Sunday Football- How to Stay Productive

Sunday football is the main reason why I love the fall. Its the chance at the end of the week to kick back relax and enjoy a full day of games. Eating a ton of junk food and sitting on the couch all day checking fantasy football updates on the laptop happens every hour on the hour. If my fantasy teams and real team have been defeated, I feel as though I accomplished nothing the whole day. So here’s my plan to be productive on Sundays during football.

Go to the gym early. Early on a Sunday is 10. This gives you enough time to sleep-in, get a full workout in without missing any of the pre-game coverage. There is plenty of time left to grab food or take a shower and meet up with friends at the bar.

Being productive before the games start doesn’t only mean a trip to the gym. On Sundays mornings I love to go to Starbucks and get work done on my laptop. With plenty of online options, you can stay updated on your all your teams. If your work requires you to stay a little longer than expected, there are plenty of sites online that stream the games. Whether they are legal or illegal streams is a different question, but as long as you have an internet connection, you can find a site streaming every sporting event.

End of the Year Advice

 

Do Something, Anything

 

Deciding to work out is like a box of chocolates… Today the answer may be crossfit, using the stair master for 30 minutes, or 100 push-ups and sit-ups at night. Regardless of the exercises one chooses, effort will play a major role in the results achieved. Cliche- you get out what you put in.  There is an abundance of exercises to solve every excuse a person can come up with about why they aren’t where they want to be. Can’t run because of bad knees? Go swimming instead. Don’t know how to swim? Learn. The list goes on and on no matter what the excuse.

 

Set Short-term and Long-term Goals

 

The world is result-oriented. The end result is the most important thing and the faster the better. A mentality like that may build success in the world of business but that means failure in the world of fitness. Losing 12 pounds in a week like a contestant on The Biggest Loser isn’t normal.  A team of doctors, registered nutritionists, chefs, and personal trainers are at their disposal. There are weeks where those contestants don’t even lose weight with all that help behind them. Set realistic goals with realistic time frames. You may want to lose 50 pounds, set a goal for 10 and see what happens after you achieve that. You may want to run the New York City Marathon, try running a mile first and see how you feel. It is easy to get frustrated when we don’t arrive at a goal. Setting short-term goals are important in reaching the long-term goals we set for ourselves. 

 

Don’t Do Complete 180s

 

This applies most with diets. If your diet is not great, make small changes until it becomes a normal thing to do. If you eat fast food four times a week, try only on weekends. Be a glass half full person. Instead of thinking about how many bad meals you ate this week, think of how many good meals you had. Take a week to learn a healthier breakfast to make or buy. Do the same for lunch, dinner, and between meal snacks. Then repeat. If you know all the names of the fast-food places in your neighborhood, you should want to learn a healthy alternative to each of those places. 

 

Happy Monday!!!

 

It’s the start of a new week and opportunities to better ourselves. The Super Bowl diet plan I was trying to stick to didn’t go as planned. I had 6 beers instead of 4, but they were light beer so I won’t sit here and beat myself up about it. I didn’t over eat on chicken wings, however I had a love affair with a few pieces of corn bread. I order Dallas BBQ with my friends and we all shared well and enjoyed a very exciting game.

Now that football season is over, my fitness kicks into high gear. There aren’t any social drinking events for me until my birthday in 2 months so I will end up dropping about 8 or so pounds because of the NFL offseason.

Today was leg day and it went well. I got through my routine very fast and efficiently, which gave me plenty of time to work on my flexibility. I am extremely happy with the pace my workouts are starting to have given with the anxiety attacks I have had in the past few months.

 

With my wrists burns from the gymnastics rings starting to become less sensitive to touch, I plan on doing cardio, calisthenics, and ring training tomorrow. I am going to time my workout and try to get into a crossfit pace that I used to be comfortable with when I was an avid crossfitter.

Don’t let your Super Bowl fun spoil February training. Enjoy the cheat day and get back to business. It was a fun 3 hours of football and calories now lets do the 45 minute works to lose that 45 pounds!

The wrap up

My Thursday workout was my push-pull. I have been very consistent with writing up my workout routine before I exercise so that I won’t waste time in the gym trying to figure out what I am going to do. Half-way through the workout I started feeling under the weather and was ready to call a quits. I have been dealing with panic attacks since the summer so I just toughed it through and gave myself longer rest periods to catch my breathe and calm myself down.

