The Fitness Ninja

Last night I had a very restless sleep.  The baby was up at all hours grunting and crying.  I did the earlier night feed and my wife, bless her soul, did the other feeds at 3 and 6.  The baby just does not want to settle though and try what we might he keeps peeing through his diapers (we even bought an extra pair of rubber diaper covers to put on top of the disposable ones for him).  He also spits up every now and again (the night before, I was feeding him in the middle of the night and he had some crazy projectile vomit of formula … only time I’ve seen him do that) and gets himself agitated with his mess.  Thankfully, we go back for a regular check up at the end of this week at the doctors so we can ask all our questions then.

In any case, last night I had one of those lucid dream sequences.  Y’know… you’re aware you are partially awake but also partially asleep and yet you still dream.  I dreamed the baby was killed.  That’s horrible isn’t it.  This will sound ever more ghastly because I think it was via a microwave that some men threw him in.  UGGH.  It was horrifying. I jumped up and ran over to the other room where my wife was changing the baby.  I was shaking the fog out of my head and just wanted to make sure he was ok.  I kissed Elias and my wife, asked her if she needed anything and was promptly told to go back to sleep as I was going to work today.

I went back to bed but then started thinking for some reason of all the odd problems (they seem odd now as a grown up) I had in elementary school with bullies.  I was picked on as a kid (really, I think most kids are… and even bullies have their share of problems cause most of them don’t get that way unless their homelife is  somehow screwed up) and always hated that I felt kinda powerless to stop it.  I mean, I wasn’t always getting beaten up.  Maybe once or twice but that was it.  Still, those events affect you.  I grew up in a primarily white community being one of the few foreigners in my neighborhood when it started (it’s much more diverse now), so racism and insults do get to you.  They make you guarded and bitter and kinda hateful at times yourself.

I dunno why all this was flying through my mind at 4 in the morning.  I guess, if I can I want to do everything in my power to help spare Elias those hardships. Except…

I know I can’t.  It’s a part of growing up.  Bullies, racism, hard knocks, accidents, injuries are a part of life.  Trying to stop them is like hoping the night won’t come.  What I can do though is hope to give him tools to become a good man.

What do I want for this child?

I want him to be compassionate and disciplined.  I don’t think compassion can be taught.  I think it’s innate.  I really hope he is.  I can, however, help make him appreciate all the things in his life that make him a lucky person to be here.  Hopefully, that will help him learn to love and help those around him.

One of my most favorite sayings is “Discipline is remembering what you want.”  It is the key to all success.  Moreover, this quality is one, I think, a parent can instill in a child.  Education, goal setting, chores, learning how manage your resources and time — all these things are building blocks for nurturing and training a person’s sense of discipline.  I want him to be a planner, to be patient when the need arises and to be able to sacrifice and forgo immediate gratification if it means a larger payoff a little bit later.  It’s all easier said than done though.

Oh yeah… and I also want him to be strong.  Not necessarily just physically (although it would be nice if he had an appreciation for fitness and keeping himself in good, clean working order) but also emotionally, mentally.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this in a blog.  Maybe, like my fitness journey, I’m laying down larger goals for him and I have to plan myself how I can help him get there.  One thing my wife and I have pretty much agreed on is that we would love for Elias to learn a martial art.  We’re not really a big ’sporty’ family and I don’t want my son to be a fighter despite my love for the sweet science.  I want him to build his life on his mind.  I do, however, want him to be able to defend himself and others if needed. Martial arts are a wonderful way to build confidence, get exercise and learn practical self-defense.

But I think I might forgo the more traditional arts like karate or tae kwon do… they seem to be the most common ones around here.

I did learn that there is a school in the town nearby that teaches krav maga.  I wonder what age they can start teaching a child.  Maybe it would be best if he had a foundation in something more common like karate first.  It’s definitely something to look into.  Maybe I can take the classes with him? Oh… that would be terrific!

I’ll get back to writing again later.  Peace out.

