Rock'ing For 30 Days

Dark mornings will forever remind me of two things: that first time you have to wake up early for the first day of school after a long summer break, and heading to the airport. For huge parts of my life, that would be the only thing that would get me out of bed early.

I’ve gotten used to waking up in the dark. It’s leaving the house in the cold that still gets me. Putting on shorts, a t-shirt, then warm-up pants, a hoodie, then a parka and gloves every morning is tiring. I should have waited until the summer to do this, then I could have just skipped to the gym in shorts, not a care in the world. Oh well.

The only thing more serious than this workout is my parka.

Whisper in My Ear for Awhile

These workouts are so long, I’ve been finishing two or more podcasts each day. I decided to start going through my Amazon wishlist and buying the audiobook for each. I should be able to get through an average book in about 3 days. In the spirit of continued self improvement, the first one I chose was is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.

I’ve listened to interviews with Ryan previously, so I had known the overall premise of the book. It’s about stoicism, and more broadly, how you choose to deal with the challenges and obstacles that arise in life. I’ve made it a third of the way through already, and I’m enjoying it so far. Mr. Holiday has a pleasant voice to listen to as you push through more than 600 calf raises (feel free to add that to the book jacket, Ryan).

The Genius of My Wife

Every night my wife watches me gulp down my casein protein shake. Short lesson: Milk has two main proteins, casein and whey. Casein is much more abundant in milk, and is digested slowly, making it ideal for taking right before bed. Casein is fairly thick when mixed with water, and gets thicker the longer it sits. So I usually add water, shake it up, then drink the frothy concoction in a few big gulps. It has no flavoring or additives, so it tastes like thick, foamy whole milk.

My wife wanted a taste, which I was happy to provide. Her immediate reaction was that I should add cinnamon, which would make it taste sort of like horchata (a popular Latin milky drink typically made with rice, vanilla, and cinnamon). I added some right away, and she was right! It made the shake much more delicious. Cinnamon also has it’s own health benefits, so from now on, this is how I’ll have my shake. My wife is brilliant. Call the Nobel Prize people!

Daily Stats

It may have been the loss of sleep, but I  forgot to set my Fitbit at the start of each section today. This meant I had to manually enter the workout times. All the information is accurate, but we lose the pretty dashboard graphic I usually display. I’ve also been told the stats are the “boring part of the blog” so I’m sure you’re all really broken up about it.

After what felt like a lazy weekend, today was the official start of Rock Week #2. It was Chest Day, and actually found myself moving weight up from last week. There was definitely some noticeable increase in strength, especially on the incline barbell press (for some reason). Overall, it was a good workout.

I have lost all awkwardness around eating in the gym. Each morning I happily sit in the lobby, headphones on, munching on my oatmeal and smelly-ass fish. It makes me wonder why I felt weird in the first place. I remember author Tim Ferris once mentioned:

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

Not that I’m equating being fine with eating at the gym with the secret to living a successful life, but it’s good to get better at being uncomfortable. There are definitely a few moments around this whole challenge that have made me feel awkward. Honestly, even telling people I’m doing this felt a bit uncomfortable at first. But that was sort of the point. This whole challenge is about getting me out of my comfort zone. It’s working, and I’m glad I decided to do it.

PSA: Don’t drop weights on your water bottle.

Eating like a NASCAR pitstop

I eat three meals while I’m working. Stopping every two hours can be disruptive, not to mention the time it takes to actually eat. In an effort to stay productive, I’ve been eating at my desk while “working.” But in reality, this is dragging out the meal while I’m not getting much done. So today I tried actually stopping to eat while doing no work. I either listen to a podcast or read a longer article.

This was immensely helpful. I ate each of my meals in less than 10 minutes each. Getting to around 30 minutes of eating time (along with heating up my food, etc) is more than acceptable. This seems so counter to how you’re supposed to approach eating in general. But this diet is more akin to fuel. As long as it feels OK to eat like this, I’ll continue to do it.

¿Dónde está el baño?

Considering the amount of food I’m packing away, I thought my stomach would have had more issues. When I tell people about this challenge, it’s actually one of the first things everyone asks about. (“Are you in the bathroom, like, all day?”) But everything has been surprisingly normal. Until today.

