The Fitness Ninja

Woohoo! This is one of the best times of any 3 month program – the final recovery week.  I can see the end in sight and it feels good.  By all accounts I should be finished Friday evening if everything goes according to plan (no rest day that day as I need to catch up on a Modified Angie).

So far everything seems good.  After work yesterday afternoon I tackled Cardio Recovery and today I did Cardio Synergistics.  I really don’t know why I didn’t arrange to do that routine more during this round of workouts as it is, hands-down, my favorite P90x routine.  It’s so well rounded and yet so basic.  Very little equipment use but it works basically everything including cardio AND provides a great sweat-on (those plank to chataranga runs are still killer… but I can do them now without stopping once during the sequence).

Where I failed today was the nutrition side of things as my wife and I decided to take in a film: The A-Team.  It was my intention to bring my own snacks to the movie as then I could control the calories but we were in a rush and all I put in my pocket was a roll of flavored Mentos (not bad at 140 calories per 14 piece roll).  However, upon arriving at the theater we were told that we could either get a free ticket or a free snack combo because we had acquired enough points on our special SCENE membership card.  The most economical choice is to always choose the combo as these cost 16 bucks (YIKES!) while the ticket is only 9.50.  That is the logical choice, not the healthy one.  Still, being suckers for a bargain we took it and got a medium popcorn and a large diet Coke to split between me and the wife.

To top it all off, we went over to my mom’s for dinner and were spoiled by her terrific home cooking.  All told I think my calorie intake for the day was 2500 or so … a whopping 700 points over my allotted 1850.  NUTS!!  Maybe I can do two runs home this week to make up for it? Hopefully, the weather is good enough for such an endeavor.

As for the movie itself, IT WAS ROCKING.  I had low expectations and was surprised when the movie turned out to be a terrific summer blockbuster with a half-decent storyline to boot (it was predictable but not altogether brainless).  It was, as my wife put it, the quintessential “guy flick” with a ton of explosions, car chases and even a bit of “bromance”.  She enjoyed it because according to her Bradley Cooper is a “dream”.

Yeah, I gotta admit … that guy got into wicked shape for the part.  In one scene he takes off his shirt and he is quite defined in the abs / upper body.

Still, my “ideal” male body type is Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

Those shoulders are great.

Not that I’ll ever have either body… but that won’t stop me from working out and focusing on my own physique.

Alright… enough with the man-love.  Peace out and have a great evening!

I haven’t been talking about it much as I’ve been so focused on the baby and finishing Insanity, but this weekend is a big fight weekend with my hero, Pacquiao fighting Joshua Clottey.  It should prove an entertaining fight but not the one everyone really wanted (Pacquiao vs. Mayweather).  In any case, this is a really interesting interview with Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza.  It’s worth a read if you love boxing and are curious to see what it takes to become a legend.

Check it out:

Just watched this show on TLC.  It focuses on Eric Chopin, a winner of the reality show The Biggest Loser where really obese people compete to lose weight.  The contestant who loses the most weight earns money and endorsements at the end of the season.  This guy lost something like over 200 pounds.  It was the largest weight lost journey ever recorded on the show up until the season he was on (Season 3 I think).  BUT… guy gained it all back shortly after the show ended.  He gave up a deli he owned prior to being on the show as he got wrapped up in the celebrity and spotlight of being the winner… but after gaining the weight back and spiralling into depression, the endorsments / money dried up and he had no job.  He ended up working for his dad as a small town accountant or something.

Now he’s making the circuit on talk shows (like Oprah and Larry King) to talk about how he’s fallen off the fitness wagon and his attempt to lose the weight all over again.  Feel really bad for the guy.  But then again… I guess his story is a lesson that the motivation for weight loss can’t be all external (i.e. because the world is watching you or because you’re in a contest / competition with other or you simply want to look good).  There has to some internal motivating factor as well (it doesn’t help, however, that this guy comes across as really loathing himself which would probably indicate there is a much deeper reason for his obesity other than just being lazy or glandular in nature).

Check out the show if you can (might be playing on the net or in rotation on TLC this month).  Supposedly, he’s coming back again on the Biggest Loser to try and lose the weight again.  Hopefully, he can do it.  Here’s another clip from US weekly explaining a bit more:

With it being Superbowl Sunday today and all I figure I would honor the day by posting two commercials I’ve found on the net.  I genuinely love Google for how much easier they’ve made my life with their awesome search engine and gmail service.  Here’s their commercial from Superbowl today.

I love how they condense the love story into 53 seconds but still potent with the music and sound bites backing it up.

This next one I just found strolling commercials on Youtube but it’s friggin’ hilarious how serious the voice overs are regarding the career path these gentlemen have taken.

Have a great Superbowl Sunday!

I’ve just added a few links on the side.  By far my favourite is Fitbomb.  If you do nothing else after visiting this site (if you already didn’t get here from Fitbomb), go to the side panel, scroll down and click on the Fitbomb link.  What makes that site so damn good? The writer (I don’t know his name… I don’t think he’s ever mentioned it actually) on the site chronicled his first 90 days doing P90x and the subsequent days (up until present) of his workout routines.  However, his take on Tony and Company is hilarious in that he has a very strong love / hate (or is that hate / hate) relationship with the program.  He says things that most people (I would think) have going through their minds when repeatedly watching the dvds.  He’s also dug up A LOT of interesting trivia with regards to Tony and the extras that star in the videos (he even got an extensive interview with Pam the Blam!).  In addition, he often links many odd but newsworthy bits of fitness related news / internet articles.

The other links (in 4 parts) from Begin2Dig is a comprehensive review of P90x.  It is an eye opening critique of the 90 day system that is in-depth and well written (Fitbomb was where I got wind of the site… so I figure I would link it here as well).

Turbulence is Craig Ballantine’s blog.  I like Ballantine’s work in Men’s Health and so I thought I would link it here.

Katie’s blog is interesting in that it’s a fitness site that seems to have a lot of contests going on at any given time and she has a HUGE list of P90x related blogs for you to dig through.

PEACE!