On January 18th, 2010 9:57 PM, Elias (“ee-Lye-us”) was born. 47 cm. 4 pounds, 14 ounces.  He’s a wee little guy.

Needless to say, it was a crazy day and night.  Barely got any sleep as the nurses kept going in and out of the room my wife and I were in.  Everything is fine though (wife is VERY uncomfortable as it was a c-section birth).

Went home tonight (the 19th) as I have some paper work and errands to do on behalf of the wife / family.  I’ll head back in early tomorrow morning to spend the day with the wife and child and probably sleep over again at the hospital.  If everything works out, we should all be home by Thursday.

In any case, upon getting home tonight… yes, I tackled Cardio Power and Resistance then took a shower and kept puttering around trying to get things ready for the baby.  Now, I am ready to collapse! Peace, see you in a day or two!

Alrighty… so these are my two key things to work on this year:

1) Continue exercising on a daily basis (or at least 5-6 times a week).  This shouldn’t be too hard as I generally like to exercise.  Only hitch I foresee is the new baby coming this month.  I’ll do my best to stay on top of a schedule but I know I’ll have to be a bit more flexible if I have to rearrange things or miss one (the knowledge that I know my sleeping patterns will be totally thrown out of wack really concerns me as without sleep I really, really dread hitting play).

2) Eat better and be more “nutritionally minded”.  Rereading my blogs over the past month or so and the daily food / calorie count I attach to them, I know that my true weak point is for sweets.  Like a lot of people, I have a tendency to want to munch on things even when I’m not neccessarily hungry.  I seriously want to change this and think of eating as a source of fuel, not pleasure.  Sure, I love the taste of chocolate but there should be no reason I can’t learn to content myself with 1 or 2 pieces rather than a bar and a half.

Interestingly, I found a terrific link called the “15 Best Diet Tips Ever” that I hope to try an incorporate into my nutrition plan.  I hate to call it a diet simply because by doing that I admit there will be an end to it.  What I want is a life change… habits that will automatically make me make the right decisions when it comes to food and well-being.  My family has a long history of cancer and heart problems and I know that every little bit helps when attempting to battle such conditions, not the least of which is putting good stuff in “the temple” rather than garbage.

The one rule from that link I posted which I have been trying to carry in my mind for the past two days has been “Consider whether you’re really hungry”.  Before I put something in my mouth, I ask myself “Do you have hunger pangs right now or are you just doing this for something to do?”  I’ve been able to cut down my snacking considerably because of it.

I also want to be able to expand my food repertoire this year to include apples and green tea.  I always hear about the wonderful health benefits of both foods, but have never really gained a taste for them.  I hope to work on that this year. (I also never ate salad until I was 30 when I suddenly fell in love with Caesar’s [I know, I know not the best salad choice... but hey it was a start!]).  On the supplement side, I’ve cut back on the calcium supplements and hope to simply consume more milk (1-2 glasses a day) for both the nutrients and extra protein it provides.  In place of calcium pills, I’m thinking of taking fish oil or omega 3 supplements… something that will help strengthen joints and ligaments.

Alright… I’m glad I’ve sorted all that out and put down here in the blog.  Next few days, I seriously have to think about what new fitness program I’ll want to tackle.  All signs point to Insanity but nothing’s definite yet.

Hmmm… it’s that time of year again.  Time to set new goals to meet throoughout the year.  If you read the first post of this blog, you’ll know that my resolution for 2009 was to exercise regularly.  It was an “experiment” of sorts that I carried out to see what kind of state I would be in by the end of the year.  Well, thankfully it was a resolution I was able to keep and I can honestly say I’m in a much better place now than I was this same time last year.  I weighed in over 170 in January ‘09 and I just weighd myself again this morning… the scale clocked in at 140.5.  That’s not bad… but, as expected, I gained several pounds in December (no doubt because of my lack of will power when confronted with holiday meals).  The lowest I ever got was 135… and up until this past month, I had been hovering in the mid-high 130s since August.

