With that in mind, I decided to get realistic about my new habits so I could maintain a level of comfort that would allow me to continue this pursuit. I don’t really like chicken (which is now the primary protein I’m eating) because it always tastes too dry to me unless it’s fried, in a sauce, or I can overcome the lack of moisture by drenching it in salt. In an effort to cut sodium, I eliminated salt altogether… DUMB! I realized almost instantly that there’s no way I’ll last longer than a week if I do this. So looking forward, I’m allowing myself light use of salt, and when it just won’t cut it, I stuff more veggies or salad in my mouth to mask the lack of flavor in the meat. Compromise is the key here, and examples like the dry chicken issue illustrate how you can make sacrifices while giving yourself enough of an edge to hold on for the long run. I’m still learning as I go along, but these little milestones help a ton.

Oh, and Sunday is my cheat day. I don’t completely give up that day because I’m stil rockin my protein and supplements, but I do allow myself the treat of things I took for granted like cheese, sugar, and the occasional onion ring. That definitely helps in giving me something to look forward to. It’s my weekly reward for staying on task. It’s a lifestyle change, not punishment, so there’s no reason to treat it like a death sentence.

All this to say, I’m much happier this week about the diet and think I’m past the worst of it. I’m about a thousand times more confident I can stick it out now than I was at the end of last week.

In addition to healthy foods, I’ll dip my toes into the supplement pond. As the old saying goes, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right!” And brother, I plan to do it RIGHT! As of now, my list is short and simple: protein shakes, pre-workout drinks, fish oils, amino acids, and multivitamins. Considering that I’ve never dieted, it pretty much goes without saying that I’ve never taken supplements either. I figure I’ll make mistakes along the way and find bette ways to achieve my goals, but I’ve gotta start somewhere, and I’m feelin pretty good about this point.

You might not guess it just by looking at me, but I’m pretty goddamn dense! I say that because I normally weigh about 20lbs more than I look like I do. I look like I should be about 165 or 170, but typically fit somewhere in the 182 to 187 range. This brings me to my goals.

Basically, I just wanna weigh what I look like I weigh. I know that for my height and level of activity, I should punch in at no more than 175lbs, so I’m setting that as my initial goal. I suppose that if I stay on this diet for any longer than a week, I’ll hit that number pretty easily, and in fact, am not far right now. In a perfect world, I’d be able to drop to 165, which is what I weighed back in high school.  I just snagged a scale today in time to track my progress, and although I know it’s off by at least 1lb, it still offers a point of reference. As of 10 min ago, I’m starting my official journey at 176.7lbs.

Why?… Beyond losing weight, I wanna lean out and get cut. Sheli keeps saying, “Babe, you look great the way you are. Why do you want to lose weight?” It’s not so much how I look, but how well I perform. Simple logic tells me that if I weigh 20lbs less, it’ll be that much easier to move around since there’ll be less of me to get from here to there. In other words, I want achieve a bigger bang for my buck.

As soon as I find a suitable calendar plugin, I’ll begin tracking my progress.

Personally, I love this for a few reasons. First off, much like most people, I’m more motivated to actually do what I know I should do when someone tells me I have to. Second, I get to see and train with all my best friends. Third, I’m gonna get back to working on being a bad ass freerunner.

So far, I’m off to a solid start. Even being sick during the first week, I still managed to hit the minimum. This is how I know that I really don’t any good excuse to not train. Into the second week and fresh of being sick, I managed to train PK 4 times and workout twice. Even this early in the game, I’m feeling the benefits of being active and remember why I love being an athlete. I’m more excited about things in general, feel more motivated, and just generally feel more content. I don’t get tired because I’ve been sitting in front of a computer screen all day… I get that good tired from exhausted muscles and the fulfillment from stretching my brain. Every day I go to bed dreaming about what fun I’ll have the next day. It really doesn’t get much better than that!

