Fitness Update

I am inspired to write an update to the summer fitness series because I just saw one of the personal trainers at my local gym doing squats while wearing a hypoxia mask. I was quite pleased though I had a real sense of sadness that a BC reader wasn't in the gym so we could share that moment.  I was scanning around hoping someone would notice me noticing him so we could both nod and roll our eyes like Hey, this guy. Didn't happen.  So, inspired by his mask, I had to settle for doing Bane voices to myself. "You scan my electronic gym key....and this give you.... *power* over me?" and "You do not fear incline press.  You welcome it. Your punishment shall be more severe. To the dip rack."

I couldn't video the fainting goat in the squat rack without being noticed.  Since my summer series, BitterWhiteGuy has made it his life's mission to send me videos of his local gym buffoons.  His last submission featured a guy with a do-rag and string tee doing quarter range of motion lat pull downs very rapidly.  BWG lives in Dallas, so his real challenge is deciding who NOT to film.

(BWG Note: here's the guy)

My personal fitness updates are as follows:

Supplements: I still take Vitamin D, C, E, fish oil, zinc, magnesium, psyllium.  I drink a 2% milk whey protein shake every morning with two raw eggs, a banana and big dollop of Siggis Icelandic yogurt and some cinnamon.  I took a 6 week break from caffeine because that optimizes the naive user effect when you start again.

Fitness. I haven't done barbell back squats in a while.  I've been doing goblet squats, but that's not the same. A failure to deep squat with black iron on your back reveals simple deficiency of character.  Were I to offer any explanation but that one, you would be right to strike me, as if backhanding a slinky Bond villainess.

I have been running HIIT stairs sprints on this right here, which is proof of robust character and the ability to press on despite severe nausea and mild heart attacks that I dismiss as "cardio-butterflys."  Good job, me.

There's an outdoor gym not far from me and I've made good use of it as a complement to the regular gym.  It turns out doing regular sit ups is underrated in combination with planks, flutter kicks and a bunch of ab exercises I copied from watching Navy Seal BUDS training on Discovery channel.

Nutrition. I have been eating OK, but I eat too many Quest bars.  Way too many.  Mostly out of boredom.  I also drink carbonated flavored waters, convincing myself that they're healthier than diet soft drinks.  They're not.  I need to do a better job of more variety in my veggies.  Make your own salads help, but I'm not doing well enough.

I've lost 20 pounds since April.  Wasn't really a goal, just wanted to exhibit good behaviors and see how body composition changed.  It turns out if you consume less energy and burn more through exercise, all of your jeans fit.  I should write a book!  My dream of becoming a Mervyn's model is very close to realization.

I've been "greasing the groove" alternating pulls ups, neutral pull ups and chins.  Pretty much every day.  The effect is shocking.

I've exchanged e-mails with several of you trading ideas and offering encouragement.  One of our BC brethren has even lost forty pounds since June incorporating some common sense changes I recommended.  Pretty awesome.

Here are a few interesting accountability ideas:

1.  Tweet out your weight daily.

2.  Take a cell phone pic of everything you eat throughout the day.  The simple act of recording yourself will alter behaviors.

3.  Give someone you live with $200.  Every time you miss a workout or eat badly, they send $20 to a political cause or group that you despise.  Brilliant, right?

So what have y'all been up to?  Did our series inspire anyone else to action?