However, I’m not looking at this as a negative end to a wonderful year long journey.  It’s actually the beginning to yet another journey.  I’m motivated to get back to the mid (maybe even low) 130s and I’m still on my quest to reach the magical 10% body fat percentage.  This last one, I think, is my *ultimate* goal.  Why am I aiming for this? To be honest, most likely out of vanity.  But also because it’s a quantifiable achievement I know I can reach if I work hard enough and remain disciplined when it comes to my nutrition.

This leads me to my next point.  This past year has taught me that I have the discipline to exercise regularly.  I think it might actually be less ‘discipline’ now and more ‘desire’.  I genuinely like exercising.  I like how it makes me feel and the knowledge that I am working slowly, day by day, to a better me.  Hahahaha… it’s strange but I think exercising has taken over the place of my love for role playing games, specifically the MMORPG World of Warcraf which I played endlessly for almost 4 years.  In those games, you constantly built up your character’s strengths by killing monster, going on quests and raiding dungeons.  You’d start on level 1 and after you’d finished enough quests or killed enough monsters and gained enough “experience points”, you’d gain a level thereby getting stronger and faster.

I know this makes me sound like a real dork but… I feel like exercising and tracking my progress on paper is kind of a “real life” levelling up system.  Over time, month after month, looking at the mirror and the scale, I can tell I’m changing (well, maybe not recently as I’ve slid back during the holidays).  This slow ‘grind’  of exercising is my way of reaching the next level of ‘me’.

Okay. Enough of that.

So the plan for this year is to keep exercising.  I plan on tackling Insanity in January and February.  I keep hearing great things about it, how it’s tougher than P90x etc.  I just want to do it to in order a) trim down and tone up the physique and b) say I completed it.  I’m a completionist at heart (you should see how thorough I am when beating a role playing game) and Insanity will be a second notch in my Beachbody belt (p90x being the first one).  I want to be a ‘graduate’ of this system as well.

BUT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THIS RESOLUTION TO EXERCISE IS THE DESIRE TO TRULY EAT BETTER.  Changing how and what I eat will probably be the toughest challenge I have set up for myself thus far.

I’m getting a bit tired… I’ll continue this post tomorrow.

I turn 34 today.  Feels like it came out of nowhere, like it was just yesterday that I left home for university, graduated, got married, travelled to Japan and taught high school before returning and getting my first house.  It all seems like one large, colourful blur.  And now I stand on the precipice of fatherhood with a son soon to arrive any day now.

It’s been one heck of an adventure but I know there’s still so much more to see and do.

I’ll never be 33 again.  But I’m glad for it.  At this time last year, I wasn’t happy with where I was in terms of how I looked or felt physically.  Being overweight and out of shape is not a good place to be.  And it’s not like it happened overnight.  I could feel myself falling into complacency in my early thirties since returning from Japan.  But then I turned 33 and took a long hard look at who I had become.  There are dozens of reports from the medical community every month that tell us about the multiple benefits of daily exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight, right? Added to this, there’s a multi-billion dollar industry out there telling us (and selling to us) on a daily basis how to get fit and feel better, right? Programs like P90x and super popular shows like “The Biggest Loser” are just a small piece of this push to get people healthy.  And, more importantly, if you turn on your computer, you can hear, watch and read testimonies of people all over Youtube, in the blogosphere, and on social networking sites getting in shape, transforming their lives and turning everything around.

At 33 I thought to myself, ‘if this is the right thing to do, and if all these people are able to make such changes in their lives, why can’t I?’  I guess like many people I just got tired of being tired and decided to change.  And if not at 33, then when?  That’s how I started on my journey.

So I’ll never be 33 again but I’m glad for it.  After a year of changing so many aspects of daily living, I feel better than I’ve ever been.  I’m faster, stronger, and fitter than I have ever been in my life – and that includes when I was an active teenager and a young man in my early twenties.  More importantly, I enjoy being this way now.  I don’t ever recall a time when I could knock down an 8 km run and feel totally exhilarated by it.  I don’t ever feel being totally wrecked by a weight training session and yet still loving every second of it.

