Posts
Saturday, September 29, 2007
The Power Family Trip
There is so much that has been going on over the past few weeks that it is hard to post all the time. Right now Travis is out camping with Jason at Marble Mountain out past Yreka. I am so glad he was able to get away and hang out with Jason before we moved. We just celebrated our one year anniversary, though it was very basic it was great to get an evening together and be able to celebrate it with each other. I thought a long time about what I wanted to get Trav and with the move we don't need just thinga. I decided to bring the Blazers to Travis, with NBA League Pass and on every Blazer game night he gets free reign of the TV. So he is excited to be able to watch the Blazers. :) Trav got me a great new watch, as mine had finally bit the dust and well I just haven't wanted to spend the money to get myself a new one.
After our anniversary dinner the weekend was just beginning. Trav's whole family came into town to visit us. It was a busy and fun filled weekend. We did all the tourist things like the Cable Cars, Ghiradelli Square, the Cannery, Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge. Also in addition to the tourist things, Trav's gift from his parents was dinner and a night out doing anything he wanted. So Trav picked this fantastic restaurant called Ana Mandara in Ghirardelli Square. It was French Gourmet meets Vietnamese. It was wonderful and a great treat from Travis's family. The night out was a hillarious comedy show with Tammi Pascatelli from Last Comic Standing. See her if you ever can. LOL
It was so great to spend the weekend with Travis' family and luckily they planned it for right before we moved, so we announced it at dinner on Saturday night. LOL It went over well and they seem really excited which makes me happy and him happy which is even better. So now we are down to six days till we move and I can not be more excited and so happy. I really feel like this next move is the settle down place. The save for a down payment, get a dog and not move again for a long time place.
So as things develop and we move and I get new pictures I will post them. And so until then I will be enjoying my chick flicks, my runs, some work and probably packing. :)
After our anniversary dinner the weekend was just beginning. Trav's whole family came into town to visit us. It was a busy and fun filled weekend. We did all the tourist things like the Cable Cars, Ghiradelli Square, the Cannery, Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge. Also in addition to the tourist things, Trav's gift from his parents was dinner and a night out doing anything he wanted. So Trav picked this fantastic restaurant called Ana Mandara in Ghirardelli Square. It was French Gourmet meets Vietnamese. It was wonderful and a great treat from Travis's family. The night out was a hillarious comedy show with Tammi Pascatelli from Last Comic Standing. See her if you ever can. LOL
It was so great to spend the weekend with Travis' family and luckily they planned it for right before we moved, so we announced it at dinner on Saturday night. LOL It went over well and they seem really excited which makes me happy and him happy which is even better. So now we are down to six days till we move and I can not be more excited and so happy. I really feel like this next move is the settle down place. The save for a down payment, get a dog and not move again for a long time place.
So as things develop and we move and I get new pictures I will post them. And so until then I will be enjoying my chick flicks, my runs, some work and probably packing. :)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Pictures from Colorado Trip
Hi everyone! So it has been a rough night tonight and because when someone (Grandpa) gets home from the hospital I wanted him to have some new pictures to look at from our Labor Trip to Colorado and the area we are moving to. So Dad and Mom I would love it if you could show him these. :) Thanks!!!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Workin out...
I'm glad to see Pam posted...yeah its been a bit crazy lately, but I had started to think my writing had suddenly silenced everyone!
Anyways, a little bit about workin out.
About a year and a half ago I underwent surgery on my lower back. I had a herniated disc, disc bulge, disc contusion whatever the heck you want to call it. For about 6 months it was very painful. My disc had blown out into the nerve bundles that ran down the backs of my legs. The pressure put a constant pain down my left one when walking, and would just got worse as time went by. Eventually I was hopped up on vicodin for the last 3 months there, and it was still pretty painful.
My health had slowly been in decline over the past few years, though. By the time I was a junior in college I had ballooned to a husky 225 lbs, gaining 20 lbs over my first 6 month internship. Sitting behind a computer 8 hrs for work, and then at least another 4 afterwards playing games, or watching TV was doing a number on my waistline. The number 38 to be exact. So after graduating I had joined a gym and was determined to get back in shape, not just to look better but to feel better...and attract the chicks!
Unfortunately for me, my lower body fell apart. It wasn't any moment in particular, just prolonged bad posture, a lot of driving and slouching, and also I think the stress of working out. During those 6 months of inactivity I went from 200 lbs to 190lbs, losing 10 lbs of muscle. I let 3 months pass before heading back to the gym, this time being very, very careful what exercises I did to limit pressure on my spinal column. It was pretty depressing at first, only being able to lift like 60% of what I was doing previously!
