So during the times when I’m in a play and such, I don’t get much time to work out or even eat healthy. By the time I get out of rehearsals it’s usually around 10 and the only things open at that point are McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and their ilk. Not so conducive to eating healthy. However, after I finished my last show, Rumors, I decided it’s time to change my lifestyle. Really make a big change, especially because I hated the way I felt and looked. The show ended in April, and since then I’ve committed hardcore to eating right. Sure I have a ‘bad meal’ about once a week or so (bring on the queso and burgers!), but mostly it’s meal replacement shakes, steamed Chinese, and whatever I can buy that’s under 300-400 calories per meal.

I also decided to join a gym and work with a personal trainer. Now I made a small mistake in that I didn’t check my weight before the eating healthy began, but considering my waist size was around 38, I’d say I was about 225lbs or so, and 5′11″. Overweight? Yes. But even by the time I started at the gym, I had dropped down to 215lbs.

My usual day now consists of a Slim-Fast (or a shake of that sort) in the morning, a healthy lunch, another shake right after I work out so that my body can use the protein in it to build muscle, and then at night something light– steamed veggies and grilled chicken or something.

The REALLY interesting thing I learned from Trevor (my hilarious and often pushy trainer) is that the cardio I was doing was fruitless. This is what I WAS doing:

Run for 20 minutes.
Weight lifting.
Leave.

He told me that in the first 20-30 minutes of your heart rate being up, the body is burning glycogen, not fat. It’s only after the 30 minutes that your body starts burning fat as its secondary storage of energy. So instead he recommended the following:

10 minutes of cardio to warm up.
20+ minutes of weights (the more weight you use the more glycogen is burned off and the faster the body gets to burning fat)
25-30 minutes of cardio.
Leave.

HUGE difference. In about a week or so I noticed a difference in how I felt and today I checked the scale to see my weight was down to 205lbs. I’m teetering around that 200 range, and I’d say my goal is to be around 180-190. Not bad.

Then onInternet Casino – Casino Treasure- Internet Casino Spiele, die man direkt online entweder zum Vergnügen oder für richtiges Geld in 11 Sprachen poker regeln kann (Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Niederlän. top of that we did a type of training today that absolutely fatigued the shit out of me and even got me a bit dehydrated. (Whenever I have a trainer I tend to give much more to a workout than when I go alone.) Basically the idea is to trick the brain into thinking that fat needs to be burned off first. But how do that when glycogen is still stored? Well, by basically not stopping between exercises. So this is what I did today:

1. 3 sets of bridges, 1 min each
2. 2 sets of crunches (15 reps)
3. 1 set of leg raises (15 reps)
4. 20 pushups (I have zero chest strength so after doing 5 I had to resort to doing ‘girl-pushups’.)
5. 1 minute punching bag
6. 1 minute of another exercise I cant remember the name of– kinda like squats
7. 1 min punching bag
8. 1 min squats
9. 1 min of pushing a 15lb medicine ball above my shoulders, while squatting up and down from an exercise ball
10. 1 min punching bag

Now at this point I had to stop. I felt like I was going to throw up, I could FEEL my heart bulging my eyeballs out, and I was sweating buckets. After a stop of about 3-4 minutes, I kept going. I got this far; I had to keep fighting. Besides, Trevor was playing Eye of the Tiger in the background– how do you NOT work out with that?

1. 1 min bicep curls, with 50lbs.
2. 1 min military press, 20lbs.
3. 1 min stepping up and down a raised box, with 15lb dumbbells in each hand
4. 1 min punching bag
5. 1 min lateral raises with 8lb weights in each hand
6. 1 min rear lateral raises
7. 1 min punching bag

And then I had to stop– fully. I collapsed onto the ground, panting like a dog in heat, tongue out. I saw stars, I saw the universe– I saw my life flashing before me. But here’s what I didn’t finish–

• Carry a punching bag 50 feet to the other side of the room
• Do bear crawls 50 feet back
• 3 more sets of bridges
• 2 more crunch sets

Anyway, from what I understand that type of circuit training keeps your heart rate up AND rips through your glycogen deposit so that you’re burning fat (almost) the entire time. It’s also so intense that it’s not something that the body can handle more than once a week. I hope I can do it before I leave for New York on Friday. Until then, I’ll keep with the other stuff I’ve learned thus far.

And with that I’m out. This was a VERY long post, but I hope you learned maybe a little somethin. Peas.

I got into my car today to find the thermometer read 100 degrees. Wowza.

What’s really odd to me however is that I lived in India for 2 years and it was hot as hell the entire time. No air conditioning in the apartment I stayed at, and all I had was a rickety fan clanging away to give some sort of respite. That is, if it was on at all… the power went out at least once every other day, and during summer months the electric companies had something they called Load Shedding which basically meant that there was no power right when you REALLY needed it. Maybe my skin has just gotten too spoiled with the air conditioned, filtered, antiseptic conditions in America. I don’t know. All I know is that I go outside right now and I completely broil and can’t handle it.

