(No photos with this workout update post. “Your welcome,” or “sorry,” depending on your opinion.) After many rounds of P90X, a couple of rounds of Insanity, one round of Body Revolutions, and all the mixing and matching of them all I’ve done for maintenance, I’ve decided to try one more extreme workout regimen: JNL Fusion.

I like the routine JNL Fusion uses — 30 seconds of weight lifting, 30 seconds of hard cardio, then repeat. I don’t know if there’s any scientific proof for that method of training, but I like it in practice. The effort of work in Fusion is equal to that in P90X and Insanity, and the 30 minute workouts leave me sweaty and spent. The routines are shorter than the P90X workouts, and there are several seconds between exercises to allow recovery that Insanity doesn’t give. So far, (two weeks), I’m really enjoying Fusion.

In addition to the Fusion workouts in the evenings — my normal routine is to workout after we get the boys into bed at 8:00 — I’m trying to workout often in the mornings. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m., before anyone else awakes, and if I can get myself out of bed, I go do a Body Revolutions cardio routine. I usually manage 3 mornings a week. Then on the weekend days I’ll swap in a P90X cardio for the Revolutions cardio. I have more time on Saturday and Sunday mornings for the 45 minute P90X cardio, and it includes about 15 minutes of yoga.

So, I’m working out a hell of a lot these days. My goal is to get that absolutely, definitely defined six-packs abs. Right now, I have the shadow/hint of a six pack, but not the “POW!” set I want. It really is damned hard to get a 45 year old body to that point. Especially a body that isn’t naturally skinny.

This increase in workouts has had a side effect I didn’t expect: my appetite has gone through the roof. I still closely monitor and track my calorie, (and protein, carb, & fat), intake, writing down every single calorie I ingest. In the beginning of my fitness quest, (3 years ago), I tried to stay at 1800 calories a day. I didn’t starve myself — I ate when I was hungry — but I made sure I was eating proper foods rather than wasting calories on crap stuff. Then after I lost the fat I wanted to shed, I upped my calories to 2000 a day to add a little muscle. Not a lot of muscle, as I didn’t want to bulk up. I maintained 2000 calories for a long time, and it seemed to be the proper level for my current metabolism. But over the past several weeks, since I’ve started working out more than once a day, (around 12 times a week), my need to eat has gone crazy. Since I don’t let myself go hungry, (that would be unhealthy), I eat when my body says it needs food. And lately I’ve been putting in well over 2000 calories a day — often 2400 and more a day. I’ve had days when I’ve eaten up to 3000 calories in a day. Not bad calories, not desserts, but good food, just in big quantities.

It kind of shocks me to add up the calories I’m taking in. My intention with adding a second workout on some days was to hopefully speed up the shedding of the last few percentages of body fat — those last handful of pounds covering the washboard of my abs. I didn’t expect upping the workout schedule would really blow up my metabolism so much. Now I’m wondering if I need to drop the second workouts. Although I do really like the feeling through a day after a good morning exercise, I’m constantly hungry. I’m eating more now at a fit and trim 150 pounds than I did at a soft and fat 195 pounds over 3 years ago. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s an annoying thing, to be constantly eating all through a day. My desk drawers at work almost can’t hold all the [healthy] snacks I have to keep at hand to keep my tank off empty.

Bullgrit

This guy sits in front of our car repair shop.

Bullgrit

Usually, I make sure the kitchen is mostly cleaned up before going to bed at night. Clean dishes are put away, dirty dishes are in the washer, and the washer is set to start during the night. So in the mornings, we can start our breakfast time with a clean slate — the sink looks like this:

One day last week, Wifegrit was out of town overnight. So that meant it was my job to get the boys ready for school in the morning. After the boys had eaten their breakfasts and made their lunches, (they make their own breakfasts and lunches, with adult supervision), the sink looked like this:

Now, I hadn’t had the time to empty the dishwasher of the clean dishes from the night before, so I couldn’t just load these into the washer. If I wanted a clean sink again, I had to do them by hand. When Wifegrit came home that afternoon, I wanted her to walk in to a neat kitchen. (It’s a minor thing, but it’s nice to not walk into a messy house.) So I did those dishes by hand. The sink was clear, and the drying rack looked like this:

Do you see that? For the boys to make and eat breakfast and make their lunch, it messed up 5 plates, 2 bowls 2 cups, a few utensils, a cutting board, and some other odds and ends. Two. Boys.

I had to run upstairs to get my backpack and make sure all the bedroom lights and fans and radios were turned off for the day. When I came back downstairs to the kitchen for one last look through, the sink looked like this:

What the hell!? Everyone was packed and ready for school. But somehow more dirty dishes magically appeared. How? I threw up my hands and quickly washed those surprise dishes.

Happily, when we walked out the door, the sink was empty and the kitchen was neat. I didn’t think to ask Wifegrit about it, but I wonder if more dishes had appeared in the sink by the time she got home that afternoon.

Bullgrit

This is one of those t-shirts that’s probably best left unexplained.

blah, blah, blah
We could have had sex by now.

Bullgrit