Day 17: Omoplata

It was damn cold last night. I was so glad that I bought a pair of under-armour leggings to keep me warm. While stretching at the start I just kept thinking "tonight I'll never break out in a sweat" but I did later on during sparring. There were a lot of people, probably because the following day (today) is a national holiday and the dojo is closed. Fukuzumi-sensei said that some of them will go to another dojo to train and invited me. That would have been cool to go but I can't make it. This other place does jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts as well.

We practiced the omoplata after a failed armbar. I'm still at the stage of wondering which way I turn to submit. I probably need to solo drill hip movements to get some speed. There were a couple of new people tonight. Just started I guess. 2 little Japanese guys. It will be interesting to spar with them later to see where my game is at.

I had 6 bouts tonight. 2 white belt, 1 blue belt, 1 purple belt and 2 brown belts. Yoshida who has been training for a year and is still white (this is normal) did an excellent throw on me that totally caught me off guard. I asked him to show me and I've added it to my repertoire. Tete-kun also did a reverse from Kesagatame and I asked him to show me. Another escape in the bag! I feel like a hungry child craving for knowledge. Gimme more moves, gimmee gimmee. I couldn't sleep last night. My brain keeps revolving around moves while my body throbs from aching muscles.

On the food front. I haven't been eating so well. Too much sweet things. I actually hate eating chocolate now but I'm constantly hungry and it's the only type of food readily available. I eat 2 pieces of fruit before training but no way near enough vegetables. I need to sort my diet out now because I am going to lose muscle and gain fat and doing training without adequate nutrition is just bad. So let me makes some promises to myself now. These are my goals for this month.

Food:
1. Eat 2 pieces of fruit every day
2. Eat 1 chicken breast and 1 can of tuna every day
3. Eat 4 helpings of vegetables every day
4. Snack on nuts, dried fruit, boiled eggs, homemade protein bars/fruit bars
5. Eat more avocado, oily fish and 1 teaspoon of olive oil per day
6. Replace tea and coffee with green tea

Training:
1. Train BJJ 3 times a week
2. Stretch or yoga once a week
3: Any cardio workout once per week (around 30-60 mins)
4. Do an ab routine 2-3 times a week

That should give me an edge over the other guys at the dojo.

Day 17: Burn Intervals and Abs

Tip of the day: Take care of your liver (you only have one) by cutting down on sugars, fried food. alcohol and caffeine. To improve liver function, take an omega-3 supplement such as fish oil, drink lots of water, eat onions, garlic and lots of green vegetables.


Almost week 3 over now. Wow, time flies so fast. I had a good workout today. I have to say that Burn Intervals really makes me sweat and the transition from cardio to weights is a killer. I can feel my heart thumping in my chest as I go to pick up the dumbells and it hurts, oh boy, it is tough. My mind tells me to stop and rest, sit down, have some cake and a cup of tea or something ... but I don't, I can't. I'm here to get fit and strong so that I can live my life to the fullest; no crutches or wheelchair for me when I'm in my 60s. I don't want to have to depend on medication to lower my blood pressure, hell no.


I must confess though, that I have one pet hate of this video. The guy in the back. He grunts and shouts and wheezes but I watched him all the way through and he lifts the same damn weight throughout. What is that? 5-10 pounds? The girls are doing the same as him and he is grimacing? I think he is faking and that annoys me. I was using 5 to 10 kg in this workout, busting my ass, taking mid-set breaks when needed. I would much prefer to see a guy in the video take a break now and again because he is pushing himself hard. The guy in the P90X videos, what's his name? Dave? Much respect for him because I can see he is working his ass off.

I made a medicine ball yesterday and it was hell to put the sand into it. In the end I had to make a bigger hole and just scoop it into the ball. It weighs 4.4 kg and I used it today as part of the ab routine. Much better than using a dumbell because there is less twist on the wrists because you can hold the ball more naturally. I'll post a picture of it when I take one.

Calories 1952

• Fat 101.8g (46%)
• Protein 116.9g (24%)
• Carbohydrate 154.4g (30%)

Edit: Here is a shot of the medicine ball with a 10kg barbell for comparison.











In an attempt to eat more vegetables, I made some curried korma bubble and squeak tonight. Ingredients: 1.5 carrots, half onion, half sweet potato, half head of brocolli, small amount of yellow and green pepper, 2 eggs and 3 teaspoons of curry powder, dash of black pepper. Yum.