Here’s to a brighter, more positive future.  I still have a long way to go to where I want to be (like working on my eating habits and nutrition) but here’s to celebrating how far I’ve come.

And oh yeah… I did Yoga X today.

Food for today: I had a special birthday breakfast and went out to eat.  I had 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with butter and jam, 4 pieces of bacon, some hash browns, 3 eggs over easy and a cup of hot chocolate.  I had a large oatmeal cookie for snack.  Lunch was 1/3 cup of granola with cup of yogurt (200 cal.).  Dinner was a meal out at Lone Star Grill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SOajRM2P1s

Life’s full of fire and rain.  And neither is necessarily bad.  It’s just fire and rain.



Well, I just finished Kenpo X again.  This time I upped the weights I hold to the 3 lb. dumbells.  By the end of the entire routine, I was drenched in sweat and my arms were a little sore.  I think I’ll keep using these from now on.  To be honest, like a lot of other P90xers (well at least the ones who blog or make comments on youtube), I think Kenpo is probably the easiest of the routines aside from Stretch X.  Gotta be inventive regarding how to increase the intensity of the routine (once I get accustomed to these weights I might move onto the 5 pound dumbells). It really feels weird not to be doing weights and not to have the accompanying muscle fatigue this week.  Just as strange is not doing Ab Ripper X (although I guees core synergistics and the yoga belly 7 segment make up for the lost ab work).  Tomorrow is a Stretch X day.  Might decide to run home from work if the weather is good.  I haven’t done that in a while (truth be told I haven’t done much running at all since the start of P90x) and miss it terribly.

Food: oatmeal, cup of juice, granola bar, oyako don (grilled chicken on a bowl of steamed rice and onions with some kind of sweet soy sauce type sauce on it [no egg]), cup of miso soup and cup of salad (I went to a Japanese restaurant YUM!!), pan fried salmon with roasted cauliflour, for dessert a fruit smoothy (made it with ice cubes, cup of mixed frozen berries, a frozen banana, yogurt [35 calories] cup of 1% milk).

True Story: I used to absolutely HATE Japanese food.  It was one of my fears accepting a work contract in Japan that I would have to subsist on McDonalds and KFC for two years (imagine what THAT would do to a person’s insides).  But once I got over there I learned to love so much of their cuisine (still hate sushi and sashimi though, something about raw fish turning my stomach.  Ironically, those two dishes are ultra healthy because of lack of processing.  They love a lot of their food raw or with a no frills preparation method it seems.  Sometimes my wife would partake in school lunches and they would literally just place a huge boiled squid in front of her which she would then politely take bites out of… another time she was provided with a local delicacy of horse sashimi)… but like any culture, they have their own share of super tasty food that can also be pretty bad for you when consumed on a regular basis.  Example: Tempura! OH MAN SOO GOOD… deep fried flaky goodness.  Not that I’ve had any in a while because of this fitness kick I’ve been on.  Mmmmm….. Tempura.  Don’t know why… just had to share that.

Oyako don

Did yoga X today.  Man, I’ve learned to really love that routine.  I just wish it were a little shorter.  1.5 hours is a LONG time to be doing yoga especially when compared to the other dvds.  After finishing the routine, I had to go to the doctor.  I haven’t had a regular family doctor in years and have been quite a procrastinator when keeping up with regular physical checkups.  So, a few weeks ago I decided to look around for any GPs that have been taking on new patients.  I don’t know what it is, but of the 5 clinics in and around where I live, only 1 was accepting patients.   (And although my appointment was at 11:45, I wasn’t able to meet with the doctor until about 12:30… the clinic was PACKED.  I love being in Canada and having free healthcare… but man we have to do something about the shortage of health care professionals up here).  I met the doctor today to see if we were ‘compatible’.  She was nice and professional so I agreed to be a part of her case load.

