Past and Future Update

I know it has been a while since I posted a blog, but I am back now and hopefully back to a regular schedule. Since the last time that I blogged, I have actually gotten a new computer because my video card decided to crap out on me. This actually happened the morning after I posted my last blog. After I finished BodyBeast, I started focusing on my cardio to prepare for the half marathon that I am running at the end of the month. I started off doing Insanity and fitness classes at the gym because the weather was not nice enough to go outside and run. There was still snow on the ground until the first couple days of May, which is ridiculous. I was finally able to get outside and run properly, I did do a few runs before, but I was having to dodge the puddles and ice all the time. I have been running four days per week for the last two weeks and next week I will be running five days as it will be my last week of training before the race. The final week before the race I will be focusing on core and stretching to relax my body and prepare it for the race. I have actually been feeling really good about my running this past week. My times have improved and I am still hopeful about my goal of completing the half marathon in 2:10:00 or less. I know my runs are not the fastest that I have ever had, but with the limited amount of running I have been doing lately I think I am doing pretty good. My room mate has been having troubles with his training lately because his calves have been super tight. He has tried a lot of things to loosen them up, but the race is fast approaching and he is running out of time to get some serious training in. Another friend of mine who is joining us in the half marathon has not been training at all. When he first signed up for the race, he sent me a text message asking me how long a half marathon was, after he had already signed up for it. He has not been running at all and I am not really certain how good he is going to do in the race. This summer I will also be competing in a mud run, this one is called the Dirty Donkey Mud Run. This run is a 5km obstacle course in the mud and I think it will be pretty fun to do. There are a couple guys from work who are going to join me in the mud run as well. We all had already singed up before we talked about it or we might have all signed up as a team. I will also be doing my third round of P90X this summer and I am hoping to get fantastic results from it, all I need to do is really focus on my diet and I should do great.

Thiamin (B1) and Riboflavin (B2)

Thiamin (B1) is part of a coenzyme called Thiamin Pyrophosphate (TPP) and assists in Energy Metabolism. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for Thiamin is 1.2 mg for men and 1.1 mg for women. Generally you do not see Thiamin Deficiency in North America because as long as you consume enough calories with nutritious foods, you will meet the requirements for Thiamin. Thiamin Deficiency is usually only seen in malnourished nations and homeless people, this is because they tend to not eat enough food for what their bodies need. People who consume what is called "Empty Calorie foods" could also possibly become deficient in Thiamin. A common example of this would be alcohol. Alcohol tends to not have much, if any, Vitamins. Alcohol also impairs Thiamin absorption and Thiamin Excretion through urine. Thiamin Deficiency can result in a disease called "BeriBeri". The symptoms of BeriBeri include Damage to the nervous system, the heart and other muscles of the body. Thiamin tends to be in all types of food, but mostly in small amounts. Pork, Soy milk, Squash, Tomato Juice and Cornflakes are the best food sources of Thiamin. Prolonged cooking times destroys some of the Thiamin in food. Even though Pork has the most Thiamin per serving, it will lose some of the Thiamin when cooked.

Riboflavin (B2) is also part of a coenzyme. Riboflavin has two different forms of the coenzyme, Flavin Mononucleotide (FMN) and Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide (FAD). These enzymes help with the release of energy from nutrients in all body cells. The RDA for Riboflavin is 1.3 mg for men ad 1.1 mg for women. You also rarely see a deficiency with Riboflavin in North America. Riboflavin Deficiency can result in a disease called "Ariboflavinosis". Lack of Riboflavin can cause inflammation of the membranes of the mouth, skin, eyes and GI Tract. Liver, Mushrooms, Clams, Eggs, Yogurt, Milk, Broccoli and Cornflakes are the best food sources of Riboflavin. Ultraviolet light and Irradiation destroys the Riboflavin in foods, but cooking does not harm the Riboflavin as it is heat stable. 

