Two months of working out.

Wow. It's been about two months since I made my last entry. When I made that entry, I was just getting back into the swing of things after some [somewhat] minor abdominal surgery. Well, everything has been going well - so well, in fact I haven't had time to blog! Well, I'm back to a full 100%, and I'll let you know how my workouts have been going.

First, I eased into my workouts exceedingly slowly. I didn't want to mess anything up with the surgery. I had a small umbilical hernia [which I had before I started lifting - but it only got worse over the past year and a half]. A hernia is a defect in the abdominal wall. Mine was small, but caused an prominent "outie" bellybutton which I could push back in, or reduce, if it ever extended out a little. It was becoming more bothersome and would occasionally push out and cause me pain, so I had it corrected. This consisted of making a small incision over the belly button and suturing closed the defective abdominal wall. It was a day surgery, which I did on a Friday, so I recovered over the weekend and only missed one day of work [though the monday after was harsh!].

I went to the gym for the first time 13 days after my surgery, and did very minimal [very slow] stairs. I stuck with exercises that did not increase my intra-abdominal pressure, and never did anything that caused considerable pain. I very very slowly began going to the gym more regularly, only doing cardio, and by 8weeks, I was working a weight routine back into the mix. Between 8-10 weeks, I worked ab exercises back into the mix too, again exceedingly slowly.

Well, my slow but steady pace paid off, and now, as I said at the beginning of this blog entry, I'm am back to 100%. Cardio and health wise, I'm probably in the best shape of my life. Strength wise, I'm not as strong as I have been in the past, but I have focused more on cardiac workouts and toning. I have slimmed down for the summer and am now at ~170#'s.

Perhaps the thing I am most proud of over the past two months is my diet. It has really been good - I'm making much of my food, and nearly always eating very healthy, in great control of my dietary intake, even when I eat out. If it is any inspiration for anyone out there trying to adhere to a diet, the diet part of my routine is possibly the hardest for me. I LOVE food! But I have been successful at eating good foods, that are good for me, and occasionally allowing myself small portions of foods that I love, but do not fall in line with the healthy nature of my dietary routine [like my absolute fav - pizza].

So my workout routine has been disciplined. I have really focused on cardio workouts with multiple days of 30min-1hour cardio workouts. Sometimes even longer. But I haven't neglected weights. To the contrary I have adhered to a very rigorous one muscle group per day each week. I cycled through chest, back, shoulders, arms, and legs each week, often with a day of circuit [one exercise for each of the muscle groups mentioned], and a day of cardio. Some weeks I would take a day of rest, or simply do light cardio. I would exercise abs twice weekly, and focus on calves at least once weekly.

When it comes to weights this has been my routine for sometime. This week I begin something anew. In my continual effort to change things up and keep my body guessing, I will start a routine that will look something like this: Chest/Tri's/Abs on day 1, Back/bi's/calves day 2, legs/abs day 3, and shoulders/arms/calves day 4. Day 5, oddly will be focused on the left side of my body, which is weaker than my right, to improve symmetry, and perhaps more legs, which I would like to focus on for this next month [I may split my legs workout into two days in this way]. Day 6 will focus on cardio exclusively, and day 7 will be for fun - mostly basketball.

I have also been incorporating swimming into my routine - but I am really not a good swimmer. All the more reason to improve and challenge myself! Likewise, while the weather where I live is nice [though hot] this time of year, I have been jogging outdoors more too.

As far as diet, I am going to continue with what I've been doing. I am planning on incorporating more complex carbs [I'm on a brown rice kick right now], and monitoring my meal times more carefully to look at when I'm putting food in my body.

So that's the update and the plan. The plan with this blog is to write when I can, and continue to bring fresh information and inspiration to anyone interested. Thanks for reading! -cb

Getting back to workouts with some new music.

My workouts have been progressing. I worked out 7 days of light cardio last week. I did 20-30 min each day of stairs mostly, increasing the intensity slightly each day. I don't think I overdid it, but I could definitely feel it in my abdomen. So I took Sunday off, and am about to go to the gym today. It's been 4 weeks and three days since my surgery, which was for an umbilical hernia. I will discuss it in more detail in a future post. On Saturday, I actually got on three machines and pulled and pushed some weight - not anything heavy at all. I only did about 25% of the weight I would normally have done, and I did it mostly to stretch my arms and go through the motions. 

To me, one of the most important aspects of my workouts revolves around music. I workout better and can accomplish more, with the right music. The music I listen to when I workout changes frequently, but I intend to keep a record of the stuff I listen to. Often when I start a new routine, or when I re-motivate myself, I will change my workout music. So when I started back into last week, I changed up the songs I was listening to a bit. I started the week listening to DJ Clue, The Professional, and by the end of the week, I was listening to GnR, Use Your Illusions II. I'm going to start this week with the same, as well as Train, Drops of Jupiter, which is an album I don't know well, but when I heard it a few weeks ago I thought it might be good to workout to. I will see how it is. 

The beginning.

Three and a half weeks ago I had abdominal surgery. Since then, I've only been to the gym 5 times. It has been strange to spend less time at the gym, and so I thought that I might figure out a constructive way to still stay somewhat active. That's how this blog was born. I've thought about doing a fitness blog for a while, but I would much rather substitute actually doing something fitness related as opposed to writing about it, so it never got off the ground. Maybe my pseudo-hiatus away from the grind is a good thing, and will allow me to get this thing going, and keep in the habit of making entries. It's a journal, of sorts, really for myself. But if in the process, someone else finds it useful in some way, for some reason, I would be pretty stoked.

Although I do enjoy talking about work, politics, religion, business, sports, etc. I am going to refrain from doing that for my blog. I suppose there are plenty of other blogs out there that are dedicated to those things, and as many people as there are that exist, you can find that many opinions. No offense, but I don't really want to tell you much about my life or beliefs. I'm dedicating my blog to only one particular thing I love - working out, getting fit, staying fit. As a doc, just about every patient I see wants to be in better shape, or lose weight. I talk with them about it all the time. The fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. There are TV shows and products and all kinds of equipment and supplements and books. There are gyms and diets and personal trainers. There are theories and and scientific data and opinions. This blog is just one person's view of fitness - a first-person account of my fitness walk. I hope to incorporate some information about my workouts, my diet, and even my philosophies, both evidence-based and non-evidence based, about fitness. I'm open to suggestions, criticisms, questions, and feedback. I am approaching and writing this blog with an honest and open mind. Although I enjoy talking about other stuff too, in the end, I'm gonna try really hard to keep it focused on one thing - fitness.

My 5 workouts since my surgery were minimalist. I have only done very light cardio. Less than 2 weeks after my surgery I did *slow* stairs for about 20 min, and then again 15 min the next day. Sensing I may be moving a little fast, I waited another week or so before stepping back into the gym. The last three days I have done 30min of cardio, mostly stairs and walking on the treadmill at an incline every day. The workouts burn about 200-250 kcal. I'd like to keep it up daily for now, but I also want to take it very slowly, and let my body heal. I will discuss my surgery in a future post.

Staying away from the gym has been productive on a few levels. One, it's given me time to refocus. Prior to my surgery, I was most definitely losing a bit of discipline. Second, it has given me a chance to rethink some of my fitness goals. When I am back at 100% I will most definitely have some different aims in mind. Third, it's given me a chance to start this little weblog project. Writing, planning, thinking, blogging. I really do think it will assist me in my fitness goals.