Notes: Felt good doing the workout. Packed more total reps into the practice for all three exercises. RP TED - 7-9, 6.5, 3.

Notes: Soreness in quads pretty much gone - .5 in left thigh, 2.5 in right. Hopefully they’ll be ready to perform in the strength day tomorrow. Can’t really say enough about this yoga practice. It’s not the prescribed flow with the BER program, but it’s got everything from that flow in it, and it’s incredible! Overall RP-TED - 9.5, 4, 1. Nutrition - 2 egg whites and 2 whole eggs scrambled with onions topped with salsa, mid-morning apple, 3 pieces leftover pizza and some leftover chili for lunch, baked talapia whole wheat macaroni and cheese and steamed broccoli and carrots for dinner.

Notes: No residual strain or pain detected in my right knee. I was a bit worried I overdid it yesterday, but it seems like I pulled back the difficulty level on the leg swoops at the right time. Lats are a bit sore, as are pecs and deep muscles in the spiral line (serratus anterior, obliques, and such). Mainly my quads are still really sore from the past two days. On a scale of one to ten, ten being so sore I can’t walk, my left quad is about a 2.5 while my right thigh is at about 7. Wild … Ate a banana early, an egg-white omelet with onions bell peppers turkey and tomatoes around 9:30 am, a chef salad with balsamic vinaigrette about 3:00, and two turkey dogs with leftover chili and a handful of wasabi mustard potato chips, all before 7:30 … no alcohol this evening … yes, that’s a victory!

Notes: This is a tough little workout, dammit. I have to admit to thinking it would be easier going in. All exercises but the leg swoop are easily accessible to me on all 4 levels, and I think I’ll up them to level 4 for the next round. The leg swoop itself is accessible to me at Level 3, but I can’t do it more than a few times in a row, so I lowered the difficulty to 2 and found that even too difficult after the second superset. Third superset was done half at Level 2 then half at Level 1, followed by supersets 4 and 5 at Level 1. This is fine with me. Pushing it with this exercise seems to put undue strain on my right knee, and since I only recently completely rehabbed from that popliteal cyst behind said knee, I think I’ll be fine with Level 1 for the time being. Even with that, it is still a lung-burner of a workout. Rested 3 minutes between supersets as directed. RP-TED - 8.5,8.5,3. In terms of nutrition, it was another IF day - A couple cups of green tea in the AM, then an apple post-workout, leftover chicken, rice, and black beans about 30 minutes after my shower. Then a couple handfuls of mixed nuts after work and some grapes, followed by a couple Sierra Nevada beers and my famous Turkey Chili after. Ceased drinking and eating at 8 pm.

Notes: This is a really nice workout. It fits well into 40 minutes for me - 5 minutes DJM Warmup, followed by 25 minutes of the workout, finishing off with the compensatory yoga for about 10 minutes. Looking forward to the MRC tomorrow! RP TED - 7.5 (only reason not higher is because my pistols were a little shaky due to balance issues - that should improve quickly tho), 6, 1. Also was an IF day. Had 3 cups of green tea this morning and plenty of water throughout the day. Had an apple and a handful of mixed nuts post-workout. Grilled chicken, black beans, long-grain brown rice and broccoli for dinner, followed after 30 minutes by 2 glasses of red wine before 8:30.

Well, the book photo shoot was postponed until February 14, 2009 after my photographer had to leave the country for a couple of weeks at the last minute. Just spent about a week just doing joint mobility and yoga posture practice to clean the slate from my Book Photography Cycle. Preliminary results from that cycle show about 7 lbs of fat loss. Lean mass up about 2 lbs, while I lost .5 inches on my waist and picked up .75 inches in both my chest and shoulder measurements. Very happy with my muscle gain. I think I could have done better in the fat loss category over this period, but my nutrition was not as tight as it could have been. That was certainly my fault. Damn pizza and beer!

So now I’m going to take advantage of the extra three weeks to really tighten up my nutrition and initiate the Fat Loss Cycle from the Bodyweight Exercise Revolution program put out recently by CST Head Coaches Ryan Murdock and Adam Steer, with the ambitious goal of losing another 7-10 pounds of bodyfat. I’ll keep ya’ll updated!

Cycle Dates: January 26, 2009 thru February 18, 2009

Cycle Goals: Losing about 10 pounds of fat, leaving my bodyweight between 165-170 lbs with a bodyfat percentage around 10-12%.

Specifics: I will be working the Fat Loss Cycle as described in the Bodyweight Exercise Revolution program.

I will continue with the Intermittent Fasting a couple days a week, but will now be really working hard to maintain as many of the 16 Steps on Scott Sonnon’s Flat Tummy Diet as make sense to me. Most of them are fairly intuitive to me as it is. However, roughly a quarter of them will prove difficult. Numbers 2, 3, 6, 12, and 13 are the steps in question. 2 only because I will be fasting intermittently, which will get in the way of the 3 meals a day step. 3 because I often end up eating around 7 or 7:30, which isn’t too far beyond the suggested 7 pm. There’s no doubt beer and wine (and cheese) are my major weaknesses when it comes to caloric consumption, and I really don’t plan to quit beer and wine altogether (step 6), though a serious cutback will be in effect. 12 and 13 sort of go hand in hand, so I’m hoping to get better at slowing down and chewing my food more thoroughly. I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes!

Notes: I am now reading Anatomy Trains, which is a fantastic book. I believe the strain I am feeling in my left shoulder is due to some imbalances in my arm lines, specifically the deep front arm line (pec minor and lat) along with some undue tension in my levator scapulae. Table-Top work has been really great for revlieving tension in my pectoralis minor. Overall RP-TED - 7.5,6,2.5