Enjoying Life and My Kids

I have been a way for a while, busy at work, busy with the family, coaching baseball and working on myself. I also found I did not have much to say. Even now as I sit here typing I am looking for a topic to write about.

In my last blog entry I wrote about a new kind of peace and the same thought holds true. I have thrown myself into my kid’s future and have worked on how I can make their lives better and set them up for their future. I have always thought this way before but now I am acting on my thoughts.

The thing is, it’s a good feeling to be doing this and I am excited about their futures. I have two wonderful kids and even though my wife and I are experiencing all the normal bumps in the road you get with young adults it has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.

My daughter has recently started working with a swing coach, she has a natural smooth as silk swing with a golf club and having a professional that understands the correct way to develop a young person is really going to open up her ability. I am so excited to be able to provide this experience for my daughter and possibly expose her to what golf can bring not only physically but mentally will be fun to watch.

Maggie had back surgery just this past summer and she now is ready to pursue this gift she has been given. It is exciting for my wife and I to see her be a part of something and build her confidence.

It’s funny how you can raise two kids the exact same way and have two totally different products standing before you. My son will try anything and is not afraid to compete, they both hate to fail but one will be less likely to participate than the other.

I guess what I am saying is that I have always enjoyed being a father but right now I may be enjoying it more than ever and that is a good feeling.

As far as my workouts are concerned they continue, now I have a new partner in the garage. My son has decided its time to work out and has begun getting up with me at 6:00 am each morning. I have created a bit of a hybrid for the both of us. It fits around the baseball schedule and will help him with speed and strength and not leave him tired for the weekend tournament schedule. I am once again enjoying the company each morning and sharing additional time with him. 

A New Kind of Peace

The last few days my family has been away visiting family for the holiday as I stayed home to meet work obligations. During this time I have realized more than ever what my family means to me.

I was always one that could handle my alone time preferring to live by myself in my 20’s rather than having a roommate. Long bike rides and workouts by myself were the norm and countless hours drawing, painting or driving were a place I found peace and time to reflect.

Because of my chosen profession I work many holidays and my wife will often head off somewhere to have that family time and give our children the memories all children need to have of their grandparents, uncles, aunts and other relatives. 

This week, five days, were the longest five days I have ever experienced. The house was empty, other than my dog Cooper and I and we both missed having the family with us. Cooper went through the usual withdraw that he experiences, not eating for the first day or so and then the sleeping by the door waiting for them to return.

Me, I was just flat out bored, two nights in a row I contemplated going to bed at 8:30 pm. This for me is way out of character, early for me is usually 11:00 and average bed time is midnight. Even my motivation to get up in the morning was lacking and my workouts were uninspired. I push myself to accomplish many of the things I do for them and not having them here with me has stalled that drive.

They will return tomorrow afternoon sometime and the house will once again be loud and full of emotion and laughter and I have grown to enjoy all of it. Something I never thought would happen. I am a long way away from my former search for peace but this is a new kind of peace and I have grown to love it. 

Giving thanks 4 years later

I have been doing some sort of Beachbody Fitness program for four years now and have been a Beachbody coach for a little less than that. Addressing my health was life changing for me at that time. I had let myself go focusing only on earning a living and supporting my family all the while slowly killing myself a little bit more each day. Today I am stronger than ever and I will say wiser as well because I am in better health I am more alert and I enjoy each day that much more.

The benefits to all of the workouts I have been doing is that I am more active and more present in mine and my family’s life and this past year I needed to be more than ever.  My daughter had the courage to have a life changing surgery and showed me what true strength is. Both of my kids moved into different schools and are learning to adjust to the new style of learning. And lastly my wife continues to be a non- stopping whirlwind of everything to everyone. She is the one person I know that over promises to people and then over delivers on those promises. I do not know how she does it but I am proud of her.

This is my little note giving thanks for what I have and what is yet to come in all of our lives. I have finally zeroed in on my Primal nutrition program and I am back on track with a program I enjoy which allows me the time I need in the morning to still to get off to work on time. This time next year things could be completely different for many if not all of us but I will still be plugging away in my garage trying to slow the aging process down.

Happy Thanksgiving, 

Self Imposed Obstacles

Life has a way of giving you just enough to make it hard but at the same time not so much it drives you over the line into insanity. At least that is the way things have been going lately for me. I have been inconsistent at best with my nutrition and my workouts over the last few months just kind of bouncing around with no direction or set goals in mind and for me this is not a safe path. I need my own self imposed direction placed upon myself to keep me pushing forward otherwise a few months go by and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

Although I feel like I have accomplished so much personally and professionally over these past moths I feel as though I have neglected myself and I need to refocus my energy on myself again. Monday I will start P90X3 again and focus on it as if it were the first fitness program I have ever done.

