Day 9 - Weight Training

Because yesterday was a day of boxing, the training for today was weight training.  I've never been to the gym so i had no idea what weight training would consist of.  Though i don't want to grow muscles and look like some of those guys with tight shirts and muscles popping out of them, i was confident that my trainer wouldn't assign me anything that would lead to my being a muscle head.

The work out actually started by playing a best of 3 ping pong match.  I hadn't played in years and thought it would be fun and since the table downstairs was set up, i decided to start there before lifting any of the weights.  Naturally i lost all the games i played but at least i got to score higher and higher with each game so i was happy with the immediate improvement.

Soon after i went upstairs and decided to do a bit of boxing on the punching bag while waiting to begin.  I knew it was bad without hand wraps or gloves but  i figured it couldn't be that bad...more on that later...

Finally when the weight training began, this is what took place!

Jump Rope for 3 minutes
Dumbbell Chest Press 15 lbs 1 set of 10
Bent Over Dumbbell Row 15 lbs 1 set of 10
Dumbbell Side Raises 10 lbs 1 set of 10
Dumbbell Triceps Kickback 10 lbs 1 set of 10
Dumbbell Curl 15 lbs 1 set of 10
Squats with Dumbbells 15 lbs 1 set of 10
Dumbbell Stationary Lunge 15 lbs 1 set of 10
Dumbbell Deadlift 15 lbs 1 set of 10
FREAKING REPEAT ALL!!!
Ending with another 4 minutes of Jump Rope.

I knew my body was going to hurt after this.  The ones that particularly got me were the lunges and triceps exercises.

Day 9 - Breakfast, Lunch and Merienda

I'm still high from last night!  That jam was really something else and supperb in every sense of the word!  Not to say i didn't have an appetite but i wasn't all that hungry.  So i started my late morning with a cup of coffee.  I was told during Poker Night that coffee is actually good for you and that i should be drinking coffee and not quitting it.  So i thought to have a cup this morning but to make the mix slightly different from the usual.  I put a fourth teasespoon of coffee, 1 teasespoon of brown sugar, and 1 teasespoon of cream and put em all into my mug that states that im only partly human and mostly beast!

After my coffee i just had a regular bowl of Banana Nut Crunch whole grain cereal with a bit of milk.  

I've also decided to include my lunch in this entry because this lunch was really just because my body needs food.  Not to say though that i didn't enjoy it, i enjoyed it tremendously.  It's just that i think there are other more exciting meals out there and didn't wanna make too big a deal out of this one.  But don't get me wrong, this was fantastic!  As a matter of fact, this is leftovers from this meal.  Only difference was that i didn't eat it with any wheat bread nor any other combination, i ate it straight from the tupperware you see :)

YUMMY!  And healthy!

And because i'm still hungry and it's too early for dinner, i'm going to eat what i brought from the house for my snacks!  You'll notice that i'm not having the usual apple, it's because i've finished them all already.  So instead, here's my merienda!

A Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bar and Sky Flakes!

What you don't see here is that someone bought Pizza and Ice Cream for everyone and i managed to not have any.  On that note, at the party last night there was also loads of pizza and pancit and etc etc and also i did not have any of it.  Damn man this willpower is getting strong!  Either that or my body is preparing itself for the weekend!!!  Woohoo happy Friday!

Day 8 - Amazing night in the life of a Musician

I've made it a point to be somewhat anonymous in this blog.  My name is not mentioned anywhere, i have never shared what my job is, nor have i mentioned a single name of any of the people i'm around whether it be my wife or my friends.  I think it's time to mention a few names to really get the point of this entry across.

We were invited to attend a private underground function where only select people had invitations.  Not to the point that there was a password to enter but clearly it was private and not the sort of thing where you can bring a fucking truckload of friends with you without letting the host know.  Actually even if you did let the host know i'm sure the dude would've said "better yet don't come either."

