Lifestyle Corrections

Early to bed
Early to rise
No TV in bedroom
Sound sleep - 8 hrs
Walk - 10k steps (yeah it is a magic figure... Abracadabra)
Sunshine - 20 min bare exposure in the morning.
Drink water - u.... should be clear.
Eat real food, vegetables, eggs, lentils, meats, fruits, nuts, milk & milk products.
Consume sugar in extreme moderation, (ok binge on Jalebis once in a while )
Siesta - 40 min.
Wine in moderation
No drugs (that includes tobacco & cannabis)
Be aware - surroundings.
Do not hoard - junk, fat,
Trim your waist, lifestyle, home, workspace

Aim for the moon..... Really? 10000

Aim for the moon...
Good quote, universal rule - absolutely not

On I decided to do 5000 kettlebell Swing challenge in 20 days, a fair aim I thought.
Started logging, food intake first, but before I could start swinging I read about Dan John's 10000 swing Challenge.

Decided to accept the bigger (harder) challenge. But before I could start I came across an article about Bud Jeffrey doing 10000 swings in 10 days without any overtraining or recovery related issues.
Aim for the moon.... thodi aur pyaas badhao....
1000 swings a day...
F... I didn't even start, the task was so daunting; found excuses to shy away from the kettlebell, in fact from exercise itself. Right now as I blog I have time for a short workout but instead of swinging I am typing.

Lesson learnt.
Better idea - Aim for where you want to go... correction - need to go
Keep the goals realistic,
Don't bite more than you can chew. Take small bites
Downgraded my challenge to 3000 even as I type, let us see where I end up.

Bodyweight exercises Suck... or is it me...

Last year I took to lifting weights with a vengeance... Okay That was hyperbole, I lifted, adhering to 5x5 type plans and ended up in the intermediate level in my weight category as per Strength standards on exrx.com.

Felt nice, I was big at about 105 kg, my shirt sleeves were now too small for my arms, unfortunately so were my pants for my waist.

I read strength books, internet articles and decided this was the real deal.

Lifting weights - I loved the smug feeling when I first squated 110 kg for reps (after having failed and killed myself in the last attempt with a near face-plant). Each time I got under the bar I was scared and I felt alive. I loved it when I overcame the weights. (My 5 rep max was 117.5 kg, after which I cut back - yes, I love to gloat over my achievements however small they might be)
Time passed (had to take a break from lifting, bloated up to a weak 111kg, changed my dietary habits and came down to 95).
I started with a simple routine,

Front Squat - Romanian Deadlift superset - 3 x 10 reps @ 50 kg.
Push Press - Bent-Over row superset -  5 x 5 reps @ 50 kg.
Bench Press - Lats pulldown superset - 2 x 10 reps @ 50 kg.

In the morning I alternated with
Kettlebell Swing - 8 x 20 rep @ 20 kg
(yes these are the Only weights available here)

I thought I was doing great , when at a whim I joined a group of boxers doing a Bodyweight circuit - seemed easy-
Pushups,
Crabwalk,
Pumps
.....
These are the few I remember.....
Wow.... F... S.... Ouch... and that's just the warmup...

I activated muscles which I did not know I had, for a guy who could Bench 105 for reps failing to do 5 Pushups after calisthenics was humbling if not downright humiliating (it wasn't humiliating because I have d... thick skin or in simple words - I am pretty shameless).
........

Hey fellow wannabe strongmen, lesson learnt was -
Before you start struggling with iron weights you have to conquer your own. Done correctly even this would be a Herculean task...and one that would take your fitness to the next level.
I hear Purists, power lifters, and few internet warriors scoff - try it out, see not only the body turn to jelly and your heart leap out of your chest. It will change your perception of Fitness once and for all. Conditioning or Strength - Endurance is real....

Will I return to Iron - heck, I never gave it up, I am sticking to my alternating barbell - kettlebell routines 3 to 5 times a week (the weights are light) . But god-willing I will supplement iron with my own body and tie my shoe laces without choking......

