Pumping With Protein

Had my first day of the 5 week diet plan from the May edition of Muscle and Fitness. After an excellent brekky where I just about mastered the cooking of a great omelete, I struggled through the remainder of the day. I think my body will take a couple of days to get used to the low carb diet. However on the upside whenever I felt really lethargic it was already time for a meal. This has generally been the case whenever I have tried to diet, proof that I can survive the diet. However it has already produced results losing a good 400-500grams today. Felt great in the morning, the omelette was satisfying but didn't leave me bloated or lethargic like a bowl of cereal or toast would in similar proportions. Unfortunately circumstances prevented my having a post workout shake as it was locked in the office. Also slightly annoying was the large plate full of carbs that threw out a great deal of the diet for dinner, in future this willl not be a problem as I will be home to serve it myself. Overall a 6/10 for the overall diet today but expect that to ramp right up when my body gets used to it.

Exercise today was another strong Monday. Decent gym session, cut short due to time. Then raced off to Oztag where I had a cracker of a game defensively and really enjoyed a more permanent role in dummy half. All the cardio I have been doing seems to be paying off as I am lasting at full pace a lot longer and recovering from bursts faster then a month or so ago. A great start to the week, Alpha and Out!

(image from http://bouillie.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/p7050700.jpg)

The New Horizon

Next sun up brings rise to another week full of more big opportunities and road bumps. This week I have got to work more on pacing myself and not leaving all the road bumps at the end of the week jeopardising all the weeks good work and progress. This week I am starting a new diet from a fitness magazine which looks pretty good. Its a low carb diet with plenty of muscle building protein. Nice big omelette for brekky is what I'm looking forward to most. I am again going to change my schedule to fit in the task of cooking and cleaning brekky.

Had a productive day today, getting my head in a good headspace for the week. Keen to improve on the new diet, hit my targets at the gym and overall chew through my tasks for the week. After a week of no quote or tip due to my in-organisation, they return with a bang. Enjoy, Alpha and Out!

A2A Quote of The Week

"You never get what you want out of life, you get what you are,"

Unknown,

A2A Tip Of the Week

Isolate a trigger that pumps up your motivation and attempt to utilise it towards the end of the week to ensure you stay on track for the whole week and not just certain portions.

It was Sabotage!

For the last month or so I have been trying to crack the 90 kilogram weight mark but have always fallen at the last hurdle. Not to jump the ship I think I will fall short again tomorrow (but fingers crossed I don't). The hurdle seems to be getting to the weekend after a great week, sliding into a relaxed state and getting stuck into some large amounts of food. This appears to be the pattern and again it has repeated itself today. My trigger seems to be a lack of structure and giving me the freedom to veg and pig out. However I simply need to reduce this as much as possible while ramping up my Saturday exercise. I successfully regrouped tonight with a decent but not great gym session. Was struggling again with gas and reflux but battered on through to complete my hour of work.

Sundays usually summon the great confidence and drive. I seem to lift up on Sunday and slowly decline in drive until Friday night/ Saturday morning. I gotta think of ways to slow and eventually neutralise this decrease. Onwards and Upwards, Alpha and Out!

Play It Again, Sam

I couldn't sleep last night due to my couch nap. After going through a DVD I flicked it over to the TV and came across Aussie Sam Stosur's semi-final (which she smashed through in straight sets). Now Stosur has come on in leaps and bounds since recovery from illness and she has a set of guns on her that would make most men proud. Now I was thinking about all the effort she would've had to put into her arms to get them like that and now she is able to reap the rewards. This led to me thinking about the pwoer of getting fit for a particular sport has on your training. Rather than vanity, health or lifestyle reasons, I believe and I think all the elite athletes out there would agree, that having a specific sport to train for really keeps the motivation up. My specific sport is triathlons which I took up last year with some decent results before I fell away. I would love to be playing rugby or have a crack at league or AFL but unfortuneatly my shoulder is just not up to the demands of those sports. So really put some thought into acquiring a specific sport or even compettition to add to your motivation for your work outs

Today was another pretty good day capped of with a return to the gym tonight. A large breakky and dinner were of minor concern while the dinner gave me a bit of reflux at the gym I was happy to have just gone and have kept on track for my weekly goal of 5 gym sessions. Pumped for the weekend, another chiller I think. Have a good one and go Sammy Stosur for Saturdays final, Alpha and Out!

