Yes, World..... I am alive! (As if the world gave a shit)

It's been over 6 months since my last post.... for a reason.

I haven't had anything I wanted to write about.... and I still don't, but I figure sometimes it's better to force something rather than abandon it altogether.

So.... what have I been doing and what have I discovered in the last 6 months?

Well - I've been working....kinda.   I started working on a Turnaround Planner Training Program for a company in Clear Lake back in early November and have worked on it part time since then, culminating with a Training Class I led at a Petrochemical Company in Baton Rouge La last week.  Got another training class I gotta do for the same company in Richmond Va in July.  Hey, it pays the bills so why not?

Have I been working out and eating right?  Does a bear.....  Yes - I have been but haven't been making much progress.

I've been eating a little more and going up in weight in my Body Pump workouts, but can't seem to get stronger without adding unwanted extra weight.  Maybe, I've reached a limit on what can be done at 50....

I dunno.  Anyway.... I keep grunting, gritting my teeth and letting the sweat fly.... so that's something.

Also, been spending quite a bit of time since early February on my short term stock trading.... mixed results on that.  I can pay the bills doing it but not much more than that.  Looking at different techniques and timeframes and doing a lot of backtesting to see what works best in different environments.  I'm not and never will be a Buy and Hold investor..... seen too many retirement funds wiped out that way in my lifetime and will never do it.  Define Risk and Reward..... keep what you got and live below your means.... that's the way - uh huh uh huh I like it....uh huh uh huh.

Another bike trip in the works?  No.... No desire to do that right now.  Got my hands full doing part time work, trading, working out and trying to keep my 20 year old daughter headed in the right direction.

I've reached a point of realization that this is it..... this is as good as it gets..... and I'm OK with that.

I like to work out..... I like to eat good food cooked by my own hand.... I like watching the Voice, Castle and Deadliest Catch.... and I like coffee in the morning.

And that's good enough for me.

Oklahoma.... Where the Quail Chukar and Pheasant...

Go winging 'cross the plains!

On a preserve hunt with Aaron and Decker....

Great hunt!

For more info, check out Spencer Kern with

www.prescribedhunts.com

A visit with my son Aaron...

Means a 45 minute CrossFit type of workout with 10 stations 45 seconds each 3 rotations. 

No problem....

Followed by 18 holes of Frisbee golf accompanied by Aaron's Brittany Spaniel, Decker. 

Concluding with Decker swimming after ducks. 

Texas Renaissance Festival....

Been a few years...

Still a nice way to spend an autumn day. 

Power to the Body...

Comes in the form of these kinds of Powerhouse meals...

Grilled turkey pattie on a bed of arugula and tomatoes surrounded by peppers, squash and cottage cheese. 

Or this plethora of protein smothered with good carbs....

Jennie O Cajun Turkey, boiled eggs, cottage cheese, red bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, arugula with shaved Parmesan cheese. 

You're in a war everyday...

A war of mental, physical and emotional stress. 

You owe it to your body, mind and soul to be armed with the best ingredients prepared and presented in a healthy and appetite appealing way. 

You owe it to yourself to...

Treat your body right. 

Random Musings about the Election, Politics and Anything Else on My Mind

Whoopee... the election is over.... Finally.... Thank God!

It's always amazing to me how eat up people get about politics and who becomes President.

Here's my opinion on this whole matter.... and let me stress.... it is just my opinion:

1. Barack Obama seems like an intelligent, hard working guy with good family standards who is a helluva lot more competent at being President than a lot of people we've had in the Presidency before.  Think Dubbaya.
2. With that said, it really doesn't matter who is President or what he tries to do or not do during his Presidency..... because the President ain't in control of squat.
3. There's a few very rich and powerful people out there that decide the agenda, direction and fate of this nation and its people and most of the world for that matter..... and you will never know who they are.
4. They manipulate and financially engineer the politics, programs and profits of this country and the world financial systems to steal from the lower and middle class and give to themselves.
5. If you want me to cite specific data and cases, here goes:

401k's were created in the early 80's for what purpose?

As a way to encourage the savings of the lower and middle class?

No!!!

To give those in control a source to steal money from.

How?

A whole industry of mutual funds and "buy and hold" mentality was created to brainwash people into putting their hard earned money in one spot and leaving it there while the financially agile and adept money gods plundered the till.

