Fitness plans for the new year

[I really didn’t organize this, it’s a bit stream of consciousness]

Usually crap New Year’s resolutions – blah blah – eat better, exercise more so on and so forth.

Really could care less about all that. I think that focusing on weight is not a great idea. What purpose does your weight serve? Instead I’m focusing on some stuff I want to do that will require me to be in better athletic condition than I am now. If I happen to lose weight or look better as a result fine, but I’m really not concerned about that.

First event coming up is the Warrior Dash in April. However it sort of collides with the LaRue 3gun match in Austin so I might do that instead and go to the Warrior Dash in Conroe on March 19. We’ll see. I’m still picking out events that I want to attend this year. I want to get in to doing 3gun matches because the videos look like a lot of fun. For instance, last year they did a ‘drive by’ stage:

One of the main events I’m going to do is Tiger Valley’s Bug Out Drill. Some of my internet friends have done it and it is a lot of fun. Tough (a 15 mile hike while carrying gear) but a lot of fun (various challenges along the way). On top of all of this is that I’ll start doing track days in March. Riding a motorcycle ‘fast’ requires good physical conditioning.

A lot of skill is involved in doing this stuff. However, you don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to do it. The other stuff like the Dallas Mud Run and Merrell Down & Dirty Dallas requires a little bit of fitness, but again: not Olympic athlete fitness to do it. I’m just going to have some fun and have a reason to exercise. Otherwise, why bother?

How do I plan to get in shape? Nothing earth shattering. Simple stuff like pushups, sit ups, leg lifts, squats along with jogging roughly 2 miles each morning. I do about 5 miles on weekends. I’m also going to add some weight lifting to the routine. Probably twice a week. As for diet I’m not going to kill myself. First, and probably most effective, is to get back to planning menus in advance and sticking to them. That cuts out the impulse to have Chinese food or Pizza delivered. We’ll probably start back to the 30day cooking thing.

The benefit of 30 day cooking is that you have everything planned out and partially prepped ahead of time. This can make preparing dinner a snap when you are either in a rush or just don’t freaking feel like it. You can also change your mind about what you are having without having to order out.

For instance I buy these packets of chicken breast at CostCo. There are 12 breasts in 6 packets. I open half of them, season and grill them right away. I take the cooked chicken breasts, wrap them and put them in the freezer. Need a chicken Caesar salad? Just grab a breast out of the bag, thaw it, heat it up, chop it up and your good to go. Hamburger meat gets turned in to patties and frozen and some of it is seasoned (salt, pepper and garlic) and browned and then frozen. So hamburgers, tacos or chili is really easy to pull off.

Two reading resources I like are “4 Hour Body” by Tim Ferris and “Fit for Combat” by JD Johannes. Right now 4HB (roll eyes) is all the rage. Truth is Ferris really doesn’t introduce anything new, but I like his writing style and some of the crazy shit he does. A lot of people absolutely can’t stand him, which because so many people are complete morons, makes him more interesting. His other book “4 hour work week” has a lot of interesting ideas that are worth considering. However, be prepared that there are risks involved, but everything has risks. I’ve been JD Johannes blog for a long time and “Outside the Wire” is a good look in to what Iraq is like. In his case compared do your usual run of the mill journalist this guy actually got outside of the hotel to see what was going on in Iraq. Logging video gear while wearing body armor and running around with a bunch of crazy Marines takes both courage and fitness.

So basically in my opinion both authors have a certain amount of credibility. The first part of Ferris’s book focuses on diet. Nothing new: quit eating all the sugar and refined crap. This also includes the diet sodas (which is a damn lie!). This is basically what is called the Paleo diet. If it is or could be white: skip it. That means wheat, rice, corn, and sugar. You should also skip fruit b/c of the fructose content which doesn’t help. To build muscle up: eat lots protein. Muscle burns calories. More muscle burns more calories. Buy continuing to supply your body with protein it will use its fat stores to help meet your muscles needs. Fail to supply enough calories the body will use muscle to make up the difference and save the fat. Eat enough of the right type of calories (proteins mostly).

The goal in all of this is to be in a good enough condition to be able to do well in all of the events and be able to have fun with my friends. Ideally when I get home I’d like to not crash out and spend the next week recovering. We’ll see how I do.