This is SPARTA!!!

Being of the competitive nature I am and believing I was now in "great shape" after 6 months of regular workouts and good eating (along with a background in weightlifting for a period of 5 years earlier in life) I was looking for a challenge. What did I find? The '300' workout. What I read was intriuging yet petrifying at the same time. Apparently this was the workout of the Gods! Only real-life Spartan warriors or Hollywood stuntmen and body doubles could complete such a workout. I was itching to put my new body to the test against such gladiators. After completing the first 25 pull-ups in about 10 seperate rounds, breaking my back in the deadlift and injuring my sacrum on the 7th box-jump I quickly realized I wasn't quite the indestructible machine I thought I had become. Thirty five minutes later after having done a better job at completely destroying my self-worth than completing the workout I was now second guessing my last six months of training.

It was time for a change...

On the Road Again

It was the beginning of a new year. Early January '09, Lesley and I made it our goal to get healthy from the inside out. I had found a book online called "The Truth About Six Pack Abs" written by Mike Geary. I have to say it was extremely motivating and the main inspiration for helping my wife Lesley and I get back on the road to fitness. We followed one of his suggested workout routines, level 2 of 8 in difficulty. It was a circuit training program which we stuck to pretty consistently 3 days a week for nearly 6 months. We also took to heart much of his advice on nutrition, which is very similar to The Paleo Diet and we had followed this style of eating for nearly 8 months.

One of our main goals was to lose weight. We knew that it couldn't be a diet but it really had to be our new way of life. If we viewed it as temporary our results would be just that, temporary. So we strived to push each other to always eat healthy and keep each other motivated when the cookie monster came calling. We allowed ourselves one cheat day per week, which really only ended up being 1 cheat meal, our favorite sushi place, every Thursday night.

We both saw terrific progress in our physical appearance and aerobic capabilities. I saw tremendous improvement in my weight loss and body fat loss. I started the year at what was in my mind a debilitating 230lbs and cut that to 200 in the first 12 weeks of eating healthier and exercising three times a week. Six months into the "Ab program" we were still exercising regularly and eating fairly well. I had dropped more weight and Lesley was in the best shape of her life at 43years old.