forgot this part…

she doesn’t have pneumonia. just a stomach virus. all is well in newton-ville.

this week…

has been mostly horrific. let me ’splain…

monday: bwe & i went to knoxville to pick up some “new” display cases for the gym. easy enough. except that for whatever reason i was exhausted & in bed by 8, but had to get back up at 9 to take the cases to the gym. didn’t get back until 10.30, didn’t get back into bed until 11.15. workout? nope.

monday night/tuesday morning: phone rings at 3a. the 16mo old niece, who had been sick, supposedly with an ear infection, had been at the ER in knoxville since 8p that night because she hadn’t stopped throwing up all day and could no longer sit up on her own. the brother, who was sick himself and had taken some stout medication that had him bedridden, called me in a panic because his wife had called him from the ER to say they thought kaya (niece) had pneumonia & was being taken by ambulance to the children’s hospital. did i mention that her phone died during the conversation? yeah. i gave him some instructions (both to help him think clearly & to keep him from panicking), and told him to call me when he’d done what i’d said. i fully expected to be heading back to knoxville to help out within the hour. at 4a he calls me back, has talked to his wife, that things had settled down a little bit, and he’d call later. i “slept” with one eye open, one foot on the ground, and the phone in my hand.

tuesday: work 15 hour day on approximately 4 hours of sleep. move 4 display cases into the gym and up a flight of stairs. set a route. do necessary work around the gym. leave at 10.45. workout? nope.

wednesday: leave for funeral in memphis at 2.30p. return home at 1.30a. workout? nope.

today is looking to be a little better. aside from the sleep apnea follow up & a chiropractic appointment, all i have to worry about is getting bills paid, routes set, and marketing stuff done. i think i can handle that. then again, it’s only 10.48. who knows what will happen between now & lunch?

my first mistake

for the record, i DO NOT recommend doing the back & legs workout at 11pm and following it up with a kenpo/kickboxing workout at 8am the following morning.

my legs felt so heavy that i would’ve struggled to kick a gnome in the balls. my back & trunk reeeeeally didn’t feel like warming up, let alone twisting turning and punching.

so far this week i’ve lost 4.5 pounds. i know that a lot of that is just water weight and is due to me doing something more active than noshing on cheetos & watching hulu, but still, 4.5 pounds! i’m hoping that i can lose 5-6 pounds this week, 2 pounds a week during weeks 2-8 weeks and 1 pound a week for weeks 9-13. that would mean that, after a mere 90 days, i would have gone from a 227 pound tub of goo to a 208 pound ball of fitness & energy.

i’m still planning my post-p90x fitness regimen, but i think that i’ll probably add more climbing-specific training to the mix, and hopefully some cycling. you can probably tell that the program’s hard when the guy doing it is thinking about the end only 5 days in…

should have a few starter pics up next week. don’t worry, i’ll have my shirt on.

one other thing

i just realized that i’ve had exactly one diet coke, coke zero, or any other cola-type beverage since monday evening.

could it be that i eliminated another vice and didn’t realize it?

(in other news, my coffee consumption is through the roof.)

truffle shuffle 1.9.09 – yoga ain’t for wusses mix

its day 5 of p90x, and i’m tired. and sore. last nite was yoga nite – 90+ minutes of leg burning, core searing, sweat inducing yoga. i haven’t done yoga in probably a year or more, and didn’t do it regularly prior to that. needless to say, i struggled.

i wanted to quit after 20 minutes out of frustration. my shirt was catching on (rather, above) my beer belly, i was messing up poses, my legs were screaming, and felt like a fat, balance-challenged ogre. rather than quit, i took a 60 second break to let my body and mind recover and jumped back on the mat. i’m proud to report that i not only finished the entire workout , and not just that i was able to hold a couple of poses that i didn’t think possible, even if just for a few seconds, but that when i was finished i felt really good. relaxed, tired, and peaceful.