Training and New Shift

This week I have decided to alter my training a little bit. Since the roads are really wet, and I really do not feel like getting soaked, I decided to do Insanity Asylum workouts yesterday and today. Yesterday I did "Gameday" from Asylum Vol 1 and today I did "Championship" from Asylum Vol 2. I figured that if I was not going to do a Run, that I had to do a tough cardio workout. These two workouts did not disappoint me, I was sweating, panting and sore by the time the workout was done. Tomorrow I am going to a fitness class called Bosu and I am hoping she gives us a tough workout, I need it. My weight loss for this year has not really been that good. A month into the year I had dropped 6.4lbs and I was very happy seeing those results, but then things went south from there. It has now been 13 weeks into the year and I now only down 4.6lbs. I really need to crack down on my eating, I know that is exactly what is holding me back.

I am going to the Feed Plant next week for my new shift and the guys I work with right now are thinking of starting a pool to see how long I last there before I decide I can't take it anymore. I have heard from a few people that the work over there is hard, dusty and gloomy so they don't think I will last long. The position is only for six months, but we will see what happens.

Deck Of Cards Workout

Today I did a workout called "Deck of Cards". In this workout you assign each suit a movement and then the number of the card represents how many reps you do of that movement. Face Cards = 10 reps and Aces = 11 reps. I got this workout from the Biggest Loser  when Bob Harper had his blue team do this in that little room where they had to stay for 4 hours a day. I looked this workout up on YouTube to see the variations other people do and I found a few people having Face Cards = 15 reps and Aces = 20 reps. I decided to assign Jump Squats to Hearts, Push-ups to Diamonds, Pull-ups to Clubs and Burpees to Spades.

This workout was definitely a total body workout. I found the Jump Squats to be the easiest exercise I chose and the Pull-ups to be the hardest. The Pull-ups took me the longest to do and I was doing some jumping pull-ups at the end, but I tried to do them normally for as long as I could. I was hoping to record this workout and post it to my YouTube channel, but the battery in my camera was not fully charged and it would have died part way through. I do plan on doing this workout again in a few weeks and I am hoping to record it then for everyone to see.

Running and PAW challenge

I am nearing the end of the Body Beast program and I have definitely noticed an increase in strength, but I have really only noticed an increase in size when it comes to my arms. I still have to finish this week, then I have one week of my running training to do and then I will take new pictures. I am waiting an extra week because that will take me to the end of my 90-day Visalus Challenge. I am hoping that when I take the new photos, I see a difference from the ones I took on December 30th, 2012. I am currently in a PAW - Pound A Week - challenge and for the first two weeks I have lost 2lbs. I was hoping for more, but I am happy with what I got. I am hoping to lose at least 13.2lbs in this 12 week challenge because that will put me at my Project 10 goal and that would put me at a decent weight for the race. Next week I am suppose to start my running training, but the weather is making it a little difficult. I am sure I will go out an run anyways, but I will just need to bundle up and focus on form instead of speed. There is so much snow outside, this spring (technically started today) is going to result in a lot of flooding around the city. I remember last year at this same time all the snow had melted away and I was outside in a T-shirt and sweat pants doing my running training.

I am hoping to start the Nutrition blog in the next couple weeks, I just need to find the time to read my books to make sure I am giving out the correct information.

Sweaty Movie Weekend

This weekend was definately interesting. My one roomate had plans to go to Edmonton with her mother and sister this weekend and then on Thursday my other roomate, her fiance, was told that his job had no work for him on friday so he decided to go with her family. That mean't that I had the house to myself all weekend, except for the tennant in the basement. Most people would take this time to inite a few people over, but instead I spent all weekend watching movies, when I wasn't working out that is. I went to visit my dad on friday, like I do every week, and I found out that the video store in my hometown was closing and they were having a close-out sale. The sale was not as good as I thought, all movies were $15.00, so I only bought five movies. I orignally had a stack of about 12 movies, but got rid of a bunch because of the price. I bought "Grown-ups", "Tower Heist", "Expendables 2", "Transporter 3", and "Snow-white and the Huntsman". I watched Expendables 2 on friday after my workouts, then on Saturday I did my workouts for the day, went grocery shopping and then I sat down and watched three more movies. I enjoyed Gorwn-ups and Tower Heist, but Snow-white and the Huntsman felt a little slow.