I don’t know if maybe some of the fish I ate was a bit spoiled, or if this was the result of eating the same meals yesterday but not burning through it with a workout, but my stomach wasn’t happy. Not that I had any pains or that my stomach hurt. But without going into great detail, one word sums it up: frequent. No es bueno.

Things got better towards the evening, so I don’t think it will be ongoing. I suppose we’ll have to wait until next Monday to see if it’s the rest day issue. Sounds fun.

Daily Stats

According to my heart rate throughout the week, it seems I’m already adapting to the cardio, so I decided to try one of the programs on the elliptical. I did one called “Fat Burn” thinking it would mix things up a bit. I checked my Fitbit, and it turns out that it did get me into the Fat Burn Zone for longer than I’ve been there previously (an extra 14 minutes). It felt easier overall, but those machine people seem to know what they’re doing.

Today was the first rest day. I went to bed last night around 11:15pm, and woke up this morning at 8:30am. My body felt great when I woke up, and definitely appreciated all the rest.

The downside of waking up later was that I still needed to eat my 7 meals for the day. I had my first meal at the time I’m usually eating meal 2, so I was basically trying to play catchup all day.

The Folks Come to Town

My parents came to visit today. It was great seeing them, and felt good to have some normalcy to what has been an odd week. Of course, I had to continue eating every 2 hours, something my father thought was hilarious. There were definitely a lot of cod jokes to go around.

“Wait, you’re telling me you don’t even want one bite of this cookie?”

I also had a big test of my willpower and resolve. We decided to take a walk around the neighborhood, and at one point stopped for some treats at famed Harlem bakery Make My Cake (one of my favorite places in the world). My mother bought a bunch of different cookies, and we got a table to sit around and enjoy them. Of course, there were no cookies for me, even though they looked and smelled delicious. My daughter was even describing them to me as she ate them (“Cookie. Chocolate. Mmmmm.”) With all the food I eat, I’m never hungry, but there is nothing very sweet on this diet. It was tempting, but I left having had no bites.

That walk did interrupt when I should have been eating. Between waking up late, and missing the meal while walking, I was way behind. I basically ate every 90 minutes or so for the rest of the day. Without a huge workout to fuel, it definitely felt like way too much food.

The Big Game

I should have started this whole challenge a week later! While I’m not a huge sports fan, I do love eating wings, pizza, and tasty beers. But this year there was to be none of that.

Thankfully our neighbors were having a party, so my wife and daughter went over there to get their snack on. I stayed home, prepping food for the week and watching the game. This is probably the first SuperBowl Sunday in recent memory where I didn’t have a beer. The closest I got to Superbowl snacking was putting some Frank’s Red Hot on my 10 egg-white omelet. Close enough.

Not the best SuperBowl food spread I’ve had.

Daily Stats

As it was rest day, and I tend not to wear my Fitbit in the house, there isn’t much activity. But it does show the walk to get cookies. It’s a good reminder that even when you aren’t working out like The Rock, it’s important to get moving every day.

A life-long night owl, I managed to build a habit of waking up by 6 a.m. prior to starting this 30-day challenge. However, getting up at 5 a.m. every day all week has been rough. Today, since the gym opens at 7 a.m. on Saturdays, I decided to ‘sleep in’ until 6 a.m. And it felt glorious. I never thought I would get to a point where six felt late, or where walking to the gym after the sun has risen would make me feel like a slacker, but here we are.

Legs Day #2

As mentioned on Tuesday, The Rock loves Leg Day. So much so that he does it twice a week, including Saturday where he can take his time. Tuesday Me would slap me for saying this, but I get it now. After spending the week thinking about what your day has in store throughout the workout and trying to finish by certain time, it was nice to take my time, increase some of the rest periods a bit, and lift as heavy as possible. With this diet taking care of muscle repair and not leaving me sore, I enjoyed pushing myself.

This was actually the first time I had visited my gym on the weekend, after going there for almost three years. It was surprising to see that Saturday morning still had a lot of the same regulars I see throughout the week. Everyone got a later start, but they were in there nonetheless. It was nice to see that level of commitment.

