The first photo is from about 12 weeks ago. The second photo was at the start of P90x. The 3rd photo was taken yesterday.

After hearing him mention these and doing some research, I kind of forgot about them for a while.

Then a couple months later, my partner, Josh Bartlett, mentioned that he was trying something called Alpha Brain, based on a recommendation from Joe Rogan’s podcast. I did some research on this supplement and was pretty intrigued by the claims. (Just as a note, I am not an affiliate of this product. I’ve got nothing to gain by talking either good or bad about it.)

I ordered a bottle of it and have been taking it for the past two months.

I have no idea if there’s a bit of a placebo effect or if this stuff actually works but I have noticed a difference.

Honestly, my brain is always all over the place. I’m a bit A.D.D. when it comes to business and what I should be working on throughout the day. I’ve actually found that Alpha Brain does not really help me get focused. However, once I do start on a project, I’ve noticed myself getting in to somewhat of a tunnel vision type mode. I seem to be able to just keep going and going once I get started on something without being distracted by the things going on around me.

I’m not the most eloquent person in the world either. Typically in conversations, I struggle a bit for the words that I’m looking for. Alpha Brain has seemed to improve this quite a bit as well. I do notice that, when in conversation, I have a much easier time verbalizing the things that I’m trying to say. This has been especially handy due to the fact that I’m doing about an interview per day for our new Beyond The Hype product.

A real interesting side effect of Alpha Brain has been the lucid dreaming… I don’t really remember having a lot of dreams throughout my life. However, since I’ve started taking Alpha Brain, I tend to have real clear dreams and I tend to actually remember them the next day. This has been pretty cool.

All and all I really like Alpha Brain and plan to continue taking it. Again, I don’t know if it’s all a placebo but, if I’m getting the results that I want, who cares…

Here’s Joe Rogan talking about Alpha Brain… (Caution: Strong Language)

http://youtu.be/KDcps7PUIPA

For some reason, when I get consistant with my workout and diet, I can see my arms grow pretty quickly. I’ve never had much of a chest or abs though. My arms and shoulders seem to be the only parts of my body that grow. Using the routine that I mentioned in a previous post, I’m going to try to change that.

This image was actually taken about a week ago… March 22nd, 2012.

I’ll post pictures on probably a monthly basis so I can see if there’s any transformation.

Who woulda thought?

Personally, I don’t feel like I’m in the best shape of my life so I’ve decided to take some actions to make sure I’m looking good for the trips.

I’ve started a very strict workout routine as well as began to change my diet and added some supplementation in to my routine. In this post, I’m going to detail my diet, my exercise routine as well as my supplement regimen in the hopes that putting it out there on the internet will make me feel more accountable.

For the exercise portion of my new lifestyle change, I’m not using any gym membership and I don’t really have much equipment. I do have a set of Selecttech 552 Adjustable dumbbells, a 35 lb Kettlebell, an Iron Gym pull-up bar, and a decline sit-up bench for now. I’ll probably be adding more equipment over time because my current setup is actually beginning to be a bit light for me. I just hate going to the gym so I’ve been collecting equipment over time…

My Workout Routine

I do resistance training every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with my dumbbells. I’ve been pretty much sticking to the exact same routine with each workout, making sure to work every single muscle group each workout. I do only one set of each exercise and I attempt to either increase the reps or increase the weight with every single workout. This training takes about 30 minutes total. My resistance training consists of:

• Shrugs – Last workout was 20 reps with 52.5 lb dumbbells
• Deadlifts – Last workout was 15 reps with 50 lb dumbbells
• Seated Calf Raises – Last workout was 50 reps with 52.5 lb dumbells
• Bench Press – Last workout was 15 reps with 45 lb dumbells
• Bentover Rows – Last workout was 15 reps with 52.5 lb dumbbells
• Overhead Press – Last workout was 12 reps with 40 lb dumbbells
• Bicep Curls – Last workout was 12 reps with 30 lb dumbbells
• Wrist Extensions – Last workout was 12 reps with 15 lb dumbbells
• Side Bends – Last workout was 20 reps with 52.5 lb dumbbells
• Kettle Bell Swings – 30 reps (15 each arm) with 35 lb kettlebell

As you can see, I’ve kind of already outgrown the weight set that I have. Almost all of the workouts that I do, I’m forced to do really high reps to make up for the fact that I’m not using heavy enough weights.

On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I do 3 sets of kettlebell swings (15 swings with each arm for each set) to make sure that I get some cardio in every single day. Eventually I’m going to switch this up with decline crunches on some days.

On Sundays I play in a softball league. I don’t do any workouts on this day other than my softball games. I also always keep my pull-up bar hanging in the door to my office. I tend to do a pull-up or 3 almost every time I walk past it. This isn’t an organized part of my routine but it’s just something I do to keep the blood flowing during the day.

