Current Assessment

Yesterday's workout was aborted due to crazy soreness in my thighs.

Spent the day trying to determine if I hurt myself or if I was just suffering heavy DOMS due to complete and total sloth.

Well, didn't feel the sharp, deep pain that comes from injury. So, DOMS.

What I did this morning seemed to work well.

In a given minute, for twenty minutes I did the following:
A body weight squat, followed by a ten second rest four times, followed by 2 girl push ups. No rest between push ups, but I did rest for the rest of the minute.

Doing things this way allowed for 40 girl push ups and 80 body weight squats over 20 minutes.

The squats didn't have me breathing as hard with this pause and the push ups were ridiculously easy this way.

I'll add another push up per minute tomorrow, but I'm not going to mess with the squats until #1 the DOMS are manageable and #2 I'm not breathing as hard.


Update:
As of Friday my DOMS were down to just a mild soreness

I'm not going to mess with my squats for the time being, but I've upped my my push ups to 4 a minute. I will start jumping that higher next week.

Hunger

Got a bit squirrelly and decided to start doing the body weight squats.

Worked nicely for a five minute block with a five second rest between.

Got my wind up but was doable.

More to the point: FAR more satisfying than jumping jacks.

Need to figure out something to help my pushups along... not really sure.

Might try for a pathetic old man version of a squat thrust.

Considering that my lower body is ramping up faster, I might try the following for tomorrow morning:

Four body weight squats followed by two girl pushups for twenty minutes. Five second pause between each of them.

Might need to bump the rest time... not sure. I was breathing pretty dang hard this morning.

Rebuilding

Held off on posting just because of how embarrassed I am over how much I've let myself go.

Something I found that hampered me when lifting weights regularity was that once I started squatting 360 and deadlifting 400 that my coordination started to go when all the little stabilizer muscles tired. I tried methods that I read that the Olympic lifters used - many many doubles or triples with 70% max weight with a short rest (0.5 - 1.5 minutes) between sets. That did wonders on how fast I recovered from any given set... but did little for the little stabilizer muscles.

At around the end of 2005 I had thought of adding some calisthenics into the mix because I've read that body weight exercise can be taken to complete muscle failure over and over with little strain on the nervous system. That was important to me because the high set routine I was doing five days a week took my CNS to the edge. I was finding that if I pushed just a little too hard, I'd be suffering from cold-like symptoms the next day.

All this came to a crashing stop when my allergies and sleep apnea caught up with me at the beginning of 2006. I found that once I started to breathe hard, it was like small balloons were inflating in my ears. After a few minutes the pressure would lead to dizziness and I had to stop.

So, to rebuild I'm going with calisthenics at first.

This was and is incredibly humbling. I found that I had to start with marching in place, bringing my knees high for twenty minutes.

Over the past few weeks I've been able to replace the marching with paused jumping-jacks (hands/legs out = one jump, hands/legs in = one jump). I started with three seconds between jumps and as of today am down to two seconds between jumps for two blocks of five minutes.

The worse blow to my pride are the push ups. At present I'm able to do two blocks of three minutes of girl push ups (i.e. knees kept down) with a five second rest between each full stroke.

Short to midterm goals -
1) Get the jumping jacks down to no pauses between jumps for the two 5 minute blocks
2) Work up to five minutes of five second pause girl push ups and then begin to shorten the pause.

Mid to longterm goals -
1) After eliminating the pause on the jumping jacks and becoming comfortable with that work load, change the blocks to full-range bodyweight squats with a five second pause at first. With the rest pause shortening when I'm able
2) Once I can do two five minute blocks of girl push ups with 0-1 second rest pauses, I'll begin to elevate my knees (put something under them) to work towards proper push ups.

As I'm not fit enough to burn a decent amount of calories I'm trying out a few supplements..