It may be some form of undiagnosed disorder but I need to reorganize the garage (my gym) this weekend and clean the place up so I feel motivated and comfortable out there each morning. There is nothing like working out and being distracted about what needs to be done when you should be focusing on wheat you should be doing. Once I get that done I will be ready to attack each day.

When it comes to eating I have pretty much gotten myself under control when it comes to proper food intake and portion sizes. My biggest problem is that sometimes I do not enough during a long day at work. I have also grown into the habit of prepping my meals out a few days so I have clean options that I can grab and go with. This makes the odds of eating junk a lot less likely.

I know this will be the right thing for me because lately I have been feeling run down and a bit tired. When I am working out hard every day I have much more energy. I have completed my usual October of late night Baseball Playoff viewing causing a lack of sleep streak which always coincides with my having to complete the budgets for the next year at work. Now I can break away from the mental stress I subject myself to each year and apply my efforts back into my workout.

I have tracked all of my workouts over the past few years with a heart rate monitor which I was able to see the pattern I had created for myself and helped me to understand why my body was performing the way has been. Not trying to make excuses but really to better understand how my mind and body works so I may be able to better myself in every way.

This leads to one of my favorite quotes ever.

“Excuses are a list of self imposed obstacles that prevent you from having a better life.”

Life gets in the way. When you are driven to a goal you must make detours to get to your final destination. 

Looking for a Fresh Start.

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here and to be honest I have been struggling to get back into a routine. I have bounced around with my nutrition and have not had a consistent workout routine for a few months now. I have started a few programs and stopped and for this I am taking some abuse from some of my friends for constantly changing and not sticking to one thing. 

The good thing is I have held still on my weight and I feel good. I have been working out with my son's baseball team doing some coaching so I am getting a good workout twice a week. 

For me working out needs to be fun as well as provide me with some sort of fulfillment and accomplishment. For some reason I was not getting that for a while. I thought that a body building program would help me get the results I was looking for but that only helped me to pack on pounds, I then thought lets do just all cardio but that is just not me and all that does besides boar me to death is make me fell fatigued.

Although I love to lift weights, right now I think that body weight workouts are best for me right now so I created a hybrid from my favorite workout programs and I went ahead and started that this past Monday.  Using P90X2 and P90X3 for the first month I am getting myself back into some core work as well as some basic flexibility and resistance. The second month I plan on doing one week of each phase of the P90X3 program with a final week of the recovery week. I will follow up with a final month of Focus T25 in a somewhat same style of the way I will do P90X3.

See for yourself what I am talking about.

Monday               X2 Core

Tuesday               X3 The Challenge

Wednesday        X2 Mobility and Recovery

Thursday             X2 Total Body and X2 Ab  Ripper

Friday                    X3 Yoga

Saturday              X3 MMX

Sunday                 X1 Ab Ripper

That will be my next month of workouts, I feel it will keep me interested and allow me to get myself moving back in the right direction. I will post the next phase here when I get to that point. If you are interested or have any comments or opinions please leave a message below. 

What Difference Can Being Present Make?

This post really hit me tonight, this is a pet peeve of mine but as I read it I realized I do some of these as well. We all need to work on being better in every aspect of our lives. 

POSTED BY: MARK SISSON

An old friend who is in town recently shared with me, “I look back on life and can’t believe the amount of time and energy I’ve put into events that never even happened.” His observation, which I think more of us identify with than we’d care to admit, was testament to the massive power of self-talk and the endless tributaries it sweeps us down. “What about this?” “How would that work?” “What if x, y or z happen?” The infamous tides of when, where, how, and if drag us through the currents of hypothetical conversations, speculative planning, strategizing retorts and other means of conjectured insanity – most of which lead to total dead ends, blatant non-occurrences. Over time, many of us realize, as my friend did, that we’ve spent enormous amounts of effort and anguish living for these non-starters. Likewise, it may be the external obsessions as much as the emotional rabbit holes that snatch us away – the lure of gadgets and overworking among many others. In a culture where the mundane is viewed as undesirable, we’re convinced we need all manner of distractions just to tolerate much of everyday life, and so we absorb and increasingly apply the practice of checking out. Whatever the source of our diversion, what are the real implications of this mental absence? On the flip side, what’s possible when we can operate more fully in the moment?

Distraction of various sorts can be a self-sabotaging undercurrent for all of our endeavors. In fact, it’s entirely possible to live an entire life that almost continuously hovers in some parallel plane, directed by the same old narratives, typical roles and emotional agenda regardless of what’s in front of our faces. We take up residence in this plane when we decide what’s in our heads is more real than what’s happening in the moment. The more distraction we identify with, the more we come to inhabit the deliberately imposed or internally playing static – and the less we take in of the actual events, people and settings around us. There’s the real tragedy, I think, (and the rather obvious evolutionary cautionary tale). We can lament the effort wasted on our inner shadow boxing or useless habits, but the sadder part is what we’ve missed as a result – all that’s been and gone while we were wrestling with the conditional and trivial.