Oh, You Had a Yoga Class?

There is definitely a lot of talk about this whole endeavor within our house. While I’m showered and dressed before my wife and daughter are awake, it’s hard to miss Dad cooking and eating all the time. The constant discussion has inspired my wife to get back into some of her routines that got disrupted when we became parents, starting with attending a yoga class every Saturday morning. Since this was a new thing, it completely slipped my mind. So I arrived home around 10:20 a.m., talking about how nice it was to take my time at the gym, at which point my wife reminded me her class started at 10:30 a.m. and she’d be missing it.

I’m a jerk. I need to be make sure I don’t become so singularly-focused on this challenge that I do this kind of thing again. The Rock is married and has a new baby. I like to think that even with being a rich movie star, he’s watching the clock on Saturday mornings to make sure he’s back in time to play with his daughter and let his wife go to yoga.

Daily Stats

Hey look, I died at 10:30 a.m. It turns out that when I got home and showered, I never put my Fitbit back on for the rest of the day. So we missed all the valuable data of how many calories I burned while I cleaned the apartment. Oh well.

Now I understand why The Rock lives in Florida.

I woke up this morning and went through my normal routine: make oatmeal, pack food, get dressed, brush my teeth, and head out. I’ve become a scripted robot in the mornings. Same exact routine that takes the same amount of time, every single day. As I learned today, I’m on auto-pilot to such a degree that apparently I don’t even look out the window.

As soon as I stepped outside, I realized it had started snowing. Leaving the house in the pitch dark, to hit the gym for more than 2 hours, and having to get there by walking through the snow is not a great way to start your day. At least it hadn’t accumulated yet. The day I have to trudge through the snow will be worse.

This photo doesn’t quite do the snow justice. But it wasn’t fun.

Stoking the Fire

For me, the hard part of working out is showing up. I’d much prefer to sleep in, or be lazy and not go at all. Once I make it there though, I am usually good about staying focused and pushing myself hard. Whenever I see people at the gym taking it easy, it always seems like a waste of time. People show up, then heavily lean on the rails while on the Stairmaster, lazily text while on the mat (or leg press machine as I saw last week!). In my mind, they already did the hard part. They got out of the house, and showed up. So why phone it in once you get there!?

Since I’ve committed myself to doing 50 minutes of cardio six times a week, I want to make sure I’m getting the most out of it. So I cranked up the intensity on the Elliptical. I maintained an average heart rate of 127 BPM. For comparison, the day before I averaged 116 BPM. I’m going to keep going at this hard, to make sure it’s worth the time I’m putting towards it.

TGIF

I’m looking forward to the weekend, mainly so I can get some extra sleep. The gym doesn’t open until 7am on Saturday, so I’ll wake up an hour later than I have all week. Then Sunday is my first rest day. Looking forward to catching up on some lost ZZZ’s.

Daily Stats

It felt good to start to get the cardio burning a bit hotter. The shoulder workout was great too. I haven’t done a concentrated shoulder workout in over a decade (I’m more of a full-body guy nowadays), so it was a fun change. And it makes you look all huge in the mirror while you work out (if you’re vain enough to care about such things, which of course I’m much too mature for.)

Yesterday I had the realization that the massive amount of food I’m eating is preventing the muscle soreness I expected from working out so hard. That led me to another realization this morning.

It wasn’t intentional, but looking back I haven’t been fully exerting myself the first few days. Knowing what lie ahead, I think I’ve held back a bit to make sure I had enough in the tank for the following day. Waking up with extremely sore legs then having to get on the elliptical would have been rough, so while I’ve been pushing myself, I don’t think I’ve been giving it my all.

With concerns about soreness now set aside, I’ve amped up the weight during training. And as today was a big beefy muscle group like my back, it was good timing. I lifted heavy the entire workout, and it felt good. Kicked my butt, but felt good.

Of course, proper form and injury prevention are still top priorities. Getting hurt could put an end to this whole crazy challenge, so I’ll keep it safe. But here’s to turning up the throwing around of heavy iron!

