rest makes for great training and a happy life

The last 10 weeks my body weight has gradually decreased. That's a first. My entire life my weight would fluctuate huge amounts in short periods of time. I think that has a lot to do with a few really wonderful things going on in my life right now:

1) I'm only working 40-50 hours a week. From 2006-2016 I worked 80-90 hours a week.

2) I'm sleeping almost 8 hours a night. This is the first time I've had that luxury since 2006!

3) I'm finally on a consistent schedule at work. For the first 5 months of my new career I didn't have a regular schedule. I was on call 24-7. I'd work all hours of day and night. That was harder than I thought it would be. But now I have enough senority to bid on a post. I'll be on this schedule until March when we post bid again.

4) I have a really fantastic sports nutrition coach. He's done a lot of work trying to get me out of my unhealthy habits and replace them with some great ones.

5) I have a world class weightlifting coach. With my new consistent schedule I'm able to be coached by him 3 out of my 4 training sessions a week.

All in all I'd say the last 6 weeks has been wonderful. I'd go as far as to say this has been one of the top two times of my life. I think I could get used to this.

Here's my weekly weight average the last 10 weeks.
9/11/16- 322
9/18/16-320
9/25/16- 321
10/2/16-321
10/9/16-320
10/16/16-317
10/23/16-317
10/30/16-318
10/6/16-316
10/13/16-315

building a home weightlifting gym

I work 12 hour shifts and Iron Soul, one of my gyms, is 30 minutes from my work, and my home is another 30 minutes from the gym. That makes for a long day. More importantly it makes me not get as much sleep as I should. Up until now I didn't mind a little sleep deprivation. But now that I want to focus on qualifying for the masters national weightlifting championships I need to be getting a full nights sleep to get the full benifits of training. Thankfully building a home gym for weightlifting doesn't take a tremendous amount of equipment. Just a platform, drop plates, a squat rack, and a weightlifting bar. The first thing I'll be buying is a bar. I've decided on a California bar by American Barbell. A lot of the reviews of the Ohio bar by Rouge fitness say the bars rust easily.

the bad about Spark by Adocare

I really love Spark. I've found a ton of good things about it, and even some bad. The list of bad is a short list. So here it goes:

If I take it before an evenning workout I can't get to sleep until late. I'm talking really late. 3-4 am kind of late. I have to wake up at 3:30 am for my new job. That sucks. Now that I'm not using it for evenning workouts I've found the other negative thing about Spark. I've become accustomed to having the amazing workouts that Spark provides. When I don't use it I struggle to get through the workouts. Trying to workout without Spark after being used to it is probably what Superman feels like when he's exposed to Kripronite.

back squat personal best and chronic fatigue

Usually after a peak performance it takes awhile to rebuild fitness. So I was happy hitting a 90k/110k today in training. That's a pretty good place to start for the olympic lifts this early in a program. What surprised me was that I also lifted a lifetime person best of a 182k (400 lbs)back squat and I had plenty left in the tank. I could of gone heavier. I'm a heck of a lot better at the powerlifting lifts than I am at the olympic lifts. The olympic lifts are so much more complicated. They're more of a mental game.

I'm struggling with fatigue. My work week routine has been pretty hard. After I get off work at 6am I'll sleep for a little over 3 hours. I'll wake at 9:45am and go to the gym to train. Then I'll go back home and try to nap until my kids get home. Going back to sleep is usually next to impossible. By the end of the week I'm usually a wreck. The first day of my weekend i usually sleep for 11 1/2 hours. My 2nd day off I'll take a 2-3 hour nap. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up. My gym is the best gym in the world. They have the best weightlifting coaching in the world, and my weightlifting team is like family.  But the gym's hours are hard for me since I work from 6pm-6am. They close from 1pm-4pm, so I have to wake up half way through my sleep to get my training in. This schedule is taking it's toll on my body. I feel chronically fatigued. I wonder how much of my obesity problems has to do with not getting enough sleep.

graveyard shift, weightlifting, and a supportive spouse

I've been working nights since my 1st son was born in 2007, so I've become relatively accustomed to graveyard shift. When I took my 3 week vacation, in Dec-Jan, I got used to sleeping at night. I'm having a heck of a time re-acclimating. I'm struggling to sleep during the days. I've also been struggling because I peaked a few weeks ago. This taper has been way to long. I've felt like crap in the gym. In a week I'll be competing in The 2nd annual John Davis memorial classic weightlifting meet. This is a horrible time for this to be happening. I've been training the last couple years with the goal of qualifying for the 2016 master's national championships. This is my shot. I don't want it to get screwed up.

