Dan on June 27th, 2008
That’s right my friends, a new post after a year and 3 months of nothing. Recent ideas rekindled my interest in this site. As I’m heading off to the gym in a few minutes I don’t have time for a major update, but here are a few high points that occurred during my off time:
- Graduated from college with an AS in Business Administration in April ‘07.
- Sentenced to probation with community service and restitution for my past crimes in April ‘07
- Landed a web development job in November ‘07.
- Continue to push myself in the gym. Doing my first bodybuilding show later this year in October.
I’ve updated the site’s software to the latest version of WordPress and Gallery2. This broke the old skin. It was time to change it anyway. For now I’ll be sticking with a default skin until I have time to find and customize one that I like.
Dan on December 10th, 2006
Last year I posted my goal of forming a diet and nutrition plan based on Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. I wish I read it years ago! It gave me a complete understanding of how to properly organize meals and eat correctly. I’ve followed it now for a bit over a year and I’ve never looked back. Sure, there have been plenty of days that saw the consumption of foods from the list of things you should never eat. However, even on those days I still followed most of my meals.
So what does my current diet look like? I eat 6 meals a day for a total caloric intake of about 2350 kcal. Over the past 2 months I’ve raised and lowered my total intake. For over a month I was eating 2500+ kcal a day. That was a bit much so I lowered it to 2350 kcal. For my current activity level I find this to be just right.
This isn’t to say that I’ve been very strict. I was strict from when I started in November 2005 to the end of March / beginning of April. At that point I was reintroduced to my nemesis: jellybeans. Jellybeans are one of my favorite food products. Easter is prime jellybean time. I had decided that I would enjoy a few of the little balls of sugar since I had been so strict for so long. The problem was “a few” meant an entire bag in one sitting, and multiple bags per week. I had gone for so long without sugar I forgot how good it was and over compensated. That goes to show how important cheat meals can be.
From that point on I continued to follow my nutrition plan but cheated a lot more than I should have. I’d go for a few weeks without any cheating and then I’d hit the candy hard. Over the past few months I’ve gone way overboard, eating all kinds of junk food. I have developed the bad tendency of eating an entire package of something in one sitting. I never used to do that but for some reason I do now. I knew I would gain fat with the plan of losing it again before spring. At this point I think I’ve gained enough fat. I started at about 140 lbs and about 10% body fat at the end of summer. I’m now about 150 lbs and 18% body fat. Those body fat numbers aren’t necessarily accurate as they came from a scale and not calipers, but they illustrate how eating the wrong foods in excess can impact your body.
I’ve begun figuring out how I’m going to get rid of this excess weight, my “cutting plan” so to speak. For the next two weeks I’ll be sticking to my current 2350 kcal diet with some minor cheating allowed. I’ll be visiting my parents the week of Christmas. As such, there will be travel, Christmas dinners, Christmas junk foods such as candy and cookies, etc. I will still stick with my meal plan but won’t be strict. I want to spend that week enjoying myself, my family, and food. January is when the fun begins…
January 1, 2007 will be the beginning of my cutting plan. My diet will be reduced to 2200 kcal with very restricted cheating, limited to one meal per week and only within my total 2200 kcal guidelines. Those calories will be distributed as 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat. I will continue to follow the Max-OT workout plan that I’ve been following since February. I’m currently hitting the gym 5 days a week with 2 days off. That will be changing, with 5 days of lifting and 2 days of cardio as I was doing over the summer. If after 2 weeks I don’t notice much loss of fat I’ll cut my diet to 2100 kcal. That should be plenty low enough to see results. If not, I’ll continue cutting out 100 kcal a week until I see what I want. I’m aiming at losing at least 1.5 lbs of fat each week, with a total loss of 15 lbs of fat. My overall goal is 8% body fat. While I could lose it quicker than that there would be greater muscle loss, which I want to avoid as much as possible.
One thing I haven’t discussed much is my supplementation plan. I’ll be writing an article about supplementation in the future but I’ll cover my current and future plans here. Currently I’m taking a cheap multi-vitamin, a fish oil cap (for Omega 3s), 2 green tea caps (EGCG and antioxidants), 2 500mg Ester-C caps (immune system boost and antioxidants), 3 CLA caps (promotes greater muscle gain vs fat gain), 4 Z Force caps (ZMA + test boosters, questionable), and 2 25mg DHEA tabs on workout days (test booster). I always make sure to research supplements before I try them. Pubmed is your friend. I was taking Diesel Fuel before as a thermogenic and metabolism booster, but they recently changed it and added a lot more caffeine and Yohimbe. I didn’t want to take it regularly because of that, but I’m considering adding it back in at least a few days a week.
So that’s where I stand today. I watch my diet closely and know what everything I put in my body will do. Measuring and tracking everything comes naturally now. I’m not sure how I managed without doing either for 23 years of my life.
Dan on June 5th, 2006
Amidst the site contruction I felt like creating a normal update. I’ve been doing research into supplements. There is a rediculous amount of hype out there surrounding supplements. Do not believe anything a website selling them says. Here’s what I’ve found so far.
I estimate that 90-95% of supplements are useless or even harmful. Even multi-vitamins can be unhealthy since many give you well over the daily recommended values. For example, taking twice the daily recommended dose of vitamin A has been shown to cause hip fractures in older women. ((Feskanich D, Singh V, Willett WC, Colditz GA. Vitamin A intake and hip fractures among postmenopausal women. JAMA 2002; 287:47-54.)) One supplement that has been repeatedly show to assist muscle growth: creatine monohydrate. I’m not going to list a bunch of research but I will show one study. ((Okudan N, Gokbel H. The effects of creatine supplementation on performance during the repeated bouts of supramaximal exercise. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2005 Dec;45(4):507-11.))
