Archives for April 2017

Swing with your eyes closed

April 28, 2017 By franco 4 Comments

It’s been 18 days since I started this new program. It hasn’t been the easiest. My heart and mind sometimes aren’t patient enough for this revised journey. I have the follow through. For 18 days I have been compliant. That means that I have followed my meal plan, not cheated. And don’t what I have been told to do by my trainer. I have not missed a workout. I have given everything that I got. My body fat is down 3.6%. I am down 9.5 pounds and my body is definitely changing. 18 days. They say it becomes a habit at 21 huh? I am almost there.

God. I am gonna curse now but please don’t strike me dead.

God, I hate fucking chicken. Most days I get chicken 2 to 3 times a day and man do I hate it anymore. I mean I would kill for a couple pieces of Popeye’s chicken but I don’t care how you season it. After the first time that day, the second helping is very hard to get down. But I do my best to just get it the hell down. Fuel the fire. Burn the fat. I guess coach really does know what he is taking about. Actually, my coach Jason and trainer Stacy have worked very well with me to give me a really well balanced program. I am very blessed. Change is always scary for me. I hated switching gyms in February but I needed something closer to home. 18 miles round trip was just too much after 2 years. I am glad that so far it’s been very good for me. I am also glad that I have been able to stay friends with everyone from my old home. I am glad that I still have classes so I can poke in from time to time too.

Seems like it’s going to be the summer of concerts. Amber got me tickets to Wicked around Easter. Much better than chocolate. I’ve always wanted to see it. So I have tickets for that, The Hooters, Ed Sheeran, Third Eye Blind and the Counting Crows and Matchbox Twenty. I would love to see Pink! on the beach in AC too. Maybe Butch Walker would open. One could only hope.

The other exciting thing is that I said Fuck it all and booked my return trip to see my nieces again before x-mas and more importantly (they’ll be at the shore all summer this year so I’ll see them plenty) they are going to redo all of the Harry Potter area at Universal Studios for the holidays for the first time and I just can’t miss it. I have to see it. By then, I should have my Harry Potter half sleeve almost finished. Brett is coming too so it will be a good time.

Just like anything in life that is hard… death… break ups… lost friendships… day after day… it gets easier. Still sucks. But it gets easier. Chicken sucks.

The funny thing is that I couldn’t wait to add a little flank steak and in the end it made me kinda sick. My stomach didn’t seem to want to process it. Ugh. Chicken and ground turkey it is.

I know less and less people read these blogs anymore. I can see the statistics. But I still write them. #teamfranco peeps have come and gone and some people are still always there from day one supporting me and inspiring me to push forward. I am going to hit some pretty awesome goals before the end of the year. I can feel it. At the same time… I am keeping my goals small. One at a time. Little by little. Doing my best to trust the process.

But it’s hard when you woke up Monday at the lowest you’ve been in forever…. And then it goes up a little and stays there all week. So I am down 2 pounds from last Thursday. So back to being anxious I guess. 315.9. Started with coach at 324. – Was 341 the first week of November and 330 in early March! Small wins?

Why do I still let the voices in my head tell me to just say fuck it and go to Kristy Kreme!

But I won’t. I’ll be at the gym this morning and then like every other day for the past 18 days…. I’ll do my best.

5 pounds to go for goal #1 of the comeback. Let’s go!

Amber is kicking butt too so we might be a little more cranky then usual but we are pushing through.

Thanks for reading. As always my Instagram gets updated the most and I am always here for you too!

Franco

Broken People

April 19, 2017 By franco Leave a Comment

Well let me tell you a few things first……. my last blog had me feeling like I was kicked to the curb and alone. Yes, my team is still in place. I know that I am very loved. I just felt lost. And if you’ve been reading you know that I don’t talk a lot about religious things but as a God fearing Catholic and even more afraid of my parents…… my unanswered prayers went answered. A few days later I was on a custom meal plan, a workout routine and a legit plan. An amazing coach and gym team. Life is good.

As I write this I am 10 days into it. I have followed my meal play to a T. I am down 6 pounds. It’s coming off slowly but I am getting leaner and stronger and not eating any junk whatsoever. I also have gone without any alcohol or sugar at all. No white bread. Nothing. I will tell you more about my coach soon. Let me get a week or two in. I am not here to be a spokes person and we don’t have one of those ‘ check in every workout ‘ agreements. He wants me to succeed and he’s pretty awesome. I have two coaches really and really like being in the gym that I am at. It’s a little gnarly. It’s a little dirty. Lot’s of old school equipment and it makes me feel like Rocky when he goes back to the basics and trains to fight the way he used to, the way that we was a winner.

