Monday, March 29, 2010

Geriatric Jazz Pt. 2

New Blog:

Geriatric Jazz!


I took the title from a previous post here. So, it seems only appropriate to send you there. If you ever enjoyed this blog, maybe you'll enjoy the other blog.

geriatricjazz.wordpress.com

Monday, January 11, 2010

Everything I Though Was Wrong

Okay, so, we restarted this adventure last week.

Barely.

I made some good choices, but not great ones.

Also, the little exercising I did, wasn't enough.

The food I ate, some was good, most was not.

I started to get back into the swing of things. Which is good, but not good enough.

Last week was beta-GetFitTommy.

This week starts the real adventure.

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Here is a post on the Facebook discussion page by my dear friend Eric.

He's kindly illuminated somethings for me. Not just in this post, but in some of our discussions.

So, lets all give a round of applause for my dear friend, ERIC!

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"You have to do continuous cardio for between 30 to 45 minutes to burn fat. I recommend running as it provides the most bang for your buck. If joint problems get you down, try an elliptical; much lower impact.

This is the ONLY way your body utilizes it as fuel (ie. burns it). It's human physiology I'm afraid. Your crunches and leg lifts might help you tone up a bit, but you won't be able to see most of it because it will be "hidden."

And when I give you that range of 30-45 minutes, I would try to head to far end of it. As unfair as it seems, its the fit people who burn fat quicker (cross country runners have been shown in some studies start burning it as quickly as 15 minutes), so go for as long as you can. You'll have to build up to things, but implicit in what I'm saying is PACE YOURSELF. You need to pick a pace where you can jog for at least a half hour without stopping. The upside is that after you hit that point, your body will keep burning fat for around a half hour.

Also you have to do it consistently. Your body has to have regular enough stimulus to change its pathways and energy utilization. You have to stress your system to make it more efficient. So this means you can't be a weekend warrior; 3-5 times a week.

As for limiting your caloric intake, by all means, do so, but your body will want to STORE more fat if you starve yourself. This means you can't starve yourself because when you inevitably splurge, your body will react by storing as much of it as fat as it can because it doesn't know the next time its going to get this sort of thing. It's actually much worse. This is why diet's don't work. Eat small portions at your big meals (regular intervals, and for God's sake, eat breakfast!) and have small, healthy snacks to tide you over (apples are fantastic). You'll have to keep doing the exercise too, because if you stop using those calories to exercise to your fat burning level, you'll start packing on pounds again.

If you do a half hour of cardio 5 times a week, and keep your diet healthy, you'll see the pounds melt away. Trust me. I'm going to be a doctor someday... It's science."

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Short Post

Things started good, real good. Then ended bad, real bad.

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Ate all the right things, then two of the wrong things and didn't exercise due to it being 4am.

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Being Better Than Yesterday

Was I super successful today?

No.

Was I better than yesterday?

Yes.

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I guess that's what matters right?

Being better than yesterday?

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This morning (almost afternoon) when I woke up, I was very intentional about making myself a large and delicious, yet healthy, breakfast.

Breakfast is my favorite meal and I never make time for it. Ever.

Also, I hear its the most important meal, setting the tone for the rest of the day.

So, I made my usual oatmeal with the usual trappings. But, I also made killer scrambled eggs.

In the past, when I've made scrambled eggs I've used lots of butter to make the pan unsticky.

Lots of butter.

So much butter that you could no longer call it butter, but budda.

Today I used Extra Virgen Olive Oil.

And that was a good freaking choice.

Let me paraphrase Robert Frost here:

I took the road less travled and it made all the difference.

Those were damn good eggs.

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At work the manager of the bar behind us came in for coffee.

We chatted a bit, and I made her drink extra yummy. (It'll be the ridiculous drink of the day.)

She told me later that I should stop by and she'd buy me a drink. AWESOME!

This bar also has a quarterly deal where you can get a $1 Half Pound burger with chips.

So, I could've gone out for a (free) drink and a (practically free) burger.

I didn't.

Yesterday, I would've.

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I went to my buddies barnapartment today. There was pizza again. Instead of many slices. I had a single slice and a side of deer meat chilli.

Deer meat is nice and lean, and all the veggies were fresh. So, that was not a bad choice at all.

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I wasn't great today. I'll admit it. I had a sugary espresso drink. But, I was better.

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DIET:
BREAKFAST: Oatmeal with peanut butter, bananananananas, and non-fat milk. And awesome eggs.
LUNCH: Water and a yogurt parfait.
DINNER: Slice of pizza and chilli.

EXERCISE:
2 Sets of:
10 Crunches
3 Leg Lifts
5 Push ups

DAYS-WITHOUT-SODA-POP-O-METER: 2.
WATER GAUGE: Exactly 40 oz! (By the end of next week, I want to have this up to 80 oz)

RIDICULOUS-DRINK-OF-THE-DAY: Six Shot Venti White Mocha. SIX FREAKING SHOTS OF ESPRESSO?!?!?!

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy

Friday, January 8, 2010

Get Fit Plan 1.8 - 1.15

After exercising last night my abdomen muscles were kind of sore. Which is really sad. More sad is that I'm not comfortable calling my abdomen muscles my "abs."