See… I think this baby we’re having is really changing the way I am looking at my health and upkeep.  My mom’s family has had a long, long history of cancer.  I think of her 7 siblings, 6 have passed away from cancer as well as her mom (who was a heavy smoker).  She herself survived breast cancer.  With a past like that, I can’t afford to not get regular checkups, especially now that I am moving into my mid thirties.  Gotta make sure that prostate and colon are well kept for and monitored.  Ugh.. the new things we worry about when getting older.

In any case, on top of 1.5 hours of yoga, I decided to walk to work.  That’s about 8 km from my house to the offiice.  Thank God it was a beautiful day.  So… all in all quite a bit of exercise today.

Food: oatmeal for breakfast, 2 cups of juice, 4 granola bars, 2 mozarella cheese string snacks, 2 timbits, 2 pieces of candy, a cinnamon roll, a 6″ roast beef sub from Subway, bag of baked Lays chips (130 calories), diet Coke, leftover hash from last night.  Woah… that’s a lot of food.

Cherry Blossom Trees in Mutsu, Japan

I’m writing this blog first of all for myself and then for any friends and family who might be interested in what I’m up to with regards to fitness and the personal goals I’ve set for myself. Not that the blog will be solely about fitness. I’m sure all the other things I’m interested in such as movies, music, books, television shows, games and family life will also creep into here…but the initial idea that helped spark this project was born from a little experiment that I started on January 1st of this year.

Also, I used to love writing as a kid and over the years I grew more and more disconnected from that hobby as life got busier and, truth be told, I got lazier. I always wanted to keep some form of diary / journal just for kicks but never had the motivation or discipline to keep it up. Ironic, since I spent several years of my life teaching English / History both here in Canada and in Japan and always stressed to students the importance of ‘regular journal writing’ to keep their talents sharp. Haha… kinda hypocritical too I think. Having said that, don’t mind the spelling and grammatical errors that will riddle this blog. I’m doing this for pleasure and not as a professional submission into anything.

Where to begin? I guess in many ways this all started with my younger brother and sister-in-law and a treadmill. My brother has always been a fit, slim guy. Actually, my younger sister is too. Both of them take after my dad who is slim and they don’t seem to need too much effort in order to stay that way (my sister I think actually has difficulty putting on weight). I, on the other hand, take more after my mom who is…. how shall I say? Round? When she was younger my mom was incredibly thin and svelt… a real looker with a good head on her shoulders. She was a poet but ended up being a psychology professor and then a banker and then a community service worker…. Ugh. But I’m getting off topic. I’m sure at some point in the future, I’ll write a novel about my parents as their story is a weird one, full of love, romance, and heartbreak that span several continents.

Where was I? Ah yes. Well, my mom is round. I took after her… so I’m round. We pack on weight a little easier than others in the family I think. Over the past few years I let myself go as I got married and my wife and I began work as teachers then travelled to Japan and back again (both as EFL teachers). Ironically, I lost a crap load of weight upon first arriving in Japan as I had to bike everyday to work and I was unfamiliar with a lot of the cuisine that was offered (I hate sushi). However, over time I learned to really love a lot of Japanese food so by the time I finished my overseas adventure, I had gained the weight again. It only got worse as I picked up a regular work routine back here in Canada and, knowing how way leads onto way, never got back to the regular exercise I had started to do in Japan.

To compound matters, I returned to Canada with a bit of money in the year of our lord two thousand and five. Know what cataclysmic event happened in 2005? That’s right. We’re both thinking it. WORLD OF WARCRAFT! I had the cash, so I plunked down enough money to buy a brand spanking new computer which (at the time) was top of the line just to play this game (a friend in Japan had actually introduced me to WoW in late 2004 when it came out and I was floored by the experience. I had to continue it, no matter the cost). For those who don’t know (and if you don’t know, I don’t know where you’ve been for the past four years as this thing has been one of the largest games in existence, receiving pretty extensive media attention even outside the gaming press),World of Warcraft is a massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG or just MMO) where you create a hero, go on quests with friends and slay monsters, getting treasure and become more powerful as character. Basically, it’s dungeons and dragons on a computer. Well, it’s also highly addictive and a HUGE time sink. By this, I mean, in order to do anything substantial in the game generally takes a couple of hours (people would debate this I’m sure but, really, in my opinion, the only thing that you can do in less than an hour is maybe some quests and perhaps 1 quick dungeon run… but where’s the fun in that? Part of what makes the game so damn addictive is that it also masquerades as a social network not unlike Facebook for idle gossip and chat with friends while you wait to get something done in game).

