matthearn.com

So here’s the good news: I’m back! For the foreseeable future, I intend fairly frequent updates to this jaun so that I can keep you all in stitches and possibly also change your life, brah.

Here’s the bad news: the basic underlying reason that my posts stopped is unchanged, namely, I’m insanely busy with a bunch of crap that’s not particularly interesting or funny. I think I promised some time back that this wouldn’t turn into a fitness blog (because nobody wants to read fitness blogs, even fitness bloggers), but in the interest of self-accountability…I’m turning this thing, at least for a while, into a fitness blog.

The reason for that is that I always seem to get tantalizing close to my goal, but then willpower comes into play and I don’t get there. My goal is not insignificant; I essentially want to look like this fine fellow:

I’ve been saying for a few years that I want to have one summer where I wander around the pool in a ridiculously scant bathing suit with abs a-rippling, looking like Daniel Craig’s taller and infinitely prettier brother. And every year I fall short, usually because I set up conflicting step-goals and screw myself up (usually I try to “recompose” my body instead of just cutting fat, so I don’t lose any fat, and I don’t gain any muscle). So this year, all the goals I use to reach the primary goal will align:

1. Straight fat-cutting all the way to the summer. No more of this cut for a bit, then get bored and decide to bulk for a while. I’m going to continue with intermittent fasting and cut way back on simple starches, and limit myself to 2000 calories a day. There will obviously be days I screw this up (my birthday’s a-comin’!), but if I manage to stick to it at *least* 5 days a week, and try to be a reasonably good boy on the weekends, I should do well.
2. Train for an Ironman triathlon, even though I probably won’t complete one this year. The extra cardio burn will also reduce my bodyfat, obviously.


3. Simple weight training program with reduced volume. Still probably more volume than I’ve used when cutting in the past, but definitely less than the hard hitting I was giving my body during the fall (during which I did appear to add noticeable muscle size).


4. 30 chinups and 30 pushups, every single day (as well as some planks totalling somewhere between 60 and 120 seconds). I had started doing a program where you start with 10 on the first day, then add a rep for every day, but realized by the end of the two month program I’d have to find time to bang out 70 chins a day, and since I still can’t do more than about 10 per set, I don’t see how I could fit it all in. 30 or so reps a day is manageable in 4 or 5 sets, particularly as my weight drops a bit and I can add do more reps per set.

My plan is to keep this damn site updated just to keep my mind right, i.e., focused on my goals. This morning I weighed 231 pounds, which was surprisingly low; I would have thought with holiday bloat I’d be pushing closer to 240 or even more. Apparently a 24 hour vomit flu last week and poor appetite ever since has kept my weight down. I haven’t measured my bodyfat because I don’t honestly think there’s a particularly accurate way to do it, but plan to weigh myself frequently; my guess is that I will look pretty damned good at 210 pounds, which is lower than I’ve been since high school. If I get there and I’m not satisfied, I’ll try to go further, but 210 pounds by Memorial Day is the main goal. Memorial Day is early this year, May 25th, which is precisely 20 weeks from today, so I need to lose about a pound a week; more than manageable, even when I’m already pretty close to my goal.

If you’re interested in following this particularly nerdy fitness journey, that’s awesome, ’cause it’s about to get real.

Today’s weight: 231 pounds