To imagine an opposite scenario, I’ve heard it said that being present for all the tasks of our lives allows us to make a meditation of everything. Folding laundry can simply be folding laundry. (Wow – there’s a concept.) Apply the idea to the broader, (arguably) more significant dimensions of life and well-being, and we’re looking at some interesting possibilities. What can being more present in your workouts offer? What are the results of being fully in the moment while eating? What about being more present for your sleep routine (a seeming contradiction, I know)? What can “being there” mean for personal relationships?

Is Your Exercise About Engagement?

In extreme endeavors, such as serious surfing or competitive sports, presence is obviously crucial. It’s part of the discipline, in fact. When we have our “heads in the game” we’re really moving with the flow, that time bending force of pure, enjoyable focus. How many of us get this on a regular basis? How often are we one of the grim, sweaty faces slogging it out on a piece of gym equipment? I fully get that some days it’s enough to just get the job done, but how often do we honestly end up bringing this mindset to our physical activity? There’s a difference between “working out” to put in your time and participating with full mental engagement. (Which would you rather do and keep up over a lifetime?) If we have to put ourselves in zone out mode to fulfill our workout goals, are we shortchanging ourselves?

Endurance athletes who obviously do the same activity for extended periods collect their mental tricks – homing in on the aspects of their environments, gauging progress by the details of the route, etc. Yet, it’s not an out of body experience either. There’s even a new area of exercise science research that affirms the importance of mindfulness and acceptance (PDF), suggesting the practices can take us farther (literally and figuratively) than denial and distraction. Being fully conscious of the body’s sensations (however unpleasant) and emotionally assimilating the stress, burn or even pain can boost resilience and performance. Even if we’re not operating in the athletic arena but just trying to build personal Grok-worthy fitness, what can we do to get into the “heart” of our activity and fully back in our bodies. Trust me, replaying the day’s stress to get your mind off your exertion won’t get you far. The same goes for using anger as fuel. Instead of using a workout to “process,” we’re better off being with the immediate process (activity) itself. Reaching for music, I think, can be a unique exception and is often less a true distraction than an added layer or additional energy source playing parallel to the rhythm of physical motion.

Present Eating: Take a Seat.

Eating is unfortunately one of the most mindless things we do in our culture. Mindless snacking fodder inhabits whole rows of grocery stores. We’re often expected (or believe we’re expected) to scarf down lunch at our desks. We eat while we’re driving, while we’re watching T.V., while we’re holding meetings, while we’re doing laundry, loading the dishwasher. None of these scenarios hold much comparison to the simple or celebratory social practices that traditional peoples are known to apply to eating.

The discrepancy suggests an issue with time and attention as well as our relationship with food itself. Yes, it’s ultimately fuel to burn, and not every day can be a Norman Rockwell moment. That said, how we think about food impacts how our bodies processes it. How we enjoy it influences the satiety we experience. How healthy can our relationship to food be when the majority of eating happens while we have our nose in a phone or our mind on making the next exit? (No wonder we make the eating choices we do.) There’s something to stopping the car and sitting at the park to enjoy your lunch even if it’s just a hard-boiled egg and some cut vegetables. Go off automaton mode long enough to look at that tea you’re drinking. Ask yourself if the tiff with your spouse earlier in the day is at work in how much or what you reach for throughout the day. When you slow down and differentiate hunger from emotion, you can better appreciate the food you eat. Yet, it’s also about valuing yourself and the act of your own nourishment.

Being There – for Yourself and Others

Experts frequently bemoan the lack of communication and emotional skills in the younger, tech-dependent generation. Yet, how many of us would recognize our own behavior let alone feel good about it if we were flies on our own walls? How much do we let external distractions and personal moods influence our exchanges (or lack thereof) with those we love? Do our partners or children give up trying to get our attention as we respond to one more work email? Do we really hear what a friend is trying to tell us about her day as we decide a phone conversation is the perfect time to multitask as many household chores as we can? Do we stay in touch with what our physical bodies and emotional intuitions need from us at a given moment, or are we too hell-bent on powering through our days that we end up suffering the effects of chronic stress? Do we approach bedtime with a similar “zone out” mentality of consuming entertainment until our brains give out?

