Breakfast = fail

So yesterday the girlfriend and I went for a hike at Mt. Soledad and we took a few pictures. Well, it wasn't really a hike .. More like a drive up to the top of the mountain to see the views. But the short walk around the path to see all the different angles of San Diego was great. Here's some of the views of all of San Diego.


Here's the view of the ocean. Look at those clouds. It was a really nice day out.


If you look really hard you can see my apartment. Are you looking? Can you see it? Haha.

Anyways, so back to the title of the post. I'm always the first one up because I wake up early to do my morning swim. So being the awesome boyfriend, I tried to make the girlfriend breakfast before she had to go to her morning class. It's actually been a long time since I've made breakfast any more complicated than toast. Let's not get it twisted. The egg whites and toast weren't burnt or anything like that. The egg whites were just slightly over cooked. I must regain my cooking skills. I'll redeem myself soon.

This morning's swim was great. I'm actually starting to get sore now. I'm slowly building up my endurance and stamina. It's good to be sore again. DOMS is setting in really good. For those who don't know, that stands for delayed onset of muscle soreness. Pretty much it means your body doesn't make it's soreness known until 24-48 hours. For me it usually takes 24-36 hours.

Food was good today, hit a good calorie mark. So what's the best part of a muffin? Everyone says it's the muffin top right? Well the girlfriend introduced me to VitaTops. Vitamin infused muffin tops that only are 100 calories. How can you beat that?


She shares with me all her little diet tricks to satisfying cravings for food that would not would not normally be able to eat. Dieting is not my strong point. Workout development and adaptation is my specialty. Here are the final stats for nutrition for today.

Signing off now, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel via iPhone

So who has seen the movie "The Guardian"?

So "The Guardian", great movie, starring Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Kostner.  For those who haven't seen it, its about a veteran coast guard swimmer Kevin Kostner and new high school swim champ recruit Ashton Kutcher.  The first part of the movie shows the development of Kutcher into a rescue swimmer and Kostner is his "A" school or boot camp instructor.  Its a very good movie, so go see it.

So this was my inspiration for my morning swim.  Through out the movie first half of the movie they showed the different ways that they prepped and got their swimmers into shape.  Swimming mixed with calisthenics, one would think it wouldn't be too bad, right?  I was definitely wrong, push ups in between lap swimming was the hardest set of push ups I've done in a long time.  I managed three sets of 10 push ups and three sets of v-sit crunches in between a few laps.  This was in the middle of the swim after I had done several laps to get myself warmed up in the pool.  Each repetition was more and more difficult through out the push up sets.  Hopefully tomorrow I can increase either the number of reps or the number of sets for the calisthenics.  I'll increase the complexity of workouts as I build up my stamina and endurance.

Today's calories were much more under control at 2,122.  The day started off with two hard boiled eggs and 1 slice of Ezekiel bread.  Lunch consisted of a carne asada burrito and a charbroiled fish taco from Wahoos.  Big thanks to Jenn for introducing me to Wahoos, and a big thanks to the girlfriend for taking me to get lunch.  For those who don't know, Wahoos is very diet friendly compared to the average mexican restaurant.  The burrito consisted of a nice large tortilla with lettuce, salsa and meat.  No extra trimmings equal no excess calories from fat.  Very delicious... The fish taco was charbroiled and was also quite tasty.  There were less calories in the taco since the fish was not fried like most taco shops make their fish tacos. Good times, good times.  Dinner was subway tuna.  A little higher in calories but I'm still in a much better range than the past few days.  All in all, food was much better today.  Here are the stats.

Grams	Calories	%-Cals
Calories		2,122
Fat	100.1	901	42	%
Saturated	18.5	167	8	%
Polyunsaturated	1.7	15	1	%
Monounsaturated	5.3	48	2	%
Carbohydrate	194.3	777	37	%
Dietary Fiber	20.0
Protein	111.0	448	21	%

So what can we leave with today, you can find inspiration from anything for your workout, even movies.  But I think the most important thing is finding diet alternatives.  I love mexican food and its important to find those alternatives so we don't fall off the diet wagon.  Until next time, get your sweat on and happy eating.

Today was a good day

I woke up this morning to quite a bit of soreness.  I think it mostly had to do with the swimming.  I never knew how much core and lower back strength went into doing the dolphin kick but apparently those muscles were all activated.  Today's swim was increased by 10 minutes adding up to a total of 40 minutes of swim time today.  I plan on adding push ups out of water and as well as some abdominal work in between laps for tomorrow's swim.  Will update how that works out tomorrow.

Today's food was still completely on track.  I did account for all my calories today.  We finished off a majority of the frozen food in the freezer.  My fat content for today's intake was entirely too high but a large majority of it was the frozen pepperoni pizza that we needed to eat.  Normally, I say when trying to start a new diet, it makes the most sense to just get rid of all the bad food that might cause someone to cheat from the diet plan.  But with the way the economy is today, its just like throwing money away.  So now that we've eaten all the bad food, we're ready to get down to serious business.  Here are the statistics.

