distracted's Journal

I went from potentially having to go to Michigan ---> to probably having to go to Michigan ---> to definitely having to go to Michigan ---> and then getting onto a plane to go to Michigan... all within a three hour span.

And here it is Tuesday and I'm still in Michigan. I really can't express how frusterating this is for me.

To quote Dante from Clerks, "I shouldn't even be here today!"

Shit. =(

Back to work now.

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Patrick is:

5'11"
158 lbs.
22 BMI (healthy = 20-24)
Body Fat via Tape Measurements: 6%(+/-3%, most likely plus)
Average Daily Calorie Intake: 2,500-3,000
Average Daily Protien Intake: 155-165 grams
Average Daily Carbohydrate Intake: 300-310 grams
Average Daily Fat Intake: 40-50 grams
Heavy Weight Lifting Days per Week: 3
Light Weights per Week: 2 (abs)
Cardio Days per Week: 1

None of these averages are on target 100%. I can't rely on the average on this site because of all the days that I have not logged. Those days tended to be hypercaloric. So I had to make an educated guess by raising what the site had by ten grams in each catagory and a hundred calories. I'm figuring that to be the average.

This has been my approximate weight and activity level for the last year or two. It wasn't until I started here that I started upping my calories.

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Last night was awesome! I walked around the house in my boxers, not naked. I feel like someone is watching me if I walk around naked. Oh well, I still have until Sunday when my roommates get back in town to get over that fear. I did do laundry and leave it in the dryer and I took a shower with my door cracked - I still wanted to mirror to fog up so I could paint Patrick's Mona Lisa in my mirror.

Sooooo - Yeah, that's that.

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I'm going to the gym today. I'm doing my arms and abs. It should be good. Working my arms is probably my favroite part to target. I like doing biceps well enough and it's fun, but working the triceps is by far my favroite area to target. I don't know why, but I love it. I love the feeling when your triceps are shredded and swollen. It's just... good. So I'm kind of excited about that.

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On a totally seperate note, I couldn't find anyone to go to the Devil Rays game with my tonight. That means that four tickets and a parking pass are going to go to waste. Oh well - we still have tickets to another 80 home games or so. I just hate seeing them go to waste. If I didn't live 50-55 minutes away from the stadium (which is in St. Petersburg, not Tampa), I would go down there and give the tickets away (you can't scalp a Rays ticket) - they're great seats! Someone should use them. They sit just a few row behind the Ray dug-out.

Meh - it's for the best. I want to rest tonight and take it easy. I'll go to the gym and then I'm going to just take it easy all night. I'll do some reading and whatnot. Then just fall out so I can wake up early and do some cardio on Saturday morning. That sounds great to me. Yeah - I like that plan. Take it easy, wake up early, hit the gym, enjoy the rest of my Saturday... until the evening.

I totally forgot that I have a wedding this weekend. Crap. =X

Heh - it's for work. It should be interesting.

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Anyways - Happy Friday everyone! I'm breaking out the putter and my putting green. I haven't broken in this office since we moved in!


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I'm buying a bottle and some Diet Coke on the way home. I can always rededicate myself tomorrow. Tonight I just don't care. I did some body measurements today. My body fat is under 10%... more like 6% (+/-3%). I didn't know it was that low. I think I have a disfigured view of myself in the mirror. Oh well.

I'm taking the day off from the gym, although I'll still end up doing ab work.

My roommate is out of town with her husband. The dog is gone. Last night I slept with the door to my room open for the first time in years. It was amazing. 

After I do my ab work when I get home I'm going to pour myself a drink and then I'm going to do a few laps around my condo - naked. After that, I'm going to start a load of laundry and then I'm just going to leave it in the dryer.

I might even take a shower with my door open. Shhh...

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They call me Cuban Pete
I'm the king of the rhumba beat
When I play the maracas they go chick chicky boom, chick chicky boom!

Yessir, I'm Cuban Pete
I'm the craze of my native street
When I start dancing everything goes chick chicky boom!

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Back, chest, triceps. Chick chicky boom.

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P.S. Hi. =]

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I took the night off from the gym last night and I ate like a horse - a horse with a tapeworm. I'm not counting calories today because I'm going out on a business lunch and I really don't want to bother with trying to put togther all the components of my meal and then logging it. Since I was already not logging today, I didn't even measure out my breakfast. Yeah, I'm a madman.