Instead of setting up a plan for exercising until I fit in that Onesie, I'm gonna go week by week. Saturday to Saturday.

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So for this week here is going to be my exercise routine:

2 Sets of:
3 Leg Lifts
10 Crunches
5 Push Ups

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Next Saturday, seeing how I'm feeling I'll add more to it.

Probably more leg lifts and push ups.

Also, I'll find a way to get some cardio in.

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy

A Snow Day, or, Pizza and Beer, or, What It's Going To Take

A Snow Day:

Today, I woke up to a winter wonderland. Which is horrible because Christmas has passed.

Also, "winter wonderland" is kind of a tired cliche. (So, is calling a cliche "tired.")

Anyways, the first thing about my winter wonderland was my first snow day in a long time.

I woke up to a classmate leaving me a voicemail saying class was cancelled. Which left me with nothing to do today. All of my activities were school related: working on a paper, talking to financial aid, actually going to class.

So, I went to Starbucks, got some work done for some of my side projects and then went to my buddies apartment, which is really a barn with a loft apartment in it, and watched the best of Will Ferrel and 30Rock.

More on the barnapartment, now...

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Pizza And Beer:

This happens to be one of my favorite food/drink combos, and neither is good for getting fit.

One buddy brought the pizza. And there was already an imported German beer there.

Had to.

Sorry.

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What Its Going To Take:

So, I worked out a little bit for the first time today.

Afterwards I stood up and looked down and said:

"Yep, still fat."

That's probably because of all the cheats I've made in the past four days since (re)starting. And, because I just started.

So, this is what it's going to take.

1) I'm gonna have to stop putting off exercising. Tomorrow, I'm gonna set some time aside to make some goals and a plan. Without an action plan I'll skip working out altogether, and that won't get me into a Onesie.

I'll post the action plan alongside another blog.

2) I'm going to stop cheating. I enjoy healthy food. I enjoy it more than unhealthy food. I'd choose asparagus over a Snickers any day. A good fine cheese with wine over a frozen cheese pizza and cheap beer. Water over soda pop.

Those other foods are just conveient. So, I'm going to go out of my way to supply myself with better foods and only eat the bad foods in moderation.

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DIET:
BREAKFAST: Oatmeal with peanut butter, bananananananas, and non-fat milk.
LUNCH: Water and an small Italian Beef Sandwich.
DINNER: Pizza and Beer. Lots of pizza, only one beer. (I try to never drink more than one beer. Anymore than that leads to a bad territory, and I'm not for abusing the drink.)

EXERCISE:
2 Sets of:
10 Crunches
3 Leg Lifts

DAYS-WITHOUT-SODA-POP-O-METER: 1.
WATER GAUGE: Just shy of 40 oz

RIDICULOUS-DRINK-OF-THE-DAY: Grande Signature Hot Chocolate... You may be saying to your self at this very moment "Why, Tommy that's a standard drink?"... Well, don't get ahead of yourself quite yet I'm not done. The ridiculous drink of the day is actually a Grande Signature Hot Chocolate Steamed to 150 degrees.

Customers shouldn't be so anal. Seriously, that's not much cooler than we baristas steam the milk to anyways.

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy

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Sorry, for the ad.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Habits To Break, Up In The Air, and A Poem.

Two habits I need to break:

1) Midnight Snacking
2) Saying, "Just one won't hurt."

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Last night, after posting my update, I started to write a short story. It was a good short story. After finishing the first draft I felt rather proud of myself and went downstairs for a midnight celebratory snack: ITALIAN BEEF!!??!?!?!!!

When I finished I felt like crap.

Slept well though.

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Today was a very long, long day.

The kind of day where you're not exactly sure what all you did, but you know you did a lot. So, I apologize for lack of details.

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Tonight, my lovely lady friend and I saw a great movie: Up In The Air.

In one of the opening scenes George Clooney's character is firing a character from his job. That character happens to be a cameo role by Zach Galifianakis, the funny fat bearded guy from "The Hangover."

I leaned over to Steph and told her:

"I wanna look like Clooney, but I feel like I look like the other guy."

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VS.



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Guys, I think it's safe to assume George Clooney sucks. Bad.

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A POEM

Slish, Slosh
Slishy, Sloshy
Feel the water in Tommy's
tummy

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DIET:
BREAKFAST: Bottle O' Water.
LUNCH: Tuna Melt, Chips, Pickle.
POST-LUNCH SNACK: Lots of of assorted holiday nuts.
DINNER: Orange Chicken, Kung Pow Chicken and Fried Rice.
MOVIE SNACK: Popcorn. But, not too much.

EXERCISE: Somebody, I need some motivation here.

DAYS-WITHOUT-SODA-POP-O-METER: 0. (This is where the "Just One Won't Hurt" comes in.)
WATER GAUGE: About 60 oz

RIDICULOUS-DRINK-OF-THE-DAY: Ventir Six Shot Americano, Light Water, a 1/3 Whipped Cream, and Two Equal. (I did not make this drink up, somebody ordered this week. Disgusting.)

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy