Some of you probably already know this, but Jenny and I have separated. She has her reasons for wanting to and I just want to ask our friends to please don’t judge what we are doing, just give us both some support. All I want is for her to be happy.

Right now I am just trying to figure things out for myself, try and get through this as best as I can. It’s not going to be easy I know. But i have no other choice.

All I can do now is be the best dad I can be for my two wonderful sons.

I have since moved into an apartment, and so I don’t have access to my most of home workout equipment and heavy bag. I do have my dumbbells, stability ball, exercise bands, and elliptical. I also brought my tire and sledge hammer which I hope to use in the field next to the apartments.

But I will be joining the local YMCA to get in my daily workouts. Mainly for the social aspect and to also have some place to take my sons when they are with me. Newton has a fairly new Y that has indoor pool and other activities.

I will try to resume the regular sporadic posts relating to fitness, food, and what ever else on here.

This looks interesting. It’s a fitness system developed by Moni Aizik, of Krav Maga fame. It’s a combination of Olympic and MMA training drills and workouts. From the video there doesn’t seem to be that much equipment, which I like, a kettle bell, medicine ball, sledge hammer and tire. Probably more, but I’ll find out when I get the set. I’ll need to wait for the snow to melt and the temperature to get about freezing before I can do the outside stuff though.

Elite Combat Fitness

The segment on Inside MMA on the last Title Fight Championship event in Des Moines. My kid was stoked to see himself at the very end behind Brian Green, even though it was only for a millisecond.

Here’s is one of my favorite breakfast smoothies.

Morning smoothie:
1 cup goat milk
1 banana
Some ice
2 spoonfuls flax seed
2 spoonufls peanut butter

Mix in blender.

I don’t use goat milk straight from the can, I mix it in a pitcher 1 can goat milk and 4 cans water. I’ll sometimes add protein powder. But I have been getting enough protein from my regular meals lately.

Here is a recipe for Yeastless, gluten free pizza crust. The original recipe is really a Yeastless Focaccia bread that I modified slightly to use as a gluten free, yeast free pizza crust. All I did was substitute some gluten free all purpose flour with Xanthum gum in place of the 2 cups of regular flour. I think next time I will use baking soda instead for the baking powder, as I prefer a more thin and crispy crust.

For the toppings I used some organic pizza sauce (sometimes I will just run a couple of tomatoes over a cheese grater), turkey pepperoni, chopped artichoke hearts, chopped olives, chopped red peppers, chopped zucchini, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. That’s about it, a pretty simple pizza.

No, not the decade. A couple weeks ago I was wanting to come up with a workout that was simple, easy to remember, doesn’t need a lot of equipment but would still be challenging and effective. I came up with what I called The 50’s. Basically it’s doing 50 of each exercise and using a 50lb barbell when needed. I have been mixing up the order but I always try and follow the push-pull method. The push-pull is alternating between a pushing exercise and a pulling one. Here’s an example of one of my 50’s. The 50 reps do not have to be done at once, either something like a 30rep -rest- 20rep, 15rep -rest- 15rep -rest- 10rep -rest- 10rep, or what ever works for you. Just finish all 50 before moving on to the next exercise.

• 50 Bodyweight or “Hindu” squats. push
• 50 Bent over rows with a 50lb barbell. pull
• 50 Overhead presses with a 50lb barbell. push
• 50 Upright rows with a 50lb barbell. pull
• 50 Push ups. push
• 25 Pull ups, 25 chin ups. pull
• 50 Squats with 50lb barbell. push
• 100 Bicycle crunches. (Ok not 50 but if you count a “right-left” as 1 that’s 50. Ha)

I’m sure there are lot more to add to the mix, so be creative, and have a good workout. Yes that is a photo of my workout room. When the weather is nice I do try and workout outside though.

I made some really good gluten free peanut butter cookies on Saturday. Here is the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

* 2 cups peanut butter
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 eggs, beaten
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
* 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheet.
2. Combine peanut butter, eggs, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla then mix until smooth. Mix in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Spoon dough by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for 5 to 10 minutes before removing.

Fifteen years ago on November 30, I lost my mom to cancer. This was her fourth and last time battling the disease. I was an only child of a single, working mom. She meant everything to me, although I didn’t realize it at the time. The holidays have been bad time for me the past years, I kinda knew why, but I also didn’t deal with it like I should have. I never really talk about her, if i think about her too much I start to tear up so I make myself stop. I finally realized that I need to just write about her and get it all out. No one reads this thing anyway, so I might as well write it here on this blog. I am not a very good writer so don’t expect much.

My parents divorced when I was about 7 years old, I really don’t have any memories of living with my father. I would only get to visit him one or twice a year, he and my step mom lived far away. It was always just me and Mom. She struggled at first trying to support us, being a working woman in the 70s was difficult, especially for a divorced woman with a kid. But she was a strong woman, I do remember that about her, she stood up for herself, and spoke her mind. I was a pain in the neck son. I don’t really have too many memories from when I was a kid, other than I had a bad temper, very picky eater, and general devil child. But my mom put up with me and was apparently a good enough influence. I have never really been in serious trouble, never been arrested, and I feel grew up to be a half-way decent person.

I was in 8th grade the first time she was diagnosed with cancer. She tried her best to play it down and of course I was too into what ever I was doing to really understand it all. She had friends take her to doctor appointments and for treatments. She never really let on how bad it was on her, at least to me. After a year of treatments she went into remission. Then about a year later, they found more cancer. Another year of treatments, another year of remission. This pattern happened 2 more times. That’s 8 years of battling cancer for her. I was never around for her as much as I should have been.

I remember the night I got back to my apartment and my roommate said that someone had called and said my mom was in the hospital in Topeka. I had a friend drive me there and I stayed and talked with my mom for a long time. We both knew it was the last time we would be able to talk.

I wanted to post last night’s workout on here, mainly for my own reference, but also for anyone that happens to read this. My workout and fitness goals are not to have big “fluffy” muscles, I’m not out to look like a ballooned bodybuilder. I like to be able to scratch my own back. My goals are to have over all strength, endurance, speed, and agility. I have been into Mixed Martial Arts from way back before it was even called that. But in recent years it has been honed to a science and the fitness levels and workouts pro fighters use are, in my opinion, the best out there. What good are over sized biceps in a fight? Why spend 30 minutes doing an “isolated” exercise, when the 30 minutes could be spent doing over all conditioning and complex movements that work several large muscle groups that develop a more conditioned and stronger body?

I rarely ever do the same workouts twice. Since my workout space is limited, I have couple rooms in my basement that I workout in. I have my heavybag and 50lb barbell set up in the laundry room and in the other room I have 2 30lbs dumbbells, a 30lb barbell, kettlebell, stability ball and some tension bands. Weather permitting I go out side for some wind sprints up and down the block, jump rope in the driveway, overhead squats, or use the pull up tower. Three times a week I try to get some training in with the Grinnell College MMA club.

Here is just an example of a typical workout for me:

• Warm up with some jogging in place, jumping jacks or jump rope
• Bodyweight squats (hindu squats) 30-40 reps
• Pushups 30-40
• Sit up cluster: 100 alternating knees to elbows, 50 bicycles, 50 crunches
• Hindu pushups 25-30
• More hindu squats, as many as I can at this point
• Stability ball pushups 20 or so
• Upright rows 30lb barbell 20reps
• Alternating 30lb dumbbell curls to over head press 15-20 each arm
• Upright rows 30lb barbell 15reps
• Alternating 30lb dumbbell curls to over head press 10-15 each arm
• Upright rows 30lb barbell 10reps
• Alternating 30lb dumbbell curls to over head press 8-10 each arm
• Over head press with 30lb barbell 20reps, then 15, then 10
• Sit up cluster
• Side arm raises with the tension band, 20reps x 3
• Over head squats with small heavy bag (about 30lb I think) 20reps, 15, 10
• One arm snatch with kettlebell 10reps each arm x 3

I don’t like to take too much rest between sets or exercises, maybe 30 to 60 seconds. I will take more if I think I need it, but I like to keep moving. I also don’t do all of those each time, but I try to do most of those exercises. I only do that work out a couple times a week. The other days I’ll do either 30 min of Muay Thai on the heavy bag, Randy Couture’s, grappler’s set using the 50lb barbell, or I’m training with the Grinnell MMA club.

Most of those exercises are taken from Matt Furey’s Combat Conditioning book. Some are from other books or web sites such as Crossfit.com or even just from watching pro fighters train. The workouts I do work for me and I have lost almost 20 lbs in the past year, I’m about 185lb now, and I feel great. Another thing is that I have made some big changes in my diet. I have drastically cut out gluten foods, dairy, and sugar. I still sometimes cheat and have pizza or a cookie, but for the most part I eat lots of salads, lean meats, fish, fruit and vegetables.

(photo by Zink Photography)

I had a Myspace profile for a couple years before I deleted it about a month or so ago. It just got too annoying with all the stupid bulletins, spammers and my own personal drama, which I don’t need to go into. So I had heard about Facebook and read that it was supposed to be the “smart persons” Myspace. So I created a profile there. But for me it seems to be too hard to find friends on there. I never graduated from a college, I don’t really have much of a social life within my network (Des Moines, IA). I tried adding some people from my gmail address book, which found a few people I knew, I even tried adding some people from work. I think I’m up to 13 friends? Most everyone I know is only on Myspace, sure Facebook has lots of third party add-ons that you can add to your page to interact with your Facebook friends, but if you don’t have many friends what good are they? I don’t want to just go around adding random people, that seems rather stalker-ish to me. I’ve always been in to music, movies and in the past few years MMA, and all that stuff and more is on Myspace.

Maybe I’m just not one of the “smart persons” that Facebook is made for.