Being more present and fully accounted for to ourselves and others lends a different rhythm to life – one much more natural to the human operating system. My experience is that it unexpectedly slows down time. Less gets lost in the shuffle. There’s an intricate link between mindfulness and compassion for good reason. In fact, it can be rather shocking what we attune ourselves to and wonder how we got along without it – how our kids or other loved ones could’ve gotten along without it. We get to re-familiarize ourselves with the softness of our toddler’s hair, the contours of our partners face, the subtle hints our teenager drops about his/her interests and life questions these days as well as the shifts in ourselves – our own needs and evolving interests. (Ever feel the need to just catch up with yourself?) In being present, we stop simply responding. We turn off the auto-pilot. Instead, we open up space for interaction and observation that too often gets closed down in the thick of modern hubbub and mental chatter. It’s the space where intuition operates and intimacy flourishes – two of the most essential human instincts. Being present, in fact, puts us squarely in the immediate moment but accesses something of ourselves that’s evolutionarily fundamental. When we think about living with ancestral wisdom, being with the immediate moment taps us into one our most powerful Primal patterns.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. What does being present mean for your Primal journey? When/where have you noticed it working most in your life? Have a great end to the week.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-difference-can-being-present-make/#ixzz39m7sdCet

Putting A Smile On My Face!

Tonight as I drove home from the hospital all I could think about was how much I love my daughter. I have always looked at her as my little girl until this week and now all I see is this beautiful young lady that possesses the brains and determination to do anything she puts her mind to.

Maggie is my first child and will always be my first everything. The first time I ever saw her I almost fainted. Since she was a c-section baby my wife and I had a divider between my wife’s upper torso and myself sitting next to her, on the other side was the doctor, Kathy’s lower torso and the surgery that was going on. When I heard the cry of the baby I told Kathy I wanted to stand and look over at the baby. We did not find out beforehand if it was a boy or a girl so I was very curious. I stood to see a baby with a head covered in red which looked like blood. I was instantly panic struck, what is wrong I thought? At which time the doctor said “we have a beautiful, healthy little redheaded girl!” As the blood rushed back into my head I realized that what I thought was blood was actually hair so I sat back down before I fell down. This was my introduction to fatherhood and life with my daughter.

Now when I say Maggie is a redhead, I mean she is not an average redhead. When she was younger her hair was like fire and keeping a low profile with a child that looked like Maggie was not an option. For Maggie it was just life and she has handled it with grace. 

Her hair was like fire and so is her personality. She was always on the go from day one. She inherited the night owl personality I had developed over years of being a bartender so I spent the first few months of her life playing with her when I would come home from work after a late evening at the country club I was managing at the time. We would play and have our time together as mama would get her sleep after a long day of tending to Maggie’s needs.

As Maggie grew up she displayed the smarts and stubbornness she had inherited from both of her parents and everything always had to be a certain way, the way she liked it, the Maggie way. The funny thing was that my wife and I noticed that she was usually correct in the way she wanted things so the two of us would laugh and shake our heads and give her the benefit of the doubt when she had a request for something.

This is where we come to this past week. Maggie wanted this surgery, she prepared herself for it over the past several months and when it was time to step up and do it she was ready and present. It is hard for us as parents to watch her struggle in pain but she just keeps pushing each day and I have a new kind of love for someone that I never thought I could love any more than I already did. I guess its respect in some ways that adds the new dynamic but it’s also a new kind of beauty I see in her. I have always been attracted to strong personalities; if you know my wife you may understand that statement a little more than others. I now see in Maggie what I have always seen in my wife a strong, now taller, (1 inch) young lady that makes me smile when I look at her.

Tonight as I left the hospital I could not say a word, I could only smile at her. I am not the kind of guy that walks around with a smile on my face but tonight I walked all the way to my car and drove all the way home with a smile on my face.

Thank you God for this gift and for keeping her safe. 

Man vs. Women, Brave vs. Toughness!

Women just put men to shame, I say this because this week I saw something that just convinced me of it and I do not think my mind could ever be changed to thinking differently.

Almost a decade and a half ago I watched my wife experience child birth and after seeing her body change and then have to experience a cesarean (c-section) birth with my daughter I figured we may be one and done. But a few years later she was ready to do it again and could not wait to “experience” it all over. She was told from the beginning that if you have a c-section the first time you most likely will have to have it again with the next and that didn’t even make her flinch.

Could you imagine a man going through child birth? I personally could not do it. I would wager to guess that if it were up to men to populate this world there would be a lot fewer of us running around.

As an athlete growing up I was a pretty competitive athlete and I never seemed to walk away from a challenge. I thought the harder something was the more I would enjoy succeeding at it. My first love was baseball and I was a catcher. The equipment used by a catcher is referred to as the tools of ignorance because you are either as tough as nails or ignorant to want to squat down in front of a guy that is going to throw a hard baseball at you at speeds of 80-100 mile per hour and oh by the way sometimes is curves, slides or knuckles in mid air as its coming at you. Years later I am finding out that I must have been ignorant because compared to what I have experienced lately I was not tough at all.

This past week if you read my last Blog post you know my daughter had corrective surgery for scoliosis. Maggie had a severe curvature of her spine and the doctor recommended she have this procedure. We first noticed the issue when she was about seven or eight years old and my wife made a visit to a specialist north of our home here in Florida.  We went through the process of a back brace for Maggie while she slept for a few years but the issue continued.

