My New Year's Resolution

.....is to lose the 50 pounds of fat in one month even though it took me 5 years to put it all on. Yes folks, it's that time of year when the gyms are crowded with the idiots who just SWEAR that this year is THE year that they'll lose the weight. Meanwhile, they wander around aimlessly getting in the way of the regular crowd who are all just trying to grind through their workouts as usual.

Enough ranting, and on to some progress information. I finally took pictures this past Sunday (Saturday's weight was 150....down .6). It took a lot, but I was able to get past all the fat that I've put on to see that I have maintained the most shape I ever have in the offseason. Not surprisingly, my upper body seems to show the most obvious improvements. My shoulders and arms are much bigger, and although my butt's got some, ummm meat, on it, it's still got good shape and isn't saggy or flat. My legs have also kept some good shape despite some obvious added fat. This week marked the first week of my "sorta" diet. I've cut out my carbs, meaning my morning oatmeal and my Carbolyze in my post-workout shake. Also, a small amount of fat was cut out of my two shakes. The change is just enough for me to feel it a little but not enough to loose too much too quickly. I also added in another 45 minute cardio session, which brings me to 4 days of 45 minutes and one day of 30 minutes. By Tuesday, I had already lost 3 pounds, which I know is water-loss from not having carbs, but it's nice to not have that bloated feeling all the time.

In addition to the diet change, I also decided to pull back a little bit on my workouts and take the next two weeks to recover a bit and let all the little aches and pains heal. So far, it seems to be helping a bit. Surprisingly, I am having a more difficult time doing this than I thought. I know that I need to do this because I have a bad habit of ALWAYS training to failure, and I'm sure I'm pretty overtrained at this point. I just feel like I'm wasting my time in the gym not pushing myself to my max. What I need to do is just concentrate on getting a good pump and re-establishing the mind-muscle connection that sometimes lags when you're throwing around heavier weights. I have also been seeing a chiropractor for the pinched nerve in my shoulder. I still have some pain in my shoulder, but for the most part, the painful numbness that it was causing in my fingers is gone. It seems that, now that I've had a couple of adjustments, my middle and lower backs feel weaker. I guess now that I'm "properly aligned" I can work on building the muscles around a straight spine.

For now, I'm going to wait for the craziness in the gym to die down so I can get back to my own, quiet training.