There is a quote that I found yesterday that I loved and posted on my Instragram. – God uses broken people like you and me to fix broken people like you and me. It’s very fitting.

I think it’s true. 10 days into this whole foods thing. Not so bad. I have absolutely loved lifting and while I can get coach to train me if I really wanted to, he wrote up the program and I have enjoyed following it. My daily trainer is one bad ass lady and she really knows what she is doing. I am sorry for teasing her for a month though about food now that we are on similar plans. She’s training for a competition though and I am training to be a beast.

A day or two into my program I went to New Hope to get an accurate body fat reading. It was called the Bod Pod. They basically put you in this thing and your get covered with compressed air. It was very high tech and very cool but it gave us a really good starting point and I’ll go back after 90 days or so and see where my progress is. You can read more about the Bod Pod here.

So I am working hard. I have no complaints and while I would love a cheese steak and some cheese fries I will continue to follow the plan. Memorial Day weekend here I come!

I will say this, I felt the best that I have been on stage this past weekend in a long time. Leaner, more muscles and more dancing. My clothes were loose and I was just much more comfortable. That is okay with me. While my weight is down and we are creeping on that 311 that will get me to 100lbs lost again. I now have my eyes on size 40 jeans. I can taste them.

Thanks for reading. I am here if you need me.

Let’s Go

Franco

Elvis has left the building.

April 5, 2017 By franco Leave a Comment

Wednesday. It’s weigh in day. Moment of truth day.

Last week I was so stoked cause I dropped 6 pounds. This week 3 came back but my body fat dropped a little more again. I’ll post the screen shots because maybe someone out there reading will make some sense of things for me. I am glad that I didn’t go to my cardio session this morning because I am cranky!

So I put in my measurements and weight and this was the pop up that I got.

Now most people who count macros and diet that way would be through the moon for this screen because it means more carbs and opens up a whole new world of things to eat and much easier to manage than a completely low-carb life but as someone with crazy goals and things he needs to do to better his life, losing another 40-50 pounds is all I think about I guess. It’s a almost as bad as death chasing me in my head. It might actually be the same damn thing. But now I actually might have to put on a few pounds safely so that I can re-jump start my broken ass metabolism.

A sane Franco would look at the first photo up top and tell himself that hey dude… you lost 9 pounds this month, decreased your body fat. You are working hard. Just keep doing your thing. But I haven’t been sane in a long time. I keep hearing that plastic surgeon in my ear telling me, hey. congrats on losing 90lbs, but come back and see me when you loose another 50 and we’ll get you rolling.

Yesterday I spent some time talking to one of the coaches at the gym who I admire because he really lives and breathes what he is selling and lifestyle wise. It wasn’t a long conversation but he thinks I probably do way too much cardio. And that in the end I should be lifting and have a better day to day weight program to build lean mass to use as fat blasters. Kinda knew that but really don’t have the $1100 for the 20 sessions to really work it out with him. And I thought about what corners I could cut all night and I was able to free up $90 a month. So the old me would have skipped the gym this morning (and yeah I did) and head to Dunkin Donuts and a few doors down is Krispy Kreme and I would just give in. (But I didn’t.)

Instead I started writing this and I went through a check list in my head. I watched this video that was posted on the Avatar site about when to reverse diet.

Then I just bit the bullet because I can’t afford a person trainer to kick my ass right now. So as usual I have to listen to my smarter friends advice. Research what I can and do my best. I switched my Avatar Nutrition account to a “Conservative Reverse Diet” where it say if I follow the guidelines I will only gain up to 1.6lbs a week while fixing and re-igniting my metabolism. Gaining weight on purpose? YUK! But I will increase my weight lifting, reps and do my best I guess. I can’t really let myself go less then 2000 calories a day and that’s where I was headed.

This is what it gave me.

Now I chose to have higher carbs and fats on the weekend for the band, travel and to just have a little bit of life. It’s easier for me to derail then too so this helps me stay on track.

I guess I will give it a few weeks and see what happens. I am trying to not let the scale rule my world and this isn’t just a scale thing since it takes body fat into consideration as well.

I am bumming. I work hard. I know that. I just wish I got the outcome that I wanted for all my hard work. I’ve been digging myself out of a hole since November and can’t seem to get out of it.

A plan will come to me. Something has to give.

And to think all I wanted to do was write about my bench press PR from last week and now that doesn’t really matter.

Thanks for reading.

Franco