Author: Rob Clayborn

Well has 12 weeks really gone by that fast.????

It has been “FUN” for the most depending on the definition of the word but I can say that I do enjoy working out and seeing the people at the Y. I will miss it when this is over. Right now I cannot join but will work to continue to lose weight even if it is just by continuing to walk and maybe just maybe work on running while also working to stay on a diet that works for me.

Although some of the machines I was not a fan of I do see their place in the process of working out however I o like a number of the other machines I worked on as well as the Treadmill. I know a number of people really do not like it I was able to enjoy it and wok on goals a little easier than what I think I could have it I was just out walking on my own.

I had my final assessment and although it was not a large weight loss like some I have been hearing about I think over all I did well

12 pounds lost
A Total loss of 15 inches (including 3 from around my waist)
10% Body fat lost

Those are not to bad. Could they be better most likely but right now I am happy with those numbers and will continue to keep them going down

So until next time be sure to Keep your Feet on the Ground and Keep reaching for the Bars of your next workout.

This has been a crazy week and only going to get busier. Between the Rain the past few days to getting ready for our annual Easter Drama trying to find time to fit everything into a day is sometimes real hard.

I have completed 2 of the workouts and will work to get the rest in by Saturday morning.

Been doing better on my treadmill times for cardio and actually starting to like using the inclines more. I keep reaching for goals and concentrating on doing the 5k in under 50 minutes. I am hoping that with the inclines and keeping a constant speed above 3.4 – 3.6 mph I can keep that pace on the course when we do it in a few weeks and depending on if it is more flat that hilly I really hope I can go faster that that.

This week is our Churches annual Easter Drama……..

We have done this for many years and see a number of people come to Christ through each presentation. Although it is something that by the end of the weekend makes us all very tired if only 1 comes to the Saving Knowledge of Christ then it is all worth it.

We ask for prayers for this weekend for everyone’s health and for all that are involved in the Drama. There are more people that I can remember involved in this from people acting to those that work behind the scenes.  It never fails that at some point leading up to and during this presentation that Satan attacks those that are involved.

We were supposed to have practice last night but due to the storms it was postponed till tonight so it is going to be a very long weekend so in addition to the prayers for the presentation I ask for them to be able to complete the Challenges we have to do for RBL2017 this week and still have the energy to do all that needs to be done.

And as always Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the bars of your next workout

Fell off the wagon some last week. This was mainly due to allergies hitting me hard towards the end of the week and I was not able to get in the weight work I wanted to.

What is up with the allergies here it is nice and chilly last week and my eyes and nose were running their own 5K where I was coming in last geeezzzzzz.

Was happy though because was able to get back to the Y on Sunday and start working out again but started to see the message on activtrax that I was going to need to do another Strength assessment which should be a good thing. Now some of the machines I am not a big fan of but I will deal with them however I do like the leg press and lately that one has been a lot easier and I knew I needed to get it increased but kept putting it off hopefully with the assessment it will start to increase again.

Well There are two exercises that I am not real big on both due to issues I have and need to work on to get better. One is crunches I just cannot handle laying on my back for a period of time trying to do some of what is asked. I normally see a Chiropractor a couple times a week for adjustments and being on the ground even with a pad is not comfortable for me at all. Any suggestions to compensate for this is helpful, I already know about using a bench and doing some ab work there and also using a ball. Now one thing I do like is the abdominal machine can get some decent work done there but probably need to work on other ways to, just need to find and do them.

The other issue I have is Dumbbells…. I like them but some of the exercises I have to do is a problem. in the early 90s I had a bad wreck in which I broke my left arm in 3 laces and shattered my shoulder luckily they were able to fix both but I have ha strength issues in it. When I do any machine work I know my right arm will compensate for the weakness of the other but when I am on the dumbbells I struggle with the left arm. I will do all I can to keep both arms equal when doing things from lowering weights to matching the number I do in a set.

I hate that I do this but not sure what else to do to get past it. Again any suggestion for this issue as well as the other is always accepted.

Well This week I get to do my interview so should be interesting to see how it goes.

Well as always …. So until next time Keep your Feet on the Ground and keep reaching for those bars of the next workout.

Geez what a week the past week as has been. I was wanting to do 2 workouts a day but I have the feeling for my stature it might have been pushing a little too much since for the past week I have been in pain.

