As the soreness fades, the strength returns

I’ve done a horrible thing to myself. Last year I wrote bunches of posts about how I was exercising, eating right, and losing weight. In about 3 months I lost about 20-25 pounds. People were coming up and telling me that I looked great, looked like I lost weight. My motivation was my upcoming wedding and not wanting to look like a fat slob in my wedding pictures that I would look at the rest of my life.

I achieved that goal and I am happy with the way I looked in my pictures. And then I went on the honeymoon, and then I started grad school, and then my back pains started happening, and one excuse after another caused me to stop exercising.

Fast forward about 9 months, and after just celebrating my one year wedding anniversary, I have put back on all of the weight that I had originally lost. What I worked so hard for in 2-3 months, was lost in 9. I can not contribute everything to not exercising, because my eating habits went down the toilet too. I started drinking the occasional energy drink and soda. Fast food started creeping into the weekend meals. Overall is was everything I wanted to stop doing, and I started right up again.

So here I trying to get back into shape again, and this time come up with a better maintenance plan. The good news is that Stacy is working out with me. We just started this past Sunday, and have been very sore the past few days, but just as of this morning, the soreness has started to fade, and I am hoping that muscle memory kicks in and I will be able to resume what I used to lift in my work outs in a shorter amount of time.

Tracking bike rides part 2 – RunKeeper

When we went out and got bikes, I found the mapmyride application useful, but after conversing with some co-workers, I think that I will be using RunKeeper going forward. There was some level of fate involved in the decision. MapMyRide requires internet connection for the recording to begin, and the bike shop in Los Altos is in a dead zone, so when we started our ride, I couldn’t record it. I gave Run Keeper a shot, and it started right up.

The advantages don’t stop there though. The runkeeper.com web site is a much nicer presentation of your riding data, with speed and elevation as well as the route presented to you on a google map. There is a free and pay version from the App Store, but I am using the free version right now.

Have bike, will ride….

Stacy and I bought bikes this morning, and after some driving around to get a rack for my Jeep, and some other supplies we went for our first ride. Here’s the map of the ride. Thanks to my iPhone with GPS, it mapped the whole thing for us.

Sometimes you just blog about going to the beach

I’ve been doing a lot of serious writing lately and working on higher quality articles for the blog.  I have a few articles that are partially written that I had hoped to finish for this weekend.  They are coming along slower than I had expected, and thought this would be a nice light hearted update for those interested.  

The ultimate CKD shopping guide

As I have talked about before, I am on what is known as a CKD diet.  It’s somewhat strict when it comes to the foods that you can consume, and the whole thing can go wrong if you take in too much sugar/carbs.  So in the process of researching it, I found lots of meal plans that people had put together for an average day, which was very helpful.  But in reality, we don’t always want to eat the same exact thing every day, and even if we did, we need to buy the right types and quantities to last until the next shopping trip.  Enter this guide, a virtual walk thru the grocery store.  Some facts about this guide:

  • I live in California and shop at Safeway, but this guide should work at any grocery store
  • I went early Sunday morning.  It’s a calm time in the store, but if you want fish, its a bad time to shop
  • Click or mouseover the links to the food names and you will get a little popup with more info
  • Bookmark this page!  I’ll keep it updated with new shopping suggestions.

So lets get started with…

The Produce sectionTHE PRODUCE SECTION Continue reading

P90X – Kenpo X – When it starts to feel too easy

On a popular P90X thread on bodybuilding.com, some posters were venting that they thought Kenpo X gets too easy over time. It’s one of the few workouts that you do every single week, no matter what phase or recovery week. Here are some pointers I gave in that thread and they were well received, so I figured I would share with more people.

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