Even though I desperately want to qualify for the masters national championships, if I qualify it's doubtful I'll travel and compete in it. I've been saving for a down payment for a house that's big enough for each of my kids to have their own bedroom. It'll cost a lot to travel to Savanna Georgia where the masters will be held. I can't do both. When my wife heard I'm wanting to put my weightlifting goals on hold until we get a home she got really upset. She wants me to go and compete. She knows how much the master's national championships means to me and how long I've been working towards that goal. She's unbelievably supportive. Getting my kids into a house, having a down payment large enough to be able to afford the monthly payments, and avoiding PMI is much more important to me. But seriously, how cool is it that my wife is willing to put those goals on hold for me? She's an amazing spouse. I'm a lucky man.

more sleep for olympic style weightlifting

I've found I need 1 to 1.5 hours more sleep a day now than I did when I was a hard core triathlete. I'm only training an average of about 6 hours a week weightlifting. When I was a triathlete I was training an average of 22 hours a week. It's amazing to me I trained almost 4 times as much as an endurance athlete as I do as a weightlifter, but I need significantly more sleep now. 

The last 3 or 4 weeks I've had the best sleep of my life! For the last few years I had been struggling with sleep apnea. I wasn't sleeping well and I was constantly tired beyond belief. I assumed the sleep apnea was from obesity. In the last month I've lost 13 pounds. That's a drop in the bucket of what I need to  lose, but I've lost almost all of my problems with sleep that I had developed. There's no way losing 13 of the 140 pounds I'd gained made my sleep apnea go away. Now I'm beginning to wonder if my sleep apnea had to do with my weight gain or if it had more to do with the severe depression I had been in. Can depression caused sleep apnea? I'm not certain, but i know one thing for sure, I'm unbelievably grateful to no longer feel chronically exhausted and overworked. And I'm even more appreciative to no longer feel constant despair and hopelessness. 9 years of working 80-90 hours a week had beat me down physically and emotionally. Since I had never suffered from depression before I didn't realize how it gradually worsens. Like a frog in a pot of water that is gradually brought to a boil. The frog doesn't realize it's in a life threatening situation until it's almost to late because it had worsened so gradually. I now understand why they call depression the silent killer. Especially with men. We don't ask for help. No matter how bad things get we always say everything's fine, until it's to late. Even more so with Correctional Officer's. Machismo is huge among corrections employees. That's one of many reasons why the suicide rate among correctional officers is so high. Studies have shown the rate of PTSD of correctional officers is higher than combat vets. I've lost a lot of my fellow correctional officers by suicide the last two decades. 

on an upward swing

The entire week I've ate exactly what my nutrition coach wanted me to! After two years of training hard and eating like crap I'm excited to finally be getting the nutrition aspect of training down. Hopefully that will enable me to get the gains I need to qualify for the Master's National Weightlifting Championships. Last month I missed qualifying by 5 kilos.

The last few days I've had the best sleep I've ever had! I'm sure it's a combination of training harder than I've ever trained and eating well. This is a welcome relief. I've had obesity related sleep apnea the last few years. It feels great to finally feel rested.

For 9 straight years I worked 80-90 hours a week. It caused some pretty severe depression. To be honest I almost didn't make it through it. The last couple months I've worked a normal amount of hours. Thankfully the depression has dissipated along with the excessive amount of work hours. So.... what is that weird feeling I have floating around inside me? Oh ya, that's happiness and contentedness. Welcome back. It's been a long time. I've missed you.

Everything is finally coming together. The only thing left unaccomplished is for me to save for a down payment for a home and qualify for the Masters National Championships. 

bonking at the weight room

Yesterday i ran it of energy half way through my workout. I crashed hard. In triathlon we call that bonking. I took a double latte Power Gel which  usually helps me finish my workouts no matter how tired i get. I had ate well before the workout, slept well, etc. i can't think of any reason for it to  happened. The rest of the day i felt sluggish and worn out. Interesting. I'm not sure what happened.