I love Tempest and I love freerunning! And as soon as I figure out a calendar plugin, I’ll host that and start making entries. The best way to hold yourself accountable is to tell everyone what you’re supposed to be doing…. that way you can’t avoid not doing it!

• Drink more water 
• If you aren’t good at remembering, begin a routine of drinking one glass when you wake up and one before bed. Start small and you’ll find that drinking water throughout the day becomes easier. Not only will you be better hydrated and cut down on annoyances like cramping, but filling the empty space in your stomach will also curb your hunger.
• Don’t eat everything
• Overeating is common these days. If you’re anything like me, you keep eating just because is tastes good, or because you don’t want to “waste” the food. Try eating only half of your plate, wait few minutes (pick up some good conversation, watch TV, do a crossword puzzle, etc.) and then see how you feel. Most likely, you’ll notice you are no longer hungry. You can eat the other half of your meal later, and save a lil coin in the process.
• Do something active everyday
• Even if it’s just walking to work or your friend’s house. Walk, run, or ride a bike instead of driving. These days, if I don’t need the extra cargo space of my car to run errands, I always ride my bike. Often, it takes the same amount of time since bikes can go where cars can’t, and I never have to pay or look for parking. Once you start exercising, it’s easier to stay motivated to keep exercising.
• Avoid fast food
• It may taste good and it’s dirt cheap, but it’s so bad for you in every way. Sugar and sodium (not to mention fat and other carbs) are added to literally, everything. Even the salads at McDonald’s have extra sugar. Cutting out fast food was the first change I ever made in what I ate. After a few weeks, I didn’t even want to touch the stuff! Real food tastes sooooo much better!
• Small changes yield big rewards
• Most people try to do too much too quickly and easily lose motivation. Changing everything all at once only sets you up for failure. There is no such thing as a quick fix. All those crazy “diets” that promise massive results in only a few days are really only shedding water weight. Small changes are far easier to maintain because they aren’t drastic deviations from your current routine and will compound upon one another as they become (good) habit.
• Don’t call it a “diet”
• To me, that word sounds like more like “punishment” and makes life changes seem more like work, than something I actually want to pursue. This is simple mental trick that you can apply to other areas too. Mental barriers are the hardest thing to overcome. Most blame a lack of will power, so any small advantage you can gain in changing your outlook will contribute to more meaningful success.

• How: Consecutive one minute intervals. On each minute, do the corresponding number of handstand pushups. Stop when you can no longer complete the allotted number of pushups within that 60 second window
• Max: Minute 12… maxed out at 11 reps
• Comments: Having never formally practiced these before, not surprisingly, my form broke down in the later rounds. I was less able to maintain a hollow body position at full press and engaged more of my lower back. I also lost a lot of power simply not exploding up from the tripod (headstand) position and relied too heavily on my arms and shoulders. By the end, my neck was stiff and I could tell that my kong gainer injury from several years ago will stay with me til my dying days. My neck can no longer support so much repeated compression. Next time I’ll be more efficient in my form and spend less time deliberately setting on my head, and more time rolling right into it and pressing into a hollow position.

Hanging knee lifts

• How: Dead hang from bar and bring knees up to elbows. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds on for 4 minutes… total 8 rounds. Keep cumulative count of reps.
• Max: 54 reps
• Comments: Going into the 4th round, I hit my wall. I couldn’t keep a rocking rythm and my grip began to wane. I wish I started using chalk earlier, rather waiting til the last round, because I noticed a significant increase grip once I finally did. I’ve been pretty self conscious about my grip strength and stamina and this workout was one that accentuated its shortcommings. Although dissappointed that I could not hit the high marks I’d hoped for, I’m excited that I’ve found a workout that I can easily do when I’m on the road to help fill that hole. Carl asked whose grip was shot, and I raised my hand. He mentioned that it was because of a breakdown in form because we were looking up and pulling our heads back rather than keeping them down to properly engage the rest our muscles and body. I feel kinda stupid for not thinking about this while working out, but am glad that he pointed it out so I can be conscious of it next time.

