My Quest: To Become a Spartan

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FreeFall

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Hello everyone. This is my first journal, and I hope it helps by introducing a certain element of accountability to my workouts. I'd like to give a little background about myself before I introduce my goals.

Growing up, I was kind of a sickly child. Nothing serious, I just rarely felt well enough to be motivated to run and play as much at recess. This of course led to me being a chubby little guy until high school.

At that time, I started marching band, a typical thing for many chubby guys, haha. The band I marched with was highly competitive, being in the top 20 in the nation several times during my four years. This was because of the strict practices that I grew to love. These practices led to me getting into the best shape of my life up to that point. At one time, I was even running laps during water breaks for fun!

This ended with my graduation since I didn't march in college. I didn't really gain the Freshmen 15, but I wasn't too healthy either. At one point I was diagnosed with asthma, which, while a pain at the time, I seem to be getting over now.

More recently, last spring several of my friends challenged each other to dress up as Spartans from 300 for this pass Halloween. I used this as inspiration and worked my butt off over the summer only to find out that the rest of my friends decided that they no longer wished to follow through. This, along with a stressful final semester, caused me to slack off a little.

Now I'm a college graduate with much more time on my hands to spend working out. As I said before, I will use this journal as a source of accountability and inspiration to meet my goals.

I'm wary to post pictures now, but I may sometime in the future. In the meantime, I'll put my current stats.

Age: 23
Height 6'1"
Weight 182.6

My measurements are not the most accurate since I had to do them on my own, so I'm sure some mistakes were made. These were the best I could do at the time:

Waist 35
Hips 41
Forearm 10.5
Wrist 7.5
Neck 14.5

My longterm goal, that I'm hoping to meet by next Halloween is the same as this last. I wish to become a Spartan, to be in the best possible shape. I want in every way to be a lean, mean, fighting machine :cool: These next few weeks I'm going to try to cut to get a little more definition and see how far I truly am from this.

On that note, my short term goal is simple: I want to weigh in the 170s by my birthday, January 8th. That seems a good a deadline as any.

I believe I have bored everyone long enough now, so I will leave it at that. I will be back tomorrow with an update on my weight and what I have done throughout the course of the day.

Good night everyone!
 
Kick ass C-Bass.
 
Thanks for the encouragement!

Just a quick update before I head out.

This morning's weight: 181.4

Hopefully I'll be able to find a set of body fat calipers to get a better idea of where I am today.
 
One metric that the army uses to assess the inherent size of people, i.e., "big-framed" vs. "small-framed" is the neck size, which is consistent except for extremely obese people. At 14.5", you have a small neck, which suggests a smallish frame.(By comparison, I am 6'0" and have a 17" neck). Your frame would be more suited for the lean, Brad Pitt look, rather than the bulkier NFL linebacker or middleweight boxer look. Something to think about, my friend.
 
That's a good point, one that I hadn't really that much about until now. When I read your post, I rummaged around and managed to find a decent measuring tape to use. Turns out my neck is closer to 14 inches and my wrist is around 6 and a half. Most of what I found online told me that I'm at least borderline small frame. That's not a bad thing, is it? Just a different body type from what I can tell.

I couldn't manage to find a body fat caliper today. Probably going to have to go ahead and order one.

I also managed to ruin what semblance of a diet I have today by eating out with my best friend today. I was able to justify it in my mind since I only get to see him a few times a year. Plus the Mexican was good :drooling1:

This evening I spent 10 minutes on my treadmill alternating between a minute of sprinting and a minute of walking before doing some upper body work on my new exercise ball for around 25 minutes. I think it's worth the $10 I paid for it the other day, especially since the kid in me has so much fun with it. After this I spent another 20 minutes on the treadmill.

I'm feeling good now :)
 
This morning's weight: 181.4 again. However, this time I weighed after breakfast since I forgot, so I might be slightly lighter compared to yesterday.
 
Don't weigh yourself daily....the results will seem dimished and you will begin to loose confidence in what you are doing. Set a date, and weigh yourself every 2 weeks or every 30 days from that point forward. Don't cheat and do any sooner then the date you have set to weigh in next. I happen to prefer 30 days, but only becuase I do a 4 week program of one type of work out,then switch it up for another 30 days, so and so forth. I like to gauge my results that way.
 
My advice is not to weigh yourself often. You will find yourself overly focused on that number, and less focused on doing what matters, eating right, and working out hard. If you have those 2 things pinned down, the rest all falls into place.

Edit: Beat me to it Donnie!
 
I wish your the very best FreeFall!

You have it in you to accomplish all the the things you desire and then some more, youngman!