How?

Through frequent and repetitious financial crises that wreak havoc on the financial stability of the securities markets where the 401k assets reside.

I mean come on.... who is gonna "hold" while they watch their life savings go down 20, 30, 50, 80%?

The answer is very few.... so the little guy panics out at the bottom of the crisis (bear market) and the financially adept vultures swoop in and scoop up your life savings and depart the scene.....

Then the market goes up 30 - 50% and the little guy is convinced by his broker (part of the who industry controlled by the money gods) to "get back in".... which he does right at the top and then he rides the market back down through another engineered financial crisis and sells at the bottom and rinse and repeat.

Every financial crisis is either engineered, manipulated by or nurtured by these guys so they know it's coming and how to profit from it and how you will react to it.  It's their business and they are good at it.

I mean just look at the frequency of the list of financial crisis from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis

1987 – Black Monday (1987) – the largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history

1989–91 – United States Savings & Loan crisis

1990 – Japanese asset price bubble collapsed

early 1990s – Scandinavian banking crisis: Swedish banking crisis, Finnish banking crisis of 1990s

1992–93 – Black Wednesday – speculative attacks on currencies in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism

1994–95 – 1994 economic crisis in Mexico – speculative attack and default on Mexican debt

1997–98 – 1997 Asian Financial Crisis – devaluations and banking crises across Asia

1998 Russian financial crisis

2000–2001 – Turkish Crises

2000 – late 2000s recession

2001 – Argentine Crises

2001 – Bursting of dot-com bubble – speculations concerning internet companies crashed

2008-2009 - Icelandic financial crisis

2007–12 – Financial crisis of 2007–2012, including the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis

Am I saying that the money gods run around the world sabotaging the world economies at will?

Maybe.... Maybe not ... but they damned sure know how to create some financial instrument or derivative that leverages the situation to their advantage and makes it a whole lot worse than it would have been if the crisis was just left to its own devices.

So the next time you get all worked up about who is President and what he's doing or not doing, take a deep breath and relax, cause he ain't in control.

Leave that to the 20 guys in New York.

To Be Healthy.... You gotta Eat Healthy!

Which means you have to prepare healthy food!

And if you don't know how to cook... 

You probably need to learn. 

Part of the reason people can't stick to a healthy diet is because they try to eat those dreadful "TV dinner"
Health meals. Yuck.... Under seasoned and too small a portion. 

Forget that. 

Try my way....

Lots of fresh veggies, some meat and everything cooked with little oil and well seasoned with just salt and pepper. 

It's really not that hard....

Peel a butternut squash with a Potato peeler, dice it up with a sharp knife, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill in a medium hot cast iron skillet. 

This is "hard" squash so you need to keep turning it with a spoon or spatula until it's nicely browned on all sides and then cover with a lid for a few minutes. 

When you can stick a fork in it easily, it's done. 

Then sauté some bell peppers and "soft" yellow squash and some jalapeño sausage, heat up some sliced precooked turkey and....

Bam!!!  

A healthy meal.... Heavy on the tasty veggies with some fat and lean protein to build that body...

And it tastes great!

Don't believe me?

Ask anybody I've cooked a meal for....

They'll tell you...

This is the Real Deal Will!!!

Listen to Your Body..... Then Use Your Mind

Balance, Stress and Injuries....

These are Elements you have to deal with in everyday life and in your efforts toward a healthy lifestyle of diet and exercise.

What is the right balance?

How do you stress for success?

How do you avoid injuries (physical, mental or emotional) and how do you deal with them when you get them?

Let me relate a few thoughts on these items.

As I've documented in this blog, my exercise routine over the past few months has been built around a base of Group Exercise Classes, the most prominent of which is a High Rep, High Intensity Weight Workout called Body Pump.

After a few weeks of this class, I felt a need to "stretch" my workouts to more dynamic movement type classes.  I had lost a significant amount of weight and judged that my compromised joints (knees, back and shoulders) could handle the dynamic movement - Less weight to move around... Less stress on the joints.

The dynamic movement group exercise classes quickly took me to a new level of fitness.... higher cardio output, more definition, less bodyfat.

As I reveled in the results, I also felt the effects of both the weight training and the dynamic movement classes (i.e. stiffness and soreness in muscles and joints). 

