Benchmarks

So week one of this whole weight loss competition is down and I gotta say, I feel pretty good. Of course my diet and exercise is pretty much unchanged from the last few months, so that's not much of a surprise. I decided to kick off the weight loss weekend by doing what I do best; kicking ass and taking names. In this case that means I went to Bad Weather Brewery for a pint in the early afternoon, and had defeated Shredder on their Turtles in Time arcade by late afternoon. What? You expected I was gonna start my marathon training? Go sow some alfalfa sprouts and quinoa? 

Lets just say I started with a cheat day. After all, you have to keep your mental health too, right? And possibly more importantly, we can't have the foot clan running the streets; not on my streets of Saint Paul. No no.

Okay, where were we? That's right, weight loss stuff. I have to say, I was a bit overwhelmed, surprised, and extremely appreciative of all the comments and support I've gotten so far. My readers are just as nice and supportive as my wife!

I had people give me recipes, share some workouts they like, and even send me some general weight loss and fitness plans they've used; apparently many of us have been here before. And since you guys have stepped it up, it has encouraged me to do the same. My previous post may have given some people the idea that I just want to lift and get ripped, but this is about whole body health, and that means helping my body with exercise and nutrition, as well as building strong mental and social health too. Whats the point of looking like Leonidas if you've got no life or friends? Pshhh. So it was time to set some benchmarks, some initial shakedowns if you will. Do something this week, and then see how I'm doing at week 5 and 10. The ultimate plan is to win the competition, but its fruitless if I don't track myself and learn how to keep it up. This week I decided on 3 exercises/workouts/things to test my physical fitness level, and they are long distance running speed (3+ miles), the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), and Cindy (Crossfit WOD). 

You know I have to use Zombieland, right? 

So its a wee bit cold out here in good ol' Minneapolis, but I decided to go all natural and strap on my lightweight performance shoes, a matching jogging suit, and hit the trail for a nice jaunt around the lake. Over to Lake Harriet, around the Lake (which was a beautiful overcast grey; seriously though, beautiful #blessedMN), and then back again. I ticked off about 4.2 miles, didn't have to flip off any cars, stayed warm, and it took me a few seconds shy of 35 minutes. Do the math and that's 8:20 minute miles. By ridiculous comparison, my marathon pace in 2011 was also 8:20. Sounds good, right? The first 13.1 miles of that marathon however, I was at a 7:10 pace. So I was able to run over a minute a mile faster for 3 times the distance in 2011 than today. So I have some room to grow; that's the point of this anyway! Lets move on and see how we fared concerning the military. I mean, its a gov't run organization so its gotta be pretty easy and accepting, right?

(Yeah, Full Metal Jacket is the Marines. Its a gif; get over it.) The Army PFT consists of doing as many push-ups as possible in 2 minutes, as many sit-ups as possible in 2 minutes, and then a 2 mile run. I remember doing this kind of stuff in middle school; easy. Per Army guidelines I had a spotter count out my reps and time me, allowed 10 minute rest between drills, only used specific rest positions, and no music. I could blame the lack of music, my workout from the day before, or my immature attitude, but no matter how you cut it, I didn't do great in this test.

I knocked out 45 push-ups, 51 sit-ups, and ran the 2 miles in 14:56.

Feel free to checkout the scorecard charts here if you like, but I'll save you the suspense; I passed. My 12 year old middle school self would most likely have kicked my ass though. I thought I was in shape? So you have to score at least 60 in each category (check the charts), and I got 66 in PU, a 66 in SU, and 82 in the run for a total score of 214. However there's a height and weight requirement as well, and at 5'7" the max allowable weight is... 174lbs. Wowza. Yeah, not even close. So technically I failed. I'll have to tape off my neck and stomach before next week to see if I fall within their body fat standards. Yup, the superior United States military with its billion dollar drones and million dollar missiles calculates your body fat from comparing your neck to your belly. Whatev, lets move on to Cindy.

Now I think crossfit is an amazing workout and exercise idea, but that gif just cracks me up. Any who, Cindy WOD. For you non-crossfitters out there (come on, paleo diet dude) WOD stands for Workout Of the Day, and Cindy is a common WOD that people can use to compare themselves. Its a circuit of 5 pull-ups (kipping ones), 10 push-ups, and 15 squats AMRAP (as many reps as possible; f'in crossfitters love their acronyms almost as much as the military). I usually do a similar workout with standard pull-ups and inverted rows, but I wanted to try and knock this one out like a crossfit purist.

Okay, so I didn't exactly fail, but my gym only has one pull up bar, and its attached to the seemingly always in use cable crossover machine. I couldn't take it over for 20 minutes, so I went in search of a playground to use some monkey bars or something.

Yeah, yeah. At least I got a good bike ride in, but all these new age playgrounds are barely 5' off the ground to keep kids safe, and all the monkey bars look like they came out of a Dr Seuss book. What, we can't have straight bars anymore? Any who, I'm not giving up on this, and since Friday is the LEAST busy time for Snap fitness, I'm hoping to knock out Cindy tonite and get back to y'all with a baseline for the weeks to come.

I've once again blabbed on for way longer than expected, but I want to note that the wife and I went above and beyond in the kitchen this week too. Tried out stuffed peppers for the first time, btw they're super easy. Step one, buy peppers. Step 2, cook whatever you have in the house. Step 3, stuff and bake. We had some ground turkey, green salsa, a can of corn, and a can of black beans. They were f'in delicious, healthy, and carb free. We also used some leftover red pepper to place in a muffin tin with some diced ham, and then filled each cup up with some eggs. Then pop int he oven for a spell. Super easy again, and then we had egg and ham muffins for breakfast, instead of some sad ass yogurt. I put jalapenos on the top of mine too. Yum!!

Thanks again for all the fitness and nutrition ideas, and definitely keep 'em coming! If there are any workouts you'd like to compare then let me know and I'll try and work it in and post the results. Likewise with recipes. Time to take on the theater this weekend with the top rated Zootopia, and the bottom rated London has Fallen. So excited. Take er easy.