MY FITNESS PAL

Time to get serious about this fitness thing... 

Time to dust off the old My Fitness Pal APP and start tracking everything. I was reading a post by my buddy Kellye Smith the other day, it was about the relationship between your body and the scale. It was a great little post, truth is I think that has been my problem lately... I have been relying to much on a # on the scale. I for one should know better than that, so it just goes to show anyone can fall into that trap, a trap that will ruin your Gainzzz. 

Tomorrow I will start tracking everything I eat on My Fitness Pal.  My macro's will be (see photo below) :

for the first week, then instead of relying on the scales I'm going to go by instinct.  A quick example would be...

If I'm feeling very tired, I will increase my carbs.
if I'm losing or gaining weight to fast or slow, I'll lower or raise my calories...  and so on.

I'll still keep posting my weight daily on this blog so you can follow along if you want.

Ok time for a funny story, the wife finished food prep for the next few days. 

Lean 96/4 hamburger meat

Brown and white rice

Black beans

Lots of grilled chicken

And last but not least 4 large turkey patties

She left them on the counter to cool (this is where the funny story comes in) went back to put them up and they were gone!!! 

Mystery solved...

Very happy and well fed lab puppy!!!

Puppy ate all my Gainzzzz!!!

TILL NEXT TIME
BIG AL

Going through the Motions??

Ok now that I have confused you with the title, let me explain. My fitness journey right now feels like I'm on auto-pilot. 

At first that sounds like a good thing, but in reality it's not. I guess the best way to describe it is I have become comfortable with my physique.

While it is great to really like what you see in the mirror... It is doing nothing to get me to my true fitness goal.

I find that I just don't push myself to the next level, a level that I know now that I can attain. It's just a matter of how bad do I want it. Hence the phrase "Going Through the Motions".

I thought long and hard about this and I have decided, I want it, I want the next level!!

An online friend of mine, Dave Crosland, once said "I'm pretty sure I have a little gas left in the tank" you know, he's right at 53 (53 in a few days) years old I too have a little gas left in the tank, and I plan on using every drop of it! Starting in the morning I plan on putting the throttle down!!

My good friend Tren will be in-town tomorrow, got to admit he pushes me hard in the gym, so watch out guys... Shredded Al will be coming soon.

TILL NEXT TIME
Big Al

It's going to be a quick post

Long day, had to do catch up at work... Yea, yea and its Sunday, sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

Did not even make it to the Gym today, just walked in the door at 7:30 pm. I would normally just make it up on monday morning (my normal off day at the gym)

BUT you guessed it, I need to get an early start at work. Think I'll do legs after work at my home gym. (PHOTOS COME)

Stuck to the diet, truth is if anything I under ate, do to my work load. 

Just a quick word of advice, if you are eating right don't panic the scale will move... 

I was stuck at 254.2 for a couple of days, then this morning dropped to 252.8 LBS. Just remember your body does some strange stuff from time to time, but if you treat it right it will work for you! 

TILL NEXT TIME
BIG AL

Chest, Traps, Neck and Calves... OH MY!

Love me some Saturday workouts at the gym. Started to pick back up the pace with the weights again... Yes, yes I've been going but not killing it like I plan for the next 12 weeks. 

Still suffering from my shoulder injury, but have decided to hold off on the surgery until after the next 12 weeks. As I can not even bench the bar, I have had to modify my chest workout greatly. But I can do it, I can work around the injury, I think?

Plan on working on some lagging body parts this year that I need to bring up. Legs, Traps, ABS, and neck.

Still not sure how to go about this blog... downloading photos takes time, so I'm thinking on the weekends and my days off I will post more photos and answer questions if anyone has any and keep it strictly to the point during the week days... I'm going to try and I'm saying try to post a blog post every day at least for the next 12 weeks. 

Just as a note, if you are checking out my blog on you cell phone you are NOT seeing the whole blog, as I will be posting my body weight, and a selfie daily. Not to mention I will be posting a lot of fitness links soon to come. If this is something that interest you just scroll to the bottom of each blog post and click on "VIEW WEB VERSION" then you will be able to see the entire blog.

Todays food:

BREAKFAST: two whole eggs, wheat toast, 1/2 serving of jelly, 2.1 ounces of ham (normally would not eat this but the wife had leftover from her meal) and yes I weigh everything. Pinch of shredded cheese. I like to get my fats in in the morning.

PRE-WORKOUT: Jacked 3-D, two scoops... Just as a side note this product has just got banned, so if you are looking for some eBay will be your only place to get it until supplies run out. Sniff, sniff.

