Hi all,

Well, the scale was up this morning, but I've lost 1 in. off my waist, .75 off my lower abs, and a half inch off my hips. Guess that's ok since I had a slow start to the challenge due to my surgery. I'm about 2 weeks behind everyone else.

Keep up the good work everyone!

1HD! CONGRATS!!! That's why I always emphasize the importance of taking those measurements!!! So many folks only watch the scale and get discouraged when they're actually kicking butt! Good work!

Well, on this end, here we go again!!! Depending on the station you tune your dial to, the Memphis metro area is either going to have thunderstorms and a cold windy night OR rain, turning to ice, turning into snow with 30-40 MPH winds by the Wednesday AM commute! The only thing they do all agree on is that we were already at our high temp for today at 6AM this morning so it’s all downhill from here…weather wise anyhow.

Anyhow, I hit the gym doors at “0” Dark-Thirty sharp today since I had an appointment scheduled for a fitness evaluation. They’re running an 8 week body fat % burning competition starting today and since the spring OBF challenge is finished up I figured why not just toss that iron back into a new fire! Their comp here runs you through a weigh in and 4 point caliper body fat measurement week 1 & week 8 and of course not being bashful & being a morning gym rat I signed up for the first slot on the list.

Now John, to put your mind at ease, unless she’s really into pain, I can now FULLY assure you that gym manager chick does NOT have it bad for the Griz as you had previously speculated LOL! For such a dinky lil thing she liked to killed me with those calipers…OUCH! I’m sure there will be bruises by tomorrow but the good news is that her caliper readings reflected a 7% improvement over the U.S. Army’s online calculator I’ve been using for the past many months!!! The calipers say I’m at 35.7% so now I have my comp start point! I'll continue to use the online Army deal to track my progress here since it's all relative once you set a baseline.

Once the weigh in & caliper torture was done she went through my LBWO with me. Their plan is to help folks setup a routine but since I already have one she just followed along to make suggestions for improving fat loss focus. She didn’t really have much to say until I hit the adductor abductor rig. She kind of giggled and mentioned that most guys don’t visit that rig. She stopped giggling when I set the pin on max load and dropped the 2 incremental 5s for a full load of 210 LBs & as always ran through 1 set of squeeze then flipped the pads & tore into a double set of spread. Once my count entered the 2nd set of spread she began chattering about muscle balance, assuming I’d lost count so I began growling through each rep to get her to hush then flipped the pads back & knocked out the 2nd set of squeeze. Once done I explained that being a guy, I was not as strong at pulling the legs together as I was prying them open so I have to split that double set and MAN did she blush!!! It’s a REALLY good thing she had already done the caliper test or I think she’d’ve killed me with’em LOL! Totalled out 55,080 LBs of LBWO & 311 HIIT Cardio Calories!

Once I was done with the full routine she said she didn’t really see anything wrong with my LBWO so to improve my results during the comp she figured I just need to tighten down on the diet and I agreed therefore there will be NO peanut butter in the Griz den until April!!! Can’t cave to temptation if it isn’t there!

Rock on pals!!!

Your crazy Memphis pal, Griz

Hi everyone,

Week 5 on a roll here!!!!

Got it done this morning !!!!  Did HIIT this morning in a completely empty gym too~  In my home!!! Lol ~  I did my workout on my Elliptical did most of the phases started at 3 intensity and worked my way up I got to 7 intensity went to 8 that is as high is my Elliptical goes and I con't keep it at that intensity it was to hard , so I had to drop back one..~ For me my gold will be to get up there and keep it on it for the 20 mins. I struggled to get a 8 intensity so I guess I  stepped it up another notch - endurance is growing exponentially.  I am getting about 140-150 heart rate, which is about 80% if my maximum rate is 174 for my age.  So I'm on target there I think.. It was a good HIIT this morning.

1hdhawk~ Heck!!!! that is great results don't you say guess that's OK ~ It's great News every little bit counts ... Ohhh by the way what is your real name??? can you put it at the end of you post. Thanks 1hdhawk~ =)

Hey our crazy Memphis pal, Griz ~ I just want to say I Love reading your post when I come on and would like to know your real name also..=) this is my real name but on facebook it's Jacqueline anne Bennett. Everyone calls me Anne. =)

Griz, your post was my comic relief moment of the afternoon!

