willpowerthru

Here’s something I totally forgot about the day AFTER performing the simple exercise “squatimus maximus” or “squat” to the layperson:

Yesterday my legs were en fuego. Which is no bueno. SPANISH!

That wasn’t the bad part, I knew my legs were going to hurt. The bad part was the pain across my upper back from the bar. I totally forgot about that aspect of doing squats. Ouch.

Today was not much better on my legs or my upper back, my hamstrings and quads are just shredded to pieces. My upper back feels like it just got back from a car ride with Chris Brown. ZING!

I fought through it though and went to the gym tonight and punished myself some more.

Warmed up on the treadmill for a half mile.

10 reps just squatting down and standing up to get the blood flowing.

5 reps with the bar to get my form decent

5 reps with 135 to start out

5 reps with 185

5 reps with 185 again

My legs were definitely shaking by the end of the last rep. That’s really pathetic. Still, baby steps.

My Random Act Of Kindness today was to pull over on the highway when I saw a stray dog on the side of the road. I spent a good 5 minutes coaxing it over to me and he got SO close and then straight up bolted down the side of the highway. I had a mini panic attack thinking that I freaked him out and he was going to run onto the highway and get dead.

That would really ruin my day because THEN I’d have to go get a get well balloon and do this…

…and I really didn’t have time to run to the store.

ANYWAY, he did not get dead. He ran to the nearest farmhouse and the people were outside and I saw them playing with the pooch so I’m guessing it’s their dog and they just let it tempt the highways all the time. Yay, responsible pet owners!

So back to today. I finally hooked up my Nike Fuel band and went about wearing that thing all day. It’s a pretty nifty little device. Let’s you know how many steps you took, how many miles you went, how many calories you burned, and converts your activity into “Fuel points” that are equalized across people so you can see how you stack up activity-wise against other people/yourself from yesterday.

This is what the interface looks like after you plug it in at the end of the day:

I put it on around 9am and took it off around 7:30pm. The manual says that a normal day is 2,000 fuel points, 3,000 is active, and 5,000 is highly active. I set the goal at 3,000 just to see what’s what. The crazy thing about that graph down there at the bottom is near the area that says “SPARK”. If you look to the left of that you’ll see where I went from inactive to slightly active. The first game up at Noon Hoops I always treat as a warm up game these days, so I can warm up and get the blood pumping and not pull every muscle science knows about (thereby swearing 178 times in 30 seconds). It looks like the longer I stay up at the gym playing, the faster and more active I get. Then I run out of gas and my activity level PLUMMETS.

Let’s zoom in:

That’s one sorry game of basketball. “Hey Ben, when did they rename it walkitball, you bowl full of jelly.”

Holiday insults for the win.

I’ll leave you tonight with a bit of a treat. BEN AND LARRY’S CHRISTMAS PHOTOS! #i’mgoingtodiealone

Thanks to Katie Mrozinski for snapping us in all of our glory.

Also I almost forgot, I went for a walk this morning as my legs and body were too darn sore to do much of anything else. I’ve put together a bag for the morning and mark my words, I’m getting to that (insert swearjective* here) POOL tomorrow.

*that would be a swear and an adjective all in one.

ALSO, I did have to text Mr. Panos today to respond to his text asking if I was breaking my “no-cell phone” policy. The whole time I was texting back I was thinking…

• I will keep a blog of my activities everyday. Success
• I will go for a jog of at least one mile, every morning. missed 2
• I will drink only water. Success
• I will only eat things that myself or my friends/family have prepared. Success
• I will not eat BACON. Success
• I will exercise twice a day BESIDES THE JOG (30 minutes at least) Success
• I will not ingest caffeine. Success
• I will abstain from sex/self-love/prostitutes/your mom Success
• I will perform one random act of kindness every day. Success
• I will wake up at 5am everyday. missed 2
  
• I will not watch any form of television/film (tv/movies/netflix) The only exception being one viewing of “A Christmas Story” while I stay the night at my parents’ house, and one movie in the theatre on Christmas with my family because that’s tradition and screw you this is my thing. Successfullish – SNL has been added as a nice reward for being awesome
• I will not log into Facebook after Dec 4th. Success
• I will complete one project around the house per week. 2/4
  
• I will give thanks for something in my life every morning and record it on the blog every night. Success
• I will read one book every week. Book one: Minority Report
• I will not bite my fingernails. I’ve caught myself a few times, but definitely Success 
• I will not use my cell phone after Dec. 4th. Success
• I will not visit any websites other than wordpress, email, thechive.com,  and google images to give me funny pictures for my blog. (Also Travel websites are allowed for #22) Success
• I will do whatever I need to do to squat 250 pounds. Success
  
• I will spend the necessary time playing the trumpet to learn one entire song. Pending
• I will spend the necessary time juggling 4 bean bags to learn to juggle four bean bags. Pending
• I will finalize my plans to go to Florida in 2013. Pending
• I won’t say a swear word, not one. Day 1: approx 12, Day 2: approx 5, Day 3: approx 2, Day 4: approx 2, Day 5: approx 6, Day 6: 2 exactly Day 7: approx 4, Day 8: I think zero. Day 9: back up to like 4 DARNIT!