My intermittent fasting is going well. I have always had good discipline with eating or not eating but this long hours do get frustrating. I even plan on fasting on Super Bowl Sunday and making sure my food consumption falls directly during the hours of the game. After the Super Bowl my social drinking and major reasons to have junk food are completely gone. Although I love all sports, football season is the biggest contributor to mess ups in my dieting.

Friday was my calisthenics day. As the gym empties out and the resolution crew disappears, I find myself with a loss of motivation. My best friend and fellow personal trainer worked out with me everyday during his school break. I have worked out by myself for years, but the recent workouts have opened me up to the idea of having a partner in the gym to give and receive motivation. Finding the right workout partner is seemingly harder than finding the right girlfriend.

Since it is first of the month I have weighed myself- 205 pounds with much improvement needed to be made. Stay motivated and dedicated because I know I will.

new diet new workouts

My rings arrived Wednesday afternoon and I wasted no time putting them into use. I prefer to use gymnastic rings outside so I can mount them high, but since the weather won’t allow me to do that for the next couple of months, I mounted them in the gym. It has been close to a year since I have been on the rings but I had a great workout doing numerous exercises on them.

I remembered to bring my athletic tape to wrap my wrists because of the wear n my skin from the false grip but the wooden rings still wore on my wrists. I hope my skin can roughen up quick so that the burn goes down quick. I will probably wait a few days before I get up on the rings, and work more on my false grip. my right wrist remembers the rings but my left wrist seems to have forgot!

I also have just started intermittent fasting. I have tried many diets over the last few years and I’m going to add this one to the list. I am still working on the most reasonable hours to fast and eat so that I don’t kill myself during hours I need the most energy.

This a picture of my dinner the night before I started my 24 hour fast. I fasted that long so that I can see what it really means to be hungry since I am accustomed to a lot of small meals through out the day.

 

Lose Weight Quick- My Trick

Well this isn’t really much of a trick. First off, there is no trick to SUSTAINED WEIGHT Loss, just a lot of self discipline and and smart decision making with what you put into your body.

When I put on extra weight, usually there is about 10-12 pounds I would like to lose. There was one purchase I have made over the years for under 20 dollars that can help me lose 20 or more pounds- Food storage containers.

These containers are microwave safe taking away excuses for eating healthy on the job away. If you are working multiple jobs there are various sizes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the healthy snacks we need to hold us over through the day.

You are now able to do healthy food shopping and stock your containers with ammo to fight the war on body fat. The only catch is being committed. Find time either early in the morning or the night before to prepare your meals. I know, I know, you don’t have any time to do that. FIND TIME. After a long day I don’t want to cook food for the next day but your body and wallet will benefit from it in the long run.

From experience, I can cook 3 meals in about an hour. As long as you are aware of your portion sizes and pack snacks, these containers will keep your wallet fat and not your belly.

This is just a regular afternoon and night in the gym training picture. I have two sandwiches for lunch and grilled chicken and brown rice for dinner. Took under an hour to make and less money than eating out.

Fit Friday

The weekend is finally here. Work and working out may not be high on the priority list, but who cares? If your weekend isn’t jammed backed with obligations make sure you get your body the rest it needs. If work murdered your gym schedule you have time now to get back into the groove of things.

My Friday fit tip is just do one thing that is going to help your body. That could be rest from overtraining, being active in sports with family and friends or not ordering pizza after a long night of drinking and partying.

This is the weekend before the Super Bowl so I will make sure I get extra calories burnt during the week because next Sunday promises wings, beer, and chips. To keep myself honest, I will only drink one beer per quarter. That doesn’t sound like much but it shows discipline even on a cheat day. Chicken wings will be around to eat but I will eat them moderately.

This leads to my next point about portion control. Our bodies are used to overeating. Eating til you are full isn’t a good thing. Your body can function at amazing levels without consuming meals that leave you full and ready to explode three times a day.

As the weekend approaches us have fun in whatever you plan for the weekend but remember less (junk food) is more (beneficial) and you can still have a great time. You can’t be all work and no play or vice versa. Just make conscious decisions in the fun you choose to have.