Now it may seem like I had a bit of a lazy weekend, which is not a bad thing every once in a while, but I actually did a total of six workouts in three days this weekend. Friday I did my scheduled shoulder workout and then my two cardio workouts, like I mentioned in my last post. On Saturday morning I actually did two cardio workouts back-to-back again. This time I did "Pure Cardio" from Insanity followed by "HIIT 30" from Turbo Fire. Finally tonight, Sunday, I did "Power Legs" from Asylum Vol 2, even though Sundays are normally my rest days.

I know I need to get out more, but the problem is that I am not going to go out by myself. I honestly would not mind hitting up the bar once a week or maybe even two weeks, but none of my friends are interested in doing that.

I think I have gone INSANE!!!!!!!!!

I think I went a little insane tonight. Today started off as a normal friday, I went out tomy parents house and helped them out with a few things and then I had to go pick up a parcel. I ordered an armband for my phone so that I can use the runkeeper app to record my runs during my half marathon training. After I go home I went and did my schedled workouts for the day, which was Bulk Arms. I the relaxed for a few hours, watched Expendables 2 and randomly searched the web. I was sitting at te computer and I suddenly had the urge to go and do another workout, this was at 9:30pm. I finally decided to go and do a cardio workout. Whil I was in the garage and doing Speed & Agility from INSANITY ASYLUM, I decided that I was also going to do Vertical Plyo from the same program. I ended up doing an hour and fifteen minutes of cardio at 9:30 at night.

Binging recovery

The last few days have been interesting. On Tuesday we had a guy get transfered over from the Food Wharehouse to the Agro location, but all everyone could talk about was the other guy that we are getting next week. This guy is the type of guy that thinks he knows everything. He has been working for the company for about 2 years now and he is always telling people how to do their job. He once told a guy how to stack his pallet and this guy has been doing this job for over 20 years. I really cannot wait for tuesday, so I can see how everyone really reacts to him working with us. I think he is a little out there, but I can at least have a conversation with him some times. I have a little higher tolerance level and I also went to school with one of his brothers. After work on Tuesday I had to stop at the store and pick up milk. For some reason I had a craving for junk food, so I bought a big box of the Old Dutch baked chips (16 small bags) and ate the whole thing that night, Plus I bought a bag of those individually wrapped mini resse cups. Since I have been tracking my calories lately with MyFitnessPal, I entered the chips and chocolate into my app and apparently I consumed just about 5000 calories that day. The best part is that I also skipped my workout that day so I had a really bad calorie imbalance.

Tonight my roomates decided to have a potluck and they had a wedding related announcement to make, I honeslty had no idea what it was. There was nine of us here and a lot of food to eat, I definately over ate tonight but I expected it. The wedding announcement was that they decided to not have the big wedding and instead they are going to do a small ceremony and then we are all going out for supper and then drinking are asses off somewhere. None of us really cared that they decided to go this route, it actually makes my life a little easier because originally I was in charge of doing the slideshow and I was not looking forward to having to contact their parents to get pictures from them. The brides parents are really forgetful and cannot plan anything, while the grooms parents do not have technology so it is really hard to get a hold of them.

This coming week I have decided to lower my sodium intake from my usualy 2800mg to around 2000mg. I was actually very easy to drop it the amount I wanted. All I did was exchange my processed turkey meat for a turkey roast and just slice up the turkey for my sandwhiches. I also exchanged the rice I use, I was using those 1 minute cups of rice you throw in the microwave and now I am going to cook up some whole grain rice for the week and just portion it out everyday. Not only am I saving myself a lot of sodium, but I am actually saving myself money. The processed turkey cost me $9.00 per week, while the turkey roast is only like $20.00-$25.00 and it lasts me three weeks. The rice saves me even more, I had to by three packs of two rice things each week which cost me $7.00 and now I buy the box of rice for $8.00 and it lasts me a month.