Day 5: Burn it off

Today was a 27 minute cardio workout. I saw the clock and though "hah, no way is that gonna hurt me." But I was sweating buckets at the end and one exercise had me gasping for air. It was like running inside an oven with the weather today. I hate August in Japan, it's stifling hot and my energy is low until I go into an air-conditioned room. I am enjoying Chalene extreme, got the stretch tomorrow and that is week 1 done. It feels like a vacation after P90X but that's not to say that it's easy.

Difficulty: High
Fatigue: High
Heart rate: Very highe
Fun: Tiringly fun
Sweat: Everywhere!
Hardest exercise: Burpees (a plyo knee tuck followed by a push up position where the legs go back and then in again - repeat) My heart was beating like a drum!



I've been cooking a lot so that I can get a high vegetable intake. I made Ratatouille and spinach soup over the last couple of days. Lots of aubergine, zucchini and other stuff. The spinach soup which was really damn good unfortunately was left out over night and spoilt. I had a couple of bowls of it but the next day it had soured. It's hard to eat bags of spinach and so soup is the best option. Gonna make some more and find some more recipes for veg. soup.
My protein intake is still not high enough. Im eating full eggs and chicken but I need to get more.

Just saw that Beachbody have a new workout coming out next year called RevAbs. Looks interesting.

The Glamour Muscles

Back and Biceps today. I went to bed last night convincing myself that I had to wake up and do an AM workout. I woke but was too fatigued after Plyo and a 4 hour bike ride yesterday. Took my family to a park and chose a healthy option of runner beans and oyako-don (eggs/chicken) on rice. It was the best I could do. It's humid now and that just drains the life out of me but it's all for the kids and we went on a few park rides. Came home and after eating a tuna wrap with some strawberries and yoghurt (yum) had a nap. I woke and went right into Back and Biceps. The first ten minutes are always rough. Slack-jawed, slouching shoulders, slow on the running warm-up. But after those 10 minutes are over the body awakes to what it needs and just pumps out the rep - oh yeah baby.
I got the rest of the night now just to relax and watch a movie or two.

I talked to my friend who is a physiotherapist and mentioned my chest pain. He thinks it's intecostal muscle inflammation. I have to try to deep massage the area and if it gets bad I will use Ibuprofen to take the swelling down. I use a tennis ball to massage the area and it helps somewhat.

Some good news. I got another flash fiction story published online. That makes no.3 for me! I should collect these together and make an anthology. I'd probably need about 30 stories though - ouch.
Yoga tomorrow - mmm.

Oh, here is what a power90X breakfast looks like. 1 cup of oatmeal (with chocolate protein powder), 3 egg whites and cottage cheese on wholemeal bread with 12 oz of water. I'd eat it right now if it weren't night time. Maybe it does look like a dog's dinner but it was just what I needed to start the day.

Cellular Memory

Many people in yonder days used to believe that eating the heart of your enemy would make you brave or strong. There were even people who ate brains to increase their intelligence - pass the liver salts and the chianti - fuff-fuff-fuff. I ate Kangaroo for the first time today. It is low in fat (about 2%), very high in protein, packed with omega-3 fats, zinc and vitamin B6/B12. It's basically a super-meat in my opinion. Now, the idea that eating a certain body part of another creature or human (yuck) can give you their abilities is called Cellular Memory. This got me thinking when I was chomping down on the kangaroo steak I had. When I do Plyometrics next week, will I bounce higher? Answer to follow on Friday!

Before cooking, the meat looked something between beef and liver. Very dark red and smooth in texture. It's basically a slab of muscle so needs to be cooked hot and fast. You have to cook it rare or medium rare which I'm not particularly fond of but it had a great taste. Very much like beef with the texture of chicken. There was also a sort of after-flavour I couldn't put my finger on. I suppose that is what people call "gamey". If someone had served it to me as beef, I would not have known the difference probably.

Here is a picture of the meat before I ate it. Definately a great food. I will be eating more - oh yes. A very good companion to an extreme workout like power 90X.

Body Mass Index

Ok so it's officially summer now. And how do I know this? what manner of aparatus do I use to decide the change of season? My wife found the first cockroach of the year in the bathroom. Give it a few months and one will no doubt plague my sleep by trying to crawl up my armpit as it did a few years ago. Mosquitoes are also buzzing around. Why is it they go for your ears with that annoying sound then when you turn on the light, you can never see them. It's like they are playing hide and seek with you-messing with your head.

