Friday, March 25, 2011

workin out

So this is my 4th post and I guess I'll just pick random topics off the top of my head to rant about.  I still wonder if there's anyone out there that is actually reading this stuff I type.  So after talking with some work friends the other day about working out, I guess I'll talk about that.  I'm also going to mention that it seems that everyone around me is sick and I seem to be immune, I usually only get sick once a year.  Something also pretty funny is that I think that sometime in middle school, I was patient zero of a strep throat epidemic that took out 2thirds of the class.

The hardest thing about doing it is actually getting yourself to go and do it and keep at it.  During high school when you join a sport and forced to exercise it's much easier to stay in shape but when college comes around, I can see how weight gain can get out of hand and 15lbs is just around the corner.  So the first step is to stay determined, motivated and strict about it.  It's really easy to just make excuses and just keep pushing the day that you start back to a Monday or something and then can't for some reason start that day and wait another week.  Just an idea but joining an expensive gym or something could be motivating to workout so that you don't waste your cash. I quit Planet Fitness after about a year since the only thing I used there was the treadmills since their free weights were terrible and I don't like machine weights; the overweight naked old men that walked around the locker rooms didn't help either.  They took about $200 from me after that year if anyone wants to know how much it costs to go there; they take $60 from you to start (even if you pay $1 or something to start, they charge it sometime later), $30 for the month of October for some crap reason, and $100 for other 10 months for $10 each, round $190 = $200

Something that I've been doing on and off has been a program called p90x, I saw it on TV so I found it online.  It works because its just a set of organized workout videos that kick your butt.  By the end of it I was able to perform 30 consecutive chin ups, do a load of push-ups in a row, and jog something like 5 miles.  I will hopefully be able to get myself to start it up again next week.  If anyone does need advice on losing weight, it's all about speeding up your metabolism.  Eating your meals spread out throughout the day into 5-6 healthy meals/snacks consisting of 300-400 calories every 3-4 hours or something since people average 2000 a day helps a ton but also remember that everyone is different, so do what works for you.  Starving yourself slows down your metabolism so you'll gain it back, drinking a lot of water helps, sleeping 7-8 hours a night (no more or less) helps, and working out also speeds it up.  Oh yeah and 2-3lbs a week is a good pace cause that's about 10lbs a month and if you overdo it I think it plateaus and you don't really lose that much anymore.  

For gaining muscle mass and avoid plateauing in strength, it's all about changing your routine.  From p90x I would do chest/back on Mon & shoulders/triceps/biceps on Wed with some cardio mixed in for a month then switch it up to chest/shoulders/triceps Mon & back/biceps Wed and for the final month you alternate the two set ups for each week.  Eating the right stuff is really important in building muscle, a combination of complex carbs/protein rich food with a balanced meal is key.  I never took any supplements besides whey protein; just remember to not over do it when you do any of the stuff.  For protein your not suppse to have more grams than your weight number a day; taking whey is the same as eating a chicken or something but if you have too much protein, it turns into waste and makes your body work use a bit more effort to process it which is bad.  Resting or just doing cardio for a week or so after a month or something after lifting helps since the way muscles get bigger and stronger is that the fibers tear and regrow larger. It's important to not overwork and do a muscle group more than 1-2 times a week or it won't have time to grow, higher levels of soreness is also usually common during the first week of starting.

Well that's all I know about working out fitness tips/advice/stuff I think so stay tuned for what ever I can think of to type tomorrow, and maybe type a suggestion or something on what I should write about or just so that I know that someone actually reads this and that I'm not wasting my time and writing to myself.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

movie week

After hanging out with one of my friends yesterday, I later went on to join some work friend to watch a movie, the roads were terrible by the way.  This movie made it the 4th movie I've seen this week, I don't usually go out of my way to drive to work to watch movies often and this was probably the first time I've seen any in months.

First Movie I saw was Battle LA on Wednesday. I thought the movie was excellent, it was packed with action and the story was pretty interesting; to me it reminded me of Black Hawk Down.  Some people said it reminded them of Independence Day, District 9, or Saving Private Ryan.  I was watching the Daily Show the other day and Jon had Arron interviewed about the movie, apparently the actors had to go through real boot camp to make the movie more realistic.  They said that military people often saw these kinds of movies and where annoyed at how things where performed, procedures, or even how they held guns so overall the way the actors performed with the yelling and everything was pretty authentic.  The movie didn't focus that much on the alien situation but more about being a marine, they could have easily replaced the aliens with terrorist or anything but anyway I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it.