Well here I am today, a "svelt" (as my aunt puts it) 187 lbs. Strangely enough, 187 is obese for my frame according to the worlds BMI standards. So for all you people out there that are using weight, waist size, etc...basically any standardized number to gauge your body against, DON'T! In addition, what you may think attractive is, probably isn't what others may think...so when you start thinking am I overweight, or whatever ask yourself how you feel and how you think you look. Try and achieve what you think is cool, rather than being stuck on numbers.
Whats worked for me...
Unlike Pam, who seems to be like a freaking die hard, gym rat, I don't like spending hours in the gym. I've got better things to do than to lift weights with a bunch of smelly, sweaty guys, who grunt and flex into mirrors. So I always try and limit my visit to the gym to around an hour. After about 35 minutes of lifting your body start to lose its gains anyways, so get in, get out, add some cardio at the end too.
I also picked a muscle group that I really wanted to develop and made that the primary focus of my workout. Why? Well, because that area that I wanted to build up, would see the most gains, and therefore excite me to keep going. I picked chest and starting doing a lot more bench, declined bench, dips, and flys. Now I've got a decent size pillow for Pam to lay her head on! Obviously you're not going to just to chest in the gym, as this would basically create an unproportional body and look funny...however, if I were to blast one area on the body, I would blast the chest...Now that I'm fairly happy about that, I'm trying to focus more on my delts and lats so that if frames my upper body better.
Set goals, but don't make them too big... You want a goal that is easy enough to attain in a short time, but not so easy that it doesn't make you try hard. Without goals though, you're just going to the gym. Set goals and make a plan to get there. Do some sets to find a max weight and then set a goal up a few pounds depending on what exercise. If its walking, maybe its going to the same distance but at a larger incline.
Mix it up. I've read some articles on the importance of mixing it up. The body is smart, and it will adjust eventually to anything and everything you do. If you constantly lift 8-12 reps you're gonna plateau. Mix it up...change the reps to 15-20 and do lighter weight, or 4-7 with lots of weight. Do different exercises like I discovered the freemotion cable machine that is pretty cool. If you're on a machine, you move to the same exercise but with free weights or a less assisted motion. The body starts to use more of the stabilizing muscles and you'll get a new burn.
I also tried to get into swimming...its a little hard here because most people at the pool do breast stroke, which basically takes up the entire lane and goes very slow. Also a popular thing is to bob up and down the pool which also takes up quite a bit of room in the lanes. Swimming has been really good though cardiovascularly (very challenging to say the least) as well as good at stretching and developing of the abdominal muscles.
Form when lifting is way more important than weight. Who cares if the muscle head next to you is trying to curl 60 lb dumbells. You could too if you thrust with your legs and back like he's doing.
Anyways, didn't mean for this to turn into a freaking how-to or motivational speech! All this to say that I've been taking this whey protein supplement to try and encourage muscle growth. I'm not interested in being so muscle bound I can't wipe my own you know what, but I'd like to see a bit more definition. Anyways, did some research and your muscles need like a gram of protein per lb of body weight. So I need 185 grams of protein a day? WHAT!
One scoop of this whey stuff is like 24 grams. I woke up this morning and decided that have a scoop with my oatmeal. I do not reccomend it, at all. I choked about 3/4 of it down and thats all I could handle. So nasty. Then I went hungry because I hadn't eaten enough breakfast...just a bad start to a day.
So to sum the last 1105 words up, go work out but don't put whey protein powder in with your oatmeal. Bet you wish I had put this at the top of the post, huh.
Anyways, a little bit about workin out.
About a year and a half ago I underwent surgery on my lower back. I had a herniated disc, disc bulge, disc contusion whatever the heck you want to call it. For about 6 months it was very painful. My disc had blown out into the nerve bundles that ran down the backs of my legs. The pressure put a constant pain down my left one when walking, and would just got worse as time went by. Eventually I was hopped up on vicodin for the last 3 months there, and it was still pretty painful.
My health had slowly been in decline over the past few years, though. By the time I was a junior in college I had ballooned to a husky 225 lbs, gaining 20 lbs over my first 6 month internship. Sitting behind a computer 8 hrs for work, and then at least another 4 afterwards playing games, or watching TV was doing a number on my waistline. The number 38 to be exact. So after graduating I had joined a gym and was determined to get back in shape, not just to look better but to feel better...and attract the chicks!
