i woke up this morning when raymond called me up and asked me to go rollerblading at miramar lake. i told him i shouldn't because my legs were too damn sore from friday. i'll get into why i'm mentioning this in a second.



realizing the big change i've made to my life, when i see the before and after pictures in the infomercials, i always wonder, i wonder what the story was behind him or her, and how he was able to make a big change. then i remembered about Richard Hatch (Survivor 1). He lost a lot of fat before the show, and wondered what the story was on him. did he get lyposuction? did he take some crazy pills? or did he make some big change in his life, and what lead to it? so i went to go searching, because i knew it probably would be easy to find since he's become so popular. i found an article on him from the website www.getbig.com, a true body builder's site (not type of body i'm hoping to accomplish, but you know these guys are guru's on building muscle).



http://www.getbig.com/iview/richardhatch.htm



Richard Hatch's reason was simple, and seemed pretty similar to mine. he always had the desire to get fit, but never really knew the proper way to do it. so his body weight fluctuated, until he mastered his body. and for him, and me, all it took was the knowledge. we always had the desire, but never really knew how until just recently. i can't say that i've mastered it yet, but my will and the desire has not changed since i started working out, or even from years before that. this is why i look forward to every one of my workouts. because it means i'm just one more step to the day of what i envision my body to be in the future.



anyway, i've been reading the articles on getbig.com, and one thing is clear. i've been grossly overtraining, and doing too much cardio. it's really hard to limit myself to 30 minutes of lifting because we're so conditioned into thinking working harder means better results. and i'm still not convinced, no matter how much i read into it, i just can't believe less is more. so here's the plan. i'm gonna just bite the bullet and do it blindly and not stray from it for a month. i'm gonna heavily monitor my progress and body fat. it's a little weird to argue to myself that i need to make an effort to not work as hard. i'll limit my weight training to 20-30 minutes. not counting the 8-12 minute warmup, and the 5 minutes of stretching before and after lifting. i'm gonna seperate my workouts in 4. lift mon, tues, thurs, fri. and rest wednesday, or at most go for a light jog, or a light workout on the eliptical, or bike. by the time the month is up, and i don't see results, i'll already be a week into the wellness program, and that should give me some new things to try. here's another thing about abs. if you are lifting to build muscles, you are always working out your abs (you just might not realize it). and most ab exercises are designed for toning. some you can increase intensity to actually build your ab muscles, but you should not have to do it at a high intensity (and might even lead to overtraining your abs). so the best thing i would recommend for people who are lifting weights is aim to tone your abs only.



that's all for today.