24-Hour Fitness needs more swiss balls!

I am so ready to be done with school! Today I have a "mock" presentation to give for Advanced Business Comm., and next Tuesday is the real thing. I still have editing to do on the group paper and another report due next week about ISO standards for Management. Not to mention various Statistics assignments and lots of studying for finals.

I've been working out really consistently and eating very well. Part of my goal is to eat 10+ fruits and veggies every day, and so far so good (except for weekends). This is what I had yesterday:

M1: Veg omelette - egg beaters + 1 whole Omega-3 egg, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, and an orange
M2: Cottage cheese, strawberries, ground flax seed
M3: Salad - lean pork cutlet w/ Rosemary, spinach leaves, pecans, strawberries, feta cheese, shredded carrots, raspberry vinaigrette dressing
M4: protein "shake" (just powder and water), apple, almonds
---- TT Intermediate Workout B plus intervals; skipped PW drink but had a small oatmeal cookie when I got home ----
M5: Hazelnut-crusted salmon, brussell sprouts, half a medium sweet potato
M6: Protein "shake", mixed nuts
BED TIME!

I think I'm on track for the most part. I decided to cut out starches except after working out. Before, I was eating oatmeal everyday and some kind of grain or starch with lunch. I want to see if I make better progress by replacing those carbs with fruits and veggies. So far so good!

I'm also taking 2 fish oil capsules with each main meal (1, 3, and 5). I couldn't decide if I should take them with dinner last night since I had salmon, so I had them with M6 instead.

So this is my 4th week of TT and it's going great. Ironically, the biggest challenges have been external ones and somewhat out of my control.

Examples: First, since my workouts are after work, the gym is super crowded. I have to hunt for a swiss ball and pounce like a cat on the first available one I see. The good ones are always taken so sometimes I wind up stuck with an old, crusty ball that is really too small for what I need it for. But I have to make do!

Second, I can only get the DBs I need about 50% of the time. For most of my squats I warm up with 20 lb. DBs, then use 25 lb. for my regular supersets. Sometimes I wind up using one or the other for both, or a 22.5 or even 27.5 lbers.

Other than that, weekends don't quite go as planned, but they are not too bad. We eat out a lot on the weekends, but I can usually find something decent wherever we go.

Next week I get to start my "Advanced" Original TT workout and I'm excited! I love having all my workouts preplanned so I don't have to guess anymore. It's awesome!

One more thing - the TT Transformation contest begins Thursday, May 1 and goes through August 23. I'm going to enter. I'm going to try and get to the new Rec center at school and see if I can get a body comp done on the official start date. I wish I had done this when I actually started the program, but oh well. I'll still see a lot of changes -- I'm sure of it. :)

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, it's the big day. My birthday. I'm 26 years old today. Isn't it odd how one day you're automatically a year older? Birthdays get less exciting as you get older, but I'm still a youngster. When I see some of the older guys and gals on the trails or in the gym, I'm reminded that calendar age really doesn't mean anything. The last time I got my body comp test done (about a year ago), my physiolocal age was 21. I wonder what it would be now... I bet I'd still be 21. Maybe younger.

Still no plans for the big day yet. I am still doing my TT after work, and I think I might do a 7 A.M. ride tomorrow at Blackstar, which means I need to get to bed early. So maybe Jason and I will just get a quick dinner and go watch the races at the BMX track. That's always fun, except when it's cold out. Today is supposed to be about 90 degrees, though. So it should be nice out tonight! Maybe we'll go for a ride on the Stella.

It's my second day of blogging and I'm already addicted. I never thought I'd feel the need to have one, but now that I do, I like it! I think I'm amused at how much we like to know about other people, yet in person so many of us are shy or hesitant to share things about ourselves. Or worse yet, we don't ask questions about other people and their lives in fear of coming off as nosy. The reality is, most people love to talk about themselves. If you start asking people questions about their life, their feelings on a subject, or what they did over the weekend, you'd be surprised how much you have in common with other people.

Anyway, back to my self-importance :) My biggest and best birthday present was a new bike. It's a Surly Cross-check cyclocross bike and it's rad!! I'll edit the post later tonight or tomorrow with a picture. I'll confess, I did get my present a bit early because I'm spoiled. Jason, our friend Randy, and I rode to Newport/Huntington Beach a couple weeks ago via the Santa Ana River Trail. It was 43 miles round trip and it was fun! Riding on a fast bike on cement is totally different from riding on the dirt. First, I'm hardly using the brakes at all. On the mountain bike, my hands are almost always on my brakes. Second, on the mtn bike, a lot of the time you're either climbing or descending, so you don't have many opportunities for a lot of speed. On the CX bike, it's all about speed... it's fun!!

One of my goals (I'll have more about my goals very soon) is to ride my bike to work at least once a week. It's 9 miles each way (14.5 km), so it's relatively close. Plus, I can take the bike trail almost half way, then it's street riding. Once it warms up a little and I don't have to bring all my school books with me to work, I'm going to give it a try. It'll be a great way to get some exercise on my "rest" days between TT. I still need to try it one day on the weekend and evaluate different routes and safety hazards, etc. Cars still freak me out a little, and we don't really live in a bike-friendly city. People still don't realize that it is state law for bicycles to be on the street and obey the same laws as car drivers do. You still see people riding their bikes on the sidewalk (and the wrong direction at that) all the time. I'd love to see more bike-awareness efforts out there. People just don't know.

I'll probably be back later because blogs are like crack, apparently. But for now, I'll leave you with a quote from Iris Murdoch:

"The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in the heart."

My First Blog

Ohh geez... I've done it. I have finally surrendered my privacy and entered the world of public candidness! This should be fun!

So I've got a couple things going on right now. Actually it's more like a dozen. Here's a few.

1. Tomorrow (4/25) is my birthday and I have no idea what to do. Celebrate? Fancy dinner? Movie? It will be a Friday so I feel like I should go out and do something fun. But what?

2. I'm working on my B.A. degree in Business Administration (Marketing) and I am finishing up the semester. I have two group projects to work on this weekend, one of them requiring a meeting at my house on Saturday evening. Gosh, I can't wait! Our group has to edit our horrible rough draft and create a presentation on how the Volunteer & Service Center on campus can recruit more volunteers. Exciting stuff.

3. I have been really gung-ho lately on fitness and trying to trim some annoying fat. I've been eating really clean and working out and riding consistently. I invested in this training program called Turbulence Training and it is working wonders. My workouts have become much shorter, but much more efficient. My only regret is that I didn't find this sooner! More on this stuff is coming soon!!

Part of the reason of starting this blog is to try and keep a journal of my workouts, nutrition, and progress. I think that keeping a public journal will help me stay on track.

Comments, criticisms, praise, disapprovals, and affronts are all welcome!