Monday Check In 4/27/20

It is the beginning of a new week. As I sit here, working from home, I look out the window and it feels that spring has finally sprung.

I haven't taken the time to weight myself yet because I woke up and jumped into work straight away but it got me thinking about scales. I was scrolling through TikTok last night and came across a fitness coach that talked about how scales are a tool, and you shouldn't use them if they discourage you or add stress to your body. I couldn't agree more. 

The number on a scale is just a number, it does not define you or tell you your potential. It tells you how you should eat. I look at the number on the scale in one way only, I use it to tell me how much protein I should be eating every day. That is it. I look in the mirror and see all the issues with my body, I don't need a scale to tell me I'm doing stuff wrong. All I need a scale for is to tell me what I should be eating and that is it.

My advice: If you get too caught up in reading the numbers on a scale that you no longer take care of you, then you probably shouldn't be using the scale. I'm sorry to be so brutally honest but that is the way I roll sometimes.

So above I mentioned that I use the scale to help me decide what to eat during the week. This is how:

I look at my body weight.
I write that number down (for last week I was 233 lbs of love btw).
I multiply that number by 0.7 (233 * 0.7 = 163.1)
That new number is my low end for protein intake, the high end is my body weight.

So for last week my goals for protein intake was between 163 grams and 233 grams of protein.

That is what I use a scale for, nothing more nothing less. Unless you are an athlete that has to weigh a certain amount in order to compete there is no reason to look at the scale. Why? Because it is just a number you fools.

#protein #advice #fitnessadvice #fitness #FitnessJourney #Coaching #Training

Monday Check-In Week 1

Monday Check-In:

I decided to create some daily content now for our small and growing community. I'm calling it Monday Check-In as the name of this post implies. Here I will check in with you and share the ups and downs of the last week as well as the goals for the this week. Feel free to comment your own ups and downs as well, as community is one of those things that helps keep us all motivated to get better.

Without further ado:

This last week I lost all motivation. I posted the workouts and half-assed my way through them which is not a great way to accomplish anything. I don't know why but this last week of lockdown really got me down, I felt so isolated and alone that I was trying to find joy in things that don't better my position rather than staying focused.

Some of the ups for the week were joining my jiujitsu gym's live classes. It was good to sweat with some of those folks again, virtually at least. I found out that even though my body is used to eating a lot more calories than normal I will survive if I lower those intakes a bit and I won't gain all this fat that seems to enjoy a nice warm host such as myself. (Now that I have this information I guess we will see what I end up doing with it.)

Like I said above, this week had a lot of downs. If you do not know me personally I have always struggled around people. I get super anxious and feel that I am going to say or do something dumb. I chalked it up to just being introverted and would fake my way through most of my social interactions. Now I feel all those insecurities coming back, even with my wife, which has caused me to become a bit more reclusive than I normally am. I'm not sure why this is happening right now but I feel that it might have something to do with not having the ability to throw in the snow. I think I have been throwing as a way to compensate for these feelings and to clear my mind, almost like a form of moving meditation.

Goals:

This week I will be pushing forward and doing the workouts with a renewed intensity. I have a lot of motivation and am looking forward to lifting my attention towards becoming better at this sport, better at this life, and becoming a better person in general.

Now let's go out and accomplish something today. Even if that something is to change out of your pajamas and put on jeans for the first time in weeks, let's celebrate it.

Introductions Are In Order

Hello everybody.

I am excited for this project as it is one that I had been thinking about for a while, and while I was outside training I thought that it might be time to do it.  I am talking about chronicling my journey from a slightly overweight couch potato to a highland heavy athletics athlete.  Wow that does not roll of the tongue very easily does it?

Here is a little story for you all.  I had always wanted to go to the Longs Peak Highland Games and finally went up one year.  It was a lot of fun with so much to see from dancing, music, crafts, clans, genealogy, and of course the heavy athletes.  These are the guys that throw trees for fun and share a comradery that I hadn't seen since high school track.  My wife and I spent the day up there, we walked around and saw some of the events but it didn't really set that I was going to compete until two years later when I went to the Colorado Scottish Festival where I had the opportunity to volunteer with a good friend and my current landlord at a "Tartan Information" tent.

I was hooked.  Our tent was set up adjacent to the athletic fields so I had the opportunity to watch most of the activities and realized that I really wanted to do that.  I started going to practices the next weekend to learn some of the events that I have never done, or seen, before. Having thrown discus and shot put in high school and a dabble into collegiate track before the program got cut from my college I thought I could do it.  I had never been more sore the next day in all my life.  This sport was like nothing I had ever done before and after one practice I was hooked.  Unfortunately it was so late in the season when I discovered this sport that I was unable to compete last year but I bought some equipment and got ready for this year.

During the off-season (the winter) I started to live in the gym, at least live every other day there.  I found a power lifting program called the "Stronglifts 5x5" which got me seeing some amazing gains in the gym.  I was going up in weight every time I went into the gym and felt that my posture was finally improving and my energy levels were through the roof.  It was an amazing feeling.  The weather started to warm up, I was coaching track at the local high school, and everything seemed to be fitting into place.  Then *dramatic music* we got hit with the Coronavirus.  Everything came to a crashing stop.  I was no longer able to go to the gym.  Some of my equipment was stuck at work, that I was no longer able to access, and my motivation crashed and burned.

I sat around for about a week feeling sorry for the lost gains from the gym, for the loss of my season, and for the loss of my track kids season.  I was miserable.  Well last night (4/7/2020) I decided you know what? I could sit and feel sorry or I could actually come up with a plan and do something.  So here I am, I'm doing something.

I created this blog as a place for me to brainstorm, share the ups and downs of preparing for a highland season, share videos and techniques, and to promote a lifestyle of fitness while trapped inside during this "Corona Lockdown" (not as fun as it sounds).  I hope you, the reader, join me on this journey as we take back our health and learn to soar.

You can follow the daily journey here.
You can catch a weekly update on my YouTube Channel
Or connect with me on Instagram @wylesco