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...

The R-team! This thought was floated across my brain earlier today. I must have still been tired even though I had about 10 hours sleep. I know when I am tired because I get a lot of negative thoughts floating around and get internally annnoyed over nothing incidents. Anyway this morning I was pinning that all I ever seem to do is clean up other peoples messes etc etc. But the amount of momentum I have gathered this week forced me to immediately stop and force a positive rebuttle to such thoughts. I said that I was happy to clean up, I had set it as a goal to be the "rock" to everyone and I am exceptionally good at it. Then as if by magic the A-team mantra floated through my head and I knew I had to reposition myself as a crack team great at dealing with seemingly unsolvable cases. Bam thats some good positivity for you.

Today I went for 4 gym sessions in a row but unfortuneatly I stumbled at both night and day due to sleep. I had planned to go tonight but fell asleep on the couch until about 10pm, too late even for me to go. However I am not gonna get down I will simply have a crack at two session tomorrow. Diet today was back to near perfect after a bit of a scrappy Wednesday. I love it when a plan comes together. Alpha and Out!

There was Something in the Air Last Night...Positivity!

Yesterday was great topped off with an excellent gym session where I pumped through a long hard slog on the exercise bike, 40 minutes at high cadence. How did I do it?

- The use of the Podrunner Podcast. This was really helpful in keeping an up tempo beat to attempt to match my cadence with

BUT MAINLY...

- Positive thoughts! While chugging away I was filled with positive thoughts rather than saying this hurts, this is too tough etc I was saying this is good, this is what is needed, feel the bad energy being released from when it was laid down. Best of all I didn't have to too much introspection to rectify any negative thoughts. A big help also was looking at my motivational card which I have stocked up with people and things that motivate me. MLK, my Dad, Kanye West, Michael Jordan and more. These people never gave up when it got tough and that is one of the mantras that was riding through my head. Top notch session!

Today I capped off a great exercise week so far with a hatrick of gym appearences. Feeling great and in control the remainder of the day was somewhat less productive as I got very tired and did not have my proper lunch items available messing up my diet up somewhat, leading to a rather large intake tonight after work. However I need to put this in a perspective as a mere bump in the road of a increasingly faster road trip to the Alpha. Pumped but tired and ready for bed. Alpha and Out?

Early Morning? No, After Work? No, Night Sesh? Hell Yea

These were the three options that I went through today as when I would go to the gym. I know I have posted about flexibility before but I still believe it is essential. Too much flexibility can be extremely hazardous to discipline and mental strength but just enough helps prevent from an utter collapse such as a week long blow-out or a week with out exercise. Enough flexibility helps build a person up rather than inhibiting them by providing a scaffolding to catch them when they slip or fall. This was very clear when I arrived home from Oztag last night with a very sore shoulder. Now if I had gone the NO Flexibility road I might have tried to get up and drag myself to the gym but failed and gone back to sleep wrecking my day and destroying my self confidence. Instead I was considerate and decided I would give it more time to recover and get myself to work early so I could do an session after work. Having a long meeting disrupted that and instead of spiraling down I stood back, breathed and said "Ok, no dramas, I can just go at my favourite time anyway, the night shift" And now I feel great and because I feel n control I will go to the gym and have an excellent session.

Today was a very productive day. Achieved a lot at work, diet was perfect, I have not done the calculations but it is definately under 2000cals and my dinner was definately closer to 500-600cals much better than the large 1000cal serve on Monday. Exercise will be ok but this is no drama as I am nursing a injury so it doesn't intensify. All good in the Hood, Alpha and Out!