Progress Progress, slow, but progress

I came into this marathon with a plan to go slow and steady, preserving as much muscle and strength as I could. Not wanting to drop weight to fast or come back looking like an emaciated zombie.  It's frustrating because I wish I was further along but i'm not.  I've made great strides,  I came here 231 im about 218 today, but I fluctuate between 221 and 218 and I've been at this for a few weeks. Depending on my diet. I wish I could have been running more but goddamn this heat refuses to loosen its grip here. Sure by 8pm its somewhat comfortable in the upper 80's  and at 0500 its about 80  but at 0500 no way in hell am I gonna squeeze in a good run before work, and at night I try to run but them im wired the rest of the night lol.  Its a lose lose situation. Hopefully the 100's during the day die down in Oct and I can get back to the heavy cardio that I so need to lose those inches.  Below is a Pic of the Pants I arrived with, it shows progress and If I could find my damn USB cable I can load my current pic I tried to include a few with my tablet, but the hell if I could actually use this thing lol  so this is all I can do for now until I find that thing.  3 months and a week left here. Hopefully I can ramp up

Training your legs for overall health. Love Leg day!

Saturdays are my leg day, Its my 1 day off during the week and I get a chance to go in for as long as I want and hammer these things. Its great too because all the stations are wide open for me to use. They are wide open because no one does legs lmfao.  Seriously look around your gym, 90% of the time you see massive upper bodies with chicken legs.  The excuses are great, while some may be legitimate most are not. "I run for my legs", "My legs are too big already", "Squats hurt my knees or my back or insert here" not training your legs is the biggest training mistake you can make.Maybe I'm a sadist but the pain I endure in the days following leg training is somewhat addictive. As I type this I can barely stand up to get our of my chair. Its a sign I put in work. Genetically my legs suck they just don't have that sexy outter sweep I so covet, but where they lack in width I make up in density and cut. Legs are ridiculously important for training, sure they dont make you look pretty on the beach, unless you are a female ;) but for those of us who take this seriously, we don't do it to look pretty on the beach, it's just a side effect :D   Listed below are the common sense can be found anywhere reasons why you should train your legs  The reasons listed below are paraphrased from one of my favorite BB sites

1. More Muscle. You can find studies showing that  squats and deadlifts increase the release of Growth Hormone & Testosterone more than any other exercise. They train the largest muscles in your body.

2. Bigger Upper-body. Squats & Deadlifts work your whole body, not just your legs. Your core, i.e abs,  your chest, your arms.  Everything is stimulated, I've often said if I was reduced to doing one exercise for the rest of my life it would be deadlifts. This naturally leads to more strength overall

3. Symmetry. As I noted above  a big upper-body with toothpick legs looks ridiculous. I see dudes benching 350 plus and when I ask them how much they can squat they asks whats a squat lol

  4. Mental Strength. Here's the real reason why people don't train their legs: it's physically & mentally hard. It hurts, and when you hurt your mentally don't wanna do it anymore.

5. For the women that read this, you guys would benefit the most from leg training, As women you naturally carry your body fat in your butt and legs aka the Pear share. a good toned leg and ass will work wonders for your self esteem and for ours :D Seriously why women dont squat or tone their legs is beyond me. If they focused as much effort into these exercise as they do bitching about their fat asses they would win dozens of figure competitions for having the greatest pair of wheels seen on a women.  Alas most Americans are lazy anywho so it is what it is. But if you are a female that trains.  Lunges, squats, leg extensions, and calf presses are your best friends

Running Doesn't Count! Running, cycling or soccer will never work your legs like Squats & Deadlifts do.

So instead of skipping leg day embrace it, love the fact that walking around like a newborn deer is just as good as having a good romp in the sack.  The old adage  pain is temporary pride is forever holds true still.  Plus the health benefits cannot be overlooked

Finally got my new laptop, time for an update

SO the last few weeks have just flat out sucked. Its been a ton of tiny shit that has just went wrong to make things miserable. My laptop crashed, the vendor on the base that does the laundry lost 3/4's of all my clothes so I had to go buy new ones, the brand new 3000.00 well I had installed at my house in April shit itself, so the wife is dealing with that.  All in a 3 week span.  Yay right

Atleast I will say, my wrist is about all healed up, lifting has been going great, cardio has slacked hardcore. I think I just hit a wall with diet and cardio i had to switch it up, I cheated a few days, ate pizza had my first icecream milkshake, ate some burgers. It felt good, but now I gotta get back into cardio mode.  The temps have finally slipped out of the 100's which makes for cool evenings in the 80's which means I can run now.

I did my first DB bench press yesterday since I hurt my wrist in July, It wasn't bad  I was able to complete 3 sets of 5 using the 130lb db's  I felt good.

I've recently added RK500 extreme to my daily intake, Its a Raspberry Ketone product from SNS, if you don't know what Raspberry Ketones do  google them, I think women would love them 

http://www.healthhabits.ca/2011/04/20/raspberry-ketones-weight-loss/
http://www.healthierpost.com/raspberry-ketone-diet-is-a-potent-fat-burner/

Any little bit helps.   I've also been adding those Power gel Carb gels by the company that makes powerbars.  Its basically 25 grams of glucose and i take a packet with my pre workout which has been either APPnuts  Lit-up or Ergo's  Egopump.     Talk about sick pumps.  I end up finishing all my lifts chasing the pump. repping it out like a mad man until im in pain,  but the pumps have been out of site I took a bunch of photos to compare when I first got here and luckily for me my cable for my camera is missing  wtf seriously. I will say this My pants are literally falling off, Im the leanest I have been since i've been in the military which is a great feeling. Progress is slower then I'd like but it's still progress and I'm barely half way done with this ride so I have time to crank the next few months.

Its been about 2 weeks since my last update

Well its been a supershitty 2 weeks. My laptop crashed so im typing on my tablet. Work is fair, living here has become more of a pain in the ass than anything. Homelife is meh so all this piles up quickly and the stress is just no good. Not only does stress make you feel like shit, but it also causes a cascade of hormones in the body that leads to fat gain, misery etc. Great healthy ways to combat stress is naturally physical exercise. I can honmestly say i feel my best the moment i leave the gym. The endorphins are flowing and i feel the equivilinet to that runners high that people say they get. Me I get nausous when I run but oh well.

I always tell those folks who are really stressed to go to the gym and really hammer the weights, you feel so much better and it can really help to cope with all the minute bullshit that occurs at this place.
After 2 months here I have learned that i would rather live in a cardboard box in the mountain somewhere and be a normal person, then to stay here in this mindless daycare where top leaderships main focus is pt belts and what they can do to stop people from untucking their shirts during their workout. 3 seperate occasions last week some dipshit stopped me in the middle of a run or a workout to inform my my shirt was untucked ( which was a big no shit sherlock im wiping the sweat off my face because it was 105 degrees out) or because my sleeve had rolled up during a lift.  I'm often asked why i want to get out after 10 yrs of service. well frankly the USAF has become a gigantic cluster ffuck of a fialed social experiement. I used to tell kids all the time it was a great life and a good start to get out there. Now I tell them to run unless they can train themselves to be a mindless robat with no thoughts or opinions. Because now if you drink sip the blue koolaid you support terrorism.

sorry for the tangent. This nagging wrist injury just refuses to heal. So it looks like i need to take some time off. Time off is always a good thing after every 8 to 10 weeks of heavy training. It gives the body a chance to heal and really recover so you can start the next 10 weeks. I imagine the next week ill focus on core work swimming and running, and dial back the heavy uper body lifting in hopes that my wrist heals up.  oh yeah typing on this tablet kind of sucks as well. lol