Weigh-in, Women and Work

Today my weigh-in went really good, that extra workout I did yesterday was well worth it. I weighed 195.6lbs today which is a 4lbs loss for the week, this puts me back to where I was a month ago.I can now focus on losing the ten pounds that I need for the project10 challenge with Visalus. I would love to be a winner of the $1000, but I think the T-shirt would be nice to have. I started the last block of workouts for the Body Beast program today. Only four more weeks of this program and then I start my running training for the half marathon. I am hoping to get down to the low 180's by the time of the run, which is still 13 weeks away. That is only about one pound a week and that is definately doable if I focus on my diet like I did this past week.

I don't know if I am giving off some sort of lonely vibe, but one guy at work randomly starting talking to me about his idea on how to pick up women. Pretty much his idea is to lie to them, just to get them to come home with you. During his rambling, he did say something I really to need to think about though. He mentioned that you should not be afraid of women. He said that just because one woman shoots you down, there is always another one that will pick you up. I understand that this is true and that it is not the end of the world if a woman says no, but I still have a hard time truly believing it. There is something inside of me that is telling me that if one woman shoots me down, then why wouldn't the rest of them just do the same. There is obviously something about me that the first girl did not like, and maybe all the others girls will see the same thing and shoot me down as well.

I might be switching working locations in the near future. I recently applied for a position that is temporary (6 months), but pays a bit more. When I applied for it, my supervisor straight out told me that I would not like it there. I have heard a bunch of people say that the feed mill is dirty as hell and the shifts are not fun. The problem I have with all that is that is what everyone said about the location that I currently work at. I started out working at the food wharehouse and was transfered to the Agro location this past summer. Everyone told me that the place is supper dusty, smells like crap and that the supervisor is a retard. When I first started working there it did smell a little bad, working with tires can do that, but I do not even notice the smell anymore and my roomates say they can't smell anything unless the actually try to smell my jacket. The place is a lot dustier than the food wharehouse, but everyone made it sound like I would be choking on the dust all day long. The dust barely gets thrown around so it doesn't really bother me. So if they all said all this stuff about the Agro location and it turned out to be a pretty cool place to work, then I don't see a problem with trying out the feed mill. The biggest thing I was worried about was the shifts, I heard it was one week of days and then one weeks of night, switching back and forth all the time. I have recently found out that it is two weeks of 7:00-3:00pm and then two weeks of 3:00-11:00pm. These shifts I can ahndle because all I really need to do it go straight to bed after work when I work the night shifts. I was worried about having to work like 11:00-7:00am, that would have sucked to do, I might have even turned it out if that was the case. The thing is, if for some reason I do not like it there the position is only six months and if I can't survive there for six months then there is something really wrong. When I first applied for the postion I really did not think I even had a chance at getting it because I really don't have that much seniority at work. I have been hearing that not many people would have applied for the position so I have a good chance of getting it. The posting was taken down this weekend so I should hear what is going on somtime this week.

Energy

Today was a pretty interesting day for me. I have been having some issues wth work trying to get my paycheques figures out because I went from part-time status to full-time status back in July. I have been talking to the supervisors for the past few months and letting them know that I do not have nay benefits yet and that I should have gotten a raise. I finally got a response back from them today letting me kow that it should be fixed by next paycheque. In the email that my supervisor recieved from the HR department, it said that I had accumulated three and a half years of hours worked, yet he told me that I would be going up to the three year raise, which I should have gotten back in September. This means that on my next paycheque I wil be getting a $2.00 raise and I will also be getting six months of back pay for the raise I should have gotten back in September. That was good news to hear an for the rest of the day I actually had lots of energy. Normally on Sundays I do not workout because I like to take a least one day off a week to let my body recover, but since I had so much energy today I decided to do a kickboxing workout. I finished my workout, went inside and had my protein shake. After a few minutes I started to fall asleep in my chair so I decided to lay down and have a little nap. This nap went on for the next four hours and I am still tired as hell. Because of this long nap I had an apple for supper, since I did not feel like cooking anything at 9:30pm. I am hoping this wokrs in my favour because I have my weekly weigh-in tomorrow morning and I am hoping it is a good one.