Cafeteria Volume, Prison Variety

I’m getting better and better at the food prep. Tonight in a little over an hour, I prepared 3 days worth of food. Eighteen meals total, weighing in at a total of about 30 lbs. I feel like I work at a zoo, just shoveling piles of food into the gorilla pen.

But while I’m perfecting the quantity of food, I have to work on the quality. All of the food I’m preparing is good, but it’s been prepared exactly the same way. I can’t do that for 30 days. For the next three days, I’m mixing up the chicken recipe, going with shredded chicken breast from the slow cooker instead of the seared cutlets. Eating out of bowls at work and not needing a knife and fork should also speed up the meal breaks. With that happening every two hours while working, that’s important. I still need to come up with something for the steak as well. Maybe a twist on carne asada. Shredded chicken bowls, carne asada. I’ll eventually just be running my own personal Chipotle.

Daily Stats

Yesterday was Arms Day, so it was a much shorter, lower intensity workout than today. My heart rate was about the same, but today took longer. I was definitely huffing and puffing more, so it’s surprising that isn’t really reflected here. All told I burned a little more than an extra 100 calories compared to yesterday. Consider I’m consuming close to 5,000 calories, I’m running a daily surplus of around a 1,000 calories.

As we pass the milestone of the third day, it’s time to finally admit something to myself that I’ve been avoiding.

I hate my new Bluetooth headphones. Like, pure unadulterated hatred. I hadn’t listened to anything at the gym prior to this challenge so I just bought my current pair. I specifically got them because they wrap over your ear to stay in while moving around, such as when, for example, doing 50 minutes of cardio every morning. For some reason, they fit well and stay in place on my right ear, but continually fall out of my left, lazily laying on the bottom of my ear like they’re waiting for the bus. Because they almost fit but slip often, it’s sort of infuriating. I’ve been ignoring it at first, but finally snapped today. I just requested a return from Amazon, and ordered a new pair. Hopefully that will make the cardio more pleasant.

Tried to take a photo of my view. Turns out it’s so dark out all you see is me.

Finding Motivation in Very Different Places

Spending 2+ hours at the gym every day is giving me a lot of time to listen to podcasts. So far, I’ve been switching between episodes of The Moment which discusses the backgrounds and process of different creative people (musicians, screenwriters, etc) and Jocko Podcast, where retired Navy Seal Jocko Willink discusses leadership and discipline. They’re obviously extremely different, but have both been inspiring. The common theme they both have: do the work. Hearing a successful screenwriter talking about doing 85 revisions of a script before it sold, or having to figure out how to motivate a team to continue on a mission you might not agree with, both provide a good perspective on the need to sometimes just put your head down and grind through the task as hand. As I work on my launching my own business, it’s good to hear the common challenges people share.

I Expected To Be Sore. And Yet…

This is, by far, the most intense workout regiment I’ve ever followed. And yet, I haven’t had any real muscle soreness. Even after the insane Leg Day on Tuesday, still…nothing. It’s an odd feeling. Even my previous fitness routine, which I had done for months, left me feeling a tad sore and tight. But on this plan I’m haven’t had that experience. The only thing that could account for that is the diet.

So I did some research, and it turns out that this lack of soreness is likely due to all the protein (cod, steak, chicken, eggs) and high-glycemic carbs (white rice, potatoes) that I’ve been eating. For someone who is somewhat carb-phobic, I was concerned with how many carbs were part of this plan (white rice is pretty much the devil in my mind). But I’m starting to see how all of this fits together. I reached out to a nutritionist to get some thoughts about this and will share the response when/if I hear back.

Daily Stats

I’m doing the same exact cardio every day: 50 minutes on the elliptical and have used the same incline and intensity settings. It’s crazy to see how quickly my heart rate is adapting. The first day I spent about 20 minutes above 130BPM. Today I never cracked that. My calories burned are also dropping as a result. Time to dial up the intensity.

Today was a day I was worried about, as the training called for The Rock’s notorious Leg Day. It’s no joke. After doing 50 minutes on the elliptical, the weight training took me 84 minutes. That’s over two hours at the gym, the entire time asking my legs to work hard. Details of the legs routine are here, but overall, it involves 1261 reps total. This includes 625 calf raises. And unlike all the other workouts, this happens twice a week. It turns out The Rock likes Leg Day so much he repeats it each week on Saturdays, so he’s “not rushed” and “can take his time.” Sick bastard.