We were told that the age of fourteen was the best time to do this so the plan was the summer of her fourteenth birthday she would have this operation done. As the time approached and we made more and more visits to the doctor the reality and the intensity of that reality increased. I could feel myself growing uneasy with concern for my daughter and what she was about to experience.

As we sat in the office with the doctor and he explained how the procedure would be done and then went into the percentages of what could happen I began to worry in particular about the 2% chance of never walking again? When you hear that, you forget about the 98% chance of everything being fine and cannot help but to focus on that 2% and worry. But Maggie never wavered.

During that last week before the operation it really began to hit her and at about this time my wife being the wonderful protective mom she is offered to cancel the operation if she did not want to follow through with it. Maggie once again with all the maturity and conviction of someone, anyone that has ever set a goal said “I am doing this” and that was it.

The day came and at 4:00am we woke and headed to the hospital. After some time registering in and prepping with the nurses it was time to head to the waiting room for the next seven and a half hours. After about six of those hours the doctor came out and told us everything went wonderfully.

That, I was told was the hard part. For me the hard part had just kicked in. No parent wants to see their kid in pain but this was different. When we got to the room, finally, Maggie was a trouper. She was visibly uncomfortable but with all the pain medication she was flying high. Keeping her sense of humor about her with all the sarcasm a fourteen year old could muster she provided us with continuous comedy as she barked out her needs and demands.  Within 24 hours of her operation she stood from her bed as if unimpressed with herself. Within 48 hours she was sitting up in a lounge chair and in less than three days of having her back opened and two rods and nineteen screws placed into her spine she was walking around the hospital floor with ease.

So you want to talk about who is braver, a little girl or a full grown man? Who can handle pain, a female or a male?

I give!

I cannot compete in my own household on either level with the women I live with.

I seem to gain more and more respect for the other sex with every year I grow older. After years of being educated by my wife I am learning from my daughter how to carry oneself with confidence and pride as well the belief that things will work out.  To say that Maggie impressed me this week would be an understatement. She almost seemed to know what she had to do and focused on completing the task at hand even as those around her did not understand what was going on. The nurses told her what was going on with her body and she pushed through any pain and the frustration of the drugs in her system to reach her personal goal.

I was a bouncer for a number of years in a night club in New Jersey and I would like to offer this little bit of advice, the next time someone challenges you and your Machismo just tell them to deal with your woman because they seem to handle everything better than we do.

 I wrote this more as a journal entry for myself to keep as a remembrance of this week because this was the hardest thing I have ever had to do as a father or as a man.  I thank God everything worked out for the best and I am thankful to the doctors and nurses at the hospital for the wonderful treatment Maggie and all of our family has received this past week.  

Maggie, The Apple of My Eye!

Life is getting in the way lately but I am not complaining. For instance I am sitting here at work and can hardly focus on anything because tomorrow my baby girl will have scoliosis correction surgery. There is a much longer medical term for this but I can’t spell it and you can’t pronounce it so I figure why bother.

She is now fourteen years old and braver than I was at her age. This girl amazes me with how calm and focused she is. I am scared to death and she is determined as hell.

Last week, my wife gave her an opportunity to cancel the operation when she finally made mention of her fears and she said “no I want it done”. It is amazing how kids can be so brave and when they should be leaning on their parents for support their parents are secretly leaning on them for the same help. 

It will be a long stressful five hour waiting period tomorrow I am sure but in the end with God’s help I feel confident that all will work out for the best.

My daughter as is my son is everything to me. She is so much like me that it annoys me, but then again she is so very different than I am that I am in awe of her greatness. We have the same sense of humor which absolutely disgusts my wife some days and helps us to relate to each other on a different level other times as we try to out do each other. Basically, she gets me and what else could a father want than to be understood by his daughter.

Most days I can do nothing but shake my head as I watch her grow into a beautiful young lady. I am sure this will be another thing that will keep me awake at night. If my sister thought she had it hard with me looking over her shoulder I can imagine my baby girl will also have a more difficult time of it with any boy that dares to step foot into my house.

Maggie is as smart as a whip and loving, she gets that from her mother, but she is also carefree, confident and above all caring of others at the same time. I cannot wait to see her beautiful smiling face after this is all over with tomorrow and then watch her take on high school over the next four years.

I ask that you keep her in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days. 

On a different subject; I decided to go back to being 100% Primal, and made my adjustments over the weekend to starting today. I feel at my best when I am eating this way and decided it was time to buckle down and get to business. I have become so much healthier over the past few years with Beachbody fitness programs being my primary vehicle toward a better lifestyle. I am stronger and feel much better but nutrition was something I never really totally committed to.

When I did the 21 Day Primal Blueprint in June of 2012 during my transition from my old job to my current job I lost 16 pounds in that twenty-one day period and I should have never stopped.  I spent the weekend putting things in place and I am looking forward to committing and making the next set of changes in my journey.