FreeFall:

FreeFall is on the BALL and is going to personally BRAWL and MAUL; his training will not STALL; he will stand big and TALL and throw adversity down the fricken HALL, okay Ya all?

Wish you the best of luck in your training and in life,



Chillen
 
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Thanks guys. I'll be sure to stay off the scale until my deadline now. Didn't know it was becoming such a habit until recently.

Did the same this evening as I did yesterday, except I did lower body instead of upper and added a little bit more effort to the cardio. Gah...cardio still stinks so much when I'm doing it, but afterwards, it's all good. Can't beat the benefits either :)
 
Feeling even better today. Ran even harder this evening, so I'm liking it, even if it is only a small improvement at a time.

I tried true burpees for the first time also. Man, that's much harder than I imagined. I planned to do at least a couple of minutes of it to keep my heart rate up, but I was pretty much done in under a minute. Doesn't help that I did it at the end of some upper body work :11doh:

I'm liking what's been happening so far. I changed my routine to the daily cardio with alternating upper and lower body workouts about a week or so before I started this journal...

...And I'm already seeing results! :D

I've never been close to a six pack in my life, but I'm starting to see lines where curves used to be. Ya can't beat that. Hard work works! :)

I can't wait to step on that scale on the 8th, but I'm holding off like you guys advised.
 
Haha, yep, that's MacGyver. The character's kind of a personal hero, and you just can't beat the classic 80's television.

Added a little harder cardio tonight. It's still progressing slowly, but that's better than nothing. I seem to be able to sustain a heart rate of around 150/155 at a brisk walk after getting it up there, especially towards the end, and it stays up there for a good while after I'm finished. Seems to be doing the job.

Can't wait until next week. The suspense is killing me! :D
 
flyinfree said:
how'd you pick that user name?
Click to expand...

Forgot to answer this one. It's just an old nickname that's left over from my (very) brief free running days. I liked the way it sounded, so it stuck.

Upper body again with the exercise ball. It's starting to get a little to easy, so I'll probably increase everything later this week. More cardio. A little harder; a little farther; a little faster. I was getting a little frustrated with only 5 and 10 second increases until I read through some quotes.

"Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still." Apparently it's an old Chinese proverb. I think it works here.

"Many people think they want things, but they don't really have the strength, the discipline. They are weak. I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough." Another one by Sophia Loren. Still applicable.

I may be posting progress/starting pictures this week to go along with the new year. Meanwhile, I think I'll be bringing it in a little quieter this year, just me and God.

I pray He blesses everyone with a bountiful New Year :)
 
Sweet. During the 30 minutes I've been spending on the treadmill during each session has definitely seen improvement. Last week all the warm-up and cardio combined got me around 2.5 miles. Now I'm at 2.75 in just a few seconds more. Feels good squeezing another lap in there.

With that in mind, I've decided one of my resolutions this year will be to log at least 300 miles on either the track or the treadmill in 2008. That probably doesn't seem to great for everyone here, but it's a pretty good goal for the asthmatic (even though I haven't had an attack since I've started to really put some effort into my routines :D). If I meet that easily enough, I'll be pushing it to 500. So to add onto my posts in this journal:

Miles Logged in 2008: 2.75
 
Off to a good start, Free. Are you gonna start incorporating weights in your routine? I strongly recommend it, especially with your thin frame. If you do only cardio, you will not build the musculature to get that lean, mean fighting machine look.
 
Thanks! Yep, weights will definitely be coming up soon. Exactly when depends on how everything looks next week. Six weeks to the first deadline, woohoo!

Uggh...today was my first day back to work since before Christmas. I work at a daycare, so I'm more or less on my feet the entire time. As usual, this leaves me pretty beat even though I hadn't really done anything. I'm not feeling as bad today, hopefully from all the effort I've been putting into anything.

Worst part is that I usually can't eat while I'm there, so I missed one of my meals and pushed another one back. I'm waiting to see how this messes with my metabolism later today.
 
Good luck with your fitness goals.
As you continue to workout, you'll find that being on your feet all day will get easier and easier.
 
Thanks. That's what I'm hoping for.

I was on my feet from a little before 9:00 this morning until almost 3:45. I'm more or less used to it from the long breaks I've spent working. It's fine when I'm there, but the longish drive home and sitting around resting just tightens the muscles up for the rest of the day. I should know better by now....

At least next week school resumes and I work a few hours each afternoon instead.

Because of this same tightness I had some pretty decent discomfort on the treadmill earlier. Only managed to go about a mile, but it's better than nothing. I thought it best to end the session early when I started cramping and risked falling. So....

Miles Logged in 2008: 3.75
 
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