The Primal Adventures of Warlord Blade! page

[WarlordBlade]

Finally decided to start a Primal Journal.

Hi, my name is WarlordBlade - of course that isn't my real name, but on the internet it might as well be since that's what I've gone by for over half my life now!

I'm also a (recovering) sugarholic.

All my life I've been healthy except for 3 things. Sugar, Soda, and Sleep. In High School for a while I literally lived on Root Beer and Twizzlers... maybe I should amend my earlier statement to "I've appeared to be healthy".

I've never been out of shape, but I've always been almost in really good shape, but never quite achieving what I want.

In 2009 Kakes (my beautiful wife who is also on these boards) and I did the full P90X program and had pretty good results but it still wasn't quite there:
My P90X before and after:


I started following MDA and a few IF blogs (Eat Stop Eat, Lean Saloon, Lean Gains) but other than a 14-16 hour fasts, I didn't make too many changes. Also started following Al Kavadlo's blog and others after that - and had started doing yoga at work. Due to a horrendous Arm wrestling incident (my monster brother in law popped my shoulder beating me) I haven't really used weights in years, so I loved the bodyweight workouts and benefits they brought me. When I do yoga I can use my shoulder almost normally! Also I love being able to accomplish the hard balance poses.

Fast forward to last fall - we knew things needed to change. So for Christmas we bought the Primal Blueprint 21 day total body transformation and started on the 2nd of January. Things have been pretty good so far!
More to come!

[WarlordBlade]

About five years ago I added another 'S' to my list, Stupid Allergies!

Near Anaphylaxis a couple of times caused me to go get checked by an allergy doctor. According to the results I'm allergic to pretty much everything - especially all the local grasses and trees (especially the usual hay fever, and Wheat pollen was interestingly high) Carrots, Corn, Watermelon, EGGS, Casein (so Dairy), Squash (although only the lighter colored ones... greens seem to be fine), Cats, Dogs, Hazelnuts (peanuts as well) and a few other things. Sounds fun huh?

Yeah it isn't fun to be allergic to Eggs, Carrots, and Watermelon... as those can be tasty and very primal friendly. We have found I don't react as much to the less crappily raised eggs... but I still avoid them somewhat.

[Kakes]

Ooh, you're sexy. Whatcha doin' tonight?

[WarlordBlade]

Birthday party for some little 2 year old. She's really cute!

[WarlordBlade]

So I have listed down in my signature a "Goal Weight" of 175 lbs and 10% Body fat. The weight (gain) is really probably the least important goal to me right now - I'd like to get there, but I'm not in a rush right now. I think after I complete some of my fitness goals first, I'll be more willing to really push for that goal. Lowering my bodyfat is a good one to strive for - so that one IS important to me right now

I mentioned these over in another thread, but I figured they'd be good to have here in my journal as well:
Basic Fitness Goals:

1. Muscle-up - DONE
2. Human Flag
3. Ridiculous Six Pack
4. Full Ab Rollout with wheel from standing
5. Sub 20 min 5K (PR right now 21:53)
6. Backflip - crazy that when I was younger I never cared - now I want to be able to do one!

*This list will be updated*

[WarlordBlade]

Yoga Goals:

• Handstand
• Scorpion
• Forearm handstand
• Variations on Above
• Splits (Eventually... no rush!)
• Transitions between harder balance poses

Tips and ideas are appreciated in achieving the above listed.

Already Accomplished Yoga Goals (with pictures!):

• Astavakrasana (awesome sunburn!)
• Eka Pada Koundiyanasana II
• Mayurasana
• Crow
• Flying Crow *(picture added)

**Hey - I didn't say they'd be GOOD pictures! But yes to be included here they are all me - and also I do practice them to improve as well - I know they aren't perfect!**

((whether these are good 'yogic' goals or not I don't really care... the feeling of accomplishment after completing them is awesome and personally inspiring!))

[WarlordBlade]

Last night we had a birthday party for our now 2 year old daughter. It was a lot of fun to have cousins come over and have primal Birthday treats! Cinnamon Apple 'Cake' (apple, orange juice, almond butter, maple syrup, salt, eggs, vanilla) with whipped heavy cream and strawberries
We did however, get some Breyers Vanilla IceCream: Milk, Sugar, Cream, Egg Yolk, Tara Gum, Natural Flavor. not too bad other than the Sugar and the last two! (Found this link about Tara gum in Breyers ice cream) So not the best but I don't feel too bad about it.

After everybody left I started crashing - Head Cold Attack! Blah.

Today
Breakfast
Bacon and Veggie-Berry Smoothie
Lunch
Leftover Roast (yum!) with a side of cucumbers, celery and some sweet potatoes, an apple, and an orange.

I was really sniffly and achy at work today, but I decided I would bear through it and go to my crossfit class anyway, because sometimes heavy activity clears out a cold.

Then again other times it wipes. you. out...

Here's what we did in Crossfit:
Warmup:

• Run up and down the stairs 10 times (about 30 stairs)
• 10 pushups and 15 squats
• 10 pushups and 15 squats again
• Run 3 laps around the gym
• 10 wall-runs and 15 kettlebell swings
• 10 wall-runs and 15 kettlebell swings again

Sheesh. I actually felt all right doing the warm up - I could tell I was tired from the cold, but it wasn't unbearable. Then we got to the workout:

• 5 sled pushes (1 rep is the width of a basketball course - sleds are weight plates on carpet sections )
• 10 Double Thrusters (Squat, Squat Thrust above head)
• 20 Burpee Plus + (add an extra pushup per burpee)
• 30 V-ups
• 40 Air Squats
• 30 V-ups
• 20 Burpee Plus +
• 10 Double Thrusters
• 5 sled pushes

I finished in 16 minutes. Those last Burpees took me forever because of a wrist issue I've been having. Blah. Considering my head cold I felt pretty good. Then the coach suggested a 'challenge' so we put away our weights and kettle bells and went up to the dip station. The challenge was to do a ton of dips, then start adding weights. By this time my head had started pounding and my already fuzzy brain was seeing hat-wearing orangutans so I didn't do the challenge and went and showered. I almost feel like I should do the dips now at home... but my cold is attacking again so I won't

For dinner we had 'Taco Salad' - Giant Salads topped with home-made guacamole and ground beef. Tasty! Definitely didn't need a tortilla!

[WarlordBlade]

My wife and I started out doing the 21 day Total Body Transformation in January.
Here is the difference 21 days of primal eating on my torso:



I was pretty happy with the results!

[WarlordBlade]

Today was fairly mellow - just relaxed trying to get over this dang cold.

Did get out to get new tires and get a re-test on our van's safety and emissions so we could register it - That's definitely a nice thing to have done!

Then I came home and pulled out an old PS1 game I haven't played in years and enjoyed that for a while. Some days you really need some down time.

Of course that didn't stop me from hanging up the pull up bar and seeing how sore yesterday's crossfit made me! Nicely sore but not unbearable so! I call that a win! I like being sore, to me it means I did something useful!

[WarlordBlade]

Didn't really feel like eating much today - had some fruit throughout the day and that's about it until Dinner.
Dinner was a delicious chicken and snow pea stir fry. Some days rice is REALLY pleasant carb for me - today was one of those days, smothered with butter and yummy chicken, snow peas, water chestnuts, mmmm...
My wife makes amazing food!