But today I will be going to the gym, unlike my peanut buttery night last night. I'll be pounding on my back, shoulders, neck, abs. All this excess food that I'm eating is going to be put to good use.

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And on another topic, my pants are starting to fit more tightly. Either that or they just went back down to normal size because I just washed them and I had been wearing them for two weeks straight without washing them, thus stretching them out.

I'm not sure which one it is.

Either way I feel gains - or my stomach is just more full.

Anyways, I did all but one load of my laundry last night. Next time it gets that backed up, I'm just going to buy new clothes.

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The Lightning won last night. 2-1 series lead over Jersey. Nice.

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My mind goes back and forth so much with this whole calorie counting/weight gain/cut phase thing. I've never gone through a cut phase other than when I dropped from 180 to 135. Sitting at a hair under 160 (I weighed myself recently and I am finally gaining again), I'm noticing that my abs are looking more covered in fat as they are not as defined. This makes me want to go through a cut phase which takes months to do properly. On the other hand I don't feel that I've compiled enough muscle gain through the rest of my body to do it. When you cut, some muscle is going to be lost.

So I'm sitting here wanting to cut, knowing that I shouldn't, but it's all vanity bullshit. Forgive the language. I just don't understand what happened to me to make this such an issue... or when. When I started this health kick a few years back, I never would have imagined myself here - thinking about something as vein as definition.

I just wanted to drop a couple pounds and call it quits. Heh - didn't know that this was going to turn into a life long thing with me...

Rambling. Sorry.

End. Have a good day everyone. I don't know what I've got going on at work other than lunch. Nice.

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After one heck of a weekend.

I did a lot of everything. From exercising to drinking, it was all in excess.

This is starting to be my weekend pattern. =/

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Between Saturday and Sunday I did two major weight lifting routines and two bouts on the elliptical of 20 minutes a pop. Friday I went off and did an hour on the elliptical. Sunday four of us went hiking, got lost and walked probably about ten miles, most likely more. We also played a basketball game.

All that after I said that I wouldn't do cardio. It's kind of tough for me to not do cardio on a weekend night where I know that I'm going to consume massive amounts of calories. e.g. Friday night.

Friday Night:
Went to Erik's art group's show. It sucked. It was terrible. It was so terrible that Erik couldn't even stand being there. All of us left after 30 minutes, all of us. We left in search of drink and found my Chili's (I say mine because I used to live there).

Heather was our waitress. She is fantastic. She has my drink for me by the time we get our seat. I sit down and there is a long island double (no longer my drink, but no point in ruining her fun) waiting for me. We order chips and queso. Nick and Jack decide to try long island doubles. Heh - stupids.

Keying in on this, I order a round of shots for the table - if Jack and Nick are going to follow my lead, I'm going to lead them straight into hangover hell. I order the three wise men - Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo, and Southern Comfort - a terrible shot. One might puke in their mouth just from taste alone.

We cheers and slam down shots that were large enough to be our drinks. Jack gags and I cover the nachos... because I would rather get puked on then our food. I have wonderful priorities. =X

So Heather comes back around and we order our food, another round of long island doubles and another shot each.

Food comes, we eat, buy another round and another shot, and continue on. Despite ordering the Guiltless Chicken Platter, I'm figuring that I've already made the jump from 2,000 to 3,500 calories. But this is why I did cardio.

We finish our little meal and I'm not going to go into any deeper detail as I'm sure someone will be offended at the turn that our night at Chili's took. As usual we made sure to take extra good care of Heather and we left for the night sans Steve, plus Carla and Autumn.

At this point we all gather around outside and plan on where to go next. Several of us decide to hit the liquor store and get beer. A few more were still hungry and decided to run to the store to get munchies. We decided that we would all meet at Erik's.

Everyone does their things and eventually they start pouring into Erik's. After the last person shows up with beer we calculate that the fridge holds only 175 beers. We have too many. We must make room. So we all start in.

Again, no details.

At this point I'm going to say that my calories jumped from 3,500 to about 4,300. Stupid Miller Lite and chips. On and on the night goes and up and up the calorie intake flys. But who cares? I'm drunk.

"LET'S GO TO IHOP!" Some clever person says at about 4am after hours and hours and hours of drinking.

We go to IHOP and I just have to eat yet again because all I can think about is how much cardio I did earlier and how I need to gain and how it doesn't matter if I eat even more... this is my drunken logic at least.

