Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Busy day

I had a pretty busy day today. I had a bagel for breakfast. Chicken and biscuits with mashed potatoes for lunch, chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and strawberries for dinner. Not a great day for food, but work was very busy.
I only had time for 20 push ups and 50 crunches today. We spent time with family today, but I'm sure ill get back on the routine soon. I still feel great and energised.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Long Day

I had a very long day today.  A lot of lifting and physical activity today.  I spent most of the day moving printers and servers.  After work I helped my buddy move out of his house.  We moved everything in the garage, which is all the heavy stuff.  I was beat after that and had a roast beef sub and a frozen yogurt cone.

When I got home I did 30 push ups, 50 crunches, and 30 squat and heel raises.  I was pretty beat from the long day so I feel this is sufficient.  I am still feeling great and I have a ton of energy throughout the day.

Sorry this post is so short, but after this day I need some sleep!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Hurdles to Overcome

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I will be posting some things that I would like to accomplish through this.  This post will be about all of the things that I hope will change before the wedding.

I should start by talking about the least favorite parts of my body.  My obvious first choice would be my belly, believe me when I say that rubbing my belly does not grant good luck.  My chest and belly have quite a bit of fat on them and I would like to avoid having to wear a bra in this lifetime.  My belly isn't the largest in the world, but it really is a downer on my self-esteem.  My next trouble body part is my butt and thighs.  I have very large thighs, that really irritate me when walking or standing alot.  My butt is starting to get pretty big from the fat as well as sitting in a chair all day.  I still remember to this day the first time my elementary school bus driver stood up, I promised myself that my butt would never ever be that big.  Well I am certainly on the way and this thing needs to go away!

The rest of my body is actually not that bad, my arms aren't very fat.  I have very slender calves.  My face is a little chubby, but I'm not sure if I want that to change.  My face is my favorite feature and it has earned me the nickname of Baby Face.

I have a few "health" issues that I think may be resolved as a result of weight loss.  One of my issues is that I get very tired throughout the day, since I've started working out I have had tons of energy that lasts through the day.  If this keeps up I will be able to keep away from the energy drinks, which alone will net me a savings of about $30 per week.  Another issue is sweat, I sweat profusely when barely doing anything.  This can be very embarrassing when I am at work and my armpits are soaked.  I have tried all kinds of different antiperspirant products to no avail.

I also get out of breath very easily.  This can be attributed to being out of shape and also being a half pack a day smoker.  The smoking is something I will work on in time.  I also get a sore neck very easily, when I was in shape years ago this wasn't an issue.  I will be looking for exercises to help strengthen my neck.

If I think of anything else, I will post it later.

Today I was very sore from the last two days of workouts.  My abs and arms were in the most pain.  As a result, I did a smaller workout today.  I didn't want to skip the day all together since I still wanted to ramp up my metabolism.  I was in a very good mood today and I decided to listen to The Lonely Island for some good laughs.  My workout today was:

  • 5 minutes of stretching
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 20 Squats
  • 10 Push Ups
  • 20 Crunches
  • 10x2 Lunges
I would also like to set a short-term excercise goal of being able to do normal push ups.  Any push up exercises I do are with my knees down.  Once I achieve this goal I will set another more aggressive goal.

Dropbox

Being that I'm a computer technician, I will occasionally post about other things that I think will help people.  Have you ever deleted a file, had a computer crash, or misplaced an important file?  These can be things from documents, pictures, videos, and any other irreplaceable file.  In the past I have always backed up my files to flash drives or blank CD/DVD media.  The problem with that is that if you lose the CD or you accidentally delete the file off of your flash drive, it is lost for good.

Now your option after losing these files is pretty much to recreate the file, but without a time machine it's hard to make someone a baby again just to get pictures of the first time walking.

This is where Dropbox comes into play.  Dropbox is a free online storage "folder".  When you sign up you get 2 gigabytes of free storage.  You can and should install the Dropbox application on your PC and put a shortcut on your desktop.  Any time you add, delete, or change files in the Dropbox folder they will be uploaded to Dropbox's servers.  What this means for you is that you can sleep worry-free that you aren't going to lose your files.

