Week Two Weigh In

     So Monday morning calls.  Down 3.5 pounds!  Not the stellar performance I had last week, but I know as well as anyone who's watched "The Biggest Loser" that week one is water weight or the fact that you just added a big change to diet or exercise or both.  Week two is a bit more realistic.
     Also to be honest, I stayed active over the weekend so that I could splurge a little when it came to the food. For lunch on Saturday, I had a sonic cheeseburger and substituted mustard for my usual mayo to cut a little of the fat and didn't get a soft drink (I stuck with water).  Then I hit the treadmill that night and the next night at the house to make sure I didn't just shoot myself in the foot.  I also took a walk with my daughter and pushed her on the swings at the park.  Good exercise and great Daddy-Daughter time.
     I went back to the bicycle today because my ankle was a little sore from all the walking.  I also created a spreadsheet with a graph to track my progress and shared it with my teammates in case they wanted to use it to track their own progress.  I'm not self conscious about sharing my weight because it won't be there for much longer!  Here's what my graph looks like so far:





     I am ecstatic  that the blue line (current weight) is below the red line (my goal - 2 pounds a week).   It's the little things that make me happy.  Here's to another great week of sweat and good choices.  I meet with the nutritionist on Wednesday and Paula is going out of town but she is leaving me a workout schedule.  She explained that if I can do 15 reps of any particular exercise with weights without fatigue, then that weight is too light for me.

Visit to a sponsor

     As an added benefit/requirement to our Challenge, we are encouraged to visit some of the sponsors and their establishments to redeem services offered free of charge to the Challenge participants.  Each participant received a punch card attached to a lanyard at the kick-off meeting.  We were told that in order to be eligible for any prizes we must redeem free services from each of the sponsors on our punch card.  More free stuff?  Cool beans.  (You might be a child of the '80s if you recognize that phrase.)
     I believe that in order to keep everyone from showing up at one sponsor and putting them out of business or severely hampering normal business, the cards for different teams had slightly different mixes of the various sponsors.  Mine lists the following: Carolina Core Pilates, Massage Envy, Franklin St. Yoga, Jazzercise and Women's Only Workout.  As you can imagine a red blooded male like myself who guards his man card with every fiber of his being, wasn't too enthused about many of these options.
     In fact, I wasn't so sure it was going to be easy to redeem the free services offered to men (for the Challenge ONLY) from Women's Only Workout.  The WCHL staff assured us at the kick-off meeting that the sponsor had agreed to the listed services.  So after a few days of intending to call and make an appointment and failing miserably, I asked my wife to set up the appointment.  When she talked to the person who answered the phone, they asserted that, "No, there are no men allowed here."  Upon some gentle prodding, the staff person handed the phone to "Kevin" who said that there was no problem and set up the appointment.  This evening was the scheduled date.
     I arrived at my appointed time and found out that there was no record of my appointment in the system.  Kevin, who happens to be the owner of the establishment, remembered speaking to my wife and seemed very perturbed that the appointment was not there.  He asked me to have a seat and wait for a few minutes.  Later Kevin would explain to me that I was the first man from the Challenge to talk to them about redeeming services, so it was still a pretty new idea for the staff.  As I sat and waited, a truck load of ladies came in.  (My appointment was right in the middle of rush hour).
     One of the staff members, a personal trainer, took me back to a room where she performed my Functional Movement Screening.  I basically did a few exercises or movements and she assessed my ability to perform the actions without difficulty or lack of range of motion.  She scored each item and reported back to Kevin.  He then did my Wellness Assessment and prescribed some corrective exercises.  Afterwards he offered me one of their smoothies and I opted for the Strawberry Classic.  I asked and was informed that all their smoothies have less than 300 calories, no fat and plenty of fiber because they use real fruit and not fruit juice. 
     Overall, I'd say I had a good visit.  Kevin and I discussed the health anti-benefits of sitting (which I do all day) hunched at a computer.  He pointed out the benefits of functional fitness to someone who suffers from my ailments.  I told him that Paula had us do a boot camp workout the day before and told him about some of the workouts I had done recently with her.  He affirmed that she sounded very much like she knew what she was doing and making good calls on my fitness regimen.   
     Their facility although tucked in a back corner of Ram's Plaza off of Fordham Blvd. is a fairly big facility for one that is occupying space in a strip mall.  It is open 24 hours and except for me, the owner and a guy who was dropping off the kids at the daycare for Mommy to take home after her workout, there are NO MEN ALLOWED.  * Unless you have a punch card for the UNC Healthiest You Challenge and call ahead for an appointment.