The invitation came from Musician and Designer Kate Torralba, the host was the brother of Jose Mari Chan, and the venue was the basement of his house through a secret door hidden in the wall.  Inside the hidden door was immediately an amazing site!  Musicians were scattered through the room and at the end of the room was a drum set, a bunch of amplifiers, 2 keyboards, a few bass guitars and electric guitars, 2 acoustic guitars, plus a mixing board, additional amps plus speakers and monitors.  I mean this room was pretty set up!  There were even personal technicians as well as hired techs to handle the PA system.

To name a few of the people who were in the room:  Karel Honasan, Yosha, Mike and Angelo Villegas, Kate Torralba, Atticus King, Alden Abaca, Miguel Escueta, Twinky Lagdameo, Marco Lobregat, JJ Ortoll, Mike Chan, and a whole bunch of other really cool folks!  There was this lady there named Stephanie who sang a few tunes but most amazing for me was her cover of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah!  What a fucking brilliant voice man!  I wish i got her number or contact information because i would love to see her sing again!

It's a shame we got there fairly late and the open jam night was slowly reaching it's peak and ending and that i wasn't able to play a single song but it was genius being there and a true honor to have witnessed it all!  Kate sang Edie Brickels' Good Times Bad Times and the last tune played was the Eraserheads Huling El Bimbo to which everyone sang to and where Mike blew us away with his acoustic guitar playing and Atticus played a really fantastic guitar solo at the end.

It was a beautiful night and everyone had a blast!  To those that weren't musicians it was an honor to be witness to the magic that musicians sometimes have and for the musicians it was a great night to be a musician where everyone got together clearly ONLY for the music!

I only had 3 beers and though there was tons of food including fucking pancit and pizza, i didn't have any food at all!

When my wife and I got home though she decided to open a bag of chocolates that a friend of hers gave her, i literally only had 2 little pieces!  I promise you that this is an achievement unlike any i've had before!  A week ago i could finish this entire fucking bag man!

Goodnight and sweet dreams!  I went to bed holding my wife with nothing but love :)

Day 8 Dinner

After boxing for around an hour and a half i can tell you that i was hungry!  Fuckin' hungry and my belly was growling!  So after chit chatting for a while before heading home for dinner, my lovely wife cooked me up some chicken mixed with red beans and a bunch of other stuff, plus with toasted wheat bread on the side!  It was absolutely delicious and i loved every bite of it!

Note: The bottle of Absolut Vodka is actually water, i promise :)

I know it doesn't look like much but do remember that i'm on day 8 and my appetite for food is decreasing significantly plus my need for rice hits me more over lunch than it does over dinner :)

Day 8 - Boxing!

My "trainer" told me that today we would do boxing.  Honestly, i felt like, "Really? Boxing?"  But agreed to it anyway since i trust him completely and am very confident in what he knows and what he suggests is good for us.  So, at a bit after 7pm, i changed into my shorts and got ready to box.

We go upstairs and the first thing he taught us was how to wrap our hands in hard wrap.  If i remember correctly you put the loop through your thumb and then around your hand then 7 times around your knuckles and then around the hand and then between the pinky and ring fingers then around the wrist then between the index and middle finger and around the wrist again and then between the middle and ring fingers and finally finishing it off around the wrist.  Repeat on other hand.  It was pretty cool actually putting those on but still i wasn't sure about boxing and if this is the exercise i was looking for....

After putting on the hand wraps we were taught hot to stand and how to keep our hands up.  From there we were taught a few terms and how they're used in boxing.  Jab.  Jab straight.  Jab straight upper cut.  As well as some foot movement in terms of how to go forwards, backwards, and side to side.  How also to always keep your opponent squared in front of you.  

Before long we were punching pads attached to our "trainers" hands while being guided what to do and when to do it.  It was fun and the sweat started to pour.  Finally i was starting to get into it and felt that this was indeed a pretty cool way of exercising!  

After punching the pads a few times we were assigned to the punching bag.  Cool stuff!  We were being taught how to approach it and to never hit it when its moving away from you.  To wait for it to be coming back, to learn how to move away as well, plus imagining that it's going to hit you back so we had to learn how to move our heads away as well.  