My favorite part of Dropbox is that if you delete a file, you can log into the website and restore the file up to a few weeks after you deleted it.  It's worth giving a shot because you never know when your hard drive might fail.

If you decide to sign up for Dropbox, I would appreciate it if you use my referral link, http://db.tt/S78Npjm , this link may look malicious but it is just shortened for ease of use.  If you use this link, you will get an extra 250 megabytes of storage and so will I!

Good luck and may your data be safe!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Introduction

Hi!  My name is Ryan Thornton, I am a 25 year old computer technician from Erie, PA.  I have always been overweight and physically unfit.  My fiancĂ©e Ashley and I have set a wedding date, June 2nd 2012!  I want to look my very best on our wedding date.  If you look to the top-right of this page, you will see a countdown.  As of writing this, I have 404 days.

Usually I would've started by running to the store and buying the first weight loss pill with the best guarantee.  If that didn't succeed, I would have gone right back and bought every piece of excercise equipment with a guarantee of a six-pack.  These things have never worked for me in the past and I'm sure they never will.  I want to lose weight and get toned, I don't want to build huge muscles right off the bat.

My other issue is that we live in a small one bedroom apartment.  This doesn't leave much space for equipment or exercising.  This means I will need to strictly use my body weight to workout.  As of starting this blog, I am on day 2 of my workout plan.  For the time being I will not be changing my diet, but only small decisions such as smaller portions and less snacking.  My workout plan is as follows:


  • 5 minutes of aerobics and stretching
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 20 Chest Dips
  • 30 Squat and Heel Raises
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 10 Dive-Bomber Push-Ups
  • 25 Bend and Raises
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 20 Tricep Push-Ups
  • 20 Half-Squats
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 30 sec. Arm Haulers
  • 20 Atomic Sit-Ups
  • 10x2 Hip Twists
  • 30 sec. Flutter Kicks
  • 20 Jumping Jacks
  • 10 Std. Push-Ups
  • 25 Crunches
On paper, this seems like quite a bit.  It all really equates to 30 minutes, soreness, profuse sweating, and a great feeling of accomplishment.  I can do all of this in a 6ft by 5ft square in front of my computer desk.  I fire up a high-energy play list, slide the computer chair out of the way, and get down to business.

I am confident that this workout plan will be successful, since it has been before.  About 10 years ago, I did this routine 5 days a week for six months and saw huge improvements in my physical appearance and fitness. If you do the math however, that is right around the time I got my driver's license and got lazy.  I don't own a scale but I estimate that I am currently 235 pounds and have been consistently for about 6 years.  When I did this routine before, I started at the same weight.  After six months, I was hovering between 199 and 201.  I would like to hit that mark again and rip right past it.  

I am a computer technician by day and a gamer by night.  Any other time, I'm driving for the thrill of it.  These activities don't exactly scream healthy.  Sitting around on a computer all day, coming home to sit at a computer chair, and driving around in the comfy leather only lead to one thing, a big butt!

In a later post I will be going through the parts of my body that irritate me and I would like to overcome.  I will try to keep this blog updated regularly, my goal is 3 posts per week.  The purpose of this goal is to get motivation, I am very driven by positive reinforcement.  Believe me when I say, negative reinforcement is just as effective.  Not all of my posts will be long, I may post from my phone if I find myself too active.

In another post in the not too distant future, I would like to put up some starter pictures of my body.  Not something that anyone would want to look at, but something to reference in 404 days.  

So far I feel very good about this.  Being Easter today, I did get one last chance to overeat a little bit.  My two workouts have rocked me to my core, but the after effect has me with a huge smile and very large boost of energy.

Please feel free to comment, email, or follow me.  The more friends I can meet on the way will make this experience much more fun!

P.S. - What do you think about "Marry Me" by Train as our wedding song?