Jackie and Dan’s Journey, Week 24

Hey folks!  We’re right around our “halfway point” on this year’s fitness journey!  I know updates have been spotty at best over the past two months, what with the wedding and all that nonsense, but never fear, our weekly posts are returning!  It’s just me, this week, but Jackie should be re-joining us this Sunday!

So where am I at, six months in?  Honestly, not that good a place.  I was doing pretty well for a while, but I fell off the bus a bit when it came to the wedding, and the honeymoon afterwards.  I didn’t work out nearly as much as I should have over the past couple months, AND I ate HORRIBLY on my honeymoon (because hey, I’m only getting one of these!).  No joke, I gained six pounds in a week an a half.  That’s CRAZY!

Last weigh-in (pre-wedding): 199
This Week’s Weigh-in: 205

I’m looking to get back on the plan, starting this week, but I’m going to be making some modifications.  In my initial goal-setting post, one of the goals I wanted to meet was to qualify for “The World’s Toughest Mudder” competition.  Unfortunately, the Tough Mudder organization has made it a pay-to-qualify event this year, rather than only leaving it open to the top 5% of competitors in regular Mudders.  As such, I’ve kind of lost my motivation on this front.  This, coupled with the fact that I may not, financially, be able to run a Mudder this year (what with looking to buy a house and whatnot), I’ve decided to alter my fitness goals and workout plans a bit.

My previous goals were:

• 185 Toned, muscular pounds.
• Full range of flexibility back(ideally I’d like to have the splits down by the end of the year).
• Able to do 100 pushups consecutively.
• Run a sub 2:45 Tough Mudder

I was going to accomplish this by sticking to The Fighter Diet and utilizing The Ezio Workout.  I did okay for all of the craziness of the last six months following this plan sporadically, bottoming out at close to 200 pounds, but honestly I didn’t make diet/sleep/exercise mesh up on a regular basis at any point.  If I had, I’d probably already be at my goal.

So what’s to do?  Well, make some changes, and get back in!  Here are my new goals:

• 185-190 pounds, well muscled, and solid
• Full range of flexibility
• Gain the body of Kratos

Yeah, that’s right folks, we’re hopping off the Ezio train and hopping onto the murderous Greek god train!  I’m going to be using The Kratos Workout as a blueprint, and throwing in some dumbbell work from The Udyr Workout as well!  I’m still going to be sticking with the Fighter Diet as before, but I don’t want to turn into a twig, so I’m going to be tuning the diet as I go to get rid of my bodyfat, but build some solid muscle mass.  I still want to keep my agility/flexibility, however, and I’m going to keep my parkour practice up as well.

I’m really excited to get back into this again, and the change up in workout regimens is a great way to liven things up from the get-go.  If you ever find yourself getting hung up on, or bored with your workout program, consider switching things up for a bit.  We’ve talked about this before in Leveling Up: How to Break Through the Plateau, but in this situation it’s less that I’ve hit a plateau I can’t get above, but rather I’ve lost interest and need to spice things up a bit.  Never pass up cross-training as a way to liven up your fitness schedule!

Sorry this post wasn’t up last night, I was in the throes of celebrating my birthday (woohoo!).  My brother, my wife, and the rest of my family were nice enough to pool their funds so I could splurge and get a new gaming PC to replace the dead doorstop that sits next to my desk, and I stayed up for a few hours drooling over and comparison shopping various components on Newegg.  So psyched!

Anyhoo, that’s going to be it for today.  I’m hoping to put together a cool diet/fitness infographic for Thursday’s post, so make sure you come back and check it out!  Thanks again for reading, and taking part in this awesome journey with me!

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Dan “DaRatmastah” Wallace