Let me start by talking about yesterday... A good friend of mine is heading back to Hong Kong for about 6 months to take care of his mom. He's finally getting around to putting his place down here in Eugene on the market. He hasn't been living here for the last 2 or so years but now that he's leaving the country for an extended period, he doesn't want to have to deal with a property anymore and I don't blame him. He still had a bunch of stuff left behind in this old condo, basically books, comics, and things he just felt too lazy to drag up to Seattle with him. He grabs a uhaul and I head with him to move it all to storage. These boxes he has aren't light. They're not incredibly big but they are completely stuffed with manga. If you don't know, manga are like smaller than western style comic books, but they're way more densely packed and thicker. So they tend to weigh a lot more than the average comic book. So I'm just grabbing these boxes and tossing them in the van. Running back up the stairs every time. At one point, I don't feel like I'm getting it done fast enough and I decide to stack a couple of these boxes. He's like "holy shit man, you got that?"
I just simply reply "P90X baby!!" and hauled them on down to the van. A little while later, he comes down with another box and he's mad winded. He goes "I hate you and your goddamn P90X! You're not even winded!"... I had to laugh, but then I actually had to stop and think about it. Here I'd been picking up and hauling heavy boxes nonstop for at least 45 minutes. Running up and down the stairs between his condo and the cargo van, and at this point, I'd barely even started breaking a sweat. I started the day with my upper body sore from Back and Biceps on wed, but I'd knocked all the soreness off about 5 min into moving. I mean, here's the proof in the pudding right now. I'm lifting these boxes and the stress isn't on my back. Hell, it isnt even really on my legs. Sure, the things were heavy and I could tell, but what was amazing feeling was the fact that it just didn't phase me. Wow. So, I finished blasting through loading the van with his stuff, including his incredibly heavy couple of boxes stuffed with DVDs I guess. I swear those boxes had to be somewhere between 70-100lbs. Drove the van to the storage facility, and unloaded it even faster than I'd loaded it. I'd contemplated just going ahead and doing the routine after that, but we were supposed to be meeting some other friends for dinner in just over an hour so I left it to today.
I'm incredibly happy and proud about today, because it's the first time I made it all the way through the Legs & Back routine!! My legs are pretty damn strong as it is right now, I mean think about hauling 350lbs on the daily. That's going to build it's own strength. Even so, this exercise for me seemed so intense. I'd go at it hard and always without fail, I'd end up feeling like I'm about to puke around halfway through the exercise so I'd bow out then. Well, not today! I still got the feeling, but thankfully, it wasn't nearly as intense as it had been in the previous weeks. I'm always getting better as the weeks progress and it never ceases to amaze me. I counted up all the reps from the various pull-ups and I totally did 105 pull-ups. Now they were all chair assisted, but even so, I've gotten to the point where I have the chair pretty far away and straight legged so I'm kinda barely using my leg at this point. I might try to see how many I can do non-assisted soon, but as long as I'm feeling it right now, I'm all good with what I'm doing.
This morning, Zulema caught me flexing in front of the mirror :-P. I was checking out the progress since I'm nearly halfway through the 90 days and I'm just like wow at what I see in the mornings. She came up behind me and said "You're nice to look at back here." I thought maybe she was being sarcastic. It's not something I can see in a mirror really. At least I haven't done enough Yoga X to turn my damn head around far enough to see my backside in a mirror. So I had her take a picture. Now, my only envisioning of my back is from a picture back in '09. I still kinda felt like that's probably how I look.
Then she showed me the pic...
Damn...
Man, talk about a self-esteem boost. I swear it jumped like 1000% that moment. We ran to the store to pick up some things and I decided to finally get a new pair of pants. Size 38... I haven't worn 38 since the 8th grade. This was my first pair of size 38 pants in 17 years. Hooo-Lee-Shit!! I kinda still have a bit of a unique situation with my legs though. Since I came from such a large size, my muscle mass in my legs hasn't really decreased, so I have a really irregular shape in them now. I basically still fit best in 40 for pants, but if I have cargos, relaxed or loose fit jeans in 38, I can get by okay. I had this problem when getting a suit for my friend Rob's wedding. I basically had to get the suit one size up because the damn pants didn't fit my thighs right. I'm not angry though, the fact that it's mostly muscle makes me happy as a clam. I can probably attribute it to riding that beast of a cruiser on a professional level haha. Oh well, I guess they're like body builder style.
Today, I didn't have a juice. Since we ran out to the store, we ended up looking for somewhere to find breakfast. I didn't really wanna deal with the places that just make your average unhealthy type breakfasts and the couple places we knew that had pretty decent vegetarian fare are always so incredibly busy and SLOW on saturday. We ended up at Laughing Planet. Zu's never been to this place but I had. Now this was a place my friends and former co-workers Walker, and Ian would drag me to and I'd always bemoan the place. "Oh no, not this hippy-dippy vegetarian bullshit again..." would be something the me from that time would utter. The fact is, their food was pretty good. I never had anything that I hated, but then again a guy like me would pretty much eat anything. That was my problem in the first place right? :-P Man, how I've changed. I love it. That place was amazing. I only wish I'd known what I know now back then. Hindsight's always 20/20 I guess. So far, it's one of the best vegan spots we've been to in this town and there's a lot. It's now probably at the top of our list.
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| I had this Marrakesh Bowl: A grain medley of barley, quinoa and wheat berries, grilled veggies, spinach, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, caramelized onions & fennel served with a Moroccan sauce |
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| Zu had This Soylent Green: Sautéed kale and steamed broccoli on a bed of quinoa, local wheat berries, and barley, topped with house marinated tempeh and Spanish Romesco sauce. |
So that was saturday... Kenpo X is tomorrow. By the way, if you're feeling like you need to get active and change what's going on in your life and start getting healthy, I can certainly help you out. I know I'd like to have more people working along with me. It keeps me motivated. Nobody likes working out alone. So if you wanna find out what I can do for you, go check out my website at http://poweredbyjuice.com. I'm a Beachbody fitness coach, and I can help get you going in the healthy direction whether it be with a program like P90X or just something simple like getting up and going for a walk a few times a week. I'll be there to help get you motivated to get going.
Anyway, until next time...
~Mike
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