Days 76-81

Ive been working on packing my lunch this past week and been rather successful. Frankly, Ive been sort of stuck with my weight but I know that maintaining should be rewarded just like losing. Next week Id like to add more vegitables to my diet, and with thanksgiving on the horizon, I think thats gonna be my weakness. But oh well! My diet prevails! As for my excersize, I think I may need to shift gears in the new year to focus on strength training. Today I swam 50 laps in the 25 yard pool - in other words, 2500 yards. Yet I felt the burn just like I had done 1500 yards. Maybe my body is getting conditioned for swimming so I might want to try something else.

Tonight, my combo played. The group features Gerald Clayton on piano, Robby Marshall on tenor sax, Scott Jeppeson on tenor, Michael Lindsay on drums, and Hans Bernhard on bass. I think the performance was strong, but I am increasingly becoming disatisfied with my playing. My focus the past few months, after being on the road this summer, has not been on my playing, yet a focus on my health has been number one. Rather than practicing I have spent hours upon hours of swimming and weight training in an effort to get healthier. While this is definetly positive, I feel like my playing has changed quite a bit and I need to go back and review some of the basics.

Dinner last night with Larry Thomas was wonderful. Larry is the past president of Guitar Center. He is going to be a great contact for the guitar quartet in the future and hopefully this will start some sort of relationship between New West and Guitar Center.

Here's where Im at with my progress:

Day 1: 294
Day 81: 258
Day 100: 250-255
January 1: 250
May 5: 220
August 1: 190

Day 75

A trio of gold star days continued today. Although I could have added more vegitables and diversified my diet a bit rather than just a couple of sandwiches, I still managed to excersize a ton and keep my fire ragin' through the day!

Here's what I had:

1. Three small, turkey sandwiches, on small wheat keizer rolls, w/lettuce and swiss cheese and some mayo on two of them
2. three low fat chewy granola bars
3. Cherry nonfat yogurt
4. Orange Juice
5. Water
6. three small plain cake donuts, low in sugar

exersize: 100 reps, lower body strength training: leg press, leg extension, calf raises (standing and seated), dumbell lunges, crunches (these are the hardest thing for me to do right now), and incline sit-ups (just about as hard as crunches)
I then proceeded to swim 1250 meters today, quitting a bit early because of time constraints. Tommorrow, Ill only be able to swim if I get there at 6 as the pool is closed the rest of the day - so we'll see what happens. BTW, weight wise, im finally in the upper 250s, leaving only a matter of a few pounds between me and my short-term goal. Considering the holidays are coming, im going to have to stay super focused, but I know I can make it. Regardless, Im going full speed right now with my excersize and I plan on having a stellar week of good meal choices ahead to follow.

Day 74

Well the concert with Jon Faddis went very well! I had lots of fun and I managed to survive a very very very fast solo. Man its tough to be schooled like that on the bandstand! Well now I know what I need to work on at least.

Here's how I did today:

1. Chicken Sandwich
2. orange chicken
3. kung pao chicken
4. chow mein
5. powerade
6. graham crackers
7. water

excersize: 1500 meters swimming

Im going grocery shopping tommorrow so ill be set. Thanks for reading!

Day 73

Today was very successful as well! I had a major workout today - both weights and swimming.

1. Peach Yogurt
2. Graham Crackers
3. cottage cheese
4. tuna sandwich w/lettuce
5. carrots
6. Cherry Yogurt
7. 2 rice cakes
8. Roast Beef Sandwich
9. Steamed Vegitables
10. Water, water, water, water, water, with some water on the side

As for my excersize routiene, boy this was a lot!

1. Upper body workout - 100 reps total of: dumbell raises, side raises, dumbell press, incline press, and trycep extension
2. Swimming - 2500 yards swimming!! thats 50 laps!! i.e. 100 lengths!

Today was by far my gold star the past 73 days. Im gonna reach my goal by day 100, i just know it!