Dietary Enemies : Food porn & Social pressure

In April 13 I finally introduced sanity into my dietary habit,
I cut down on sugar, alcohol, rice, flour and derivatives.
I started eating typical Indian salad and chicken two-three times a day; to satiate the sweet craving I started taking cold coffee and/or protein shake with sucralose with the meals.
Stuck to this diet till July lost about 15 kg down to 96kg from 111kg.
Then...plateau...cheating...plateau...more cheating...
Sure I am the culprit...
But I'd share a part of it with the rampant food porn on the TV,  print...

'How to Cook' shows,
Reality shows on cookery,
Travel shows on cookery,
Advertisements showcasing Chips, chocolates, cakes, sodas, oils, flour, meals ready to eat,  jams, Restaurants , pizza, burger, sandwiches.......
High time we had statuary warning on all such products - 'Warning : Consumption may cause obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease, and may kill you'

The second bugbear is social, peer & better half... pressure,...
Come over for dinner, (why not a hike or a jog or a workout if you are 'real' friends)
Bhai saab ek roti/ thoda aur.
Ek jalebi se kuch nahin hota,
Daaru / chai to sirf paani hai,
Birthday cake hai khana padega
Maine kitne pyaar se banaya hai,
Waste ho jayega, tum khatam kar do please .
... and my favourite - Khalo-2 (this is a personal bugbear)

Had enough of the c ...
Back to basics, now I'm back to being my sullen, solitary, carnivorous self. Dropped a kilo already....

Gods in heaven..

..and us below

Who is playing games, I don't know

Are the Gods bothered, do they give d.....
Hmm...Do I give a d... which skin cell I shed every moment of my existence.. Do I give a s...about the millions of microbes living in and on me .....No I don't.

If God is the sum total of all existence- energy, matter, and laws...we are infinitesimaly small, inconsequential even.

Neti-Neti (not this - not this) .........

How heavy is 20kg?

Quite a lot actually!

I finally gathered enough courage and forced myself to fool around with the 20kg Kettlebell gathering dust for the last one year. (My thoughts were far more eloquent when I was struggling with the k'bell)

F......the d..... thing was heavier than I thought it would be, it was far-2 heavier today than the last time I lifted it.

Ever the over-confident a..I decided to do the Deep 6 routine ie 5xComplex, where each complex is of following alternate hand exercises:-
5,5 swings,
5,5 snatches,
5, 5 squats
5,5 clean & presses,
Turkish get down- up to start a new complex.
(It is called deep 6 because it includes all primary k'bell exercises- swing, snatch, squat, clean, press
& TGU)

S...I should have started with a 8kg k'bell, the d.... thing didn't swing beyond my stomach, oh well I did push it up higher but it wasn't like last year when I could do Crossfit type swings with chutzpah. Snatches were even more f...ed up, f....you my stupid ego, I should have been doing free hand snatches....

I could clean (barely) but presses were a different animal altogether, a black demo. TGU(well TGD) - didn't have the guts to attempt these

Did not have the ....for round 2 leave alone completing the mandatory 5.

Guess what I did next- yes take it easy.  I decided to switch to RKC Bare minimum- a beginners program which consists of a 10 min warm-up with 10 counts each of wall squats, halos and mountain climbers. Followed by actual workout which is 20 swings followed by 1 minute of active rest (jumping jacks, mountain climbers etc) for a total of 12 minutes.

Sounds easy enough - I got the wind knocked out of me in the warm-up itself. Could do only 20 half swings, active rest what a joke - I could barely move.

Had to take a full days rest, God willing I will do the RKC Bare min today.

I love life

Life is beautiful!

My weight loss seems to have plateaued but strength loss continues unabated.
My arms which were 16.5" last year have shrunk to 13.5" this year. Last year I looked stout, this year I look wimpy. Gods forgive me, but if this the price for years of indulgence and neglect, I accept the price and will work towards betterment.