My wife would say I can sometimes have a very single-minded, addictive-prone personality in the sense that when I get into something that I enjoy, I thoroughly immerse myself in it and live, breathe and eat it. This is what happened to me and WoW. I became “one with my character”. Hahaha… I look at that statement and realize how big of a nerd I am. I will never begrudge my time spent in Azeroth as it netted me a great set of friends (co-workers from Japan and their friends back in the states who also play) that I loved chatting and hanging out with. HOWEVER, over the past 5 years or so of playing WoW on and off (mostly on), I have logged in probably over 75 days of play time across 4 or 5 characters. THAT’S 75 DAYS OF MY LIFE I’M NEVER GETTING BACK! But.. it was also 75 days of pretty good fun…

Why am I telling you all this? I dunno really. Other than that I think WoW contributed to my downward spiral into lazy, fatness.

So by the end of 2008 I was weighing in at approximately 175 lbs. I’m approximately 5’3. Not tall by any means. According to the BMI scale, I dug up online I was OBESE! I had never considered myself OBESE! Geez, maybe plump and a little soft but not OBESE!

This brings me back to my brother. He’s always been slim and fit and over the past few years he’s gotten into weight training and exercise. Growing up because of the age difference, I was always bigger and stronger than him and used that to my advantage whenever we tussled (and that seemed more often than not… sometimes in a good natured way… but other times out of anger or annoyance. People have heard me say it before, but I’ll put it down into writing now just for the record. I don’t think I was a very good older brother to him and wish I had been different. I think we’re cool now but there were times growing up when we … how shall I say did not get along very well. “Oh… if I only knew then what I know now….” But then, isn’t that always the case? Age and time gives you hindsight and with it wisdom… but also regret. I’ll touch on this again in the future I’m sure.)

Back to the weight thing…

Well, at the end of October 2008 he found a great deal on a terrific treadmill. He bought it. I love gadgets. Any type of gadget really. When I saw this hulking monstrosity in his (my parents’) basement, I thought to myself “COOOOOL!!!” … “I really should get one… it will help me not be so obese”. My wife was pretty cool about the purchase as she too wanted to get into shape. So, following his lead we shopped around and bought the exact same treadmill (we didn’t get the same deal he did as the offer had expired already). My wife and I had bought ourselves a home in 2006 with a finished basement and so when the treadmill arrived, my brother and his two friends (Terence and Jeff… or is that Jeff and Terence? I never get them straight) helped us haul it down. Actually, not helped. They did it for us as I didn’t do much of anything because a) I have a pretty bad back and b) there wasn’t really any space in the stairwell for me to stand in to help in the first place. We paid them in food and compliments such as “Good job guys! Don’t worry about the large hole you left in our wall!” (my brother said he could have prevented the hole but it would have been at the cost of his crushed hand).

So, November 2008 we had a shiny new treadmill all roaring to go. I tried it. Once. My wife tried it a few times. Then it sat there. And sat there. And sat some more. From lack of use, the treadmill looked like it too was getting obese.

January 1st, 2009 rolled around. I had just finished a tremendous New Year’s eve meal the night before and was still feeling stuffed. And, yes, a little disappointed with myself. I went to the basement. Looked at this monstrous unused piece of machinery sitting there then did something I had not done in YEARS. I pulled out a scale we had lying around and weighed myself. 175.5. I put up a calendar on the wall facing the front of the treadmill, stretched for a few minutes, wrote down “175.5” in the first square of the first month, put the plastic key into place and turned it on. And that’s how my year long experiment began.

=======================================
I’ll get back to this again later on. But right now I want to get on the treadmill and do my daily run, shower and head to work.