Unfortunately for me, my lower body fell apart. It wasn't any moment in particular, just prolonged bad posture, a lot of driving and slouching, and also I think the stress of working out. During those 6 months of inactivity I went from 200 lbs to 190lbs, losing 10 lbs of muscle. I let 3 months pass before heading back to the gym, this time being very, very careful what exercises I did to limit pressure on my spinal column. It was pretty depressing at first, only being able to lift like 60% of what I was doing previously!
Well here I am today, a "svelt" (as my aunt puts it) 187 lbs. Strangely enough, 187 is obese for my frame according to the worlds BMI standards. So for all you people out there that are using weight, waist size, etc...basically any standardized number to gauge your body against, DON'T! In addition, what you may think attractive is, probably isn't what others may think...so when you start thinking am I overweight, or whatever ask yourself how you feel and how you think you look. Try and achieve what you think is cool, rather than being stuck on numbers.
Whats worked for me...
Unlike Pam, who seems to be like a freaking die hard, gym rat, I don't like spending hours in the gym. I've got better things to do than to lift weights with a bunch of smelly, sweaty guys, who grunt and flex into mirrors. So I always try and limit my visit to the gym to around an hour. After about 35 minutes of lifting your body start to lose its gains anyways, so get in, get out, add some cardio at the end too.
I also picked a muscle group that I really wanted to develop and made that the primary focus of my workout. Why? Well, because that area that I wanted to build up, would see the most gains, and therefore excite me to keep going. I picked chest and starting doing a lot more bench, declined bench, dips, and flys. Now I've got a decent size pillow for Pam to lay her head on! Obviously you're not going to just to chest in the gym, as this would basically create an unproportional body and look funny...however, if I were to blast one area on the body, I would blast the chest...Now that I'm fairly happy about that, I'm trying to focus more on my delts and lats so that if frames my upper body better.
Set goals, but don't make them too big... You want a goal that is easy enough to attain in a short time, but not so easy that it doesn't make you try hard. Without goals though, you're just going to the gym. Set goals and make a plan to get there. Do some sets to find a max weight and then set a goal up a few pounds depending on what exercise. If its walking, maybe its going to the same distance but at a larger incline.
Mix it up. I've read some articles on the importance of mixing it up. The body is smart, and it will adjust eventually to anything and everything you do. If you constantly lift 8-12 reps you're gonna plateau. Mix it up...change the reps to 15-20 and do lighter weight, or 4-7 with lots of weight. Do different exercises like I discovered the freemotion cable machine that is pretty cool. If you're on a machine, you move to the same exercise but with free weights or a less assisted motion. The body starts to use more of the stabilizing muscles and you'll get a new burn.
I also tried to get into swimming...its a little hard here because most people at the pool do breast stroke, which basically takes up the entire lane and goes very slow. Also a popular thing is to bob up and down the pool which also takes up quite a bit of room in the lanes. Swimming has been really good though cardiovascularly (very challenging to say the least) as well as good at stretching and developing of the abdominal muscles.
Form when lifting is way more important than weight. Who cares if the muscle head next to you is trying to curl 60 lb dumbells. You could too if you thrust with your legs and back like he's doing.
Anyways, didn't mean for this to turn into a freaking how-to or motivational speech! All this to say that I've been taking this whey protein supplement to try and encourage muscle growth. I'm not interested in being so muscle bound I can't wipe my own you know what, but I'd like to see a bit more definition. Anyways, did some research and your muscles need like a gram of protein per lb of body weight. So I need 185 grams of protein a day? WHAT!
One scoop of this whey stuff is like 24 grams. I woke up this morning and decided that have a scoop with my oatmeal. I do not reccomend it, at all. I choked about 3/4 of it down and thats all I could handle. So nasty. Then I went hungry because I hadn't eaten enough breakfast...just a bad start to a day.
So to sum the last 1105 words up, go work out but don't put whey protein powder in with your oatmeal. Bet you wish I had put this at the top of the post, huh.
Moving Again
So here is the latest news. I just got back from another work trip to Irvine, but this this time I had a second stop, Denver. I will officially now be transferring to our Denver office, in THREE WEEKS! SO I have lots of pictures to post for everyone to see and I will fill everyone in tonight. I got home late last night and they left my bag in Denver so I am a bit empty handed and need to get an early start for work. I love you all and miss everyone!!!!
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