"Life's a garden; you gotta dig it!" - Joe Dirt

The EDGE is keeping on keeping on....and doing awesome!!

So I'm staying strong and steady at 185LBS; I hit my goal weight!! I weighed myself several times over the last two weeks and have fluctuated between 183 - 186LBS. On average I think I'm right at my goal. The best part is that I've been going strong on eating well (well, relatively well).
When I was in Tokyo about 3 weeks ago, I had one of my first days of full junk food. Since I was eating well for 5 weeks or so while travelling in Thailand, my body let me know, without exceptions, that eating junk was not ok....let's just say I was in pain and deserved it!
Anyway, I've been eating proper portions (not North American portions), eating more green foods, and hitting the gym almost every day.

The cardio is getting stronger - can run over 20mins now without stopping and going at a good clip on the treadmill, hitting the spinning cycles, and the crosstrainers.

With all of this, I feel like my outlook is becoming more and more positive. I'm feeling really good about myself and am feeling super confident at work and meeting new people. In fact, I was playing around with one of the trainer girls at the gym. Andrew and I were doing weights and when his turn was up for the curl bar, the trainer came by to ask for our badges. I played stupid and just said "What are you looking for??". When she pointed for my badge, all I ended up saying, with a big grin on my face, was "If you wanted to know my name, you just had to ask girl!!". Andrew pissed himself laughing while he was trying to lift weight; it was funny. Now when I walk into the gym, I get a little smile. Maybe I'll wink at her next time.

Lifting weight is funny though. Before I left on my trip, I was able to lift 185LBS on the bench press...earlier this week I had a hard time lifting 135LBS. Ouch! Ok, I'm getting back into gear with the heavy weight. I think for measurement, I should figure out my body fat content as when I stat gaining muscle mass, it will be difficult to measure progress by weight alone. I'll talk to the trainers and get their opinion.

Other than that, I want to run an adjustment to the workout routine by Andrew. We've, in the past, been going 6 days straight to the gym and going hard. I've found over the last few weeks that if I go 3 days on, 1 day off, I have more energy to train. We may be overtraining so I want to see what he thinks. That and it may be time to start going on supplements so I want to look into that piece too.

In other EDGE news, other than fitness that is, I'm working on the house. The tenant who is renting my place was the original owner of the house. She's elderly and was renting month to month until she decided to move in with her daughter (it's getting hard for her to live on her own). Anyway, after I got back from my trip, we talked about her staying for a few more months as well as me taking up residence in the summer. We both agreed, which worked out well for both of us, that she'll stay until the end of May and I'll move in once she's out. The house has been a good investment buy for me and I'd like to live in it for a bit until I'm ready to sell or decide what I want to do. That said, I'm going to fix it up a bit, just enough, to make it nice and comfortable for me. I'm very big on a tidy and clean environment so paint, new carpets, and fixing up of the bathrooms and kitchen will be nice....not crazy stuff mind you but enough of a change to make it more....me.

I'll update more on this as time progresses.

Harvey

Surprise...surprise.... - Feb 15th, 2006

As you may have read on my travel BLOG, I've gotten home safe and sound from my journey's abroad.

On the EDGE program, well, it suffered a little. Just a little bit of gym use, a little use of the travel stretchy/tension bands that I took with me, and running on the beach from time to time. I hiked on my treks and walked a fair amount, sometimes for several hours a day.

This is my first week back in Vancouver and I've been all smiles at work as everyone that see's me keeps saying that I look healthier and look like I lost weight. "I lost weight? Really??", I would say. To be honest, I haven't noticed. I thought I've been chunking out as I haven't been running or working out regularly.

Today was my second day back at the gym and cardio seems strong (I was going at a good resistance and pace on the spinning bikes). After I was done, I weighed myself and to my surprise, I found I'm 186lbs...1lb away from my target weight. "186LBS?!? HOLY CRAP!!". I honestly wasn't expecting to see this.

So what happened on my trip to make this happen??

Let me think back. On my trip, I slowly went from eating the traditional American breakfast of eggs, toast, and fried surprise meat and starting eating more fruit salads (you essentially get this with any breakfast order and I started to focus on that). I ate more green foods - ie. salads, and the like. I had fruit shakes with my meals and most importantly, I ate the proper (ie. not the North American plate portions) of food. When I ate meat dishes, it was generally chicken...very little-2-no pork or beef. I ate fried dishes but as the weeks went by, tried to have less and less of them.

Funny point, we all know that eating green foods more often is better for us; I do but I never have a good sampling of it. The EDGE program CD by Tony Robbins mentioned something very interesting; I don't know if this is scientifically true but it's interesting.
Our bodies have a standard pH level of 7.36...or something like that. The scale goes as follows:

Acids range from 0-7 pH. The lower the number, the higher the acidity.
Base or alkaline range is from 7-14. The higher the number, the higher the alkaline level.

Our bodies, this is what Tony mentions (he got this info and research from scientific/health people he knows), can not vere too far from our bodies optimal pH level as it could be deadly. The more alkaline content you injest to keep your bodies acidity level in check, the better it's going to be for you (ie. as in reducing weight and maintaining a healthy weight level).

This is starting to make sense to me and I'm wondering about the validity of this claim (as I'm starting to believe especially from the results of the last few weeks). When in Japan, I mentioned in my travel BLOG that Dan and I had visited Disneyland. What I didn't mention is that I had a burger meal (one of the very few fast food meals) while we were there. A burger, coke, and greasy, greasy fries. It tasted good but I got a stomach ache (not a big one) that lasted for an hour or so. It went away as the day wore on and I was ok.
That night, I wanted to get a t-shirt from the Hard Rock cafe at Ueno station (it's this thing I have...when I go to a new place like Italy or someplace, I try to get a t-shirt or hat from the Hard Rock cafe) and had another burger meal (I felt ill right away and could feel the grease coating my esophogus).
That night, my body told me in a very stern way that this was not good - I was deathly ill; food came back up and I was in the bathroom for a good portion of the night. From that moment, I went back to my Thailand diet of fruit and veggies where I could and normal portion sizes of food at other times (bento boxes, etc.. - no junk). After I went back on the green diet, I instantly starting feeling better. There could be somthing to this.

So here's what I'm starting to define (so far anyway...at least for me) as Alkaline foods:
1. Green Foods (salads right now but maybe to include green shakes in the future.
2. Fruit and fruit salads or shakes.
3. Nuts (unsalted).

Here's what I define as Acidic foods:
1. Meats or meat products, including Dairy. Recall, this is what I define for me, you could be different.
2. Coffees and teas
3. Fruit juices (the processed sugary stuff)
4. Breads
5. Chocolates/candy
6. Anything fried..doesn't matter what it is.

That's what I have so far. Today, I'm going to make an effort to just keep eating the types of foods I was eating before and focusing on having a balance of Alkaline and Acidic foods (eating more of Alkaline foods than Acidic anyway).

As I go back to the gym and regain muscle, I'm sure my body weight will increase but I want to keep an eye on the fat gain.

That's what I have so far...more to come later.

Harvey