Progress Report

So far, so good. I've been able to find the time to work out as planned without missing too much. My record was not perfect, however most of the sets I missed I was able to make up over the weekend. What I didn't expect was that it wasn't busy-work type stuff that bumped most of my workouts, but social engagements. That's not something I feel too badly about. Overall, I'm giving myself a B+ for the week.

Goal Progress: On target, completed nearly all sets for the week w/o unduly interfering with other priorities.
Completeness: Mostly complete. Missed regeneration and prehab sets. Made up strength and prehab sets.
Performance: weight range for upper body sets low, but improving quickly. EAS (cardio) performance OK in the 0-12 minute range, but need to maintain effort for the longer sets.
Motivation: Adequate. Will be considered good when I begin looking forward to going to SCRC. Will be considered great when the more it hurts, the better I feel. Currently at the "I don't care if I'm tired, I'm doing all the fucking reps" stage. Being in a room with other people, about half of whom are female, about 85% of whom are quite attractive, helps a lot with that one.
Injury: OK. No sign of tendonitis. Some residual soreness in calves after runs.
Fatigue: Moderate. Feeling a little worn out at the beginning of a set sometimes.
Nutrition: Good. But could be improved. I pretty much stuck to the plan from last weekend to Thursday, but from that point forward consumed too much beer and soda and spaced my meals too far apart.

Making a Commitment

I think it's time. For too long, I've sit around watching my muscles shrink and my gut expand, and I haven't done anything about it besides complain about my lack of motivation to change the trend. There was a time when I could make my own motivation and it wouldn't matter. I'm not sure if I'm back to that point, but if I'm not I need to get there. In any case, at the moment I think my brother has provided enough motivation for me to push me along to the point that I can do it on my own.

So, today, I started on Mark Verstegen's excercise plan, which is essentially the same plan that my brother introduced to Special Boat Team 20 (yep, he's in the Navy). The SEALs are expected to follow suit. After all, SBT20 was plagued by overuse injuries under their older plans, and those injuries dropped off to ZERO after the new plan was implemented. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. And better still, it isn't supposed to take much more than 30-45 minutes a day. Considering my tendonitis and my time constraints, this seems just about perfect.

Right now, my only real goal is to implement the plan and stick with it. I think once I get it to be a routine, I'll view it as one of my daily responsibilities, just like going to class or reading cases. I think I'm going to manage. I've already tweaked the recomended plan to fit into my schedule and bought some equipment. Also, I've been regulating my diet much more strictly than I have in the past since mid-summer. I've stuck with that so far, and I think I'm going to rachet that up a notch as well... I'll have to check my intake levels and see how close they are to the targets (right now I don't know, I'm adhering to the principles rather than any strict plan).

With any luck, this will be an important step in getting my life to where it should be. Who knows, as my health and energy levels improve, I might even stop being the non-smiling mopey guy all the time. We'll see...