Today, I will leave as an off day for my work-out. Tomorrow I plan to hit the gym to do leg based exercises as well as push related exercises. The body is sore but the muscle tissue is growing. I may try to hammer out some articles before bed time tonight so hopefully after work I can get that taken care of. I am very glad to be on whey protein as that’s been helping to expedite my healing. The Crea-Tech Extreme has definitely been helping me push through my sets and power through my days. I am finally seeing shadows of results and it’s a rather inspiring sight. I can only imagine how much that will show up come August.
Tag Archives: Personal
Simplicity is Beauty
I have gotten a few folks saying that my old U3 K2 layout was a bit too much… so I have decided to just keep it simple with the default clean WordPress Default layout. For one… it doesn’t have all the wacky AJAX applets. Another thing… It loads a lot faster. The best part is that WordPress 2.5 integrates a lot of the things that I had bulky plug-ins for into a neat build-in package. I know it doesn’t look “super unique” but sometimes, simplicity is the best answer.
Feel free to drop in a comment or “complaint” as need be.
Workout Log 3/29 & 3/30/2008
Saturday
Dumbbell Rows – 40 lbs, 12 reps, 2 sets
Dumbbell Curls – 30 lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets
Dumbbell Upward Rows – 30 lbs, 12 reps, 2 sets
Back Extensions – 12 reps, 2 sets
Shoulder Shrugs – 30 lbs, 12 reps, 3 sets
Inclined Sit-ups – 12 reps, 3 sets
Ab-X bench – 6 reps, 3 sets
Sunday
Crunches – 12 reps, 2 sets
Cross Crunches – 12 reps, 2 sets
Bicycle Crunches – 12 reps, 2 sets
A Well of Souls – Parkland Hospital, Zombies, and the Decline of my Sanity
Last night was interesting… My friend Amanda from the Ubuntu Dallas group called up and basically said “Zero… I think I have a true medical emergency, but I cannot pay for the services.” So my gut basically says “Parkland, stat!” and I would have her come down to shuttle her off to Parkland. I would call Brandon to see if he still wanted to meet up with us as he said he wanted to make sure Amanda was ok. Traffic wasn’t bad for once and getting there was easy once the adrenaline wore off of me.
We were checked in by about 8pm but well… as you’ll see from the enclosed “log” from my phone, I quickly lost my sanity after Brandon left. Behold my sanity passing through me like running water!
So tonight has been interesting. I am writing this post from my P990i at about 1:45am at Parkland. Why am I at one of D-town’s welfare hospitals? She had a potentially life threatening emergency that I wanted to see them through, but they have no insurance. I had heard stories of Parkland but today I got to enter the lion’s den and see for myself. Brandon wished to join and wish her well. I would get in at about 7:30pm, she would get the initial prognosis to evaluate the severity of her predicament. Then we would be transferred to the emergency clinic and the first sets of paper work and blood tests were done around 10pm. We have been waiting since for check-in.
Brandon’s threshold gave way to his need for sleep so he has left. My quads are murdering me. My only sustenance have been a stick of Os Trim, a Little Debbie nutty bar, and 2 bottles of Dasani water. Sad part, I’ll probably have to submit another cheat meal today. Damn Parkland for having a McDonald’s within their facilities. The sounds of exhausted patients waiting almost as long as we have snoring in their sleep almost sounds like ZOMBIES!!! (Zero – Damn you, Brandon) It is a travesty to wait this long just for health care?
It’s a shame when it takes forever to be rendered care. Medicine is one thing that I love dearly, but to see it down and out is almost vulgar. It’s like looking at a painting that has been vandalized in vain.
Well, it’s now 5am and I am still waiting with Amanda. What the hell is this?! This is abso-fucking-lutely atrocious! I am about to FUCKING crash! This is borderline unacceptable! I understand that Parkland is horrible, but this is beyond my expectations! This is motherfucking BULLSHIT!
As you can witness… My sanity was just quickly hitting the garbage can from my short temper due to the utter frustration.
