Cl @ 70 (2x35lb dumbells)
25:42

Compare to 9/18/07
dl @110
shoulder press: @ 60
clean @ 65

30:04

and compare to 02/16/07

Linda with reps: 10-8-6-4-2

dl @ 120lbs
bp @ 105 (on machine . .. see there WAS a reason)
cl @ 60 (2x 30lb dbs)
9:30

The machine won't be used again, it was only used for curiosity to benchmark a previous total.

Observations:

Pounds Moved:

3/5/08: 16,775lbs in 25:42 or 650 lbs a minute.
9/18/07: 12,925lbs in 30:o4 or 430 lbs a minute
02/16/07: 8,550lbs in 9:30, or 900lbs a minute.

Sweet Home Acura . . .

Okay, so you gotta stretch it . .

But the car came back from the shop, looking good as fargity fargin new. Mad props to the car shop!

Maybe if you'd have used the 20 sided . . . .

You would have made that last saving throw . . . . R.I.P Mr. Gygax, R.I.P.

I mean, far be it from me to get into Nerd/Geek taxonomy, but it's a big tent. I'm not sure if doing this sort of thing as a youngster makes you nerd/and or geek. (I'll spare you the effort Bruce, yes.) I spent a LOT of time doing this kind of nonsense, and still now, at 42, love me some video games and fantasy fooferaah. Kind of like Tolkien invented the "way you do fantasy", Gygax and all (and isn't Gygax just the type of name you give something in a D&D world?), D&D for any shortcomings it has/had (haven't played in a group in years but do remember: "I am perfectly healthy from my 1st hit point to my 99th. When I hit zero, however, there is an abrupt halt to all lifelike activity . . . ") it set the standard. Everything else, like the worlds that weren't Amber, were shadows and versions.

The only thing you can say is thanks. You made my life more fun.

Can someone lend a man a hand . . .

Preamble: This is what I do for a living: tax and estate planning. But I'm a little baffled by what the good owners of the New York Times are doing.

A couple of thoughts: There's usually no reason to SELL to a spouse, since in the U.S., assuming you have a taxable estate in the first place (currently, an estate greater than $4,000,000), you may make unlimited untaxable gifts to a spouse.

Sales are problematic, since a sale between spouses would still cause any gain in the property to be realized and the owner would pay income taxes on the gain, at ordinary, not capital gain rates.

And in either event, at the death of the first spouse, all the property can be passed to the survivor completely free of estate tax. That is, no tax until the death of the second spouse to die.

Therefore, neither sale to a spouse or gift to a spouse outright, is of any use. It's still "in the estate" of both of them, subject to estate tax.

Now, sale to a spouse's trust (irrevocable) . . . . that's a different story. There must be some "technical detail" left out of the article . . . .

Now, I keep waiting for the mulitmonogamy plan, whereby spouses keep remarrying someone younger than themselves, just to keep the chain going, but since this hypothetical was just thought up by me, perhaps someone could tell me at what point the IRS would kibosh this . . . .

Crap Parenting: the limits of selflessness . . .

don't extend to your food . . .

Me: making a smoothie, on the zone diet. In go the strawberries, blueberries, and daughter looks longingly at it . . .

Her: "Daddy, can I have some smoothie?"

Me: "Sure baby" measuring out a small portion . . .

I then drank the rest damn thing, brain freeze and all, so I didn't have to give her more . . .

(Truth be told, I needed the whole thing, it's all I get to eat. I should have just bribed her with M&Ms for breakfast . . . )

Sufriendo por el Sabado

Phat Helen

5 rft

400 meter run
21 kb swings @ 32 kg (russian swings)
12 weighted pullups (20 lb vest or otherwise)

Did porch scale:

5 rft
400 meter run
21 kb swings @ 28kg
12 pullups w/10lbs

27:42

Zone Day 7-One week.

Okay, this is the end of the zone week:

Weigh in: 175

Breakfast: smoothie ('cept for the smidge the daughter wrangled out of me . . . )

Snack: 1 cup milk, cashews
Lunch: 5oz turkey, slice of bread, cup of grapes, cashews, olives, 1tsp of lite mayo rounding it out.
Snack: 1 tangerine, 1oz turkey, cashews.

Ultimately, this is going pretty well for a week.

I felt good at the workout this morning. However, I usually don't eat beforehand, so I don't know how much of the energy is attributable to that. It was a good workout though.