Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

I have been partying most weekends for the last several months.  Don't ask why, I'm not usually a party dude, but it's been fun.  I think I had my run of it for a while though as sitting at home this weekend and just watching the fights and eating dinner seemed awesome.  I think there is a ebb and flow to these things really.  You can't sit at home every weekend forever (I guess you can but that seems like the ultimate suck), and you can't party it up every weekend either (or you could, but that is going to catch up with you as well).  You should be able to have some balance in there.  Don't sit at home so much you're bored and don't realize it, and don't go out so much you feel guilty about neglecting other areas of your life.  Seems like balance always wins out in life.

I'm planning a trip back to Mississippi soon.  My aunt was diagnosed with cancer and I want to visit with her in case things go south.  But I also have a TON of family and friends there that I haven't seen in a while.  I made a status about this on FB and got flooded with messages from old friends who wanted to get together.  It's a good feeling to know all the people you grew up with and did crazy shit with still want to see you and hang.  I can also see myself getting in trouble with my old friends trying to relive our teenage years.  Oh the stories I could tell......

The last month+ has really been awesome.  I have eliminated the BS and negative people in my life, and it's amazing what really cutting that shit out will do for you.  Is it difficult at first?  Yes.  But stress is the taker of life and I would prefer to be around as long as possible for the four beautiful ladies in my life.  Whether its friends or family, if you have a leech it's best to cut it off, bleed for just a bit, but then heal permanently.  Then learn the lesson to stay out of the swamp and dark places where leeches live.

On the flip side of that, I've put in a lot more time when positive people and it has a similar dynamic.  It helps with your own positive thinking and mood.  You shed negative energy like water off a ducks back and move right along.

So right now it seems like a lot of guys are in "get in better shape mode".  It's amazing how much I've read that lately, here and on some boards.  This is not a difficult thing.  People just want it too fast.  Just a very simple way to get into shape without dying or getting overuse injuries are like so......

week 1 - steady state 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes.  Walk the same way if you are outside and try to increase the distance by a little bit each time in the same 30 minutes.  If you are on a threadmill (yuck) then just up the MPH a little bit each time.
week 2 - same as week 1 but add in a jog here and there during parts of the walk.  You don't have to do it very long, 10-15 seconds is fine.  Throw in 2 or 3 during the 30 minutes.
week 3 - 45 minutes, add in 4-5 jogs at a slightly faster clip.
week 4 - drop a steady state day and do hills or interval sprints.  Do not run all out.  Just a nice sprint.
week 5 - same as week 4 just increase the number of hills or interval sprints
week 6 - go to 1 steady state day and 2 days of hills or intervals.
week 7 - 2 steady state days 1 day of hills or intervals
week 8 - start going back and forth between weeks 6 and 7.  You should be in decent shape by now.  If you want to take it up a notch just keep bumping the number of hills or sprints.  When you can run 20 hills without any rest except the walk back down, you're in fucking shape.  No doubt about it.

I've had some questions about keeping strength when dieting.  This really isn't entirely possible unless you're using large doses and/or a noob.  If some guy tells you he lost a bunch of fat and kept his strength, then he just got less fat, but was still fat.  In other words, if you go from 25% to 19% yeah, you might not lose any strength.  If you go from 25% to 10%?  You're going to lose strength.  A calorie deficit will zap strength levels at some point.  That point has a lot of variables and factors.  I think I'm going to end up at around 10% at 235-238 this time around. Which means I did in fact gain about the 4-5 pounds of mass I trained for.  Great success!

If you want to minimize strength loss while dieting there is a way to do that however.  No different than the conditioning stuff, make changes slowly.

week 1 - Remove as many simple sugars as possible.  This means coke, candy, and shit like that.  Don't change anything else.  Make sure to eat 3 solid food meals and have 2 shakes at least.
week 2 - Eliminate carbs at the evening meal.
week 3 - same as the previous week
week 4 - same as week before but have a cheat meal on the last day of the week
week 5 - same as week 3
week 6 - reduce carbs from lunch as well, have a cheat meal on the last day of the week
week 7 - same as week 6
week 8 - no carbs at lunch no cheat meal

If you combined the eating a cardio plan together, you'd drop a lot of fat, be in shape, and feel awesome.  You only really run really low carbs for three weeks, and in two of those you get to carb back up.  These kinds of plans are not hard to lay out and they work good as gold.  Just be consistent and do what you're supposed to do.

A congrats to my bud Vince Urbank who took 4th at America's strongest man.  His first pro-comp.  Vince also has an invite to Andy Bolton's NOTLD challange.  Vince pulled 840 at 298 and has a gym pull of 881 I believe.  Should be fun to watch!

Football season is going to happen?  What?

This whole Rashad/Rampage/Bones thing is going to be epic.  Two big mouths in Rashad and Page, and what is supposed to be the Jesus of MMA at 205 in Bones.  I think that Page is going to give Jones more trouble than people think.  I see Jones winning but Page has a great chin and there is no quit in him.  I really would like to see a round robin of these fights.  The last time Page and Rashad fought Page had terrible ring rust and Rashad fought for points, which was pussy after the way he ran his mouth about how he was going to stand toe to toe with Page (we all knew he'd never do that because he'd get his ass whipped).  I guess we'll get the round robin if Jones wins and fights Rashad.  But I still want to see Rampage/Rashad 2 as well.  On a side note, Rashad's knee to Tito was brutal to watch but I am constantly telling at guys to do that when guys won't stand up to avoid the knee to the face.  You may see that knee to the chest start happening more now.

The guy in the blue trunks.  Glad he took that beating.  And glad that Dana White made it illegal to wear that kind of shit.  He also made a good point in talking about it, that he didn't blame the fighter, he blamed the people that work for him letting him step into the ring with that on.  A lot of people don't like Dana but he's obviously a smart business man and makes more good decisions than bad.

I hope everyone had a shit Monday!  There is no reason why you should be happy on Monday while everyone else thinks it sucks.