Damage Control ==> Success

Guess where we went today? Maybe the picture can help..

This is Harry the elephant, just one of the elephants at the elephant odyssey exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. (His name isn't really Harry. We're not sure what his name was but the girlfriend decided to name him Harry.) For of those you that haven't been, its a pretty nice zoo. It does make a difference in what time of day you go though as if its too hot or too cold the animals will be much harder to see.

Going to the zoo is a great activity to help burn calories as long as one doesn't get carried away with all the zoo food as the food is very high in calories and isn't even that delicious. With all the hills and trails through out the zoo, one can burn a lot of calories just walking. It doesn't even feel like working out because you get to see all the great animals.

With that being said, damage control day was a success. Calorie intake was back to normal and under control. I was able to swim for about an hour and forty minutes. The nice walk around the zoo provided a much needed extra calorie burn on top of the extra long swim. This leads well into today's tip of the day.

TIP OF THE DAY:
Finding active activities to incorporate into your daily routine, is a good way to add an increased calorie burn to your day. A few examples would include washing your car, mowing your lawn, cleaning your house are very common activities to name a few. Many times we find ourselves paying others to do these activities to save time and the hassle of doing it. However, if we include some of these activities into our daily routines, not only will we be saving money but we will also be burning more calories through out the day.


Having a more active lifestyle is very critical to getting to any goal when it comes to health and fitness. Whether your goal is weight loss or running a marathon, by changing your daily routine to a more active lifestyle will ultimately bring you one step closer to your fitness goal.

I forgot to mention, after my first week of workouts I have lost a nice 2.6 lbs in one week. I am pleased with this amount of weight loss for one week. From 211.8 to 209.2 is a perfectly acceptable start for me.

Its getting late, time to sign off. Everyone get your sweat on and happy dieting.

Nutrition Stats:

Cheat Day

Hello everyone, how's everybody doing? Well we're just about one week into the new year and things are going along according to schedule.  Its looking like a 2 lbs loss for the stat sheet this week.  Will record official weight loss number for first week tomorrow morning.  If I can maintain an average of 2 lb loss per week I'll have lost my target number of lbs in approximately 6 months.  Can't wait to see how far I can push my limits this year.

Workout was good as usual.  Not much to update with the workout routine since its going to be the same for the next few days since it is working well right now.  60 minutes worth of laps and calisthenics.  Was able to increase the number of reps per set.  It was a good day in the pool.

TIP OF THE DAY:
Today I want to talk about a very important concept when it comes to dieting.  Depending on how strict of a diet goal a person is trying to achieve, there needs to be an allowed cheat meal.  If the cheat meal is used, damage control mode must also be executed.  

To maintain your sanity when dieting, if you do choose to use a day for a cheat meal it is always important to add a little extra calorie burn for the next workout session.  Due to the higher intake of calories, extra effort must be put forth so the calories can be burned off and they won't affect the weight loss as much.  From my personal experiences, it is best to allow yourself one cheat meal.  A cheat meal allows for cravings to be met so the main diet can be maintained over the long haul.  It wasn't my intention to use my cheat meal today, but the evening was somewhat a spur of the moment type of night with the girlfriend and friends.  We decided to go to one of the better BBQ places in San Diego, Phil's BBQ.  Portion sizes are huge and it has pretty tasty sauce.  I got the baby back ribs and the girlfriend got beef ribs.

Both were quite delicious.  Granted this plate was quite a bit larger than what I would recommend others to do for their own cheat meals.  This will set me back slightly but I know it can be overcome.  I probably could have done without the french fries but unfortunately they are one of my achilles heel.  I did opt for the half rack rather than the full rack which I would normally order but that still is no excuse for the excess caloric intake.  I very much enjoyed myself with the girlfriend though however. Thanks for the good eats babe.  Don't think I can calculate the calories but I'll be making sure to burn them off tomorrow morning.  Damage control in full effect. :-)

I think were most people get into trouble on their cheat days is they tend to go over board and not realize just how much they are actually eating.  If I were to guess, the meal that I for dinner tonight was probably over 1700-2000.  I ate according to my lower calorie regime until dinner.  Tomorrow, I will also have to adjust my diet and lower the caloric intake to help counteract the splurge.

The way I see it, even while dieting you should still enjoy life.  We only get one life to live so we might as well make the most of it.  This doesn't mean that we can have these large feasts on a regular basis but as long as one is taking the necessary steps and making sure to take care of business afterwards the occasional splurge can be allowed.  Will be putting in work tomorrow and the next few days.

That's all for now, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

Starting "Tip of the Day"

Yesterday was a good day off that allowed my body to recover.  So I decided to wake up extra early this morning to do my morning swim.  After only a few hours of sleep, I woke up and got ready to head down to the pool.  When I got there, the pool didn't seem like it was very cold but the wind chill factor upped the cold factor.  The sun was just starting to creep over the apartment complex.  I could see the oranges and pinks in the sky from the morning sun.  It was very relaxing.  I find that now that I'm getting used to getting up early, if I don't go for a swim my day just seems a little off.  I also learned a new thing about the pool, the heating jets don't turn on until the grounds keeping staff gets to work at a little after 7:15.  So if I don't want to freeze to death, there's no point in getting into the pool any earlier than 7:30 in the morning.  Today I was also able to add two more sets to the push ups and crunches in-between laps.

Today's nutrition wasn't the best but it fell under my calorie target goal.  I have found that my go to snack to hold me over between meals are two hard-boiled eggs and a slice of bread.  Very clean protein and simple carbs to feed the brain.  Rubio's isn't the best healthy choice to eat for lunch but at least by eating during the day I have time to burn the calories through out the day rather than letting it sit at night after dinner.  Here are the nutrition stats for the day.

So I wanted to try something new.  I'm going to be starting a tip of the day.  Today's tip has to do with workouts.

TIP OF THE DAY:
When working out your abs, don't just focus on one area.  The abdominal muscles actually are composed of 6 different muscles.  So when doing your crunches during your working, try focusing on the obliques and the lower abdominal muscles as well.  What I find that works well is breaking your abdominal workout into three sections.  Try working out upper, oblique and lower abs separately.

Well that's all for now, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

First day off

Hello everyone, today was my first day off from the pool. Was starting to get a little sore and slightly sleep deprived. Today was a good recovery day and I'm not sore anymore. Tomorrow will be back in the pool first thing in the morning.

Nutrition was under control today. Panda Express can be calorically manageable when some of the plate is infused with vegetables. The calorie reduction was at least a third of the normal caloric value. I think I wasn't sure what to eat for dinner but we finally decided on Japanese. I did my best to estimate the caloric value of my dinner. Here's a few pictures of what i had for dinner.


Nutritional final stats for the day.

Well that's all for tonight. Sorry for the short post. But everyone get your sweat on and happy dieting.
- Joel via iPhone

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