Running & Bodyweight Fitness!

One the the things I remember I could do when I was a teenager was pretty much anything I wanted to physically! I mean I could jump off of rooftops, do long distance swimming, run barefoot for miles through canyons. Why I even learned how to catch Voles barehanded in poison oak (without getting the rash)! Now you might be wondering why anyone would want to do that – as I am now but the fact of the matter is I could and did do all of that.

I have been thinking about this because one of my main goals for losing weight is to gain back about half of what I used to be able to do. I don’t want to climb 80 foot trees and hunt game without regular weapons. I just want to be in great shape for a middle-aged man!

In this post I will highlight my diet and exercise for the past week, speak of my progress and talk a bit about my goals and aspirations with body weight exercises! Here is a extreme (although it would not have seemed so when I was a kid) fitness video.

It is kind of funny but when I first started fighting black belts as a 165 pound brown belt, I used to escape sometimes by running up the walls on one corner and escaping on the other side! It seemed like the lesser of two evils – you know try and extreme escape or get pounded into the wall!

This past week was kind of stressful at work and home so I only ended up doing one bag workout. The reason is intricate karate/boxing routines take a lot of thought and motivation. Too much to deal with if there is a lot of other “stuff” going on so I did several runs as the majority of my workouts! Running to me is a mindless activity that is great for negating stress.

I lost another pound so now I am down 30 pounds from my heaviest. I have another 10 pounds to go before I am not obese! I’ve been thinking more and more about what my goal should actually be. I know I will get under 200 pounds by next Spring easy but should I shoot for my old fighting weight of 165? My feeling is to go for my heavier but still strong weight of about 175 to 180 because I can start to focus on strength building body weight exercises along the way.

Right now I have to be careful about pull ups, push ups and such because my body is not too toned. It is in ok shape for punching and kicking the bag because I have worked up to is slowly (as I still am) so perhaps if I just start out slow on the body weight exercises – it will be ok.

My wife and I had another cheat meal at a Fillipi’s Pizza Grotto, a delicious medium pizza (I had two slices) along with a salad! The wonderful thing about taking a meal off each week is I feel like I can still make it through the week. If I end up eating out with a friend or family during the week, I am not too worried that I am now off of my diet. You see taking a meal off is part of my diet. I found this funny Korean pizza commercial.

I guess the whale likes srimp too!

My goal for this next week will be to start incorporating body weight exercises into my workouts slowly. I have already started jumping rope before my bag workouts. I hope all is well for your plan.