Logging Calories

For the past few years, I have been working to improve my health and fitness. I have lost and gained weight a few times. I started out at 212lbs and got down to 167lbs back in 2010. Since then I have slowly gone up in weight. At the beginning of this year I weighed in at 202lbs, In the first month of the year I managed to drop 6.4lbs, but then I went on a little binge and got back up to 199.6. This past week I decided to track my calories again and focus on my diet this week. In the last five days I managed to get down to 196lbs. Today I wen to quiznos and realized just how many calories is in those sandwhiches, the milk and sun chips did not help either. I have decided that either I need to get a small sub everytime I go to Subway/Quiznos or at least only go there once a month or so. I am hoping this one day of a few extra calories does not hurt me too much on the scale this week, I just need to make sure that tomorrow I eat to plan. After this week is over, I will have four more week left on my current workout program called Body Beast. I am hoping to drop down to about 190-194lbs by then. After that I start my Half Marathon 8-Week training program I have set up for myself. I will be running my Second Half Marathon on May 26th, 2013 and I am hoping to be around 180-184. I know that is a big goal, but since I will be mostly doing a lot of cardio I should be able to drop a few pounds off. I have been really focused this week and I hope this drive carries on for a few more weeks.

Feeling good

I m actually feeling pretty good right now. I have gotten really serious about my eating and my workouts have been fantastic this week. I really hope this keeps up for a long time, it is actually pretty tiring being depressed about things. Being single definately has it's ups and downs. The good thing about being single is not having to spend all that money, but it definately sucks not having someone there you can talk to whenever yuo want. At least for most people they can can look back on their past relationships and remember all the good times they had, when they are feeling a bit depressed. It is a bit different with me because my last, and only, "relationship" was when I was 14 and it only lasted like a month or two. I don't think I can even call it a relationship because we never really went out by ourselves. Everytime we got together we were always in a group of our friends, so we were pretty much like really close friends. It has been over ten years since then and I have not really had anything that would be considered close to a relationship. Everytime I find a girl I like, she either has a boyfriend or just broke up with one and is not ready to start anything at the moment, then I find out they have a new boyfriend a couple months later. I even tried online dating and the best I got was this one girl who I text back and forth a bit. I would love to go to the bar, but none of my friends like to do that. I have gone a couple times with the guys from work, but I don't feel comfortable enough around them to really try anything at the bar. I have no experience in this area of life and I feel like the guys will make fun of me because I do not know what to do or say to any of the girls. I always look at a girl that I think is really cute, but I can't just go over and talk to her because I cannot think of any reason why she would want to talk to me when there are so many other guys in the bar that are a lot better looking and have a lot more confidence. I have a huge fear of being rejected and I really do not understand why because I know that ifa girl turns me down it's not like it is the end of the world, but I still can't bring myself to go up to a girl and talk to her. I also think that I have nothing that women really want. I consider myself to be the "nice guy" and I just think that women would only want to be with me untill they find a guy that they really like or they would want to keep me around so they have someone to talk to about their problems and that is not enough for me.

I think that is all I really have to say for today, this is pretty much what the majority of my blogs will be like. I just write them as the ideas pop into my head.

Thursday Feb. 21st, 2013 - introduction

Hello, for those of you that come across my blogs, and actually decide to follow me, I am going breifly explain what I will be doing with this. I have decided to Start a blog because My emotions have been all over the place for the last couple months and I need to get things off my chest every once in a while. I am not the type of person to talk about my troubles with other people because I feel like I would just be bothering them with something that does not really concern them.

For those of you who really care about who the person is behind the stories, I will tell you all a few things about myself. My name is Rick Kohlman, I am 24 years old and I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. I have a diploma from SIAST in Food and Nutriton Management and I currently work as a material handler with Federated CO-op (I am hoping to move up in the company to a supervisor postion). I currently live with my two best friends, who are engaged, and I hoping to by my own house in the next five years. I have been single for the majority of my life, I had one "girlfriend" when I was 14 for like a summer, and I feel like that is the biggest part of my emotional state. I will most likely be blogging about that for the majority of my blogs.

You can actually also check me out on Youtube (fusiondude890), I make Vlogs on there every once in a while now, I used to make them often before.
http://fusiondude890.myvi.net/