So I order a veggie omlett with a side of Harvest Grain pancakes and about 40 cups of coffee. Add on another 700-800 calories (running total between 4,900-5,100 calories).

Again, no IHOP details. We eat, drink, cause a mess and leave.

We leave only to go BACK to Erik's for more drinking. Forget that. I quit, I'm done, I bow out. Only Erik, Nate, and Eric still stand.

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And THAT was just the start of the weekend. Just day one and only a few hours at that. The rest of the weekend was spent joined at the hip with Jack, Erik and Nick and a few other people. I'm sure you could guess what other kind of stuff that we got into.

And, oh, did we get into lots of other things. I love these kinds of weekends. Uninhibited, uncurbed, uncontrolled. We lit up the town. It was fantastic. And I still have a stupid grin on my face from Friday night, let alone the rest of the time.

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Yesterday I was leaving work at about 4:45 pm. I start to pull out of my complex onto the major road that runs through all of Tampa. As I go to make a right hand turn into the hordes of traffic, police start SWARMING from everywhere... right beside me.

Literally. They are coming by the tens, lights flashing, sirens wailing and cutting off all traffic in the middle of rush hour. All this is happening in the entrance to my complex (where I am currently sitting, slack jawed) and in the entrance 10 feet South of me into the other complex.

What the hell? I'm... I'm getting out of here. So I pull out of the complex heading North and looking in my rear view window. As I'm doing this I notice more cops and now an abulance coming from the North. Holy crap.

I call my dad (also my boss) to tell him that something's going on. Miffed, he says, "let me know if you hear anything." Nice. So I go home and turn on the news and what's going on in the complex next to mine?

Some guy has gone into the shooting range (that's in an office complex... wth?) and taken hostages. Nice.

And here's the story from tampabayonline.com:
http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/newswire/story/north-dale- mabry-closed/

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So I've also decided that I'm kind of slacking off in the gym. I've had gains and I've added weights, but over this last week I've just been kind of in a low gear. Yesterday I didn't go to the gym. I sat and watched the news and did my abs... which I could have done much better in the gym. I still have my ankle weights, but that's not enough. Anyways, the day before I didn't do anything. The day prior to that all I did was the push-up routine. So I can't even say that I've been slacking off in the gym because I haven't even been in the gym. Blah.

On the flip side I could say that it's because I'm sore. Still, yesterday I could have done much better. Anyways, time to try to shift into high gear.

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But this time high gear is going to be different. Cardio only one day a week and THAT'S IT. I can't keep doing the cardio. You can't have it two ways. Unless you are a genetic freak, you simply cannot build significant amounts of muslce while cutting down fat.

You can't.

The numbers don't work.

That being said, I have to stop that cardio so I can have gains. Significant gains. I'm sitting here yesterday reading about how these muscle builders take in 5,000 calories a day. I'm not about to push that (nor could I if I wanted to), but if I do cardio it's going to kill any gain that I might have. So, no more. Just one day a week. Most likely before my weekend drinking night.  

I have to remain firm on this. I have to - have to - have to.

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Hi.

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Anything multiplied by three is a large difference. It's three times what you started with. Three times. That's a lot if you think of it as a percentage.

I don't really have time to check myself out in the mirror. I try to keep pretty busy through out the day. Yesterday after a couple hundred push-ups, I looked at myself in the mirror.

My chest is easily two times... probably three times the size that it was only 6 months ago (granted it was probably a bit swollen). This is braggable. Granted, three times almost nothing isn't much, but it's still three times what I started with. Just look at me in the drunken, balloon hat wearing picture at my lowest weight. No chest. Now, however, things have really changed. Really, really changed and I'm proud of myself. It's become puffy, rounded and cut.

At points I've felt like I was on a plateau. Perhaps I was wrong. My whole body is growing. I don't understand this with the weight loss from last month, but it is. I think I need to step on the scale again. I haven't since my last report of losing all that weight. I think it's possible that I'll see a gain. At least the way my body looks would lead me to believe that.

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Okay, please forgive my arrogance above. I'm just happy about the change in my body. I really don't ever get a chance to check myself out in the mirror. It was kind of cool and I had to share.

So last night... I didn't go to the gym. I know I made a pact to do so with Tamara. Instead I went into my bedroom, pulled out a small safe that stands about 10 inches off the floor, and I did all sorts of modified and regular push-ups with the safe.

