Exercised for an hour

11:58 PM

I'm back from the gym. I was working out a few minutes ago, and I did an hour's worth of dumbbell exercises. The exercises were pretty hard, they tired me out and I sweated a decent amount. I don't know if I'll gain any strength from this though, as the heaviest dumbbell weights are only 25 pounds, and it can be pretty light to me depending on the exercise. Of course it still take effort to do reps of this, just like how it still takes effort to do even a single pull up even if you are someone who can do 10 pull ups in a row.

Muscle and strength gain requires progressive overload, which means lifting either more weight with the same reps or the same weight with more reps. Since I don't have access to any heavier weights, I have to increase the amount of reps that I do. I still haven't consciously done this yet. I'm still just doing the amount of reps the app BoostCamp tells me to do. What I need to do is do at least 2-3 more reps or more if possible, if the workout feels too light for me. That's really the only option that I have since I don't have access to any heavier weights.

I feel pretty good about my body overall now, there's only one exception though. My muscles throughout my body are looking pretty good and feel solid. It looks pretty aesthetic throughout, with one exception. The only part I'm unhappy with my body currently is my stomach. It is fat. I just eat way too much food, sometimes over 4000 calories a day, causing my stomach to be the fattest thing in my body and the only thing that doesn't look aesthetically good, in my opinion. If I flex, my arms are pretty solid and large, I have pretty large arms now, they are sometimes super tight around the arm sleeve, and it's from being muscular, not fat.

I like how I look when I wear different clothing. I look pretty alright. My face looks pretty alright too. Again, the only thing I'm unhappy about is my stomach. I'd like to be able to lift my shirt up and have a six pack showing, instead of a fat tubby belly.

I want to set a fitness world record in a calisthenics workout one day, such as either pull ups or push ups, or even planks. I guess my fitness goals in order would be: lose 30 pounds, have six pack abs, and then set a fitness world record in a calisthenics workout. I think losing 30 pounds and gaining six pack abs will come at the same time. Maybe I can attain it in a month, but I don't know.

After I lose 30 pounds, that's when I can start focusing on setting a world record in a calisthenics workout, because every calisthenics workout will have become that much easier. The world record for the amount of pull ups in a minute is only like 60 or something. I can do like 7 in a minute. I just need to do ten times more basically to set a world record. I think that's very doable.

I'd do it all on a plant based, vegan diet too. There's actually already been several calisthenics world records set by vegans, such as different push ups world records, there are some for like 1 hour, 24 hours, etc. There were even planking records set by vegans, such as the longest plank by a woman. Those are the only two calisthenics ones I know of. For endurance world records, quite a few have been set by vegans, some have been set this year and the past year. I know some of these have already been beaten, but at one point the 100 mile and 1000 mile run fastest time world records were held by a vegan (I think the 1000 mile might still be), the Appalachian Trail world record was held by a vegan, the fastest marathon over age 100 was held by a vegetarian, the fastest World Ironman Championships record was held by a vegetarian. There's some in cycling too, and even event specific ones like the fastest Spartathlon time, the Backyard Ultra, and the Western States 100.

For their small population, vegans have set a lot of world records. It is pretty incredible. There were a few of them who won gold medals at this year's Olympics too, though there were also some that didn't win any, or got second. The vegans that did enter would rank first place in pretty much every event they competed in in their country, and it's interesting looking at their Wikipedia pages and seeing lots of 1st place scores, but in the Olympics not placing in the top 3 for their event. The ones in the Olympics are the best in their country, and they compete against the other bests in the world.

I wonder if I have what it takes to set a world record in a calisthenics workout. One of the most impressive athletes I think is Jack LaLanne. He's an old timer, but during the first episode of his show, he performed 1000 chin ups and 1000 jumping jacks. He invented the jumping jack workout, it's named after him. He set a lot of world records during his time, and also invented the common workout machines with the adjustable weights. Those were his invention. He also invented the resistance bands, and he invented health and fitness clubs too, aka gyms. He made all these inventions and innovations that are standard in the industry today, and didn't patent them. He also doesn't even get much recognition or credit today, even though he is a legend. He was influenced by attending a Bragg health seminar, and it greatly influenced him.

This is how he described his diet: “At least eight to 10 raw vegetables and three to four pieces of fresh fruit a day. I have natural grains, beans, brown rice, lentils, wheat. And I get most of my protein from fish and egg whites. I eat no meat of any kind. I drink my breakfast. Half carrot juice, half celery juice and then I put an apple and a banana in it and 50 grams of protein made out of egg whites and soybean. For lunch I’ll have three pieces of fresh fruit, three to six egg whites and whole wheat toast. And Elaine makes soup for me with vegetables but no cream or butter. Elaine and I eat out practically every night, but we have the restaurants trained. We call them that we’re coming in, and they’ll have a raw vegetable salad and I’ll have oil dressing loaded up with chopped garlic. I take my own pita bread made out of whole wheat with no salt or oils. And I’ll have a baked potato and fish.”

The way he ate was extremely healthily. He ate that way until he died, and he also made exercise a priority until he died. One unsubstantiated criticism I heard from a random commenter is that his older brother Norman Lalanne, who died a few years before Jack, lived longer than him by a few months. The unsubstantiated criticism was that Norman didn't exercise at all, which can't be substantiated by anyone. I can find an obituary of Norman Lalanne, and it said he met up with Jack at least once a month, and they talked every day on the phone. Jack was a fitness and nutrition legend, he made his entire life around those subjects, there is no way Norman wasn't influenced by him at the least.

You become who you are with the most. The two vegans I hang out with in Puerto Rico the most are extremely fit and both have six pack abs. So now I'm exercising and trying to get there myself too. My parents who I lived with for years, and I am with today since I'm visiting them, eat a plant based diet now because of my own influence, because they're with me the most. At the gym today I cleaned up everything after working out, an influence from both my parents keeping a tidy place. Literally everything here is spotless. They wipe and clean everything before going to sleep. I think an area they're lacking in though, is vacuuming, I think they should vacuum once a week, so much junk gets on the floors, literally every day that I sweep at home always gathers so much new dust and dirt just from the day before.

Anyway, I spent an hour and eighteen minutes writing this. There were also times I looked up information online and read different things. I think I'm going to go take a shower now. But yeah, to summarize today, it was okay.

I was at home the whole day. I did some work. I didn't eat all that much today, which is great. I also exercised for an hour. I did my brain training, and my PBS is now 823. I did some vegan tweets on X today. And then I watched some South Park and browsed the Internet. I think overall today was a good day. I feel really good. I didn't run today like I said I would yesterday, because I did get lazy and not feel like doing it. At night in the gym too, there's other people in the building I think, so I didn't want to disturb them by exercising on the treadmill. The gym is just a small room in the main office building, and I think there is at least one person that sleeps in the attic there or something. I didn't want to disturb them by running heavily on the treadmill.

Anyway, that was my day today.