Moving Forward

I recently posted that this blog was coming back to life.  As a tool for me to share my personal fitness journey it has been so helpful. Not only helpful to me, but to the people around me that have also taken up their own personal fitness challenges. However, I feel like this blog is just one piece of the fitness puzzle, so I am going to launch a new website soon. On it will be my continued fitness journey. It will include food, workouts, cardio, and, most importantly, the inspirational/spiritual/mental goodness that often didn't get shared on this blog. It will be a total life fitness website/blog.

I'm hoping to bring in another blogger or two to help share other stories.  I don't see my fitness journey as the journey all should take. I see it as my path, and other people sharing their paths can help me along mine and maybe help yours.

How I started on my journey.

Me at 40.

-D

Lentil Spaghetti

When I started my "physical transformation" I started two blogs. The first was called The Fleet Vegan. On it I was looking to develop alternative recipes to common favorites that could be made quickly and easily for busy people. I got rid of the blog because everyone started associating me only with vegan food (and I'm not a vegan). Plus, I wanted to be inclusive of other things besides just recipes. I was changing my exercise life and my way of thinking (I've become Mr. Life Affirming since those out of prime shape days). The Fleet Vegan format just was complementary to work out posting. It was too food concentrated.

When I started the blog, I made a few silly little cooking demonstration videos. This guy is one of them:

Back @ It!

My fitness has suffered since my 40th birthday. This is partially due to a thumb and wrist injury that left me unable to do so much as a push up for nearly three months. The lack of exercise affected my mental state as well.

Unable to skate or lift, I quickly gave up running and cardio kickboxing. Then my diet started to suffer as I started allowing myself little cheats that led to big cheats that nearly led to being back in the same old fattening routine.

I'm bringing back my public blog to help motivate myself once again. What was supposed to inspire me to the age of forty will serve as my public inspiration through my forties.

Luckily, my thumb is healed and I can workout again. My diet is back on track (there was a three week period that wasn't so good). And the blog is back! I'm writing for Memphis Health and Fitness Magazine now (extra inspiration!), and I want to build this blog to be a supplement to my writing for the mag.

The Last Post

I have just finished the last workout of my 30's. This six months or so has changed my life. It isn't just the physical changes my body has gone through. It has been a great time of emotional, spiritual and mental growth as well. But I am stoked to have lost a shirt size, and I'm super stoked that I've moved the latch of my belt backward three holes. Here is the final picture:

1 month to go!

40 is just around the corner. Here is a pic to show the progress. When I started, these pants were tight around the waist. Stoked!

Photo Update

So, I stopped posting an update pic because I honestly didn't think many changes were happening in the old body for a while. But, I decided to post one on here because I was wrong. The obliques are starting to show pretty well. Less than 2 months to go! I think the cardio kickboxing is going to be a big help.

Not as fit as I thought

I'm sitting here now, drenched in sweat, with less than two months to my 40th birthday. I've continued eating a no sugar diet and I'm down to a very small amount of body fat around my navel which is probably sticking around (no pun intended) because I tend to pizza it up with the kiddo.

However, for the last two months to my goal I'm cutting out that last little bit of crap, and I'm stepping up my game.

As far as workouts go, I've continued to lift weights. I actually look forward to lifting these days. A lot. I've increased my dumbbells to 50 pounds each, and I do all of my weight lifting with those. I've also added a resistance band to my push ups, and I've installed a pull up bar in my house to get some much needed pull ups in.

However, my cardio has ONLY been my skateboarding for the last month. Now, I've skated a lot over the last month, but it just doesn't feel like enough.

If you look at my last post, I bought a resistance band/glove thing with DVD to workout with. In truth, I hadn't used it. I put it on and tried the DVD, but the DVD was all messed up and wouldn't play. Tonight, I took the initiative to find a video online and used the bands to workout. This is why I'm drenched in sweat. It was a great workout. The only problem I had was that the gloves have a velcro enclosure that kept digging into my back so I took it off for the last round of the workout.

I've decided to add 2 cardio routines into my week, and I've decided to go back to yoga one day each week. I learned today (doing the kicks) that I am not limber at all these days. I'm glad I workout at home and nobody had to see that.

You'll notice I've not been posting any month end pics. Well, I have decided to wait until the birthday and post a final pic then. 2 more months of hard work and good eating and we'll see where that takes us.

Oh, and I have given in. Despite my tirades on protein shakes, I'm simply not adding much muscle these days and I'm giving protein a try as well as an L-Glutamine supplement. I'll write more about that particular amino later.