Recipe for legs like these: 2522 Reps every week.

Get Back in the Kitchen!

When I did all my food prep on Sunday afternoon, I made two days worth of food. Which meant that tonight it was time to cook again. As I purchased my 6lbs of cod, I decided to take a shortcut: the place where I buy my fish will steam whatever you buy there for free, so I took them up on that offer. Waiting 10 minutes for it to steam there saved me the entire baking process, and having to clean three pyrex baking dishes, so that was definitely a win.

In that steam cabinet? 6lbs of tasty cod.

I managed to cut down the 2 hours of prep I spent on Sunday to just over one hour. But the night still got away from me.

No Sleep for the Weary

It’s important to me that doing this for 30 days doesn’t take away from my time with my family, and every evening I feed my daughter, give her a bath, and read her a book before putting her to bed. Our evening routine takes about an hour. Which means by the time I got home, ate my sixth meal of the day, then put her to bed, it was close to 9pm. Food prep took a little over an hour, then I had to do all the dishes, make/eat my 10 egg-white omelette, then get ready for bed. By the time my head hit the pillow it was about 11:45pm. That left me a little more than 5 hours of sleep. That’s awful, and totally unsustainable. I’ll need to figure out how to juggle all of this better. I’m considering cooking up massive batches of food this weekend and vacuum-sealing them to freeze. If I could not have to worry about cooking any protein every two days, I’d be in good shape.

Daily Stats

Here are my stats for the day. I think I may need to revise my daily step goal of 10,000 steps, as I’ve been hitting it while still at the gym. Also crazy to see that the leg workout had my heart rate up at the same levels as the cardio. It’s some serious business.

I’m happy to report I made it through my first day of this 30-day challenge. I’ve decided to wake up at 5am to head to the gym throughout this month. The Rock wakes up at 4am, but he’s lucky enough to not have to work within the operating hours of New York Sports Club, which opens at 5:30am. In case there was any doubt about this, 5am is early. So far before even a hint of sunrise makes an appearance, I think it’s fair to consider 5am “the middle of the night.”

I’ve decided the best way to entertain myself during 50 minutes of cardio on the elliptical is by listening to podcasts. This morning I caught up on some past episodes of the The Moment with Brian Koppelman. There was an episode of The Moment a few months ago (11/9) with Jesse Itzler, who wrote Living with a Seal. That book was the inspiration for this 30-day challenge, so it seemed only fitting Koppelman would help me kick it off.

I did the Chest workout after the cardio, and it went well. These are old-school bodybuilding workouts, something I haven’t done in years. Feels a bit weird to move off of the full-body training I’ve been doing for the last two years or so. The workout was hard. I sweat so much I think I’m going to start bringing a different t-shirt to change into after the cardio.

Eating at the gym

In between cardio and weights is the first meal of the day. It’s awkward eating at the gym. I basically sit in a chair in the lobby area, and consume cod, eggs, and oatmeal. I am conscious as to whether the cod smells as people walk in. Thankfully I’m only there for 8 minutes or so.

I thought that eating then immediately working out would leave me nauseous, but it felt surprisingly good. I got through the workout, and was home, showered, and finished with my second meal by the time my daughter and wife woke up.

What’s that smell?

With this meal plan, I’m eating every two hours or so. On one hand it’s a bit disruptive to have to eat so often. On the other hand, it provides a sort of rhythm to the day. You plan out what to work on for the next two hours, and stay focused until it’s time to eat again. Having three or so solid two-hour blocks of productivity is much better than many other work days I’ve had.

However, I work in a co-working space, which is a big open floor plan. I got some looks as I prepared myself large plates of food three times throughout the day. One of those meals was cod, so I was also worried about the smell of heating up fish in the microwave. I can’t tell if it’s bothering people or if I’m paranoid. I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.

Daily Stats

(Not sure if I’ll post this everyday the entire month, but for starters, this should give you an idea of the kind of intensity this workout involves. It’s also depressing how little I move during the day.)