Spring into action

Okay, this title is a little obvious. I started a new round of the Body for Life challenge on March 21, more or less the first day of Spring. I didn't really choose this day for symbolic reasons. It just worked out that way. My wife and I had just returned from vacation and suddenly, for the first time in months, my schedule was wide open. Factor in that we had just come back from a week in Florida where I was very conscious of how I looked with my shirt off, and I had all the time and incentive I needed to start up the challenge again.

I did hedge a little. I decided not to post any blog entries for the first week, mainly because I didn't want to do a lot of talking without having stuck with it for awhile. So, I've made it this far. I missed one aerobic workout, which I hope to make up this weekend. I squeezed in my upper body workout around 11PM last night after spending the evening working on recording some drum tracks for the band I'm in. But I started my lunchtime walking program again. I even resisted today when my walking partner suggested blowing off our walk and going to lunch.

The first few weight workouts were tough. I've made some adjustments and I'm starting to see some progress already. I'm working the abdominals very hard and trying to lose enough body fat to show them off.

The most gratifying thing is that all this exercise has jump started my metabolism so that I'm not coming home and sleeping every day after work. So, I'm actually getting some things done in the evenings, which leaves me more time to relax on the weekends. Really, I'm spending less time exercising than I was spending asleep on the couch every night, so I'm really gaining time from doing the program.

So, the goals are:
1. Reduce body fat to about 14%-15% (averaged between calipers and body fat scale)
2. Increase lean mass by 8 pounds.
3. Substantially eliminate abdominal fat (yes, it's very arbitrary, but I know what I mean).

Okay, I think that's enough to think about for one day. Later!