The goal is to be in better shape at 50 years old than I was when I was 30 years old and sadly I do not think it will be all that hard to accomplish. Maybe I should make that goal 20? Maybe I will. That’s what goal setting is all about. 

One Step at a Time

I read this and thought about the will of one person and the desire she had to finish not because of herself but for all the people that came to her mind. It may be an individual sport but it takes the support of all to compete even when you are alone.

Here is the link to the actual article with pictures.

One Step at a Time
By Jessica Van Orden

I arrived in Cozumel on Thursday, Nov. 28, a week after learning I would have no roommate and be racing an Ironman with zero support on site. The flight, shuttle and ferry went smoothly, so I was in good spirits. Friday arrived and I was excited to pick up my bike. It had been two weeks since I’d seen her.
This is about where my luck ended for the weekend. When I picked up my bike, the rear tubular would not hold any air. After inspection by three mechanics, it seemed the valve had separated from the tire and needed to be replaced. Knowing nothing about tubulars and not speaking Spanish, this quickly became a major problem. I spent that afternoon frustrated, looking for a solution. At 5 p.m., I found a third mechanic that was able to replace the tire for a reasonable price. But to add to my problems, I discovered my phone was not charging. Being alone in Mexico became extremely lonely and only very minor, brief communication was possible the rest of the trip.

Saturday morning came and for the second time the practice swim was canceled due to the rough waters. This added to my nervousness. I headed out on a practice ride finally and got caught in another downpour. I returned to the hotel drenched from head to toe. My bag check time was in two hours, so I wrung out my things and packed my bike and run bags. I left my bike shoes in the sun in hopes of drying them slightly before they had to sit in a plastic bag overnight. At 3 p.m., I grabbed the bus to transition, got marked and planned where to eat my early dinner.

Four Games in Four Days

When I first moved down to Florida I was able to feed my love for baseball in the month of March with all the Spring Training baseball I could fit in 30 Days. I was single and I worked nights so all I really had to do was wake-up in time to make it to my destination for this to happen. I shared photos and stories of how great it was with my northern friends and all of them said how great it sounded and would need to plan a trip some day. Well this weekend (23 years later) one of them finally decided it was time to make the trip. My closest and oldest friend Joe finally decided it was time.  Here is a little journal of our trip.  

Day One was a trip to Tampa to see the Yanks and Tigers on Monday night. It was cold and got down to 49 degrees which would not have been too bad had I paid attention to the tickets and saw it was a night game. So when we got to Tampa at 11:15 am and none of the parking lots were open we kind of wondered what was up. We needed to figure out something fast and we figured a double header would be a great way to start the weekend. We decided to drive over to Dunedin since we had a few hours to burn. The scalpers wanted $50 for a $14 general admission ticket, too rich for our taste so we headed back to Tampa and made the best of it.

A little batting practice on one of the side fields and then into the big park to see the “stars” Watching Miguel Cabrera is just a wonderful experience these days. I watched him hit when he was younger and with the Marlins and it was impressive but now it’s just unreal. He makes it look so easy and effortless. My buddy Joe is a Yankee fan so he got to see Jeter dink a few hits and it made his day.

Iron and the Soul – By Henry Rollins

Iron and the Soul – By Henry Rollins
December 04th, 2009

Iron and the Soul – By Henry Rollins

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.

Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.

The Challenge

The Challenge is just that..a challenge. Today was my second attempt at it and although I did improve on my performance I have work to do. I have never been a pullup guy; being big first off it is discouraging to only lift yourself two to five times per set, the reward is there if you put in the effort.

When I did my rounds of P90X I was using a 100 pound test band to get the same resistance as if I were doing a pullup. I never committed to a full round with just pull-ups so with P90X3 I decide to commit to all pull-ups all the time. The result so far is an increase in my repetitions after just one week.

Now pushups are a different story, I can pump them out all day since I have what has been referred to as a “barrel chest” and thick arms I love the way the sets are laid out and now look forward to this workout.

The goal from the start is to pick two numbers, your first number is the total number of pull-ups you will do for each set throughout the workout and your second number is the same thing for your pushup sets. Last week I started out with 4-20 and to tell you the truth four was a bit of a reach. I felt great at the end of the workout and although I did not complete my repetitions consecutively on all sets I did meet my numbers for the entire workout.   

Today I not only completed my repetitions consecutively I completed additional repetitions as well. This showed me the improvement I have made so next week we bump the number up and I will work at meeting the goal of 6-25.

Everything in fitness is about setting goals and then smashing that goal so I will set one here and now, by the end of this program I want to complete this workout with a set number of 10-40 if and when I am able to do this I will know I have pushed myself as hard as I could have pushed.

Kathy Update; she is doing great, and working hard. After today’s workout she actually made the statement that the Challenge is her favorite workout so far.  