On analysing the background I realised that
1. I have cheated on my diet far more than I should have. Few days back I had rum and chicken, worst still the gravy was rich and had more calories than I should have consumed in the whole day. The day after I had 3 glasses of sweet lime- there goes the whole ketogenic diet in to the bin.
2. I am not working out, no weights, no calisthenics, no runs, no nothing.... The Kettlebell I bought lies untouched in a corner. To think I was planning to buy Olympic rod and bumper plates worth 50k. Totally f...up, got to work out.

The best exercise is the one which you actually do and not what you read/think about. It could be as simple as walking or as taxing as fighting a bear.

I tried walking, probably overdid,(2 hours in the sun-times I am still a sissy) slept away for the next 3 days.
I have been looking wistfully at my 20 kg Kettlebell for more than 3 weeks now, high time I dared swinging the famed piece of iron around. WTF!

Nike has it right even (if they make extremely overpriced garb).

Just do it....

Gods willing, I will...

Mirror lies....

And a watched kettle does not boil...

When you are gaining weight bit by bit, your brain is unable to discern the small difference on hourly or even day to day basis. So when you look at the mirror, you see a guy who's alright- a bit stocky but good looking, not thin but healthy...

When you take a photograph few months later, holy cow! Reality strikes like a baseball bat- you look like candidate for Biggest loser. Hey two people could hide behind me, in fact they just did

Moral of the rant, mirror is good for shaving- that's it.
If you want to know how you look, get a body shot and a group photograph taken regularly.

Use a measuring tape and a scale and the ease with which you can squeeze into your pants to assist you. If it is not a loose fit - you are gaining weight, if you need to squeeze  in - you are fat.

I am a cheapskate...

I prepared a potent protein shake - 01 scoop EAS Whey, 01 scoop Weider's Casein in 500 ml milk. The only thing which I missed out was probably two spoons of coffee.
Unfortunately, I could not consume it immediately, in fact I could not consume it over the next six hours. Naturally the milk curdled. This was the second time this had occured; first time my buddy had thrown away the whole stuff into the sink....what the....this s....cost me..a hell.. 60g of premium protein down the drain - I could'nt let it happen for the second time. So I gulped the shake/slush down. It was slightly (quite) bitter, very thick, very filling and the satisfaction of not throwing away a drink worth Rs 100 was priceless. In the hindsight I would rather not let the milk curdle since the taste was pretty-pretty bad.

Nations morph...

      Had a rather interesting conversation with a colleague-
      Exasperated with the the sad state of affairs and happenings in the homeland, I remarked that non-violent fatalism as exposed by Gautam Buddha, Mahavir Jain, lately and especially Mahatma Gandhi was responsible for the shrinking borders and the decline of Indian nation.
My colleague said “koi apne saath kuch lekar gaya/jaata..." - nobody has taken anything /takes anything with him when he departs, this includes lands/nation.
Beautiful ascetic thought - The lands are still there, people still inhabit these lands-the nation's exist- albeit the names/flags have changed.....

Why I shout...

The reason I shout over the roof tops about my diet is - it is easier to cheat oneself than go back on your word in public.
So when I say I have quit sugar in public, not only do I have a valid reason of refusing tea/soft drinks/juice/sweetlime in public but over a period of time all but the daftest will stop offering it.
It helps a lot when your friends check you when you are about the slip or your acquaintances give amused/disapproving looks when you falter.
And anyway your conscious tells you that you will open yourself to ridicule then the brain listens better and obeys far better than when your conscious tells you that you are doing a wrong with no witnesses.
Call me a sceptic but we are far more moral and up upright in public than when we are alone.