I was fortunate enough to meet up with a very talented photographer a couple years ago to head out and snag some killer shots. That photographer is Andy Batt, and apart from the physical feats you see, I owe all credit to him. These are just a few of my favorites in their yet-to-be-modified forms.

In the past, I always loved my life. I mean, who wouldn’t love getting paid to do play… or, for that matter, do what they love most? (I’m actually kind of disappointed that more people don’t, but that’s a whole other brain dump that I’ll get into at another time.) But at the same time, I’ve felt like there was something more I could do to be better, or rather, feel more fulfilled. The problem is, I just didn’t know what it was that I was missing or how to find it and do it. When I look back, I think I just lacked the proper motivation to really do anything about it. Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely motivated to well, I just hadn’t had the epiphany to push me to the next level. I was simply perpetuating the same cycle and taking things as they came, rather than seeking new challenges.

On the physical side of things, I pretty much hit a wall because freerunning as a whole has progressed so far in such a short period of time that I felt like I lost touch with it… and that’s partly true. I got so overwhelmed by all the talented people coming out with amazing new tricks, that I couldn’t decide which to do, so I tried to master all of them. It was discouraging and in the end I just defaulted to what I knew and didn’t necessarily give up, but stopped trying to push my limits to remain competitive in world scene. Well, that all changed when we shot Jump City. I’m not going to recount the entire series, but let’s just say the the experience was eye-opening and validating! I never want to see anybody get hurt, and I have the utmost respect for Levi, but I think him injuring himself really jarred something loose that I didn’t know was there. When he broke his wrist, my initial reaction was, “Well, there goes the season!” because everybody knew that the Skynative was our ringer. We all knew that if we ever got into trouble, Levi would bail us out. (Rather than excuse for our mindsets up to that point though, I think that’s a testament to how well he has established an amazing reputation in the community and it’s a major compliment to his skill!) With him out of the competition, I knew it was time to put on my big boy pants and make shit happen! It pushed me over my unjustified fear, and from that I gained the confidence to pull out all the stops. With our repeated success through the remainder of the season and ultimately securing the championship, I feel reinvigorated and ready to press on forward. When I watch the episodes again, I can pick out a million little things I can improve and clean up, but I’m not discouraged by that, I’m motivated to be a better freerunner… again!

On the personal side of things, whereas I feel like freerunning has allowed me to grow younger (in my mind), I’m still getting older and crave a level of stability that I didn’t necessarily need before. As a man, I feel a responsibility to provide for the people I love. I know that I can’t physically continue at this level forever and my body will eventually break down over time, so it’s important to me to build a second track. Something to that will allow my to remain a part of freerunning even when my contributions are no longer athletic. I was floating along with the desire to do more, but no direction. It’s intensely frustrating when you know you’re not doing it right, but also don’t know how to fix it. This past weekend, I spent 3 days at a Fortune Builders seminar in Vegas. I know what you’re thinking… a bunch of presenters selling me something I don’t need. I’ll stop you there, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was willing to suspend my skepticism because Fortune Builders is the product of a few family friends who I know and trust, and they’re extremely successful! (It was actually pretty funny initially to see Than up there in action because I always thought of him as more of a meat head with a great personality) I’m glad I did because within the first hour of sitting down, I knew it was what I needed. Yeah, they were good at pitching their other products, and some of the speakers were a little to “ra ra!” to be very helpful, but now that I’m on the other side of it with 30+ pages of valuable notes, I have a much clearer idea of how to get from point A to point B. How to put that desire into action.

Coupled with the success of the Tempest Freerunning Academy grand opening, and Epic Gym Video, I’m gonna be really freakin busy for the next few months. It’s going to take a ton of work and continued education along the way, but I don’t think I’ve ever been excited to experience the stress I know will come. I guess it’s that feeling of accomplishment waiting at the end of the tunnel that’s driving me forward, and I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna get!

…damn… I meant this just to be a first post to my reborn blog, but I guess I just get carried away when I’m deep in reflection, haha!