Why an entire post about heat?

Why not. It’s my site.

I read about a ringtone that apparently only people within a certain AGE group can hear. It’s called Mosquito Ringtone and you can download a bunch of different files from their site. So if you don’t want your old-fart physics teacher knowing that you’re getting phone calls in class, you just have to use one of the ringtones under his age range.

The science behind it seems a bit… shaky. But I tried it, and I definitely couldn’t hear the 18 and under ringtones. (Although I couldn’t hear 30 and under either– I had to go all the way upto 39 and under.)

Check it out and let me know your thoughts..

Thanks to Amy for the link.

Alright first off, apologies for not having pictures up. I was waiting to post about the concert until I had something to put up but I went down to Norman (where my sister and parents live) and was going to copy the files to the iPod. Did I? No. Why? Because I totally had a brain fart. But let’s talk about the concert!

So we went to the Ford Center in Oklahoma City (Vinni and I), and it’s a rather nice venue for concerts/sports games, etc. Anyway, at 7pm the concert starts with a couple of rappers who are trying their damnest to get the crowd going. Nope. Not happening. For whatever reason the bleachers weren’t even full and Vinni and I looked at each other in disgust and just thought, “If this were Kenny Chesney or Tobey Keith I’m sure the place would be packed. Oklahoma.” But, to be fair, they were singing songs that none of us knew anyway so it was a bit hard to get into it. The ‘warmup crew’ as I like to call them ended their set, and we waited while they changed the set for the next artist.

N.E.R.D, son. That’s right, Pharrell and Co. As soon as Pharrell came out Vinni turned into a total groupie. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing– my usually reserved little sister who just makes sarcastic, dry comments in retort to anything pop-culture related started screaming, “PHARRELL!! OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HIM!! YOU’RE SO CUTE!!!!!”

I just blinked; my jaw on the floor.

Anyway, the energy they imbued on stage was electric– a good number more people had filed in by this point into the concert, and these guys totally rocked our pants off. Well, maybe not mine but a lot of girls in the audience, definitely. My sister being one of them. Talk about AWWWWWKKKKWWWWWWURRRRD. At one point he pulled up a couple of hot girls from the audience onto the stage to dance with– Vinni turned green with envy. If she were a comic book character, frikkin lasers would’ve shot out of her eyes and incinerated the hoochies onstage.

Their set ended, and Vinni asked me to see if I could buy the “Stronger” glasses. I stood in line for 20-30 minutes waiting and finally got two pairs of cheap paper knockoffs that were $10 each. Damn. Whatever, it’s part of the experience, and it was for my little sister. So I grabbed ‘em and ran upstairs where Rihanna had already started her set.

And suddenly, I became the groupie. She was…. immaculate. Sure you put on a lot of makeup to cover flaws and such on TV. But her– she really WAS as stunning and flawless as you see on TV. And unlike Vinni’s screaming rampage, I just stood there, awe-struck and staring. Of course she performed S.O.S., Pon de Replay, and Umbrella, and she was completely friendly and sweet to the audience. At one point she yelled out, “I love you, Vinoj!!!” And by that what I mean is she yelled, “I love you Oklahoma City!!” Whatever. She meant me. Don’t hate.

After that set there was a good 45 minutes of set change for the final act– Kanye. Two words sum up his performance: WICKED AWESOME. Sure sure, I could’ve come up with a littany of other synonyms but sometimes the simplest way is the best. The entire crowd (and by now most of the auditorium was packed with people standing, cheering and whatever else) was absolutely rabid, and he completely fed it by putting on a knock out show. I have no idea how he maintains that energy from city to city but the guy was dancing, moving and rapping all over the stage to all sides of the house. Brilliant showmanship. If you ever get a chance to see this Glow in the Dark Tour, I highly recommend.

Now I must admit, this was the first concert for me so perhaps I don’t have much to compare it to. But for what I could see, being an actor, he had the magnetism and charisma of a seasoned performer who had the crowd as putty in his hands.

Anyway, the show ended around 11 and both Vinni and I left, with a gift book that was handed out– a book by Kanye that was a motivational tool sort of thing. Lots of little life proverbs and advice for dealing with people. Very insightful and powerful.

All in all, a great night. THANK YOU AND YOU’RE WELCOME!

Hey guys,

Just as most of you I’ve been crazy busy but there are two posts coming– one on the Kanye West concert that I went to (mebbe some pics if Vinni has any time to send them to me), and about my newly shorn head. Awww yeah! So those should be up tomorrow. *cough* AMY *cough*