Good times, Times, Great times

Last year (2012) was pretty good for me as far strength was concerned. I lifted and lifted with a plan so for my 36th B'day in August I was the strongest I have ever been. I could deadlift 160kg, press 70 kg, bench press 105 for 5 reps, Squat 115 for 5 reps. Doesn't seem much when you compare with power lifters but for me it was a big ego booster, and one of these days I did 5 pullups at 102-105 kg. Yes I was obese but I could lift and I had 16.5"arms, I moved around like a bull (handsome one though).

In September 12 I realised that my knees & elbows ached, so I switched over from 5x5/3x5 protocol to Dan John/Pavel's 40 days Easy Strength protocol and generally took it easy. I shifted from Jabalpur to Hisar in February 13 (livelihood reasons).

Now instead of picking up from where I left off, I wasted away and my weight skyrocketed to 111kg. Tying shoelaces became an exercise in itself. Doctor advised bariatric surgery. I didn't really relish the idea of doctors chopping away parts of me, so after years of neglect I finally decided to give dietary changes a chance.

In the past I had tried tried out GM diet, low Cal diet but this time I needed something long term. So the primary change I made was - no simple carbohydrates. So no sugar, no sugar products, no rice, no potatoes, no flour products. I eat vegetables, meats, eggs, milk, curd, coffee and artificial sweeteners (sorry naysayers I am not an ascetic, I don't intend to be an ascetic, all I want to be healthy and fit).

It seemingly works; I am down to 103kg. I actually need to lose about 30kg before I can fit into my size 32(yes I once wore them) Levis jeans. I would be very happy to get into my size 34 pants or infact anything which is below 40. I actually intended to follow the Carb Nite protocol, however social obligations and my weak will did mess that up on certain occasions.

Losing weight after being obese, and wasting money on charlatans like VLCC is a big plus but since I am not training not even working out I am weak, weak as a wimp. Today I tried to lifts Bailey jack; couldn't budge it beyond waist. Yesterday I tried to hang from a bar and realised I am officially a sissy.

Now I have to make up goals and reinvent myself.
These are the fitness goals I have for myself:-
1. Reduce my weight to 73kg
2. Do the following Lifts
    Front Squat, Clean, Push press - 100kg
 .  Squat- 140kg
    Deadlift - 190kg
    Press - 85kg (I actually want to press 100kg but first things first)
    Learn and practice - Snatch, Clean & Jerk
3. Run the following
   Mile and half in 12 minutes
   5k or three mile race in 28 minutes
4. Do with a 20kg kettlebell swings in Tabata protocol without wishing I was dead.
5. Build up muscle mass, I really loved it when arms didn't fit in my shirt sleeves.

When we do that those will be Great times- timeline August 13 is a few months away, I will be halfway there by that time (ideally I would have liked to achieve all my goals but then I would need Gods by my side, considering that I am neither a saint nor a genius fiend chances of that happening are slightly bleak). I would be grateful for moral support though...

Papa going to office...Papa coming from office

Nothing more to say...

Scary

This pic deserves a separate page not only because I look great but because well the great expressions

Papa - Betu moments

1st one was taken on a separate date (yes I know that you know, moustache is a dead giveaway)

Escalators

I was browsing through photographs of my time in Jabalpur, I remembered an interesting thing- My betu learnt how to move in an escalator before my wife did...in fact quite some time before. Background- My wife could not get up on an escalator for the love of God, she would shriek, scream and claw, anything except get on to the damned thing. Maana had just got up on to her feet after few months of crawling, when during a visit to the mall she insisted on climbing on the escalator on her own rather than in my lap.

Kettlebell training

I bought a 20kg kettlebell online..that is Maana attempting a deadlift with 2x her bodyweight.

Freeware 2013 - Whats changed 5 years down the line?

