- Cardio -

• Elliptical Machine – 45 Minutes

The next big step for me on my path to a healthy lifestyle is going to have to be the gym. And not the gym in the way I used to go as a teenager, where I went, lifted enough weight to make me feel good about myself, maybe played alittle basketball, and then left. No, in order to really get myself to the point I want, I’m going to have to do the thing I hate most – sustained cardio.

I took the first step on that path after work today. I’d intended for a 30 minute minimum to start, but I forgot my headphones at home, and without music it seemed like the time just slowed to a crawl. 20 minutes was long enough to break a decent sweat though, so it wasn’t completely wasted time.

- Cardio -

• Elliptical Machine – 20 Minutes

So I’ve finally returned home safely, despite the best efforts of both Delta and the New Jersey weather. When I left, I had every intention of keeping the site updated with my daily food intake, but a single night of home-style southern cooking put an end to that real quickly. The preparation was so far from anything I’m used to that even the power of the internet couldn’t have helped me guess at the calorie content of some of the things I tried – the cherry pie I sampled could have had a pound of sugar in each slice it was so sweet.

So I stopped trying to figure it out and just ate what I wanted and just tried to keep it within reason. Of course, when there’s a diner a block away that makes great milkshakes, and you’ve been playing “This Old House” in the New Jersey heat, ‘within reason’ gets alittle more flexible than it probably should. The one place I absolutely refused to compromise was on soda. Liquid calories like that are just too tempting to play around with.

I came back fully expecting to be 3-5 pounds up from when I left, and I was okay with that. Instead, the scale says I lost about 5 pounds!? Perhaps it’s dehydration, and that weigh-in isn’t realistic, but at the very least it probably means I didn’t gain nearly as much as I thought. If I can get away with just staying even, I’ll be real happy.

- Cardio -

• Basketball – 1 Hour

- Cardio -

• Basketball – 1 Hour

I intended to keep a fairly regular workout schedule, with lifting on the weekends and cardio like Basketball during the week. Of course the minute I started planning something like that, life decided to intervene with its own plans.

Last Tuesday the water tank on my toilet spontaneously cracked. With no one there to see it, the mechanism that refills the thing kicked in and attempted to fill the broken tank, pouring a constant stream of water onto the floor. I estimate it ran for 2-3 hours before one of my roommates noticed it. It soaked through the walls, swelled baseboards, and absolutely drenched the (barely installed 8 months ago) new carpet in my bedroom.

Five-hundred dollars later (!) I’ve got a new toilet, a new shopvac, and I now know how to pull up carpet, cut out & replace the ruined padding, and then stretch the carpet back into place. Needless to say, I didn’t find much time to hit the gym while I was doing my own little disaster recovery though I’m very encouraged to find I’ve still been dropping weight without the workouts I had planned.

Of course, moving furniture and laying carpet is no walk in the park, so it wasn’t like I was just laying around, but I hope to get back on track with a more traditional workout regimen this week.

- Chest -

• Bench Press
  1. 125 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 125 lbs – 6 Reps
  3. 125 lbs – 6 Reps

- Back -

• Dumbbell Bent-Over Row
  1. 35 lbs – 10 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 10 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 10 Reps
  4. 35 lbs – 8 Reps
  5. 35 lbs – 8 Reps
  6. 35 lbs – 6 Reps

- Shoulders -

• Dumbbell Lateral Raises
  1. 15 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 15 lbs – 8 Reps
  3. 15 lbs – 8 Reps
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press
  1. 30 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 30 lbs – 6 Reps
  3. 20 lbs – 10 Reps

- Biceps -

• Straight Bar Curl
  1. 65 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 65 lbs – 8 Reps
  3. 65 lbs – 6 Reps
• Seated Isolation Curl
  1. 35 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 6 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 4 Reps
• Standing Hammer Curl
  1. 35 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 6 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 4 Reps

- Triceps -

• Tricep Dips
  1. 10 Reps
  2. 8 Reps
  3. 6 Reps
• Seated Two-Handed Tricep Extension
  1. 35 lbs – 12 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 10 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 8 Reps

- Biceps -

• Straight Bar Curl
  1. 65 lbs – 8 Reps
  2. 65 lbs – 8 Reps
  3. 65 lbs – 7 Reps

- Triceps -

• Seated Two-Handed Tricep Extension
  1. 35 lbs – 15 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 12 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 10 Reps

- Quadriceps -

• Single Dumbbell Squats
  1. 35 lbs – 20 Reps
  2. 35 lbs – 15 Reps
  3. 35 lbs – 12 Reps

- Cardio -

• Basketball – 1.5 Hours