500mg Hoodia x1 a day
500mg (50mg active guggulesterones) Guggul x3 day
2g (1.4g CLA) CLA suppliment x3 day

Hoodia - I'm using "Hoodia 500" from hoodiahealth.com. It does suppress my appetite a little, but not enough to justify the cost. Also, during the day I eat only what I've packed for myself. I go somewhat nuts after hours. This I can halt by drinking more water and will do so.

Guggul - I'm using "Extra Strength Guggulsterone" from Higher Power Nutrition. The main thing that I'm looking for is 34-84mg of guggulesterones three times a day (this is what I've read to be an effective range). So, I needed to shop around to find a brand that had a decent % of guggulesterones per dose and that a monthly supply was under $20. They are out there... just not so easy to find. When I first used this product I felt warm and a little anxious. After a while I found that if I drank enough water I didn't get overheated or anxious. So, I make sure I have a lot of water around all day. As this acts by stimulating the thyroid I'm not keen on pushing my dose to the 84mg x3/day mark. Especially as it has been suggested that a person should ween themselves off of guggul instead of stopping all together. Summary: I know it is doing "something", especially if I don't drink enough water, but is it helping me drop fat quicker? I don't know yet.

CLA - I'm using "CLA-1000" from Wellments.From what I've read, 3.4 grams a day of CLA are needed to see fat loss affects. As most supplement makers aim for around 70%, look for the bigger pills (or drink a half gallon of full fat milk a day). I don't feel anything from taking these, but I don't expect to based on what I've read. This makes it kind of hard to determine if the cost is worth it. But, in my research, it looks like CLA is a pretty good thing to be taking anyhow.

Tax Stuff

Getting about that time again.

Wanted to bring up Enrolled Agents. From the NAEA's website:

An Enrolled Agent (EA) is a federally-authorized tax practitioner who has technical expertise in the field of taxation and who is empowered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to represent taxpayers before all administrative levels of the Internal Revenue Service for audits, collections, and appeals.

Around 2002, my wife and I began to worry about IRS audits.

We had began to try to educate ourselves on tax issues and in the process found a few worrisome issues. In putting together that year's taxes I found a few discrepancies in an old filing and requested a W-2 from an agency I worked with in the late nineties. They weren't able to produce this (they had been playing games with the books). Also, around that time my wife was doing freelance editing work with an individual who wasn't all that .... umm ... meticulous with his paperwork.

This was missed and/or not brought up by the various tax preparation agencies we used in the past.

So, we tried a CPA.... after not communicating for several months nor giving updates as to work done, we dropped him.

As our stress increased, we came across info on Enrolled Agents. From the NAEA's site we went to their "find an agent" link and found our "Tax Lady".

She went through six years of returns and amended them. Only one year did we pay out ... and that was state taxes.

She was able to work up significant returns over her rate for the five years of returns she amended.

So, in summary:

1) Yes, you will pay more up front for an EA. But, in my experience, your return will be greater.
2) For an EA to keep their license, they have to re-qualify every three years. Of note: the NAEA has additional professional education requirements for its members.
3) They are "authorized to appear in the place of the taxpayer at the IRS".

I live yet

Getting old sucks.

Throughout 2006 I found my health spiraling downward.

Found out I'm severely allergic to a number of things (dust, trees, grass, weeds, etc) and only recently that my allergies developed over the five years I lived up in the Virginia mountains.

In the process of trying to figure out where my fatigue, dizziness, and pressure headaches where coming from it was determined that I should submit to a sleep study.

Well, turns out I have sleep apnea as well. The study found that I had an average of seventy (70) events (read - stopped breathing) an hour. I stopped breathing, on average, more than once a minute.

Quoth the sleep study tech: "yeah, that'd cause headaches and fatigue"

heh

Well, they had me get a cpap and I can not describe the quality of sleep I get now. I have never, ever, slept this well.

So, I'm starting to feel human again. My wife tells me I'm not such a lump anymore (heh).

Now, to deal with the consequences of no physical activity for a year.

It has taken its toll... a 42"+ waist from 35 inches... near 300lbs from 256lbs.

sigh

Anyhow, I think I'll put together some useful posts tonight and over the next few days.