The Second movie I saw was Rango on Sunday after work as I mentioned previously.  I thought it was a pretty funny movie, it was really creative and didn't have to make sense or follow any rules.  The story was pretty straight forward and to me it was set up as a traditional western film with animals with a lot of adult humor that would have been hidden to kids.  So if you enjoyed the strange humor like the style Johnny does in the Pirates of the Caribbean than I would recommend you to see this.

5 minutes after Rango was Limitless which what I thought was really great.  It was really creative and a really nice change to other typical action films and the way Cooper narrated  the movie gave it a nice touch.  After watching it, it made me think about how much someone could achieve if they just put effort and determination into their goals.  I also picked up a Limitless T-shirt and thermal bottle exclusive to theratre employees. 

yesterday (Wednesday) I saw Paul which was hilariously out of this world (lol...) and probably worth the hazardous drive to the movies.  I was iffy at first since it was put into a smaller theater but I guess it was due to the fact that it probably wouldn't have been as popular due to the fact that it was rated R.  One of my favorite parts of the movie where the crazy curses this one person says, which usually consists of a combination of two random potty words and Seth also really fit the role of Paul amazingly. 

The next movie I'm probably going to see is Sucker Punch.  I'm really excited about this film since I was a big fan of 300 and Watchmen and I even called the poster for it from the movies so it's hanging in my room.  The fact that they can do absolutely anything they can imagine makes it seem like its going to be more awesome than other typical action films.  The trailer made me think of it being set up kind of like an adventure video game with samurai robots, dragons, and other shenanigans so I really hope this movie will blow my mind :D.

stay tuned for tomorrow for when I talk about procrastinating or what ever I can think of...

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

second blog!

So I don't know how this works and if I'm suppose to write these blogs every day but I found out that at least 2 people have read my first one and I thought of stuff to write, so here I go.  I've always used the windows 7 sticky-note thing and put up little notes to myself so I don't forget stuff like homework and I guess I'll be using it for ideas for my blog; it's pretty handy by the way, you just type stuff on these notes that stay on your desktop even after you turn off your PC. 

So this week, being spring break,  hasn't been that interesting or anything but it was a nice break.  The weather was amazing for a few of the days, but as soon as Monday came around, signaling the end of spring break and the depressing start of college again, the snow just topped it off and made the mood that much worse.  It took me over 45 minutes to drive to my local college that usually takes me 10 minutes to get to, and to add to that, the roads were fine enough to drive at least the speed limit, but idiots just decide to drive 15mph on a 50 to cause bumper to bumper traffic and cause me to be late.  The bright side to all of this was that the professor arrived just as late as I was, so as I walked in the building, I was amazed at the sight of my fellow classmates just starting to walk into the classroom.

Even though the weather was a downer after the short taste of spring, there was a great upside to all of this.  My Monday/Wednesday class had an exam that I had no time to study for; I literally spent the last 4 days at work. I worked Saturday night for 5 hours, Sunday morning for another 5 and continued to stay there for the rest of the day to watch 2 movies. On Monday I went to class for the review for the exam and then went to  work from 1-9:30 and to top all that off, I did the same thing Tuesday, going to class and then to work 1-11.  My prayers must have been answered because after studying for a few hours and about to not get any sleep after work, as mentioned in my first post, I woke up to see my entire backyard covered in snow.  After quickly booting up my computer and checking out the college site, I was the happiest guy ever to see that the college was closed and that I had an extra week to study along with extra time to go back to sleep for several extra hours.  After waking up again I found out a work friend texted me that there wasn't any school. 

I intended to write about the 4 movies I saw this week, but I feel it would have made this post too long, so stay tuned for tomorrow night to read about that.  As for now its time to sit back and watch the newest episode of epic meal time on youtube and maybe some anime.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

first blog!

OK, so this is my first time blogging so I guess I'll write about why I made an account and tried starting this.  It all started yesterday on a very slow Monday afternoon at the movie theater where I work.  A couple of employees and I where sitting around with our cell phones out and one of them came across one of our friends blogs and started reading it out loud.  It seemed like a pretty cool idea, typing up your ideas to post online for others to read.  

Being a procrastinating type of guy, I decided to check out this blog and create my own account instead of studying for my midterm exam I have tomorrow, which will hopefully be canceled due to the crazy weather we have been getting.  It's too bad I can't just pop a pill like Bradly Cooper in Limitless, which was a pretty good movie by the way, and motivate myself to get things done. Well after 4 days straight of working (10 hours today on the busiest day) and after taking this exam, maybe I'll finally get some time to work out and hang out with some friends. 

Well it's time to hit the books so that maybe I'll get a few hours of sleep.  Till next time, if I decide to continue to write these. Not too bad for the first one I think, I'm sure no ones ever going to read this anyway. :)