By about 7:45am, she would finally be seen. The visit only took literally 10-15 minutes. They were able to completely assess and evaluate everything without an issue. This angered me highly… It took 12 hours for her to get checked and it turned out that it wasn’t even that extensive that they had pushed her that far to the back burner? Absolutely ridiculous! There were other patients in the clinic waiting room thinking the same thing… “Why are they so busy with bullshit when they could at least have one nurse or doctor treating quick cases?!” was one of the more common things I heard.
After she had the Rx in her hand… we’d find that the clinic pharmacy didn’t want to dispense the drug because it was a $4 generic at a local Target or Wal-Mart. After running to a Target and getting the drugs, I would be more glad that she could finally begin the road to recovery. Luckily, she had nipped her ills in the bud before they would have seriously had her on an antibiotic drip and possibly a stay over.
The experience at Parkland Hospital did have some humor in it. The McDonald’s inside the hospital. Yes… that’s right… INSIDE!!! They serve up the goods 24 hours or so I am lead to believe. The funny part is that any cardiac patients must have consent by their physician to eat the greasy painful goodness. Gotta love the irony of a fast food idol rooted in a hospital!
I’ll have images of my adventures and a damn near 12 hour comparison of me at the beginning versus the end… but that won’t be until tomorrow or whenever I am more awake than I am now.
Workout Log 3/26/2007 – Food Logging Discrepencies
Did a few quick sets due to my personal emergency…
Squats – 3 sets, 12 reps, 30 lbs
Front Lunges – 3 sets, 12 reps, 30 lbs
Side Lunges – 1 set, 10 reps, 30 lbs
Due to being at Parkland from damn near 7:30pm – 10am, I have found that I don’t even remember what all I had to eat save for today. I am really more trying to concentrate on eating well for dinner and then hitting the hay super early… I have a long day ahead with tons of territory to cover at the office. I will feed myself more nutritious food and ease up on junk and garbage my body can do with out ’cause my body should be respected like a machine and I need to turn a new page on getting it into seriously fit shape. Expect me back to 100% by tomorrow and doing pull sets.
Entering the Nightmare
I did have a huge post I was going to throw up before work about my heroism for a friend, but well… that may be delayed for a good while. Apparently, being a hero to a friend doesn’t matter. Especially when the medical emergency call happened randomly and you’re more pumped on adrenaline rather than reasonable thought. I understand that I should have called, but my friend was in the hospital scared to death about a potentially threatening problem to their health. Maybe it was “wrong” for me to play an angel of mercy for my panicked and fearful friend… but if it must become a petty argument on how my heroism is invalid because I am still covered in debt… then I will say that is a ludicrous argument.
Maybe I am a little too compassionate for a friend in fear. I had my buddy, Brandon, with me to help comfort her. Sometimes we all start small and for my friend… She had no one to assist because of a terrible circumstance. I did my part and if I get the blame for it, then I just have to take it in stride. Well, time for me to walk into work and try to purge myself of losing a fight with family to justify my heroic actions.
If anyone wants to say thanks or offer their words of encouragement, you’re more than welcome to do so. It would help with the pain of my “shame” right now.
Workout and Food Log – 3/25/2008
Today went by pretty interesting, save for being tired through part 2 of today. I think I have found my niche as far as the Crea-Tech Extreme and whey protein usage goes. I will probably do my doses of the Crea-Tech as a pre-workout booster, as the taurine seems to keep my mood elevated and my energy pumping. Today, it just felt like being hooked up with an IV line and getting a nice steady pulse of energy into my workout. It was refreshing to walk out and be exhausted from the routine. The whey protein seems like a great supportive supplement post workout to feed the exhausted muscles, so I know I will have to stick with that.
My sets today were fun, but tiring. Doing more with dumbbells rather than machines now cause I need to regain my balance mechanisms. Today was all “pull” mechanism exercises, so my arms have been sore all day… but I can’t even fathom how they will feel tomorrow. Tomorrow is “push” exercises… Squats and pain be damned!
I had a friend who wanted some files from me before work and would offer to pay for lunch… Ended up going to Chipotle, but it ended up mellowing my appetite for most of the day due to the protein content. Through out the day, I ended up holding out alright, just there were moments I was caught a little low on energy from my body just incinerating food at an amazing pace. Ended up using my whey protein shake as my “lunch” at the office and later had a tuna and cheese sandwich.