Quite a lot
Microsoft has a top class freeware- Microsoft Security Essentials. Spartan interface, excellent integration, good detection rates.
After loving Spybot S&D, Super antispyware, I have settled for Malwarebytes anti-malware.S&D is too heavy, SAS selects all cookies by default making you feel good without doing anything, MAM is light and nice.
Calibre a wonderful ebook management software- damn nice, ideal for epub, mobi, lit formats. Can read even more.
PDF-XChange viewer, a really classy pdf reader far better than Adobe Acrobat(a fat piece of bloatware if any) and even slightly better than Foxit reader.
Sumatra pdf reader because sometimes simple is better, it can read djvu files too, which not many readers can.
I have switched to Glary utilities , Ccleaner is brighter but this has more feature and seems to be slightly safer.
I still use CDBurnerXP as my disc writing software of choice.(rarely though)
Doublekiller is my choice for duplicate finder- small, reasonably accurate simple to use.
I still love utorrent it has got the best feature but then I switched over to qbittorrent - less features but it simply works.
Picassa has its pluses and minuses but is good for Loading and archiving photos and is must have.
I also use Faststone image viewer for minor manipulation, as the name says it is faster, more intuitive and simpler. Fotosketcher is a beautiful piece of software- it gives beautiful painting/sketch like effects.
MediaMonkey player is still my player of choice. It has limitations- can't play .m4a files, had bloated with video support, but rest of it is real easy. Have installed Musicbee but I use it only for .m4a files, it is not as intuitive as the monkey. AIMP-stopped using it sometime ago.
Some things remain the same.
Launchy it's still a great launcher,
Tera copy is still a great file copy/move tool

I drove Mahindra Quanto

My search for a perfect suitable 4 wheeler took me to a Mahindra show room.
I had read pretty good things about the vehicle - powerful engine, spacious, solidly built -most importantly Value for Money.
I first had the test car driver drive it with me in the pillion and then drove it for a short distance through typical crowded city.
My impressions:-
Plus

• Okay Looking,
• Well equipped,
• Seats are comfy, 
• Powerful engine (I really liked the engine),
• Well chosen gear ratios for the city.
• Decent mileage
• Great price for a diesel vehicle

Minus

• Space isn't all that it is made out to be (but then I am fat)
• Heavy beyond its dimensions (for the size and target roads-city)
• Horrendous ride, especially on the rear seat, as if....... you got to experience it to understand it.....wobbly/springy woozy.....I mean the kind that would make you dizzy (my wife would probably vomit while on a hill drive).

Overall
The ride is an absolute dealbraker even at seemingly logical VFM pricepoint

Fear is friend

Fear is friend, for it teaches you caution, drives away carelessness and keeps you alert...

Today was Saturday (I wrote the initial post on 04/08/12 ) and I intended to do my Madcow Friday workout, which I skipped yesterday in favor of light cardio ,due to the Injury which I idiotically sustained while doing Deadlifts on Wednesday.

Even today I could feel tinge of pain and stiffness in my back and even the thought of Squatting 107.5 kg, Benching 100 kg and Rowing 67.5 kg for 3 reps in the working set seemed pretty difficult, In fact at a point I felt like taking the whole week off.

So you can well imagine my apprehensions when I cautiously went under the bar for squats... 5 x 52.5 kg, 5 x 65 kg, easy no pain....5 x 80 kg needed quite an effort - reintroducing caution, ...5 x 92.5 kg....my form was poor and I had to step forward..

Working set.. - I was scared, 107.5 kg - 1 down & up , 2... and 3.... I racked the bar happy and relieved...

While lying on the bench I lay down very gingerly and was very careful to avoid arching/straining my back (a very wise move). Bench press I combined (almost) 1st and 2nd warm up set and instead did 8 x 60 kg, 5x 72.5 kg , 5 x 85 kg,  3x 100 kg and then dropped to 8 x 72.5 kg.

I supersetted chin-ups with dips...am still stuck at 3,4,4 and 8,8,8. Need to get them to double figures.

Did one leg dumbell calf raises for the first time,.. deceptively beautiful exercise.. I exhausted my calves faster with a 15 kg dumbell than with 100 kg on a Smith machine..

 On Wednesday I was careless, today I was cautious and I fared the better for it...

Gods have been kind...