Doing well over here, even with a sick baby to take care of- it's been a challenge to my emotional eating habits to keep away from the goldfish crackers when sitting on the couch tending to a toddler with a cold. But I'm doing it!

Did a GREAT cardio DVD on netflix this morning that got my heart pumping, and I'm glad for it, cause it's cold outside!

Have a great rest of your day!

McIntyreMama

Shoshie,

    We spoke several weeks ago and I wanted to see how you are doing.  Maybe we could compare notes.  I have been extremely solid and noticed a huge difference.  Scott

Roosed - you are hilarious!  I'm glad the numbers on the fat% was an improvement and I know they definitely will be in 8 weeks.  Keep up the good work.

Thank you for keeping us all entertained and for being such an encouragement!

1hdhawk - Great going - particularly since you had surgery!  Celebrate the success and let them propel future successes!

Can anyone help me? I just started the challenge last week and see people talking about a "cheat". I did not see anything about a cheat day or meal in the materials. Am I missing something? Where can I find it as I would LOVE a cheat meal!!!???

Thanks everyone! In the 2 yrs. I've lost weight, gained most of it back, and am now losing it again, I've learned the scale is far from the only measure. I do get hung up on lbs. lost, but was pleasantly surprised to see the tape measure had moved.

AnneB, my real name is Kim.

Looks like we're having a snow day tomorrow which means I can get both ST and cardio in. Slipped a little on nutrition today, but not terrible. Yesterday was right on track. Sticking to the nutrition plan is getting easier each week so I'll just keep at it.

Roosed, your post gave me a chuckle today. Keep the gym manager on her toes!

Stay warm for all of you who are under snow like I am!

Kim

Hey 1hd - I don't know about you, but I found the first two weeks of C1 to be the hardest when it came to nutrition.

Once your body adapts, those cravings are so much easier to deal with - and I have a REAL sweet tooth! Last night we had guests around, and my girlfriend cooked lasagne and fish pie for everyone, and there was a big box of doughnuts for desert. What did I eat? One small wholemeal cracker and a protein-shake. Boy, did I feel antisocial, but I feel much better for it today.

bfl2011 - You've got one free day a week. You may want to restrict yourself this day, you may not - I've been awful with my 'free' days since I started the first challenge, but bang on the money otherwise, and I'm fairly satisfied with my progress.

All - I just wanted to reccommend that you stick to HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) for your cardio programme - it's what BFL reccommends, and there's a good reason for it. It's much quicker (can be done in 20 minutes, I stretch mine out to 25 ususally), it's much easier to guage how well you're doing, and 20 minutes 3x per week is shown to be as effective as 5 hours/week  of standard cardio when it comes to burning fat! No cardio is wasted cardio (though you can do too much), but you'll save yourself time with HIIT, and get great results.

Hey crew!!! Being a big guy all of my life, one thing I've learned is the importance of being able to laugh at one's self & once in a while that just comes through in my Blogs too LOL!

GREAT NEWS GANG!!! Punxsutawney Phil DIDN’T see his shadow for only the 16th time since Americans have celebrated ‘Groundhog day”!!! This is FANTASTIC news given this week’s weather across most of the U.S.!!! Of course I think Murphy & Mother Nature are probably just jerking out chains but hey! Time’ll tell!!! 21F here in Memphis w/ nearly gale force winds made motivating a REAL challenge this AM other than KNOWING that grinding iron would generate surplus body heat. Have to find that silver lining where we can…right?!?!?

Hit the gym really dragging @zz today. I got a really unusual 6 full, uninterrupted, hours of sleep last night so that isn’t the problem but admittedly missed ALL of my workout supplements yesterday due to the fitness assessment deal throwing me clear out of routine so maybe I just need to catch back up on those, not sure.