Be Honest With Yourself

It could be a workout program, a change in your nutrition or even a new sleep schedule the bottom line is if you want something to work you have to commit and focus for the 30, 60 or 90 days that you plan on give toward your goal.

Keep yourself accountable or find a friend or a group that will help and support you in reaching your goals and then be honest with yourself. Ask yourself daily, weekly and monthly if you CONSISTENTLY are following the plan EXACTLY the way it was designed and all the way through.  Often upon some self-reflection people find that fault lies with the operator and not the system.  That’s why using a tracking system or a journal is so effective, you can accurately gauge your consistency and it will correlate with your level of success.

Natalie N., a mother of four achieved these awesome Chalean Extreme results while going from self-loathing and unhealthy to ripped and happy.  Having not exercised in years, Natalie started with Turbo Jam but soon decided to crank it up a notch with Chalean Extreme to finish her dramatic transformation.

Shakeology was also a vital part of Natalie’s Chalean Extreme results.  Not only did it fuel her body and prevent junk food cravings, but it eliminated her IBS symptoms.  This is another testament to the power of Shakeology and fueling your body with what it actually needs!

Like many that have achieved great Chalean Extreme results, Natalie was a member of a Challenge Group!  These online accountability groups are extremely effective in helping you stay on track and provide the extra support that often makes the difference between success and failure.  I am constantly forming new Challenge Groups.  If you are interested in learning more about my exclusive challenge groups, please contact me at rob@homeplatefitness.com

Thanksgiving Mayhem!

Thanksgiving Day can get more decadent than you expected. Let’s face it: Everyone blows his or her calorie budget every now and then. Do you need to worry? Is that old dieter’s saying, “a moment on the lips, forever on the hips” really true? And what should you do next.

The good news is, one meal is not going to ruin you if you eat sensibly and exercise regularly the rest of the time and get back to your routine. You need to eat 3,500 calories to gain one pound of body fat, so it’s unlikely that a single overindulgence will show up on the scale.

No one is perfect in their eating habits. What we have to learn is that we are giving ourselves permission to do this, and as soon as it’s over, we should go back to the eating plan we normally follow. This does not give us permission to continue to overeat and binge.

Let Go Of “Can’t”

Telling ourselves that we “can’t” accomplish something is 99% of the time a big fat lie.

If you physically cannot do something, that’s fine. Embrace what you can do and work your way up to being able to do what you couldn't today.

Refuse to settle for “Can’t” becoming your automatic response to discomfort. Instead, take on an “I sure can try,” attitude. Here’s what I mean…

·   When starting a new fitness program and you’re sweating and huffing and burning and you have another set, well, unless you’re on the verge of passing out, you can pause regain your composure and push on.

·   Getting tired of salads and oatmeal and it looks like it’s going to be difficult to stick to your new nutrition plan, is it physically impossible for you to stick to it? Nope. Think of what your “Why” is and push on.

·   Think you “can’t” give up that nasty habit that’s keeping you from getting healthy? Think again! You can do this and I am here to help.

When you tell yourself you can’t do something, it bleeds into other areas of your life, permeating your outlook on all things. Start saying “can’t” with your fitness goals, and you’ll start finding excuses for why you can’t achieve a higher position at work, a better relationship with your spouse, and so on.

While you dance like no one is watching, what song is being played?

Some of my favorites, you may be surprised, 

It's U2 what did you expect? This was the song that started it all. 

Always made my feet tap, Thank you Danny C

Slow and Steady Wins the Race!

Exercise is great, so the more you do the better you feel? Wrong. If you are trying to out exercise a bad diet you will never reach whatever large or small goals you set for yourself but I am not talking about your nutrition this time. The amount of exercise needed to "cancel" out a bad meal is enormous. In addition, it usually leads to injury. It certainly is possible to do hours of intense exercise a day, but it's something that has to be worked up to. For most people that want to be fit and healthy and look good doing it, a few intense workouts a week combined with staying active is plenty to get the job done.

I am not saying stop your current workout program. I am saying I try to get in some form of physical activity 7 days a week. However, 4 of those days are leisure activity like walking, biking, or hiking. I can get by taking it easy on those 4 days of the week because the other 3 are very intense workouts. They include a combination of strength training and HIIT cardio. My exercise program has everything I need to build and maintain muscle, and improve my cardiovascular system. Most importantly though, it gives me ample time to rest and recover.

  

When I first started to pursue my fitness goals I had developed a bad habit of over training, doing multiple workouts each day and following that schedule for a few weeks at a time, usually until my body gave out. Let your body rest and try not to overdo it!

If you look at the graph to the right you will see what I am talking about. I often teetered between the success on the right and the failure on the left. Over-training will leave you feeling sick, with flu like symptoms, dehydrated, fatigued and sometime in pain. 

