Time away

I’ve been away a while and with no real explanation.

At first I just didn’t feel like training, at all. It worked out ok cause I took some of the time and spent it preparing for finals and that sort of thing. After a while of feeling a bit guilty and conflicted about just not wanting to train I decided I just needed a break. So I took a break, I just stopped training and didn’t worry about the consequences.

So here I am, I’ve taken a long break from diet and exercise. I’ve just returned from a 3,000 mile road trip where I ate too much and did too little. I’d guess my weight at 260. I need to weigh myself tomorrow. As you can see, I have my first workout down.

So here’s the plan going forward:
Train 4-6 times per week using what I have at home or what I have at the chrome and fern
Control my diet with an emphasis on whole foods and limiting caloric intake (no attempt to maximize protein or anything)
Blog 5+ times per week (steering for daily)

Training breakdown
run 1-2 days per week, preferably 1 day of sprints and 1 day of jogging
bodyweight training mixed into other things 2-3 days per week
kettlebells or dumbells 3-4 days per week

Diet Breakdown
I kinda covered this already but I’m not going to focus on any particular macro or micro nutrient breakdown, I’m just gonna try and eat whole grains, fruit and meats I have cooked myself. I’m going to try and control my caloric intake. I’m opposed to a diet journal right now but I may have to use one for a short period just that I can actually know how many calories I consume.

Blog breakdown
The target is to blog daily, we’ll see how that goes. In the past I never retouched posts, I think I will retouch as many times as necessary. I would like to get i the habit of just doing a daily post covering how the body and mind are feeling later, when appropriate add the workout in. There’s a bunch of other stuff I’d really like to do like migrate it back to my own space and do some coding on my own page but I just don’t see it happening. Last year ended busy and hectic, I don’t expect it to get any better but more on that later.

Other factors
This semester I will not have any classes in a classroom, they will all be online. This means I won’t have any reason to stop by UB, where they have the pairs of kettlebells and the rowers. I’m glad to not make the stop but it changes my equipment around. Additionally, work is just going to keep getting busier. My department was without a manager and direction for a long time. Since none of my coworkers understands what I do, I just worked at my own pace and spent a lot of time chipping away at new skills. Now I have a semi ambitious manager, they still don’t understand what I do, entirely but he has and understanding of what is possible and I’m basically charged with doing it. It’s a good thing but it means a very full eight hours everyday. It makes decompression time more important.

Goals
I’ll come up with other diversions through out the year but at this point I have one single goal in mind. The get my body down to 200lbs. I’ll give up whatever strength necessary to get there (I don’t see it as having any kind of potentially unhealthy prospects to say that). I expect it will take 2 years but we’ll just see.

Year at a glance
01/01/09 – 02/02 – acclimation (get into the habit, get over the soreness), gonna try to get a physical too
02/02 – 03/03 – determine daily caloric intake, find a rhythm, set some short term goals
3 – 4 try to accomplish some short term goals, try to get the weight to settle near 240
4 – 5 give myself some challenges
5 – 6 wrap up any outstanding challenges and back off training a bit
6 -7 total reevaluation
7 – 8 take the results of reevaluation and work up new plans
8 – 9 focus on weight loss
9 – 10 change gears a bit, maybe look for some novelty workouts to distract me
10 – 11 another big push, some challenges and so on but also some weight loss push
11 – 12 clean up for the year
12 – 1/1/2010 – take a break

Closing note
I guessed my bodyweight at 260. Wearing pajamas and eating a little bit of popcorn at the moment I just weighed myself. The scale read 260.0. Good guess, eh?