LUNCH: 4 oz of 94/6 lean ground beef, 1/4 cup off white rice, 1/4 cup of brown rice, 1/4 cup of shredded cheese, 1/2 cup of black beans, lots of hot sauce and to add protein 2.3 oz of grilled chicken.

SNACK: protein shake, two scoops of MTS Nutrition chocolate flavor, cup of spinach and one scoop of MTS Nutrition Greens + Multi (this is something new I'm trying, i'll give a review in another week or two) plus a cup and a half of water.

LAST MEAL: 3.2 oz of grilled chicken, one slice of pepper jack cheese, one bag of protein chips.

SNACK: Pure Protein bar

TODAYS WORKOUT:

Chest: narrow grip cable flys
2x30x20 lbs
1x15x40 lbs
1x12x70 lbs
1x10x120 lbs
1x10x160 lbs
2x10x200 lbs

Chest: hammer strength wide grip press
2x12x135 lbs
1x12x225 lbs
1x10x315 lbs
1x4x385 lbs
Then I stripped a plate on each side, would do 8 reps pull two more plates 8 more until the machine was empty, no rest between sets (super set)

Chest: hammer strength incline press
4x12x135
this surprised me, the 135 felt light but I did not want to push my shoulder (maybe its healing a little)

Chest: wide grip cable crossovers 
1x20x40 lbs
1x14x60 lbs
2x10x80 lbs

CALVES: seated calf machine
1x20x45 lbs
3x15x95 lbs
took it easy on them, its been over a week since I worked them.

TRAPS: Hammer strength trap machine
5x15x90 lbs

Dumbbells shrugs (no photo)
1x20x40 lbs
2x15x45 lbs
1x15x50 lbs

Neck machine
4x20x30 lbs

This pretty much rounded out my day, I did find time in between to wash my new car, and get to work for a few hours, been off for awhile now, just wanted to make sure there were no surprises waiting on me Monday morning.

TILL NEXT TIME
BIG AL 

First day of 2016!!!

Time to get the New Year fitness started... 

Gym was closed, so this was a no workout day for me, unless you want to count the shop cleaning the wife and I did as cardio, I did!

Still not sure what direction I want to go with this blog, so bear with me, I'll figure it out shortly.

As for today, I did take the time to take a photo of everything I ate today, tough day coming off of a week of food binging. Mmmm Pizza!!!

(typical binge food above)

I was off from work today, so here's Breakfast:

Snack

Lunch/Dinner

Snack

Shake before bed

Final total for the day...

Totals	1,469	112	50	147	1,951	35
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar

TILL NEXT TIME BIG AL

There's a new old chip in town.

OLD, well  the chips have been around for awhile now, NEW because I just ate my first bag last week. 

I give them a thumbs up while dieting, if you bite into one expecting it to taste like your favorite chip, you are going to be very sad. 

   To me they in no way taste like a high fat chip or even a baked chip for that matter. BUT what they do have, that the other chips don't is NO high fat, NO high carbohydrate and zero sugar. They are loaded in protein 21grams a bag and a crunch that is straight from heaven.... 

That is what sells me on them, the crunch. Sometimes you just need that crunch while dieting.

Ok now for the bad news, they are price-E, looks like $ 2.50 a pack around my hometown. Good news is I got mine for $ 1.37 a pack, so I bought two cases of them. So how did you get them so cheap, Big Al? Well it appears the gym I go to was having a hard time selling the Sea Salt and Salt &Vinegar flavor.  It appears the Bar-B-Q and sour cream flavor sell just fine so no sell on them.

Finial thought, not sure if I would buy them at the full price of $ 2.50 a pack, but I think they are a steal at $ 1.37 a pack. I would give  Quest Protein Chip an 8 out of 10 rating, but remember I will eat most anything with HIGH protein in it...

Till next time
Big Al

I know, I know, the title is fitness Quest 2016... Well your right its still 2015, but you know what, I've got something to say...

So lets get this party started, just created the blog tonight and thought I would get a head start on the new year. I will be adding a LOT more links, photos and information as I go along, but hey you got to start somewhere. Getting ready to start a 12 week lean bulk (most likely next week).

Took advantage of the cyber Monday sales, made a large order from tigerfitness.com 

Two 5 pound containers of protein MTS Nutrition, Chocolate and a new flavor to me Key Lime Pie.

Trying something completely new Greens + Multi  also made by MTS Nutrition (Just away of getting more greens in my diet) 

Not only did I save some Big Bucks on my order, but I got a few freebees.. Wrist Wraps , Shaker drink bottle and MTS Nutrition Cap. 

OK, I'm keeping this post short... I will give a full an honest product review on all the products in the photo below once I get started on my Lean Bulk.

Till next time

Big Al