Consider this not as a resolution but rather a memorandum for what is to come for everything pertaining to my health this year. This is not something I have the “option” of falling out of, knowing that time is of the essence. The goal is to drop all the way down to 202 pounds by September at the latest. Given that I’ll be 33 this March 22nd and the fact that as we age, more of our youthful choices begin to stick out like sore thumbs, it is more imperative that I act decisively with this goal at hand.
To keep all of this simple and easy to digest, I’ll start with my training routine that I’ve been utilizing the past three weeks. I have essentially been using U.S. Air Force style of training for the most part, while also incorporating Strength Endurance for the weightlifting parts of the training as well. There will be a second blog where I break down some of my favorite recipes, caloric intake formula (for you number junkies) and recent results.
1. Stretch for about 7-10 minutes.
This will loosen your joints, enhance overall flexibility and enable the muscles to loosen up for some sound length tension of the muscles. You can do multiple forms here — be it static stretching, dynamic stretching, active-isolated stretching or even reactive stretching.
2. 12 minutes of High Interval Cardio.
The goal is to be able to do a mile and a half in under 12 minutes. If you have something to monitor yourself like Fitbit and you have plenty of environment to run in, just set the timer on your phone to 12 minutes and go as fast as possible. If you find yourself shorting out on breath, just slow down to walking for a good 30 seconds to just give yourself enough time to storm out further. Once time is up, check to see how much of the distance you covered within the time limit and mark it down.
Should you do your run in the gym on a treadmill because there’s no track (some gyms do have one), adjust your time limit, age and weight on the treadmill and get on with it! Same principles apply like the first situation except that you have to adjust the speed for when you want to make that run and when you have to slow down to catch your breath.
The more you do this, the more adjusted your breathing will get, your recovery and eventually your speed. Remember, the heart is the most essential muscle in your life.
3. 2 minute intervals of Push-ups, Sit-ups and Pull-ups.
When doing pushups, make sure that when you go down, you come back up once your elbows do a 90 degree angle. Stay up to breathe if you need to rest in the time limit. For the
sit-ups, cross your arms, answer that your legs and knees are making a 90 degree angle when your feet are down. As you go up, make sure your elbows are touching the top of your knees and should you need rest, do so on top of your knees. For pull-ups, like the push-ups, make sure your head is looking up when doing the exercise. Palms should be facing away form you as well.
Now in the event that you’re in a place where either there are no pull-up bars or the bars are taken, use the Lateral Pulldown machine. In this instant, set the weight for your goal weight. Of course, you want to get those reps done as fast as you can, take your time in order to avoid injury due to the height and length tension that will be presented to your shoulders as well. If you need to rest, do so like in all other exercises and get back on it.
4. Strength Endurance Weightlifting.
As much as I love to lift in a powerlifting type of programing, you’re putting in some strength endurance instead. What I like to do in a protocol of this manner consists of a pyramid and reverse pyramid sequence. Let your first set be around 20 reps and then gradually increase the load until you can hardy even do 5-10 reps.
Once you have gotten to that point, bring the weight down and starting doing repetitions until failure on each set. This is to be applied to every weightlifting exercise you do.
5. Nutrition.
As always, if your nutrition is crap, you’re going to get crap results. You can never outwork bad eating habits unless your bad eating habits are non-existent. Every bad choice you make will eventually come to get you.
I’m all about my spinach, broccoli, sweet potato and whole grains just to get my system moving. My favorite recipe comes form my buddy Remson Noire, owner of Tribe By Noire. It involves 1 cup of whole rolled Oats, a teaspoon of sea salt or pink Himalayan salt, a teaspoon of cinnamon, some brown sugar (personally I prefer just 3-4 teaspoons instead of his 3 Tablespoons) and 3 Tablespoons of Chia Seeds (he lists 2 but I prefer 3). This recipe is packed with a good chunk of fiber, carbs and healthy fats to just propel you into a good start to your day and will carry you for a good amount of time.
If you want your lean meats into your food, I’m a believer in boneless/skinless chicken breasts or some pink salmon, tuna, swai or albacore. If you need to replenish your glycogen stores (energy for your muscles), the combination of whole wheat rotini pasta, chicken breasts and broccoli always do me some good but if you have some turkey on hand, dig in. If you like making those fish sandwiches with some mayo or yellow mustard, be sure to toss in a tablespoon or two of chia seeds to keep that fiber content in tact since fiber is essential to our gut health. The recommended amount is 35-38g of fiber a day and what better place than chia seeds, beans (if you want to go the rice and beans route) and some solid veggies (did I mention sweet potato?)
For your fruit to get your micronutrients in tact as well as some fiber, I believe in green apples (I eat the skin because that’s where the fiber is at), bananas, kiwi, pineapple (more antioxidants than watermelon), watermelon, blueberries and strawberries.
In order to keep all this tracked and logged in, I strongly recommend the MyFitnessPal app, in order to properly track your Macros, Micros and Caloric intake. It’s been the app to show me when I have been slacking off, when I’m on point and when I’m doing too much.
Lastly water — drink lots of it. Men are usually recommended 3 liters of water and women about 2 liters. Our bodies are 60% water. I’ll break this down further in my next blog but I’ll say it again — drink your water!
