Lean Bodies Consulting

Ok, I’m going to start being more regular with the blogging now - since I’ve gotten on the cases of some friends for not keeping theirs updated. For the times I don’t really have much of interest to say I’ll just talk to myself and journal my training/dieting, etc.

So as I mentioned in a previous post I’ve been dieting for a while. Came down from the mid to high 230s and was sitting at 220 when I went on vacation. As you might recall from my vacation summary I hammered those buffets and hit a high of 232.5 post vacation, which settled down a few pounds lighter a few days back into the more normal eating. So at this point, I’ve been back and ON for 2 1/2 weeks and as of today I’m back down to 220.

Normally I’m a once-per-week cheat type of ‘dieter’ and anyone who knows me, knows my cheat of choice is Friday night pizza. Well, over at Lean Bodies Fitness, we have a little informal ‘Five Weeks - No Cheats‘ thread going. A bit of an accountability challenge if you will. I of course am participating and am 100% still. Why five weeks? No specific reason. I chose that time frame because it was the time remaining from the day I started the thread until the Junior USAs, where Noel and some other clients and friends of mine are competing. What’s really neat is how many people jumped on board as you can see if you haven’t already seen the thread (over 700 replies already). Lots of mutual support there. And what I have found quite interesting is the results of committing to such a ‘challenge’. There are people participating who admittedly have adherence problems at times and to some degree … and yet, they are rocking their plans and showing NO signs of letting up. This to me simply proves that if you want it, and you try, you can stick to it. The proof is right there in that thread. Anyone and everyone can stick to their plans if and when they WANT to. To those that are kicking butt in that challenge, keep it up. Half way there.

For me, and a handful of other people that will be in attendance at the Junior USAs, it’s going to conclude with what will likely be a caloric onslaught. And then it’ll be right back on plan the next day. I’d imagine for our group there’s going to be tens of thousands of calories at our disposal as Amy, Noel, Cindy, Ileen, Lyn and I think even Kevin, are all baking and bringing stuff. I’d say Elizabeth too, but she admittedly doesn’t bake much (sorry Elizabeth :lol:) I doubt Scott (Noel’s husband) will be doing any baking either. His specialty is supposedly protein shakes, bu there will be no room for protein shakes on that day. I’m personally not one for sweets, although I’ll be sure to partake, but I’m simply looking forward to pizza! It’s been too long.

Erik

Well, I’ve been a little slack on the blogging again. It’s been a busy couple weeks with playing catch up with work, lots of contest prep work, getting another article done for a print mag, etc.

But, I’ve got some exciting news.

I’m going to be a dad! Yeah, crazy.

It’s still not really settling in, but we’re excited.

It was great telling my parents. They were really excited and with the health battles my dad has been facing, it is a nice positive thing for my family to look forward to.

Cheers!

So at the beginning of this month my wife and I took a long overdue vacation down to the Mayan Riviera. This would be our second trip down there (the first when we got married). We went to a different resort this time, about 90 minutes from Cancun and it was awesome, and absolutely huge! It was a 5-hotel complex and we were staying at The Palace. It ended up being a great week - lots of food (too much as evidenced by the nice rebound I experienced), lots of sun and lots of naps. That’s about as good as a vacation gets for me.

I’m really not much of a site seer or a tourist. The Mayan Riviera has some great attractions, one of the most notable being Chichen Iza and the Mayan Pyramids. There’s a ton of history there that’d on the one hand be really neat to see, but on the other hand it’s generally a good 3-hr bus ride … each way! Spending 6 hours on a bus on vacation when I’m only there for a week is not my idea of fun. Instead we opted for more sun, more food, more swimming and more naps.

The extent of my tourism was a 30-minute bus ride into Playa Del Carmen (another couple that we knew was down as well). We were basically allocated 3 hours to stop, barter, shop and barter some more. We were bored after an hour - fortunately for me, Laura doesn’t enjoy mindless shopping. We ended up sitting down on 5th Avenue (that’s the main shopping strip) and just ‘people watching’ - always entertaining. Our friends however, well, it wasn’t enough time and they went back on their own for more shopping another day.

My plan, as I’d been dieting for a couple months was just to ease up, eat what I want (a loose maintenance week of sorts, which turned out to be far from maintenance of course) and take a week off the weights. I ended up hitting the hotel gym for two easy workouts (rationalized it by telling myself I was positively affecting the partitioning of the breakfast buffet that I hammered every day). I actually went down weighing about 220 and a few days into the trip I was 232.5!!!! LOL Yeah! For the first few days all the food seemed to go into the right places as I just got fuller and fuller … and then it started going lower (ie. stomach) and I started getting fatter and fatter. In the end I’m sitting around 228 and now have to work to get it all back off. BUT it was worth it.