so, today is chest, back & legs day (i think. the schedule’s not in front of me), and i’m a bit apprehensive, but i’m also excited. my eating’s been better over the past 36 hours, although i still had a drink, a couple of cookies & a few tablespoons of peanut butter. old habits die hard…

in other news, i get to go to knoxville this weekend to pick up some display cases for the crag’s new, expanded pro shop! my excitement for this project truly knows no bounds. we’ll be transforming an area that literally just sits empty, collecting dust, into a top-notch climbing pro shop, complete with climbing shoes, rope, gear, apparell & accessories. not that rei’s gonna be laying people off because of my 120 square feet of retail madness, but we’ll at least have as much to offer as they do when it comes to climbing.

other than that, things are pretty normal and uneventful. we’ve got new programs rolling out later this month for kids & families, so it won’t be normal and uneventful for long. maybe this is the new normal…

the shuffle awaits. have a good weekend. go titans & go preds!

1. i for an i – derek webb (the ringing bell)
2. vacation in tehran – the judys (washarama)
3. one of these days – camper van beethoven (popular songs of great enduring strength…)
4. babylon system – monty alexander (concrete jungle: the music of bob marley)
5. magnolia mountain – ryan adams & the cardinals (live: ryman auditorium: 8.1.06)
6. f-cked up kid – broken social scene presents: kevin drew (spirit if…)
7. all we have is now – the flaming lips (yoshimi battles the pink robots)
8. windfall – son volt (trace)
9. blue hotel – ryan adams & the cardinals (live: ryman auditorium: 8.1.06) – 2 songs from the same show?
10. i just don’t know – mc5 (the anthology)

a bizarre and eclectic mix…sorta like my life right now.

day 4…the morning after

well, i’m halfway through week 1. so far i’ve done a chest & back workout, a plyometrics workout, a shoulders & back workout, and two ab workouts. needless to say i’m pretty damned sore, but its a good sore. tonite’s yoga nite. if there’s one thing i could use right now, its 90 minutes of yoga!!

the harder part of the program for me is the nutritional aspect. you see, i’ve got a thing for all things crunchy, bready, sweet, and liquor-flavored. oh, and pizza. i could probably eat pizza seven days a week, three meals a day, and never grow tired of it. i also have a hard time eating on a regular schedule. if things at the gym are hectic, i can’t exactly drop everything to eat (nevermind actually eating something healthy!), so a lot of times dinner either consists of trail mix & cheetos or taco bell, burger king or backyard burger. so far though, that’s going okay too.

bwe & i did all of our grocery shopping for the week on sunday & monday, and i’ve tried to plan my eating at least a day in advance, making sure that i have healthy stuff ready to grab for lunch, dinner & snacks. i’m proud to report that i’ve stayed right on target, except for a couple of handfuls of mint m&m’s, 2 chocolate chip cookies, and a chocolate bon-bon. (what can i say? i like sweets & crunchy things!) i’ve even cut back on my alcohol consumption, and plan on limiting myself to a glass of red wine at nite.

right this second, i’m starting to get hungry, so i’m gonna grab an orange and a handful of almonds to get the fat machine burning again…i’ve lost 2.5 lbs in 3 days and i wanna keep the weight train moving OUT of the station!

i plan on putting a picture up about every two weeks so you guys can see the progress i’m making (and hold me accountable!!).

3.5 days down, 85.5 to go!

me at 33, and a new project

i turned 33 yesterday. 32 was a big year. highlights included:

-buying a climbing gym
-quitting smoking
-quitting my job (sorta)
-gaining 30 pounds

yeah. newton got plump in 2008. so, for my birthday, i started a new workout program. its called p90x, and yes, its advertised on television. i’m not going to post my start picture. but i’ll post pics along the way, and i’ll journal my progress here. bwe is doing the workout with me, not only because she wants to, but because she’s a total badass and wants to support and help me.

yesterday we threw out the junk food, did our first workout, went to melting pot (sort’ve a mardi gras/fat tuesday deal), and bought some starter groceries. we finished the shopping today, and we’re getting ready to do our second workout, which has been nicknamed by other p90x’ers as “the beast.” i’ve got a feeling i’m gonna toss my tofu creole (dinner) before its all said and done tonite. the weird thing? i’m looking forward to it.

more updates and progress reports coming soon…feel free to encourage me as i learn how to eat healthily, workout like a seven-dicked ninja, and get myself in shape for my trip to boulder, co at the end of april.