By the way, in terms of my music, ive been working on this hurricane piece for the guitar quartet. Its coming together but Im having trouble getting past measure 1. :-) we'll see what happens.

Day 72

Today I nailed it! Here's my log:

1. 2 graham cracker sheets w/nonfat peanut butter
2. yogurt
3. apple
4. cottage cheese (excellent source of protein)
5. chicken breast
6. 2 pieces of wheat bread
7. carrots
8. rice cakes
9. water water water

Excersize: 1500 yards swimming

67 to 71

During these past few days Ive had a cold so I avoided my workout routiene like the plauge. However, I got back on track today with my excersize and diet plans:

1. Tuna Sandwich on wheat
2. carrots
3. yogurt
4. cottage cheese
5. trail mix
6. lots of water

Excersize: 1500 yards swimming.

As for the lake tahoe challenge im somewhere around 14 miles. Hopefully Ill be at all 22 by December 2 which coincidentally is day 100.

I went and bought a scale today. It is a pretty accurate one compared to the manual type, so I feel that weighing myself on this one is a better choice. As of today im at 264 which is 30 pounds lighter than I was 70 days ago. Now its time to really get it on as I trek to 250 from now, through the holidays, to new years. I think Im gonna have a tough time ahead of me so I better start planning!. 250 is a good place to shoot for.

I have realized over these past couple of weeks that I have not been as active in my health goals as I was earlier in the semester. Rather than taking time every night to document my progress, im waiting until long periods go by or ususally a "Grinder" week to come to an end. Well today I am stopping this. Im going to get back on track and work toward my goals. I need to keep my eyes on the prize!!! My goal right now is to get to 250 by day 100. and I know I can get there. Im going to have to really stick to it this week. And considering I have 4 gigs and all late nights, its gonna be tough. But I can do it. I can rise to the occassion! 250 here I come!!!!!!

The Grinder Week part deux Days 58-65

Sorry I haven't reported the past week or so. I guess I should rather be apologizing to myself than to cyberspace but oh well. It was a tough week, with two big midterms a big gig and lots of late nights plus Halloween. To say the least, I didn't quite follow my food plan. Mainly because I didn't make it to the grocery store, I ate out quite a bit. Regardless, I still tried to make decent choices. I had pizza a couple of times which really broke my promise to myself as I had put that food on my "unauthorized" list. Plus I ate a healthy dose of candy to top it off.

But today is a new day! Day 66!! and I am ready to make the best of it!

I started off the day with a 30 lap swim at the pool followed by a trip to the store to get my food for the week! Im all set to go! Today I even packed my lunch! Here's what I had:

1. Orange Juice
2. Apple
3. several graham cracker sheets
4. Turkey sandwich w/lettuce and some mayo
5. two rice cakes
6. low fat yoplait yogurt
7. lots of carrots
8. a couple granola bars
9. about 1 and 1/2 liters of water

Its 9:30 right now and Im a bit hungry, I didn't get the chance to eat dinner. But Im just going to go to bed and wake up in the morning with a nice breakfast. I planned on doing an upper body workout tonight but that didn't happen.

And now to some music stuff (amazing how I haven't really touched up on that subject!) I had a nice day of sketching a new composition as well as discovering some new music! Leo Brouwer is a Cuban composer who's guitar works are very challenging yet enlightening. I found this guitar quartet piece called "Cuban Landscape with Rain". It is such a magnificent piece! Im going to bring it into the guitar quartet (NWGQ) reharsal this next week and hopefully we'll be able to include it into our repitoure. Right now Im listening to Freddie Hubbard's solo on Kenny Burrell's God Bless the Child. Man, what a great solo he takes. Classic CTI!!

Well Im going to try and get back on board with this blog thing. I seem to really succeed whenever I write entries regularly in the blog. Im still on track to hit my weight goal by new years - its amazing how far Ive come. I have this Von Dutch blue button down shirt thats a bit small for me but I can finally fit into it with a little bit of slack left. Its signals like that which inspire me to continue to build my body for life!