     One last note as a follow-up to yesterday's post ... I AM feeling yesterday's workout.  As I told a co-worker:  There is a little strip of muscle in the middle of my back that isn't sore and it actually feels weird to me that it is the only bit of muscle I have that isn't sore.  There's only one way to fix this though.  Back to the gym tomorrow for interval training.

Boot Camp

     Our trainer, Paula, coordinates group fitness classes for the Wellness Center.  She also teaches them.  So on this chilly morning in North Carolina, a good portion of our team got together to experience a "Boot Camp" workout.  I had always envisioned the trainers who led Boot Camp workouts as masochistic people who just wanted to see how much pain you could endure.  Not that we didn't experience our share of pain, but Paula wasn't like that at all.
      She demonstrated proper technique and different options for each exercise to either make it harder or easier depending on our personal abilities.  At one point I thought, "Great, I am finally able to do one of these exercises easily" (the push-ups) and then Paula had me modify them to make them more difficult - THANKS!
I don't know about the rest of my team, but I'm going to feel this workout tomorrow!
     Other people are starting to notice the affects of my workouts.  I usually walk during the day with some people at the office.  In the past I have had to walk pretty slow compared to some of the regular walkers due to my ankle/calf muscle issues.  One of my co-workers noticed that I was walking a little faster than usual and with a little more bounce in my step. 
     Upcoming: I'm adding a foam roller and some different stretches to my daily routine to see if that will loosen me up a bit.  I'll make sure I document how that works out.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with one of the sponsor businesses. This should be interesting.  Friday we do interval training.  I'm looking forward to that challenge.  And next week I will meet with a nutritionist to discuss my eating habits.  It will be nice to get information on how to maximize my workouts with nutrition and also help my body regulate blood sugar along with my meds.  Oh well, got to get up early to get to the gym, so that's all for now.

Week One Weigh In

Yesterday we weighed-in.  I was down 7 pounds!  And so was another member of our team.  We are still waiting to hear how the other members of our team and the other teams did.  That just made me hit the cardio more today. 

An update from the doctor: my 6 week diabetic indicator (can't remember the name of it) came down from a 9 to a 6!  All my numbers are coming down and I am feeling great.

Well, truth be told, I went out this weekend in the rain and hiked Occoneeche Mountain which was a big challenge for me.  I did experience a hard time with my cardio workout on Monday because of it.  I was very sore.  So feeling great mentally, but very sore physically.

It is a good hurt

I know people say that all the time, but it is so true. I am feeling better and it has only been 3 days since we started. I've already noticed a difference in my heart rate. I have done 3 days of cardio on a bike in the gym because of some ankle issues. I have steadily increased my speed, my intensity and the length of my workouts each day. I have been able to maintain my speed throughout the length of my workouts and my heart rate is dropping! I am already getting benefits from this journey.

Today I met with my doctor for a follow-up visit. She is very supportive of this step and pleased with the weight loss already and my blood pressure numbers are better than our last visit!

I haven't really done that much "lifting". But our coach, Paula (The Green team - Chapel Hill Gymnastics) is very good at seeing the areas where I am weak and focusing on them. As a result, muscles I never even thought to work on are sore. We've done some core, back, chest and triceps work so far. She has told me that we are going to fix my ankle issues and that I need work on my underdeveloped hamstrings. I guess I'll see what she has in store for me!

The Motivation

Ron Stutts of WCHL asked me why I was doing this (participating in the UNC Healthiest You Challenge). I told him that I wanted to live a long time for my kids. What I didn't tell him was just how important that is to me. My wife and I waited a long time to start trying to have children. Then we found out that we couldn't. We have since adopted 2 beautiful children.

As part of the adoption process for our son, I was required to get a physical. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and type II diabetes. That coupled with the fact that we lost my father-in-law to cancer before he was able to hold our children in his arms put it into our minds that we needed to make some serious changes in our lives.

My doctor was confident that with diet and exercise, I could reverse all the issues, so we made some small goals. Shortly afterwards, I found out about the challenge at work and my wife encouraged me to apply. So now, I have eight weeks to establish some great habits and get well on my way to becoming the man I need to be for my wife, my kids and even their kids!