My New Diet

I’m not really going too crazy with the diet and I haven’t been real strict with a lot of this yet.

I have pretty much given up all liquids other than water with my meals. I also drink my supplements as well but I’ll get to those in a minute. I’ve completely given up all soda, coffee, juice, and sweetened tea. I’ve still been known to have the occasional beer after softball games though. During the day and with meals, however, it’s all water for me.

My actual diet these days is kind of my own thing. I guess it’s similar to the Tim Ferriss‘s slow-carb diet but with my own adjustments to it. I eat a lot of protein as well as vegetables and black beans. I’m trying to eat as gluten-free as possible. Not only because gluten does a number on my stomach but also because there’s been evidence lately that shows that excluding gluten from your diet can significantly decrease the chances of most types of cancers (from what I’ve read… I have no scientific data to back that up).

The slow-carb diet basically says that fruit is off-limits. I still do some fruit. I like to throw bananas in to my protein shakes for extra flavor. I also won’t be doing the cheat day each week due to my issues with gluten.

To really sum up my diet, it’s drink a TON of water (I always have water with me), eat lots and lots of protein in the form of mostly chicken, steak, and a daily protein shake, and throw some black beans and some vegetables in with pretty much every meal.

My Supplementation

I’m not going real crazy on supplementation. I basically take NO Xplode before every single workout and in the mornings on off days. This supplement seems to give me increased energy and enthusiasm towards my workout. Some people have described the effect as almost like a tunnel vision during your workouts. Since I’ve started taking it, I have noticed myself able to increase both the amount of weight and reps that I can do while working out. It’s also got creatine in it so that I don’t have to supplement that separately.

I also drink a Whey protein shake immediately after workouts with a banana mixed in for extra flavor.

That’s about all I’m really doing in the way of supplementation.

Now… A word of caution. If you do begin taking NO Xplode, do not take it in the evenings. I did my workout last night at about 9:30 pm last night. I drank my NO Xplode mix immediately before the workout. When it came time to go to bed I felt like I was on cocaine or something (note: I’ve never done cocaine in my life and I don’t intend to. I’m assuming this is what it would feel like). I could not relax, my mind was all over the place, and I felt like my heart was beating really really fast. I laid in bed awake for about 2 hours before the effects finally started to wear off and I was able to doze off. I’m really going to need to start doing my workouts earlier in the day to avoid this problem again.

On a side note… I’ve began taking a nootropic called Alpha-Brain today. It’s my first day testing it so I’ll probably be making another post real soon about my experience with nootropic supplementation.

Anyway… That’s all I got today.

See you in the next one.

Matt

First of all, I run a site over at The WordPress Classroom. The site isn’t The WordPress.org Classroom. It’s the WordPress Classroom. It only makes sense that, at some point, I dive in to more detail about how to use WordPress.com. Personally, I’ve never had a site hosted on WordPress.com. I figured this would be a great way to really dive in myself and learn about everything WordPress.com hosted blogs have to offer. To be honest, I’m pretty impressed so far with everything that WordPress.com has to offer. There are a ton of cool features that are free with an account.

Second, I didn’t want to take this blog too seriously. I didn’t feel like purchasing a domain name for it, I didn’t want to customize a theme for it, and I really have no intention (right now) of monetizing this site in any way whatsoever. I just wanted a site that was quick and that I could set it up in a matter of about 3 minutes.

Why am I starting yet another blog, you may ask…

Well Business and Blogs and Beyond The Hype are my outlets for everything marketing related. I like to write long, in-depth posts over on Business and Blogs about successes and failures that I’ve had in my business online. Beyond the Hype is my place where I get people to teach me how to do things that I’m not the greatest at and then turn around and share those ideas with the World. The WordPress Classroom is where I go in to great depth teaching WordPress. All of these outlets are places where I share my business, marketing, and technical knowledge. I really have no outlet for really sharing personal stuff.

That’s what this site is about… This is my outlet for whatever the hell I feel like talking about. This is my site that’s for me. I’m not monetizing it and, other than having these posts automatically shared on some social networking sites, I’m not doing anything to generate traffic to this site. This site is here so that I can post quick rants about whatever I want.

I may talk about politics one day and my fitness goals the next day. This is my “anything goes” site. Some posts may be 4 sentences long and some may be 10 page rants on something that’s been bugging me. It’s just and outlet for everything that’s on my mind.

Most likely, if you follow this page, you’ll hear a lot about my fitness goals, my travels, my photography, my diet, movies, music, tv shows, books, and the occasional political rant. So be warned now… There really is no major theme to this site and I probably will talk about anything. If you do read this though, please leave comments. That’s the best part about blogging in my opinion. I love interacting and reading people’s comments and replying.

Cool…? So that’s what this blog is about. My random thoughts and opinions. Hopefully some people think it’s cool. If you don’t, oh well. I’ll keep posting random stuff any way…

Matt