The pain is in the upper part of my back and works around to my chest so moving at times can be real fun and if I turn to quickly or at the worst sneeze WOW talk about wanting to not move for a long while till that goes away.

I thought if I took a few days off of working with weights it might settle down some …… Well I was wrong still there but just means I have to work through it. So last night I was back in the YMCA doing an upper body workout and some cardio. Everything went well and even hit just over 18 minutes for a mile which for some may be a small stroll but for me it felt like I was out for a fast trot. I sweated more than I would at an All You Can eat buffet that only serves everything I like and only allowed to pick a few of them to have. Talk about making ya sweat that is a tough decision to make. Should I have the Carrots or the Celery with a side of Broccoli???

Growing up going to buffets was a good thing and cheap for feeding families on tight budgets would let you have things that you normally could not afford. I remember listening to an old song by the Fat Boys called All You Can Eat and at the time it was funny but for many that has become a challenge instead of just going to have what you would like that normally you do not get a lot of.

Sorry back from the rabbit chase…. for last nights workout it did feel good to get back in there but I knew I had a lot of stuff to do this week so I decided why not get up and go in to the Y first thing in the morning before work.

Really what was I thinking. Hear I got home around 8 last night and finally fell asleep sometime between 11 and 12 only to wake up again by 1 to force myself back to sleep and was up at 4.15 am heading to do a workout and more cardio. I mean really who in the world is up at that time of the morning going to the gym to work out? Well I found I am not the only one that did and I may not do it a lot I do like that time of morning to get things done not to crowded and I may have to do that more often

Today was leg day and it was not as bad as it once was, PLEASE DO NOT TELL ANYONE THEY MAY JACK THE WEIGHT UP ON THE SETS I AM DOING……. but I was able to complete it and also get in another good cardio session this morning that for someone that did replenish some of the water I lost yesterday in sweat I did not think that I replenished that much I was soaked.

Just think ya came on here to read about how the workouts and other things are going so you get a glimpse of that and also ya get to hear about sweat. Well may as well give the full gambit on things.

Anyway depending on the weather we may be walking in town later near the Y but if it rains like it is being reported I will be back in the Y on a treadmill trying to pop out a couple more miles.

So until Next time .. Keep your Feet on the Ground and keep reaching for the next Bar (of the weight machine in front of you.

This is a quote from Randy “Macho Man” Savage. For any of the old school wrestling fans out there you know who he is for many that do not know he later became known for playing his wrestling persona and quoting “Snap Into a Slim Jim:’

Are you wondering how this quote fits into to this??? Well so was I at first but after thinking a bit on it really is a factual statement in how things are now a days.

Lets start with the last part first “Kingdom of madness” I am not a small guy and at times have wondered who in their right mind would want to enter into a place that when you look around you see mostly people that are in good shape and can do a workout with ease. While here I come along out of shape with a pot belly that has definitely gotten a case of the “Dunlaps” — you know what I mean where my belly has dun-lapped over my belt.

It has to be madness to want to enter into this place and try to lose the weight that has been with me for years. You tend to be self conscious and always looking around to see if people are looking at you and if they are what are they saying when they do see you. Is it something that is encouraging or is it snickering that is going on?

I have always been basically an introvert, while at times I can be in a crowd and talk with someone a lot of the time I would rather stand there in my own little world and usually think the worst of a situation so being at the gym brings that side out of me a lot of the time.

However it is not all the time which is where the first part of the quote comes from “Expect the Unexpected”, I am slowly learning that it is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. While I am still avoid eye contact with a lot of people there are some that I will talk to like the trainers I have met as well as those involved in #RBL2017.

The Expect the Unexpected is actually a twofold thing one when it comes to dealing with people the other when it comes to the actual work outs. I am finding that I do like them and although I spend a lot of time in pain from it I find that it is a sort of good pain

Merriam Webster Defines pain as
usually localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury) the pain of a twisted ankle; also : a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action the pain of bee stings

While I have been doing the workouts recently and after seeing the gain I had last week I decided to start working on doing to workout sessions in a day usually one right after the other. Now if you really want to experience pain this is one way to do it. Leg work outs are getting better but the upper body ones have been really bothering me lately. I think it may be related to doing the lateral pull downs since the pain I have is in the upper middle part of back. Does it hurt to move at times? YES Do I feel like death warmed over when I get done? YEP At this time am I going to stop doing it? NOPE

Even in pain I am going to continue and with what I have been doing and I have take a day off of working out at times but that day will give my body time to recoup before I start the punishment again. Normally you hear the phrase No Pain No gain well in this instance I am sorting of flipping to With Pain comes Loss and the loss in this case is a weight loss.