I received the results of my complete medical test today, you know the one with the Barium . Everything looks good. Although, they apparently believe that I should eat better and take more exercise because my BMI is over 25. Complete rubbish! This annoying calculation must annoy all short muscular people, I've no doubt. Interestingly, I noticed that they marked me up for ketosis. This is a chemical process that occurs in the body when you diet and stop or cut down eating carbohydrates. Your liver converts fat to fatty acids for energy because the supply of glucose is limited. It's nice to have solid proof that my body is a fat burning machine right now. Other figures are in-lung capacity for most men is between 3000 to 4000 (this is when you expulse all air into a tube from your lungs) mine turns out to be 4260 - Thanks Power 90X!

The last few days I've been low on energy. Sunday I can have more carbs so cannot wait to pig myself out on bread and pizza and...er. Joking!

Plyometrics today was particularly brutal but as always I got through it after losing a bucketful of sweat. Oh it's getting humid here now. Expect me to collapse mid-summer season, having been turned into a pool of sodium liquification.

I'm still pushing play. Still going at it. The diet is good. I allow myself to wander sometimes. Eat a scone with tea but it ain't often. I'm eating so clean and feeling much better. See photo below for what my evening meal looks like.









Now, how can I possibly not get lean and ripped from eating this stuff?

Back and Biceps

Has to be one of my favourite workouts. Which 2 body parts do most men want to increase? guns and chest - yes. Well of course we all want washboard abs but without arms and chest you will look like weak sauce. Corn on the cob pull ups have to be my all time hated exercise. My arms were swollen solid by the end of this workout. I struggled through abs because I was so exhausted from the weight training. There is one break half-way through the 50 minutes workout - That is all. really rough but muscle-building ass-kickingly good stuff.

I think I've perfected my protein bars. Here are the ingredients.

Peanut butter: 2 scoops
Chopped almonds: about 1 oz
Honey: 1 tablespoon
Oatmeal: 1/4 cup
Protein power: 2-3 scoops

The more nuts you have in it the better it tastes and the more it looks like a bar. If you freeze it, it will go rock hard and tastes just like a Marathon bar but without the corn syrup and other crap they put in them. Yummy.

My 5kg tub of protein still hasn't arrived yet. I'm having to survived on a tiny packet of the stuff. Hope it doesnt run out. I found a place that sells kangaroo meat, gonna get some and try it - will report on that. I am eating very healthy and clean. No chocolate, little carbohydrate and lots of protein. I've never been this focused before. Saying that, this week has been rough and I felt my resolve waning a little. I think I will go buy a new pair of shorts or something, some cool clothes to work out in and make me feel like an athlete. The callouses on my hands are getting huge after pull ups and curling the dumbells. Im worried they will rip off and the skin will be raw. I will have to find some wraps for my weights to cushion the grip. I wonder if there are many women out there who like callouses? probably not. Maybe I should go the metrosexual route and file them down - not!

Peace out.

What are you putting in your mouth?

Ever had the sensation that your arse and quadriceps are on fire, and the skin on your back is so tight it feels like it's about to split? That's what the Legs and Back workout will do for you. Saying that, I've squatted 100kg in the past (I'm 76kg) and it was harder in comparison to the Power90X workout. But the endurance you need during the one hour session is a totally different story.

"Ab Ripper X, I hate it, but I love it" - Tony Horton

When I hear him say these words I always reply, "I hate it, too. You fuck!"
It's not that I despise the guy. Tony is the man in my opinion and I have a ton of respect for him, but doing abs after working out for an hour just makes me want to crawl over and sleep or die. I think Abs are a big weak link for me. Pull ups, push ups - I love. Leg work (I have short legs) I can do, but crunching the abdominals feels too much like torture to me.

The diet, thanks to my wife, is getting better. Here is what I am eating each day:

Breakfast
1\2 cup Oatmeal (tspn honey, water and 30ml milk
200ml semi-skimmed milk + 2 scoops of protein powder

Snack
30g almonds OR 30g dried prunes/figs

Lunch
Wife's super duper healthy fried rice
3 egg whites, 1 can tuna, couple of kidney beans, 1/2 cup brown rice, bit of spinach and onion to taste cooked in olive or canola oil

Snack
1 Apple

Dinner
Tofu (100g), chicken or raw fish (150g) with a small salad and dressing

Supper
250ml semi-skimmed milk + 2 scoops of protein powder

Calorie-wise it is fairly low, around 1600kcal, but it keeps with the program set down in the P90X booklet. The calories are low and I will probably increase them after a week but keep the carbs as they are.