I strongly recommend you do your own research before buying a supplement. Two of the best sites I’ve been able to find are PubMed and PDR Health. PubMed is a government listing of scientific research and PDR Health has summaries of various studies for many different drugs and supplements.
Dan on May 24th, 2006
Don’t you hate it when you spend 10+ minutes typing something and accidently delete it all? That’s what just happened to me. I had a pretty long entry written out and tried to hit Ctrl+T to open a new browsing tab. Instead I hit Ctrl+R and reloaded the page. I lost the entire entry. Now I have to retype it. Grrrr…
Anyway, this summer is looking like it could be the best ever. My first month of trading went extremely well. I have very few obligations which means I’ll be able to do what I want: relax, workout, trade, and drive. I’ve settled into what I believe will be my daily summer routine. Go to bed around 12:30, wake up in the 6:30-7:30 range. Make breakfast then eat it will checking out market futures and overnight news releases. At this point I plan on working out once I join another gym. Then I’ll come back, shower, eat my second meal, and review how the market is doing. If I feel the need to trade I will. If not I’ll have the day to do whatever I want.
I’m researching some trading strategies that will give me plenty of free time. Instead of being glued to my computer or a TV I’ll be able to watch the general market movement daily and still make a nice return. I’m waiting for some money transfers to go through so that I can open another brokerage account. This time it will be with TradeStation. Trade station’s fees are SIGNIFICANTLY less than my current broker, optionsXpress. For example: If I sell a single covered call the total fees including buying and selling the stock would be $3 with TradeStation and $45 with optionsXpress. That can make a big impact with covered calls and other small transactions. Also, optionsXpress has a $25,000 requirement to trade futures. TradeStation does not have this requirement. I’m not planning on trading futures right now but it’s something I may do in the future (pun not intended). I’m still keeping my optionsXpress account for autotrading with the First Class Advisory service. The FCA strategist has been offering this service for over a year and a half now and has never had a losing trade. His overall results from 8/2004 are well over 100%. He also issues a daily newsletter detailing his options about the market. If you’re interested in the service contact me. The price on his site is about 3 times as much as I can get you signed up for.
I’m developing my summer workout routine. I plan on hitting the gym 6 days a week. My actual workout is still being developed but it’s going to involve focusing on a different muscle group each day of the week. On Saturday I plan on hitting the rowing machine for 15-20 minutes (increasing as time goes by). The first thing I want to do is reduce my body fat. I’m in the 13-15% range right now and have some love handles showing. Once I bring that down I’ll begin bulking again. I’d like to gain at least another 5 lbs of muscle. I also plan on biking and hiking a lot this summer.
One thing I haven’t been focusing enough on is my eating habits. I’ve been straying from my meal plan quite frequently. Not only is it setting me back in my plans of losing some more fat but it’s setting my wallet back too. I think the problem is that my meals don’t vary enough. I have been having frequent cravings for sugar. I’m going to be adding more fruit to my diet in the hopes that it will reduce or eliminate the cravings. I also started getting sugar free mints. Those help quite a bit but not enough.
The autox racing season started a few weeks ago. Taking a year off hurt me. My driving skills have declined significantly! I’ve lost the little smoothness I had and my overall ability has seemed to suffer. Add to that my lack of experience racing a turbo car and the results are sloppy, slow runs. I’m slowly improving but I’m not expecting to place this year. I have a driver’s school at Watkins Glen race track next month. I’m hoping to improve my smoothness and figure out how to drive a turbo car. While significantly different than an autox, a driver’s school on a real track helps every aspect of driving. I learned so much from the one I did in 2004.
Now that I have the time I’m hoping to increase the frequency of my updates. Hopefully I’ll get it back to daily posts soon!
Dan on April 28th, 2006
Finally a new update! Last week I was sick with a head cold for a few days. It was the first time I’ve been sick in 2 or so years. I was really only down for one night so I guess I can live with that. It just so happens that allergy season started at exactly the same time. Out with the cold and in with a runny nose.
I decided to pick up some allergy medication in the hopes that I could eliminate the need to blow my nose once every 10 minutes. When I went to purchase generic Claritin-D (Loratadine and pseudoephedrine sulfate) I found that I had to take a notice to the cashier. I assumed it was to prevent theft. When I got to the register I found out that not only does a new law require me to produce ID but they record all of the information, including name, address, DOB, and ID number. The law is aimed at reducing production of methamphetamines (meth). Apparently Loratadine is used in the production of this illegal drug. Someone who has never known a meth head or the underground decided that passing such a law would help curb this problem. They obviously have no idea how ease it is to make a fake ID. Not including print time I could crank out a sheet of 8 IDs in less than an hour. It would be very easy for me to make a sheet of IDs with various names, addresses, and ID numbers and then use them at various stores to purchase Loratadine based medication.
This law does almost nothing to prevent the production of meth. It mearly allows the government to track allergy medication usage, something the government has no business doing. I’ve decided that I will no longer use Loratadine based medication. Instead I’ll use alternatives that are not tracked. I urge you to do the same.
I’ve done a brief search for information reguarding this new law but can’t seem to find anything. When I get a chance I plan on digging deeper and possibly writing a letter to representatives in the hopes of opening their eyes to the ridiculousness of the law.