I have also found a meal substitute that I just started using for breakfast and have started to cut way down on what I have during the day. I started to use a food diary with the My Fitness app and it is good to see what it recommends for caloric intake on a daily basis. I input the food and see what I actually put in each day. Granted there are some days that you may go over but there are more days that I have gone under. One of the benefits is that when you submit the diary at the end of the day it gives you a little update showing that if you stuck to that many calories on a daily basis for 5 weeks you could weigh a certain amount whether it is good or bad.

Well so ends another installment of Robs Journal. I will work to post more through the week but until next time….

Keep your feet on the ground and keep pushing those bars of your next workout.

Well not exactly sure what happened but this week has not been the best week for me and not really happy about it.

I have really cut down on portions and trying to eat a lot healthier and was feeling overall pretty good but when I weighed myself this week I was in for a shock…. I was up a couple pounds. WHAT how did that happen?!?!?!?!?

I was down 10 pounds and now up to for a net so far of 8 in total loss. Not happy and not sure why. However I am not going to let this hurdle stop me. however if you ever saw me do a hurdle decades ago it would have been a funny sight especially when I hit it and did a flip in midair landed on my back and got the nice track scrapping with that black lose grit they used at the time. Yeah that felt great when you shower off and they decide to spray that “nice” antiseptic spray on you and you end up having a straight up come to Jesus moment in the shower because of that stinging sensation… Whooppps sorry chasing rabbits again …….

Anyway back to not letting this hurdle stop me I am quickly realizing that this is something I just cannot do on my own but to use my daughters favorite verse, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13. If you are depending on your own self to get things done you can to a point but you do need others to help you for the encouragement.

So far this week it was a rough one wanted to go to the Y on Monday but did not feel well so went home and crashed but on Tuesday we did our walk to run on the Swamp Rabbit Trail and we did well. I am usually listening to a Military running cadence when I do this and although I normally do not keep up with the speed of the cadence I am finding that I am getting closer. I was able to actually match it a couple times that night, it may not have been for long but it was a goal that was met so not the new goal is to meet it again and for a longer time.

Last night while my wife and daughter were at church I decided to go do a workout and learned a valuable lesson…. If you want to feel nice and sore the next day and legs feel like jello at the same time, try doing 2 activtrax workouts in a row. Yeah Yeah I know a glutton for punishment but I thought “How bad can it really be” Well let me tell ya something do not try that unless you know you can really do it.

It was tough towards the end especially since the second workout was the legs which mean’s that great torture device of the Abductor/Adductor machine was used. This I swear is better then anything someone can do to get ya to tell the truth after a few minutes of this I would probably admit to doing things that happened before I was born.

Well got to go for not enjoy the week and will work to post another tomorrow.

So until next time Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for those bars (weight bars that is) for the next workout.

Hello Ladies and Gentleman come one come all to this latest entry of Frustration and Exhaustion.

So in keeping track of the workouts tonight just happened to be another night with those GREAT and FANTASTIC leg work outs. I was thinking that the one on Monday was rough Welllll let me tell ya something. On that night I did mainly just workout on the legs with some cardio but this time WOW I decided why not punish myself a little more and lets se if I can go at least 30 minutes on the treadmill without the legs buckling.

I am definitely not the fastest person when it comes to walking a mile however I can say that over the past week or so my times have come down. On Wednesday I decided after my workout to see just how long it would take me to do 3.1 miles on the treadmill. I was happy that I finished in under an hour with a time of 57 minutes 57 seconds. The avg pace was 18:42 for a mile. Not bad for someone that has not done a lot of exercise and although try to walk at work sometimes I find that I am glued to the desk and have not figured out how to get away from it and take a break or take lunch away from it. I am so used to staying there I really am not sure how to get away right now, Thoughts??

Last night we did a walk to run and legs were still killing me from the night before so did not run as much as I would have liked so kept a fast walking pace. Although it took a little over 19 mints to do the mile it was still under 20 minutes which I think is a great thing.

Which brings us to tonight……GEEEZZZZZ can I say that I really sore. I will not be able to do a lot over the weekend because we are getting ready to do our Easter Drama at Church and I have to play Herod. You know the guy that that Pilate sent Jesus to when he thought he could get away with not having to deal with making a decision that he really did not want to do.

