X-Force Blog, Thursday, 02-09-12, 7:00am

X-Force Blog, Thursday, 02-09-12, 7:00am

Thursday, February 09, 2012

In Other News:

Upcoming Community Events
Wednesday, May 09, 2012

5 Simple Steps for Achieving Any Goal
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
   
May The X-Force Be With You!

It’s been almost a week, well 4 days since I began Dr. Ellington Darden’s diet and exercise study using X-Force at Gainesville Health & Fitness. My first workout on the X-Force negative resistance machines was pretty much as I expected. I felt physically challenged during the exercises as the machines on the e-centric portion of the movement increased the resistance by 25% of the weight moved on the concentric portion of the movement. In laymen’s terms, it gets heavier on the way down. After the workout through the rest of my day, I could tell I had done a solid workout. Two days out I was sore but not incapacitated. It’s 4 days now and the soreness is gone. That’s a great thing because my second workout of two weekly is later today.

What has been much more challenging has been the study’s prescribed diet. Non-disclosure agreements keep me from getting too specific but let me try to give you a bird’s eye view of eating like a bird.

I get 1500 calories a day at this stage in the study. 3 meals. 6 snacks… a snack being an apple or almonds… 15 almonds carefully counted out. Then, there’s a gallon of ice water a day. This paired down and rhythmic way of eating has required me to make some lifestyle changes. I think the biggest has been remembering to eat. Before X-Force I often skipped breakfast and sped through my morning fueled on coffee. Thankfully, coffee is still on the menu but it is paired with a 300-calorie breakfast. Had I tried to drop coffee and start the nutrition portion of the X-Force study I would have been, to quote my late grandmother Rose Tentarelli, “a b***h on wheels.” Grandma’s vocabulary got a lot saltier after her stroke. She was in reality a very godly woman.

A handful of employees at GHF are participating in the study. Having this common goal (or suffering, depending on the hour of the day,) has caused folks from different parts of our organization to become a motley band of brothers (and sisters.) Last night around 8:30PM I received a call from Glen P. another X-Force comrade. He’s a coworker who I team with on various marketing projects. He’s never ever called me at home at night. My gut reaction was to brace for a work emergency.

I answered. Glen over the phone, “John! You’ve got to try this! I took my apple. Cut it into wedges and sprinkled cinnamon on it. Then… I microwaved it for 2 minutes. It tastes just like apple pie!”

I laughed and hung up relieved that it wasn’t something urgent. I was still laughing as I hit the two-minute button on my microwave. Cinnamon, Glen? Whatever! My apple had cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice on it.



John, Fitness Jedi & X-Force Guy