I realized quickly that I needed to include a few classes of more flexibility and stretching to my exercise regimen so I began doing a Yoga class and a Body Flow class (mix of Tai Kwan Do, Pilates and Yoga).

And for the most part, everything was going along fine.

Over the past couple of weeks, I realized I wasn't getting any stronger in my Body Pump classes.  I had been doing the same weights for over a month and it wasn't getting any easier.  So to build strength, I started including intermittent (twice per week) "Heavy Weight" workouts where I did max weight, max effort weight training on basic exercises like Wide Grip Chinups, Dips, Deadlifts, Squats and Leg Curls.

And it worked.... I could see the size and definition in my chest, back and legs change almost overnight and I jumped to the next weight increment in many of my Body Pump tracks.

But.... But.... But.... to make room, time and energy for these "Heavy Weight" workouts, I had to cut out something....

So I cut out the Yoga and Body Flow classes.... the ones that focused on stretching and flexibility.

And guess what?

In the past few days, I pulled a muscle in my right shoulder and my left hamstring.

Was it because I was doing the new and heavier weight exercises and overdid it?

Was it because I wasn't doing the stretching and flexibility exercises like before?

Who knows?  Probably Yes and Yes.

The point is that for every change you make in life, there is a consequence...

Sometimes it's positive or short term positive and sometimes the consequence of change is a negative event....

Like an injury..... to your shoulder, leg, your pocketbook or an important relationship.

Life (and sometimes your own body) sets boundaries.... We sometimes test those boundaries.... And then deal with the consequences.

We learn from our mistakes hopefully.  We grow.  We tuck that little learning under our belt or in the back of our mind and say...

"Ok.... the next time I'm in a similar situation I'm not gonna do that..... I'm gonna remember this little setback and not do a repeat."

So what do you do with bad consequences to change?

Well - the first thing you do is....

 Don't Make it Any Worse!

The second thing you do is Assess the Damage.

The third thing is Work out a Plan for Rehab, Recovery or Correction.

Then Execute the Plan or at least Go Back to What Worked Before.

So what am I doing?

First, I'm figuring out what I can do and can't do based on how my shoulder and hamstring feels.

Then I'm going back to what was working.

The First Law of Nature is..... Do No Harm!

Think I'll try....

Body Flow this evening, followed by Zumba and TRX Suspension Training.

Sounds like a good balance to me.

When More is Less.... And Less is More...

Had 2 people come up to me in the gym on Saturday and ask me what the heck
I was doing to look like I do. 

One lady was amazed at me knocking out multiple sets of wide grip chins and heavy Deadlifts. She said "Geez - You look so buff".  I blushed a little and just said thanks and told her those were old school exercises and I was an old school kinda guy. 

Another guy just randomly came up to me and said "Man - you gotta tell me what you're doing". 

I told him the same thing I told others....

Body Pump 4 times a week....

Several dynamic agility type Aerobic classes including Boot Camp...

Zumba and TRX on Tuesday and Thursday evenings....

And lots of meat and vegetables....

And consistency in both...

As you can tell from all the pics of the food, I eat a lot...

Perhaps more than I used to....

In volume but not in calories....

And I weigh 30 lbs less than I used to....

But I look BIGGER....

Because I'm down from 26% body fat to less than 10% body fat. 

Combine low body fat with a lot of intense exercise and you get definition that makes you look bigger while being smaller. 

And that gets noticed. 

The last of the pork chops, grilled eggplant, yellow bell peppers and lots of other vegetable characters.  

My wife presented a tasty meal of diced jalapeño sausage, poached eggs and mandolin thin sliced onions, bell peppers and baby Bella mushrooms. 

You have to set your expectations high and then maintain your discipline. 

Breakfast this morning...

Turkey - veggie mix Pattie with grilled eggplant and red bell peppers. 

Followed by a pumped up post workout meal....

Been doing heavy Deadlifts and Squats over the last 2 weeks on my "off days". 

It paid off as I went up 10 lbs on my squat track in Body Pump this morning. 

Doing more....

With less. 

Get it?

It's just You and...

The man (or woman) in the mirror...

If you don't like what you see....

Do something to change it...

Me?

As my daughter would say...

I got this.