I will start Monday

The funny thing about starting something new like a diet or a workout is the fact most of us like to start on a Monday. You always here people say  "I will start on Monday my new diet", and sadly in most people including myself never start. Well I started Sunday my new lifestyle and kicked it off with Marks' Fitcamp. 

The class is by far my favorite class to take and in reality the only class worth money at Acac. All the other group exercise classes just do not get you the same results.  Fitcamp is a group class usually with 8-12 people who lift weights in a circuit. Sometimes, Mark makes us do tire drags, tire pushes, sandbag cleans and get ups, and my favorite battle ropes. We also do the regular deadlifts, KB swings, and squats. The class is a hour long with a 15 minute mobility warm up and 35-40 minute weight circuit. We finish class with a cool down stretch and that raps up the best workout of my week. The best part of the class the majority of the members have been together since Mark started the class. I enjoy working out with members that I see during the week when I am working. Also it is nice to have people that can push me to workout harder and push myself if I ever feel like giving up. I highly recommend this class to anyone and the best part it is free the first session so you can try it out!

Tonight I started my strength training program. I plan to lift Monday, Wednesday, Friday as those are the days that work best for me. I am also going to do 30 minutes of cardio Tuesday and Fitcamp sunday. I will be taking off Thursday and Saturday I work the longest so no working out that day. I will be following this strength training plan for 12 weeks. My training included:

Sumo DL 4x5
flat DB Bench 3x10
Single Arm Row 3x10
Lat PullDown 3x10
Half Kneeling Palloff Press 3x12
And just for a nice arm pump a Bicep/tricep burn out set

A decent workout, but I should of added some single leg lunges or squats to work on my balance. Overall, I am happy and it feels good to feel a nice pump and feel strong.

The feared "Before" pictures

Today I started my first workout with my trainer Mark. Mark is my trainer, but also my personal training boss. He is an extremely smart man who has completely changed the way trainers do their job at Acac. This has been a great change and something that has changed my whole outlook on working out and food in general. His guidance not only comes from his personal training background, but also his knowledge of healthy food through his second job as a farm owner.  Awesomeness x2!!!

 I am excited to start with Mark again as he has already helped me once before, but as always I failed to follow through to the very end and accomplish my goals. Mark and myself have a lot of conversations about why people and even why I fail. Sometimes, people are afraid to fail, but at least in my case I feel at times I fear succeeding and the unknown. Even though, many people do not want to admit more people are afraid to succeed than fail I believe. This occurs a lot in the fitness industry because many of our clients workout almost everyday. However, they never want to push themselves past what they believe they can do. Most of us (including me) when we hit a road bump or a wall we give up. I tend to give up when I am not losing enough weight or don't see enough improvement soon enough. This is something that Mark has really helped me with. He has changed the way I think of lifting and eating. Workouts are important, but for myself getting enough sleep and eating the right food is far more important. Having a good diet and enough sleep helps get you past the wall you are facing and allows you to train even harder. My goal is not to worry about my weight, but to see the changes in my clothes and my body. This is one of biggest things I try to tell my clients, which are usually women. Since, they are lifting heavier weights and doing less cardio they will see more improvements in the shape of their body than a large drop in weight.

 My goal is to gain muscle and lose fat, which in the long run will drop my weight as well. Here is my before picture and at this time I weigh 218.6. Even though, this is a terrible picture it is nice to know I can only improve from here since I have decided to make this final decision to get my body in the best shape of my life.

One area that I really want to get rid of is my stomach as this is super unattractive, but the health issues that come with having large amount of belly fat is something I rather not deal with. Well there you go first pictures and hopefully an update each week on my progress.

A new beginning

This is my first post in a new blog that will keep track of my journey.  As the title says I need to learn to finish what I have started. I have always started many projects, but never finished those that are not related to my job. Things such as redesigning the layout of my room, organizing my home work desk, and cleaning out my car I always half ass and never finish. I am not completely sure why this occurs, but I always start a protect and somehow find a way to never see it through to the end. This relates to almost everything in my life not only just projects, but even larger things such as finding a job that I love.  This is something I want to work on and I find the only way to do this is by keeping myself accountable by creating a blog and tracking what I am doing.

So, the first thing I am going to finally finish is probably the most difficult project I have ever attempted. I am referring to losing weight and keeping it off for good. I have always yo yo dieted and lost and gained weight almost every year. This is a very frustrating fact of who I am and directly comes from the fact I can never see through to the end a project. This is the most important thing for me is to lose weight and change the way I eat and live my life. Every day, I see how an unhealthy life can lead to terrible medical issues and even worse things. Since my job is  personal training I should be the one in the forefront leading people by example, but for some reason I have never been able to do this. This is not only important to a more successful job, but most importantly a healthier life. With the next updates I am going to start post before pictures and the reason why I am doing this challenge. This is more of a mental challenge because I love to workout and was a pretty good athlete before a very annoying knee injury. However, there are many different reasons why I am not eating right or not working out enough. Reasons such as not enough sleep, not enough time, or one million other reasons, but in reality I am just mentally lazy and have been unwilling to put in the work it takes to make a lifestyle change. This is the time I make a change and I hope to share this journey with the readers of this blog.