Anyhow, I still managed to grind out 43,830 LBs of upper body iron @ .69 Tons per Minute but at least it got done! Shoulder was really whining today too so maybe it’s just gonna be one of those days LOL! Friday will be the maximum rep per set day for this new UBWO routine so I just have to keep the old / dark attitude from creeping back into UBWO days LMBO! At least tomorrow is LBWO day again so that’ll help keep the MoJo flowing!!!

One routine tweak I made today, on the second lap of sets, that should help is that I replaced the Nautilus seated bicep curl station with the old stand by seated row. In this new routine I had added in the seated bicep curl to try & balance the abuse between TRIs & BIs & like all of these freaking Nautilus rigs, it’s designed for the average “medium” American or standard Asian frame so unless someone of my “stature” has T-Rex arms it just doesn’t really fit which in turn puts a cranking twist in the shoulder sockets during the full range of motion. The seated row is universally sized, I just have to behave on the poundage since that was the first station where I pulled my shoulder out of socket months back trying to be too gung ho! I’ve got some really important remodeling tasks to accomplish here in a couple weeks that will require the full function of both arms so I just HAVE to make sure & NOT do anything stupid between now & then & BEFORE YOU EVEN START…I already KNOW that’ll be a challenge for the bullheaded Griz!!!

I must’ve gotten something right today though. Even with the full load of my new pre & post supps on board, which have been working great BTW, I’ve still got the full body quivers going on 2 hours post grind so typing this has been a real adventure in itself!!!

Rock on pals! It’s hump day & we’re almost to the top of the hill! Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend ALWAYS kicks off the Hump Day iPod playlist to set the mood. What do y’all say we make it work!!!

BTW, for those who have asked, my outside world name is Dave & if you’re really sadistic & desire the extra torment in your day to day lives I lurk around in Facebook, Dave Ross.

ENJOY!

Good morning crew.

LBWO done!!! got up this am, found out there wasn't any school for my girl, So I let her sleep in this morning, I went to the gym down stairs and got my LBWO done had a great LBWO...~ Now to get on with this stormy day.~ =)

Thanks Kim for letting me know your really name.

Thanks Dave for letting me know your really name. I will look you up on facebook are you one anyone of the BFL crew. ?

Just finished a great ST workout. As predicted, no school. Now to get some stuff done around here, plus throw in a little relaxing. I started out kind of blah this morning when heading to the workout too Dave, but it ended up being ok and of course, I'm glad I did it!

My dh is getting me a new puppy for my bday this weekend. We'll go pick one out as soon as the weather cooperates. It will be tomorrow, Fri. or Sat. I'm keeping it quiet because we already have 2 dogs and my friends will call me crazy! One probably won't be around much longer and I had to put my small dog down a year ago so I want a lap dog. The other 2 are too big. Not workout related, but I'm excited!

Kim

Enjoy your new puppy Kim when you get it.

We have a civil emergency declared for our county so I won't be going anywhere today (not that I could because the roads are impassable). A snowplough did come through our neighborhood this morning but this was only to escort the state trooper who lives up our street home. I think I will count the two hours spent snow blowing and shoveling our driveway my workout for the day (that's with kids and husband helping and it's not a long driveway). Stay safe and warm everybody.

Hey crew,

I finally got around to taking pictures today to see if there was any differences to be seen yet.  I said before I'd only lost about 2lbs and a few inches and was a little disheartened.

Well the pics seem to match the rest with very little noticeable change so I dug around on the BFL site to find inspiration to fuel me some more.  

Here's what I found.  

#1- Awesome analogy of two rolls of paper towels by another BFL'er

bodyforlife.com/.../1537.aspx

#2- The Lady Success Document

mikeharris.org/.../lady-success-document-as-of-3-14-10

Both gave me a lot of hope that I just need to keep doing what I'm doing.  I'm also going to start being more diligent about logging my goals and stuff in my Success Journal.  I need something else other then a weight loss/inches goal to motivate me and feel like I'm getting somewhere.  Seeing my personal progress in the form of setting and achieving personal goals every day will really help me in this a lot.

Thanks SO much for being here guys.  I means so much to me that you are on this journey with me!!

Let's make this happen!