Then we were assigned to do specific reps on the punching bag.  

15 of each of these:

Jab
Jab jab
Jab straight
Jab straight upper cut
jab straight upper cut upper cut
Jab Jab straight jab straight straight
jab duck jab straight duck jab straight jab straight straight!

I was fucking sweating bullets man!  We've been doing a series of different types of exercises since this whole thing began but i can tell you now, none of what we've done equals to the amount of sweat i had pouring out of me while boxing!  It was great and in the end i loved it and already can't wait to put those hand wraps and gloves on me again!

Tonight i think we're swimming or running or doing weights or maybe the very first work out we did, i'm not sure yet.

I certainly hope i burned enough to make the night before's poker night worth all that booze!

Day 8 - Breakfast and Lunch

Since i had eaten more than what i was supposed to eat last night, i just had a small bowl of cereal this morning.  I'm actually excited to start trying cereal with yogurt.  Thanks for that tip by the way (you know who you are).

Happy Thursday everybody, hope you all have a great day!

I decided to put my lunch on the same page as my breakfast since m breakfast was so plain and simple.

Lunch was served as usual at 12 noon at the dining room of our office.  I normally tend to eat later then my officemates because i have breakfast at around 9am and am not really hungry til about 1-2pm.  Today however was our weekly huddle and i had to go down earlier than i normally would.  And wow, what a site to behold!!!  Look at this!!!

Fuckin' Hotdogs and Fried Eggs!!!

But i knew it already, hotdogs aren't good for you and neither is the yolk of the eggs.  I was kind of depressed.  I mean, if you don't know me, it's safe to say that i really really love eating hotdogs, as well as all other kinds of childrens foods!  But my willpower was alive and well and i was able to instead eat the other food that was served....with one hotdog as my little cheat :)

Little rice, some pork or beef (i really don't know), a sliced carrot, a small banana, some greens, and my little piece of a hotdog (on the upper left - it's so small you can hardly see it).

Oh ya, i started this meal with one Grape.  Just one.

I have an apple here from home.  I'm sure im going to end up eating it around 5-6pm.  Tonight we train at 7pm!  Back to the gym but i have no idea what our trainer is going to ask us to do.  I guess we'll soon find out :)

Day 7 - Poker Night

We'd been planning it since mid day and we were all pleased to know that the plans were pushing through and that we were all gonna go.  The plan was simple, poker night at a friends house with some drinks and a lot of rock n roll!

We got there after 10pm and brought a bottle of The King Of Scots as our contribution to the night.  Soon after arriving, my wife sits at the table and readies herself for the next game of poker.  I tell the others that i didn't go there to play and that i just wanted to hang out and enjoy the company of friends.

With that, i had my first drink...

(Caption and photo removed due to safety)

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Naturally i got thirsty so i had another beer.

And another...

And yet another...

And then we opened the King of Scots bottle of Scotch.

We drank a few shots of the Scotch while talking about this womans breasts...

After that, i joined a game of poker and had 3 beers during the game, these are those 3.

Im guessing after that i was drunk as my memory isn't very clear anymore as to what happened after the game.  But i must admit that i quite dig it that i photograph everything i consume now as i found evidence of what happened last night after we left our friends place.  Check it out!

A Crispy Chicken from McDonald's

And a Goya Milk Chocolate Bar.

Can you say Foodtrip?!  Fun night and already the entire group wants to do it again.

I'm also pleased to share with you that my buddy and i who didn't play the first round of poker got to chat a lot about health and fitness and he was able to advice me many many things with regards to what to eat, what not to eat, as well as how to exercise.  Not to mention all the interesting trivial tidbits he mentioned that will actually go a long way.  

I'm happy i still remember that as i forgot most of everything.  Now, what exercise do i need to do in order to lose 8 Pale Pilsens, 2 glasses of Scotch and a bunch of smoked cigarettes?!  Plus the food at the end of the night!