There will be times when you can push the intensity and workloads harder for periods of time, and there are very sport-specific training programs which require that. However, for the majority of people that just want to be healthy, fit, and leaner than the average person, the key is finding consistency in your workout program, and that means finding something you can handle long term, being patient, and letting the fat come off over time. The longer you can stick to your current exercise program, the more successful you will be. Over exercising is not going to get you to your goals any faster.

Happy Birthday Roberto!

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in all of sports. There have been great hitters, great fielders, guys with blazing speed. You can hit for average or hit for power and you can be a "Five Tool Player" but you can't be one of those five tool players unless you have the ability to throw a baseball. 

To me throwing a baseball from your position to the destination you have chosen is the most beautiful form of art in sports. I was a catcher and I will say that throwing a runner out that was attempting to steal on me, my pitcher or our team was more rewarding than hitting the ball out of the park. A third-basemen that can flick his wrist and send the ball to first from foul territory from an off balance position still today gets my vote for play of the day. To this day John Elway is one of my favorite quarterbacks not because of a single pass he made on the football field but because of a throw I saw him make while playing for a Yankees farm team in Oneonta, New York from the right field corner nailing a player going from first to third on a sure double. 

Watching Roberto Clemente throw the baseball from deep in the corner of rightfield to third base was one of those things of beauty. I have only seen it on film but, I can certainly imagine that ball traveling on a rope to where ever Roberto decided it needed to be. I have seen some of the greats, Dwight Evans and the recently retired Vladmir Guerrero or Dave Parker make some unbelievable throws but from what I have seen and as legend tells us Roberto was the best. 

It's an honor to be remembered for anything in professional sports but when you are remembered for being great and then remembered for being a better person than you were a ballplayer that is special. 

Happy Birthday Roberto, you were taken too early and many of today's players could have used your guidance. 

Bryce Harper Plays Too Hard?

Now that Bryce Harper is in his second season and new exciting rookies have appeared on the scene, the wunderkind is expected to mature and round out his potential. One aspect of Harper’s play, one of Harper’s defining aspects, that has been under discussion this season is whether he plays too reckless and aggressive. Most people say Harper’s forceful style of play is an injury risk that would lead them to take Mike Trout as a franchise player over him.

Watching the Braves vs. Nationals game last night I watched as Harper flat out teed off on a fastball sending it deep to centerfield without any kind of showboating he watched the ball fly out as he put his head down and ran the bases like a professional. On his next at bat he was promptly hit in the thigh by rookie pitcher, Julio Teheran, this would have angered me to no end but Harper said his piece and headed to first base. The benches cleared and additional words were shared before the game resumed.

Harper’s aggressiveness has been compared many times to that of Pete Rose. Rose himself weighed in on this topic in an interview I read. “There’s a difference between playing hard and playing recklessly. And Bryce plays recklessly.” This is coming from the guy who dislocated Ray Fosse’s shoulder in an exhibition game. Rose bruised his knee on that play and missed three games as a result. Nobody ever talks about that.

This year we have been treated to the overly aggressive and reckless styling’s of Yasiel Puig the Dodgers Cuban Rookie. I also caught the interview with Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly on PTI where Mattingly critiques Puig’s game saying he is exciting and that the weakest and most reckless part of his game is his base running and that he feels that Puig will sometimes seem to run until he is tagged. 

The misadventure that sticks out most in people’s minds is when Harper crashed into the Dodger Stadium wall. But there’s nothing wrong with Harper’s “mindset” or “style” that will have him colliding full steam with unpadded walls his whole career. He got a bit lost in the outfield which in that same interview, Rose pointed out, is still a fairly new position for him. Less than two weeks later, the mortal Harper may even have cost himself an important catch because the Dodger Stadium episode was still in his head.

If you remember Puig ran into the same wall and although he injured himself and missed a few games he did not miss a month like Harper did.

I have not seen Bryce Harper play recklessly this year. In fact, Harper has matured in much the same way people expected he would. Last year, he was prone to high-intensity, low-percentage throws when there were smarter plays available. Watching Adam LaRoche gave him a talking-to in the dugout after one error on an overthrow led to a run against Colorado last year. This year, he’s been throwing back to the infield more often instead of trying for every play at home. I believe that Harper has proved that concerns about his emotional maturity from the minor leagues were overblown. People will hopefully soon realize that he’s not a danger to himself physically, either.

I believe that luck has a lot to do with the fortunes of baseball and baseball players. The ball bounces in odd ways for a round object. Injuries are a part of all sports but playing hard should never be an option. Going all out day in and day out is the only way you can become a legend. Look at Sandy Koufax and his short career, pitching with an elbow that was really non-functional and he was unhittable. Or look at Eric Davis and his injury plagued career, the man was 6 foot 2 and 165 pounds during his playing days and played like he was 6’6” 240 pounds. Watching him try to run through walls to catch a ball or in the 1990 World Series where he actually ruptured his spleen? Who does that? The great ones do that’s who!