.:: Run Fat Boy .net ::.

I’ve often read that in the fitness game, you can think of training, nutrition, and rest as legs of a tripod — if any of those are subpar, you’re not going to be balanced.

Well, I’m proud to say that over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten the training side of the equation down.  Not perfect, of course — I could always stand to train harder — but I use a lot of compound moves with a lot of weight (for me), know my body well enough to back off to prevent injury (a problem I used to have in my earlier days of lifting), and most importantly, I’m pretty consistent; I’ve probably only had a week break a couple of times over the past two years.

The nutrition/resting side — those have been my weaknesses.  It’s too easy to get caught up in what I’m doing some late night and end up staying up way too late (oops, hopefully this posting doesn’t have a timestamp).  And on the nutrition side — while I always eat a very healthy breakfast and average a reasonable amount of protein for my needs, the consistency hasn’t always been there.  Too many days where I’d suddenly want a pizza and go eat it (which would make it hard to get 200 grams of protein that day).  Too many days when I just wouldn’t feel hungry, so I wouldn’t eat (doesn’t sound like a big problem, but if you’re trying to gain mass, this just won’t cut it).

So in order to level out my tripod, I’ve rededicated myself to fixing the rest/nutrition side of things.  My main goals every day — 250 grams of protein and 10 servings combined of fruits/vegetables.  Generally if I accomplish that, I accomplish the other things that go along with a healthy eating plan (it’s hard to eat 250 grams of protein and 10 fruits/vegetables all in 1 sitting, so you better believe I split that into 5 or 6 meals every day — which requires a fair amount of planning/preparation).  I’m not strictly counting calories, but eating this much generally gets me somewhere between 2800-3300 calories per day.  I do make sure there’s some variety in my diet (there’s a pretty wide variety of healthy choices I can make my selections from).  And I’ve managed to accomplish these goals and eat "perfectly" (no junk, no sugar, etc.) for the last 16 straight days.  All in all, I’m very excited; I "feel" healthier — now it’s a matter of consistency and keeping it up.  The funny thing is that while it was a little tough the first couple of days, now I seem to be on autopilot; I think it’d be harder to eat unhealthily and not meet those goals than to just do it now, just because I want to keep on stretching those days into weeks and those weeks into months.  That’s how you win at this game.

I’ll make a separate posting in the next couple of days to talk about my homegym and my workouts.  I bought a couple of thickhandled dumbbells which definitely deserve their own article… 

I can remember the first day of football practice my freshman year. For most of the 14 year olds out for football, it was there first time officially playing the sport.  Sure everyone had played pick-me-up games in the backyard, but real football isn’t exactly about having 11 receivers.

Our coach loved the mornings; the earlier the better. Practice usually started by 6:30am when the first ounces of sunlight would hit the football field.

I was so excited to begin playing. I was going to be the best. I was going to be the standout.

But at 6am on that first day I had my first revelation about the game. I didn’t have a clue on how to put together my pads. And neither did the other 90% freshman.  Guys had thigh pads mistaken for knee pads, helmets had their chin straps on backwards, nut-cups were inserted upside-down.

As we walked on to the field, things only got worse for the Bad News Bears of football. Since I was slightly larger than most of the freshman, I was "thrown to the wolves" and was "privileged" to practice with the varsity and junior-varsity teams. This would have been great except for the fact that when I blocked someone I had a bad habit of putting my hands in front of my face.  Helmets would collide, my fingers would get crushed, repeat the process.

Those first three weeks of freshman football practice were the worse days of my life.  I felt like the small kid that has an older brother that grabs your wrists, starts smacking yourself in the face all the while screaming "quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself!"

Everyone has a freshman year.  Starting a workout routine will be no different. Accept that there are going to be awkward moments, and you’ll be much better off.