 I'm hoping that I'll qualify for national championships by end if this year. To ensure this happens I'll be working less hours, sleeping more,  and taking creatine.

balancing weightlifting, work, and eating

Today i had a break through on my snatch form. My strength is still low from the 7 weeks off from training. But thanks to the breakthrough on my form i hit an 84k snatch. That's less than i was lifting in April, but I'll get back to my old numbers eventually.

I've been working 12-16 hours every day since June 6th. My first day off will be July 6th. That's over a month of 92 hour work weeks. Obviously exhaustion has a lot to do with my strength returning so slowly. My wife is pushing for me to work a lot of overtime so we can get enough of a down payment for a new home so that we can move. At first i was willing, but now I'm having 2nd thoughts. I've been working 80-90 hour work weeks non-stop since 2006. I'm tired. I'd like to have a normal life, more time with the kids, and more sleep. I know my wife wants to move off prison grounds and move back to Albuquerque so she can be closer to her parents, but I'm happy where we're at. I really enjoy my career, i like living on prison grounds, i enjoy living in Santa Fe more than I've ever enjoyed living anywhere else, i love the church we go to, and I love weightlifting at the Miller Gym. If we moved to Albuquerque all that would change. I'm not sure i want to change things. With the exception of the amount of hours I've been asked to work I've never been this happy. Where I'm at now is where I'm happiest, why kill myself to leave?

I have two workout buddies, Kevin Y. and Heather,  who were incuraging me to start logging my food on My Fitness pal. Logging my food is helping my diet a lot. I've gone 27 days without binge eating. That's getting pretty close to the longest I've gone without destructive eating since i fell off the wagon back in 2012.  I've lost a little weight, 10 pounds or so. But this time my goal isn't to lose weight.  It's just to eat relatively healthy and avoid binge eating. Losing some weight this month is probably another reason my strength is rebounding so slowly. Haha, that's a tough one: lose weight and look better and be healthier or be strong?

New Mexico weightlifting state records, diet, aand sleep

I just received an updated list of the New Mexico state weightlifting records. It was wonderful seeing my name on the list as a New Mexico weightlifting state record holder in the 105k+ 40-44 age group. 

I noticed that a couple of 105k state records in the 40-44 age group was broken late last year. The new clean and jerk state record is 135k & the new total is now 228k both set by Jeremy Hale. I had set a goal to lose weight and get down to the 105k 40-44 ag division and break those three records. I'm still hoping to do that, but it's going to take a little longer and a lot more work now. Those numbers are even bigger than what Barry Schroeder puts up!

Speaking of losing weight, I'm still doing well with my diet and weight loss. 25 days back on the diet wagon. Increasing the amount of calories i was eating while attempting to drop weight was the key. I'm not struggling with excessive hunger or extreme cravings anymore. I've lost 11 pound.

I've been eating healthy each and every meal & keeping my protein up. Unfortunately I've been working a lot of hours and not sleeping as much as an athlete should. My wife and i received her first student loan bill of $16,000. The same week my Chevy Suburban broke down costing just shy of $2,000 to fix. Most weeks I'm working 5 twelve hour and 1 sixteen hour shift a week. I'm tired. I've been the only income for our family of five since 2007.  I've been sleep deprived for a long time. It sucks. I'm really tired of being tired all the dang time. 8 years of this is to long.

less overtime, more sleep and calorie inceases equals olympic weightlifting increases

Last week I hit my max lifts in a few exercises and have been obsessing on ways to start getting stronger. I've decreased the amount of overtime I've been working at the New Mexico state penitentiary from an average of 30 hours a week to around 3 hours a week so that I get more sleep. I've also slightly increased my daily calorie intake which will slow my weight loss but increase my strength gains. Those things have worked. Last week I could only get an 82k bench press 3 reps on my last set of the day, this week I was able to get a full 5 reps with 1 kilo more weight. I was also able to get faster on the cardio workout coach Miller has me do at the end of my strength training by a full 45 seconds. The only thing I didn't make significant increases on was the power snatch.