So instead of tearing it up in the gym, I tore it up in my bedroom. =]

Push-ups; quite possibly the best compound exercise ever. They work your chest, your triceps, your back, and if you modify right they can work you biceps. Not to mention it requires the tightening of your abs.

I do not believe that there is one better exercise to work as many muscle groups as the push-up. You can modify it to work out one region more than the other. You can modify it almost any way that you want to.

Bust out as many of those as you can from as many different positions as you can and I will garuntee that you feel it the next day. I love doing these mini-push-up marathons.

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Due to the volume of push-ups that I did yeterday, I think that I'm going to take today off to recover. Tomorrow I will go and do my back/neck/shoulder area. Friday will be abs. Saturday will be cardio. Sunday... will most likely be another day off.

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I feel re-invigorated to eat more. That's for sure. Even on my days off like today, I'm going to eat like I was going to hit the gym.

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Okay, I'm tired of talking about working out and food.

Last night for the first time in quite awhile, I read something that I flat out didn't understand. I'm in the later part of 'Ishmael' and I read a chapter that just made me go, "huh?" So I re-read it. Again, "What?" So I read it a third time... "Okay, I need to come back to this."

I don't know what happened. The subject is getting more and more abstract. I'll see what happens when I give it a fourth run through today. Yeah, a fourth. =/

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Today I'm the only person in the office. Everyone else is on the road. I don't really have much to do as of right now. I still haven't booked the flight to Knoxville which I should do today. Other than that, I'm just kind of here.

So I came in extra casual today. =]

I'm looking forward to having a quite day as it's been crazy around here. Traininig starts for one of the cases that I've set up today. I didn't have any voice mail messages saying that anything was wrong... so I'm assuming all is well. Nice.

Okay, so I've made it quite obvious that I could sit here all day and write in my journal once again. Sorry. I'm going to go do something. Oh, I have to fix my printer. There ya go! =p

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"That's the type of combination that an idiot would put on their luggage!"

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As I sit at my desk and prepare for another day of back breaking computer work in my skull cap and Lightning Jersey, I've made a decision. And, oh, is it ever a monumental one...

I'm not going to count calories again today... Okay, so not really monumental at all. Still, it's a relief. As always, I'm just going to keep my 6 meals around 400 calories a pop and I will be happy and fine... and probably under what I need to eat.

Anyways, not having to worry about making 400 calories each time I eat will be Patrific!.. Yeah, I said it. Patrific. It's Patrick, it's terrific - it's Patrific.

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Speaking of Patrific, last night I went to the gym (surprise, surprise) and had a killer workout.... although no one died. Well, my arms might have died a little, but that's what I was trying to accomplish.

I did my arms incase the previous statement wasn't enough of a dead give-away. My bicep routine was good, but nothing to report short of my arms being huge (just kidding, of course). My triceps, on the other, hand are a different story.

I added 5 lbs to each arm. FIVE! BAMF!

e.g. Normally I would do tricep extensions with 70 lbs, 35 lbs in each hand. Last night I did 80! EIGHTY! Do you understand how much weight that is? OMG, fantastic!

When I finished my routine my tri's were visably swollen. They look wonderfully angular. Anyways, all this is quite exciting for me. If I could just get past 120 on the curls (where I've been stuck for the last few months) I would be a happy boy.

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Anyways, tonight I go back and I do either my abs or my back... or my chest. I'm still pretty undecided. I've once again switched the days that I'm doing certain parts of my body to keep it guessing. Last week my arms were done on a Wednesday. This week Monday. Next week who knows. I'll still hit each area once a week, but never on the same day and with different variations each time.

Good stuff, aye? I think so.

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Other than that, I'm still looking into supplements. I've stopped the b vitamins short of my daily multi and what's in my food. Still taking fish oil and lecathin (sp? - I think  that's correct). I'm going to look into a couple of other things... but nothing like creatine. That stuff scares me. Anything that gives results as well as creatine makes me wonder about it. Muscle growth is not supposed to be easy...

Although, god, would I love it if it was.

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What else did I do last night? Read, watch some fights... oh! And try to repair our busted router. Last night our router blew. Don't know why, don't know how. It wasn't too old. All I can think of is a power surge as it did storm pretty much all day here in sunny Florida... =X

Anyways, I think I'm going to have to go buy another one. Oh well. This one will be wireless.

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So, uhm, it's Tuesday. I'm looking forward to Friday. I can't believe it's the tenth already. Do you guys realize that this year is almost half way over? Where does time go? Jesus.


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