Pre-Workout
Crea-Tech Extreme – 300 calories, workout dose
Workout Routine
Dumbbell Bent-over Row
- 25 lbs
- 12 reps
- 2 sets
Dumbbell Upright Row
- 25 lbs
- 12 reps
- 2 sets
Dumbbell Lateral Rises
- 30 lbs
- 12 reps
- 2 sets
Dumbell Curls
- 30 lbs
- 12 reps
- 2 sets
Cardio – Step Machine
- Duration: 5 minutes and 5 minute cool down
- Resistance: 55 steps per minute/40 steps per minute
- 60 calories
- 467 step or 32 floors of stairs
- Equivalence: 1 step is 8 inches, 1 floor is 10 feet.
Lunch
Chipotle fajita burrito (rice, barbacoa, corn salsa, sour cream, cheese) – 1,056 calories
Water instead of soda or sweet tea
Office “lunch” period
Whey protein and L-Glutamine shake, double dose – 400 calories, 36 grams of protein
“Dinner”
Whole wheat, tuna and swiss cheese sandwich – 340 calories
Late night snack
Monterey jack cheese stick – 110 calories
Grand Total:Â 2,206 calories
The lunch probably offset things, but I will be making up for that tomorrow… Squats will make my quadriceps their bitch.
Workout and Food Log 03/23/2008 – Late Gut-Buster Session and Snacking
So according to my friends I passed out and napped at the office of ZeroXR for a short bit. I think the workout regimen is seriously increasing it’s appetite for fuel. I ended up just making a whole wheat peanut butter and honey. Not to much impact there… (That was around 9:45pm) Almost an hour later, my body craves a snack. I did do my gut buster set before my sandwich, so that should round out my day. I will probably have some Rice Krispies, fresh strawberries, Teddy Grams and bananas as my second snack.
Peanut butter and honey sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread – 330 calories
Rice Krispies and 4 fresh, large strawberries – 203 calories
Banana – 120 calories
Fun Sized Teddy Grams – 60
Grand Total: 1,997 calories
Late gut-buster set
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
Workout Log 03/23/2008 – Mid-day Gut-Buster Session
Easter Sunday has been boring for me today with nothing to do… I wanted to challenge myself and try to up things and inspire the abs to say “Damn, we got flogged!” I decided to take a note from ExRx and do some remixed sit-ups from their list of waist exercises. I picked the crunch-up, the jack-knife sit-up and the v-ups for this round. They are pretty damn hard but did 2 sets of each in reps of 12. It’s got my abs tingling… but that’s what I need to keep me amped up. I need to find something to eat, cause the whey protein shake and Crea-Tech are losing caloric value already and my body is asking for food…
Routine
- 12 V-up’s
- 12 Jack-knife sit-ups
- 12 Crunch-ups
- 12 V-up’s
- 12 Jack-knife sit-ups
- 12 Crunch-ups
Fitness and Food Log: 3/23/2008 Gut-Buster Set, Whey Protein + Crea-Tech
Today I took it a little easy on myself to allow my body some time to concentrate healing my arms and legs from how hard Friday was. I would keep to the natural concept of 8-12 reps and 6-9 sets for progressive overload and not tax my abs again that my body requires additional healing on another vector. Before my sit-ups, had a 1/2 dose of whey protein and a spoonful of L-Glutamine, did my sets, and finished with my Crea-Tech Extreme. I feel refreshed and vital again with working out and it’s just great that my body seems to lap-up the exercises I throw at it.
Pre-Workout
1/2 dose of Whey protein and 1 teaspoon of L-Glutamine – 200 Calories, 18 grams of protein
Workout
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
- 12 Crunches
- 12 Bicycle crunches
- 12 Cross crunches
Post-workout
Maintenance dose of Crea-Tech Extreme – 150 Calories, 10 grams of creatine
I may work in another set of crunches towards the middle of today and then another set towards the end. It seems that I am not challenged enough on it, but I should not push the intensity too high. I’ll log the rest of today’s eating and activities here as I get a chance.