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 2,935 Fat 147.8 1,325 45 % Saturated 47.1 421 14 % Polyunsaturated 16.0 143 5 % Monounsaturated 44.8 401 14 % Carbohydrate 278.8 1,118 38 % Dietary Fiber 19.0 Protein 120.3 494 17 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

For those who are reading, who has good tasty diet recipes?  Would be curious to see what others have found out what works well for them.  My girlfriend and I have our favorites but any contributions are welcomed.

This is the "Before"

When beginning any new workout program it always seems that the beginning is the roughest part of it.  I think a lot of what was holding me back was pride.  Being that I have been a personal trainer you would think I would be better able to keep myself healthy and in shape.  At some point in time everyone hits obstacles in the road and even the best of trainers can fall of the wagon sometimes.  Well I decided that it was time to stop sitting on my butt and to finally do something about it.  This is the beginning of a new year and a new decade.  Change is in order.

For the most part, this post will be including boring beginning stats that needed to be taken in order to track the progress that will be made in the near future.  Standing at a tall 5'7" I weighed in at my heaviest that I have ever been in my life at 211.8 pounds.  I knew it was going to be in that ball park due to the recent weigh ins that I had been doing before I went home for the holidays.  Luckily for me I only gained about 2 lbs during the visit at home.  Considering how much delicious home cooking I ate, I think I did fairly well. Here are the rest of the essential stats that I track whenever I start training.

Date	1/2/10
Weight(lbs)	211.8
Bicep(mm)	7
Tricep(mm)	9
Illiac(mm)	32
Subscap(mm)	24
Total(mm)	75
Body Fat %	24
Neck(in)	16.75
Chest(in)	42
Waist(in)	42
Butt(in)	42.24
Biceps(in)	13.5
Forearm(in)	11.5
Thigh(in)	24
Calves(in)	15.75

At 24% body fat I know this is a very unhealthy range for me.  Like most men, I tend to store my body fat in my middle section.  This is a growing concern as excess body fat in the midsection can be a precursor to several health problems.  As diabetes does run in the family on one side of the family, it is very important that I get my weight and health back on track.  Over the next year I expect to see significant decreases in the first 4 categories and a few gains in the latter 4 categories.

Today's workout was on the rather light side.  I woke up at an early 10am which is early for me these days.  I hopped in the pool for a leisurely swim for 30 minutes.  It has probably been close to a year since  I dedicated my time to a serious workout plan.  I can already feel muscles in my body that are a little sore already due to the fact that I probably haven't gone for a swim in over a year as well.  Tomorrow will likely include a nice swim as well and hopefully I can incorporate a little more to the workout.  I plan to keep using the pool as a primary source of cardio until my weight gets down to a more manageable number where I will start to re-introduce jogging back into the mix.  Due to the excess body weight that I'm carrying right now, jogging is somewhat out of the question due to the impact the extra weight has on my joints.

Today's nutrition was not exactly on point but will be getting back into the habit of counting calories.  We're slowly using up the bad food in the fridge while incorporating more healthy food choices.  Here's today's stats from the foods I ate today.

Grams	Calories	%-Cals
Calories		3,043
Fat	129.5	1,166	38	%
Saturated	22.0	198	6	%
Polyunsaturated	24.1	217	7	%
Monounsaturated	16.8	151	5	%
Carbohydrate	388.7	1,555	51	%
Dietary Fiber	35.6
Protein	88.3	353	11	%

Its quite a bit higher than I would like it to be but its a start.  I'm planning on aiming for a total of 2500-2750 calories per day.  That should be a significant deficit for my body weight for now as I start to shed away the pounds.  As I lose the weight and my body fat percentage decrease, I'll start playing the with macro nutrient percentages and adjust accordingly to achieve that chiseled physique.  Tomorrow will include more protein as I introduce more clean protein from food.


Well hope you enjoyed my first detailed entry.  The body measurements will be done monthly and weight will be posted weekly.  I see good things to come.  Any tips, comments, encouragements are always appreciated.

1 day behind schedule

Well I had a great holiday break and tons of good eating. My attempt to start dieting and excerise were slightly delayed as I was still on the road heading back home today. Needless to say the plans for picking healthier alternatives for meals were foiled by the holiday closures of many establishments. Today became the last day to over endulge. A little bit of fast food and restaurant tastyness was what the majority of today's calories comprised of.

Tomorrow shall be a good day of stocking up the fridge with plenty of eggs, green vegetables, and ezekiel bread. The workout agenda for tomorrow is a morning swim, some calisthenics and stretching. Other things on tomorrows agenda are official beginning weigh-in and measurements. Full calorie count and workout details will be updated tomorrow. Tomorrow is officially the start of all of the new beginnings.

- Joel via iPhone