Here's a bit of a back story to today's blog:
A couple months ago I asked Sarah, "what would be your ideal fitness goal for me?". She looked me up and down and said with the inflection that comes with a question or uncertainty, "20 pounds of muscle?". I'm a realist, and I understand that she MUST have said that without actually understanding what that would take. Even an increase of 5-10 pounds of muscle could make for a visible difference (assuming it really is muscle gain, ideally accompanied by fat burning). But I figured, what the heck, let's see what I can do. Has anyone out there tracked a fitness regime and found that they gained 20 pounds of muscle? If so, I'd love to see what that looks like. If I'm right in what I know about exercise, fat burning, and muscle development, 20 lbs of muscle is an incredible feat, and to accomplish that along with completing all of my schooling, fatherly, and husband duties would be a miracle.
Now to the purpose of this blog. It's a sunny Saturday morning, and again I find myself needing to head to the library and lab to finish up some work therein. It could be upwards of 6 hours spent on campus, or as little as 3, we'll see how focused I can be. Next weekend doesn't look too promising either as far as getting out and enjoying the sun, as I'll have exams to be studying for. I don't know why I keep needing to use theses Saturdays. Either my work load has increased, or my weekly devotion to school has lessened; likely a combination of both.
What I have done though, to prevent from feeling like a caged animal, is given myself a nightly reward; something that will give me a release at the end of the day IF I have stuck to my daily schedule and completed the assignments due. Thinking back on the conversation I had with Sarah, as well as having the desire to be very health conscious, I decided that reward would be devoted to fitness. Kind of like courtyard rights to the well behaved inmates (I love watching America's Hardest Prisons and other such prison shows). This week I have done well with sticking to my schedule and have exercised those days, but since I got a little bit behind the previous week there's still a bit that needs to be done (hence lab and library today). I expect after next week I will be caught up, sticking to my study schedule, getting my nightly reward, AND having Saturdays freed up (with the exception of test weeks when I'll likely use Saturdays as extra study days).
I want to post the program I created as a means of tracking progress. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be gym days. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I'll be running. I use the Nike+Running app and it posts to Facebook when I run. When you like or comment, I get applause in my headphones so be sure to encourage me!
I understand that with running, I risk getting leaner muscle, losing weight, and slimming down. So I intend to incorporate sprints, stairs, beaches, and hills into my runs. (I recently outlined all of this in the skeletal muscle portion of my physiology class, and it is all fascinating!) But as I've done more running, I see it as a vital part of fitness and a necessary evil.
Week 1.
143 lbs.
The shirt I'm wearing in this picture is one of 2 rewards, the other being a plain red one. I bought them from Costco, and although they aren't huge on me, they could use some filling in. I'm treating them as my 10 lb treat. When I stick to my schedule, and reach 10 pounds weight gain (ideally muscle), I'll then treat them as an accepted member of the wardrobe. Until then, they only serve the purpose of tracking growth.
*Sawyer update:
We are incorporating rice milk as of today.
Sawyer's nightly changes have helped quite a bit. He is now able to go from 9:00PM-4:00AM without food, and then Sarah has to feed him because she can't physically go that long without nursing or pumping.
He will still flip himself onto his back, wake himself up, and cry. When we first started this Ferberizing, we would do nothing during those cries, he would cry for what felt like hours and eventually fall asleep. Problem was, we noticed his voice getting hoarse and we felt SO bad. We immediately adjusted, and now will flip him back to his stomach and pat him until he goes back to sleep, which is usually within 5 minutes. As he keeps getting older, we'll push more independence gradually, but for now this is where we are. The added nightly rice milk will help hold him over longer during the night, and hopefully he won't wake enough to flip himself over.
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