I had also planned to do a little work every day so as not to fall too behind. Such was not the case as there was no in-room wireless and I didn’t feel like paying $25/day for 30-60 minutes work. That probably proved to be a good thing as well as it afforded me a nice break from work. Coming back to piles of it was still worth it. I’m blessed with some great (and obviously patient) clients.

So, I did a lot of this

Here’s a shot of the girls shopping. Lots of silver in Mexico. Why do women always look happy around jewelry? There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Here’s a couple shots of the beach.

The second last night we went to eat at one of the speciality restaurants - Brazilian. They started us off with a salad bar, and then we received this

Note how little is on the plate - that’s one forkful of mashed potatoes, some cooked spinach, a piece of corn on the cob, an onion and a slice of tomato. But from there they started to bring out seven different meats - each on a long sword. So the sword was full of cooked meat, and they’d slide a piece off for you. The meats included sausage, chicken, turkey, pork tenderloin, beef, veal and …. the one we were warned about (and subsequently didn’t eat), blood sausage. And then coconut ice cream for dessert.

And here’s a shot of us on our last night.

And now it’s back to business. Thanks for reading.
Erik

Borrowing another blog post that I thought was quite good …

Have you recently lost body fat or gained some muscle? Maybe you were able to stop using all those medications for your high blood pressure. Didn’t you put up 10 more pounds on squats last week?

Hopefully you are nodding your head up and down to one of those statements – but maybe you’re not. Maybe you don’t have any tangible measure of progress lately – all you have been doing is plugging away at those behaviour-based goals.

What do all of the aforementioned examples deserve? Some recognition and enjoyment!

As humans, we never seem to be satisfied. Nowhere is this more apparent than with body composition goals. I hate to break this news to you, but you will probably never be perfect. I have worked with fitness, figure and bodybuilding competitors who are never satisfied with the amount of body fat or muscle mass they carry. These athletes are at the pinnacle of body composition mastery. However, when you ask them – they are never lean enough, muscular enough, or in good enough condition. They could always be a little bit better.

What does that illustrate? Your physique may never be perfect. Acknowledging this can be reassuring. This week take a minute to enjoy what you have accomplished thus far on your health/fitness journey. Learn to enjoy the process and not just the outcome of everything you do. If you begin to love what you are doing – then you’ll waste less time splitting hairs over the final product.

This is a post from Alwyn Cosgrove’s blog that I thought was a really good analogy for the rate of progress and being patient.

Let’s assume you go out and buy two rolls of paper towels, each with 112 paper towels on it. You put one aside, and keep it for future reference (your “before” picture). The other one represents you (I’ll call your paper towel “Ed”). The core represents the lean Ed. The towels represent the fat that is covering the lean Ed.

For sake of argument, let’s say that Ed wants to lose 28 pounds of fat, so (112/28) each sheet represents a quarter-pound of fat lost.

Let’s also assume that Ed loses his fat equally during each day of the program.

Each day during the first week, you tear a sheet off of Ed, representing the fat he has lost for the day. Next, you put Ed next to the full roll (“Big Ed”) for comparison.

No noticeable difference! Even at the end of the week!

“This can’t be working for me! This program sucks! ”
But, you continue to follow your fat loss program. At the end of weeks two and three, you continue to compare Ed to Big Ed, and still notice very little difference.

But Ed is determined! He continues to work hard!

Three more weeks go by, the sheets peeling off day after day, before Ed gets up the courage to stand next to Big Ed again.

Now there’s a big difference!

By the end of the program (112 days), Ed is down to his lean dream, or somewhere near it. Big Ed is still - well, big.

The lesson to be learned is that fat, like paper towels, comes off in sheets. When you are heavy, you are big around. And when you are big around, that fat is spread over a MUCH larger area – just like that outside towel sheet. The closer you get to the lean you, the more each lost pound of fat shows, because it is spread over a smaller area.

While the outside sheet may only cover one layer of the roll, the inside sheet may go around 4 times. That last sheet looks like it gives you four times the results of the first sheet, but in reality, the results are the same – your perception is just different! And you’ll never see the inside, if you aren’t patient while the outside is coming off!