Exercise - Day 7 - Sunday, 12/7/2008

Today, I did a nice Tabata on my rower. I also did some situps and some pushups.

7 down, 93 to go.

Exercise - Day 6 - Saturday, 12/6/2008

Today and tonight, I did various dumbell exercises throughout the night. Curls, squat-curl-thrusts, shoulder presses. I also did some pushups and situps.

6 down, 94 to go.

Exercise - Day 5 - Friday, 12/5/2008

Today, I continued my streak. I did one round of the Tabata Protocol on my Concept II rower. I also did some abs (one set of situps, one set of leg raise kind of things), and did some squat-curl-thrusts with dumbells. I also did some plain old dumbell curls. While this is still not much, it was a good day compared to the last few. I'll do something similar the next two days, then I'm going to start going to the gym on Monday.

5 down, 95 to go.

Goal 1 - 180 by 1/1/09

Aside from my streak of 100 days straight of working out, I am also going to put this goal up here, in the hopes that it will help me attain it.

Today is 12/5/08. I weigh between 190 and 195. By 1/1/09, I would like to consistently weigh in at 180 or lower. From my past, I know that I can definitely lose 10 pounds in a month (in the right way, too, almost all fat). I'm lucky that way, I guess. So, it really just comes down to eating right (and I let myself slide on the weekends, usually), not drinking too much, and consistently working hard (which is the idea of my exercise streak).

After that goal, my next goal will be 170 by 2/1/09. That's about 4 months before my 30th birthday. After that goal, I will continue working hard to get into really good shape by my 30th.

Can't wait.

Exercise - Day 4 - Thursday, 12/4/2008

Last night, I did my rower for only about 5 minutes, at a slow pace. Then, I did one set of 10 pushups, then another set to failure (17 good ones). Again, not much, but I'm getting started.

4 down, 96 to go.

Exercise - Day 3 - Wednesday, 12/3/2008

I came within inches of skipping today, telling myself I'd just start over tomorrow. After all, I would only be sacrificing two days of my streak.

Thankfully, I soldiered on. No, again, I did not do much, but I did something. I did a full-fledged Tabata on my rower. Oddly, I hardly broke a sweat, but I did it in earnest. I don't know why that is. Although I didn't break a sweat, I certainly did feel some light-headedness for quite some time after the routine.

Not much left to say tonight. Just glad I continued the streak.

3 down, 97 to go.

The Tabata Protocol

Ok, I'm putting this here just because I'll probably be mentioning the Tabata Protocol frequently. I'm not going to go into great depth about it here, because there's plenty of information about it on the internet. Please google it, because incorporating it into some/all of your workouts just might be the best thing you can do for yourself.

Basically, the Tabata Protocol goes like this:

1. Perform the exercise (any exercise, but best if uses many muscles) at low intensity for 5 minutes to warm up.
2. Perform the exercise as strenuously as you possibly can for 20 seconds.
3. Rest completely (or dramatically decrease strenuousness) for 10 seconds.
4. Repeat the previous 2 steps 8 - 10 times, if possible.
5. Perform the exercise at low intensity for 5 minutes to cool down.