For some reason I am told to be very sarcastic and not sure why but they think that comes to me very easily. For some reason it seems that my Daughter is the same way wonder where she gets it hummmmmm. May be that when she was little and just learning to talk I possibly taught her to answer the Question regarding how she plays Nana… Her response is ” Like a Fiddle in the Hands of a Master” or if asked where sarcasm run “In the Family”. This may come back to haunt me.

Anyway after chasing that Rabbit some back to the treadmill … well after that nice leg workout I knew I still need additional cardio so jumped on the rolling canvas device that goes a various speeds and took a nice stroll well if going above 3.1 miles (at least for me and maybe others) is considered a stroll. Mixing this with the workout may not have been the brightest I had to push through it. Yes my legs at first wanted to give out but I had a goal of at least 30 minutes and ended up 1.6 miles before the cool down period started. Was I ever happy with that cool down but felt good knowing I was able to complete over 1.5 miles in that time.

Goals right now is still a big key and I am continuing to strive for faster times. I know when the time comes for the 5k on April 22 I will not be the fastest out there but I will be crossing the finish line no matter what.

Here we are week 3 into this and I was able to get on last week to do a post and finally able to get one to do a second post.

Life has a way of sending ya curve balls at times and although you are wanting to do all you can sometimes you find that there just is not enough time in the day to get accomplished all ya want to do..

last night is a good example I wanted to do a post after I went to the Y to work out. Of course it was the “dreaded” leg day. I checked in and let staff know that my wife would not be there for an assessment because of that nice stomach bug that has been going around. Found out that the guy she was going to work with is church was affected by this same bug and about 30-45 people were out of church the day before.

So after talking for a few minutes and joking around some about one of the fun machines EVERYONE’S favorite the Abductor/Adductor. I went and printed off my list for the night now ting that this machine was going to be in my very near future.

So as I was skimming through the nice torture list, sometimes I wonder if the rack would be nicer to be one at least for the stretching portion, I was looking at the list and saw that the infamous machine was 2 of the last three to do with the last one being the Standing Calf Raise (1 Legged of course).

As my eyes glazed….. I mean uhmmm gazed over yeah yeah that’s it gazed over, those last three I was beginning to wonder how I was going to do. Well it did not take me long to find out. I was doing ok although had to go a little out of order due to others being on the machines but it was all good. I do know now that until I am better able to do it the last three will stay the last three.

I had to do the Ab/Ad-ductor prior to doing the leg lift and press and found out that I am getting old and need to really take it easy at times. My legs were killing me and knees were starting to buckle and of course after the machines I did the Standing Calf Raise, nothing like feeling the burn after I was done. I swear I thought I was having spaghetti last night for dinner but that was just my legs thinking they were noodles.

I was down only a pound this week so my plans were to hit the Y an do a lot of cardio this week however with today being valentines day I wonder how much trouble I will get in if I have a box or two of chocolate and a side of Pizza for dessert??? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN first I would be hurt by our leader at the Y then just to be safe I have the feeling there would be a line behind her to knock some sense in my head. If anything will have a small dinner with family ad do smaller portions like I have been working on for a little while.

To borrow a catch phrase from someone

So until next time keep our feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.. or in this case the bars of the next workout machine your heading to

Lets get this started !!!!!!!!!!

Last week we started to work on our Walk to Run. Granted this is still a struggle for me but I was able to complete what was requested. It may not have been a lot but to run for 1 minute at a time is still just a slow trot for me and finding why I should have a couple of EMTs near by one for oxygen and the other for the paddles that are needed to jump start my heart because I swear it might have stopped a couple of times.

I did my weigh in tonight at the Y when I got there and was down 9lbs since the initial weigh in on Kick off night. That is a good thing but still a long way to go. I have started to change my eating habits and still need to work on that. I ended p getting a Blender Bottle so I can make some meal substitutes and also for some protein. I have added chia seeds to the mix to help with the issue of feeling a little fuller.

I am always on the look out for something to try as a smoothie/mix I can do in the Blender Bottle that if anyone has a suggestion please let me know and will work on giving it a try. This is only something that can help and is used along with a good exercise plan with Weights and Cardio works outs.

Looking forward to adding more posts. Have Fun on your Journey