- -Care for my body with diet. Minimize Wheat/Grains/Legumes/Dairy. I'll allow myself some wiggle room, but if my main drive is to keep these foods to a minimum, I'll do better overall.
- -Keep up the intermittent fasting to keep between 185-190. I'm 191 after all the holiday madness, so I feel like I'm doing OK on that front. I'll be able to tighten back up here in a bit.
- -Be a good husband and father. This is not difficult, but I guess I feel obligated to put it down.
- -Get stronger. I will continue on with the 5/3/1 program and break PRs. I will also not neglect my cardio and keep up with the road work. I'll have two jogging buddies, so it will be great.
- -Try to get back into Jits and or MT at some point this year. If this doesn't happen, I will train solo in the basement at least once a week.
- -Practice dry-fire, and implement a regular dry-fire program (this one is important to me). I will also practice lots of one hand work to help me deal with possibly having to hold my son while dealing with a gun problem. Admittedly, shooting has gone down as an interest for me. Now I feel obligated to maintain and improve, but not as much because it's new and exciting, more so because I know just how perishable it is.
- -I'll maintain the relationships I've built in the training community, and stay up to date on my information and try to contribute as I can. I still feel like a total newbie on nearly all the subjects I'm interested in, but I love to help someone who is less knowledgeable than me find some light.
- -Take AMIS
- -Read for 2 hours a week. Any topic, try to make it a book or blog, not a forum. Can't be directly gun related.
This year's goals were pretty broad in scope. I knew that if I wanted to be successful in meeting my goals, I'd have to keep it more general. I wasn't sure what having a baby would do to my free time. So I think I did pretty good on this, considering. I'll try to be more specific for 2014.
I feel like I did pretty well caring for my body with diet. I did some dietary experimentation this year, but I felt like I was in control the whole time. I mark that as a win. I will say that when I do the strict paleo thing, I seem to become lean pretty rapidly. I also tend to have minimal gastric distress and less energy highs and lows. I just sort of coast along. If I keep the starchy tubers and rice in there, I can also do glucose dependent exercise with little risk of bonking. I can also get leaner when I do intermittent fasting. I did a few weeks of Ketogenic dieting (low/no carbs and ketogenesis), a good portion paleo, a good portion mostly paleo, and even a 6 week 'bulk' where I ate everything to the point of being stuffed. My weight at the end of the year is 213. This weight gain of 20 lbs over the course of the year was planned, and welcomed. I put a lot of time into eating and training. Now that I'm strong(er)/fat, I'll probably maintain it for a few months, continue to get stronger, continue to keep my protein up, and hopefully reset my weight homeostasis to this larger size. This should set me up to diet down in spring.
I'm doing my damnedest to keep being a good husband. The father part is hard, but only because of the time it requires to do it well. Trying to keep my wife sane and at the same time keeping myself sane is actually quite a challenge. The baby is a year old now, and is doing wonderfully. Keeping the seemingly suicidal infant from accidentally killing himself requires a lot of time. Luckily we have our moms to help. I could do better at the husband bit. I'm pushing back at having all of my free time taken away, so that causes some tension. I understand her occasional frustration, and hopefully she understands my need to be alone from time to time. I'll keep giving this the energy it deserves. That is, most of it.
Getting stronger is something that I'm even more obsessed with than I was at the end of 2012. I've been at full tilt learning mode on programming and ways to get stronger since I started weight training again in 2012. I've lifted heavy. So heavy, in fact, that I gave myself a hernia (dammit). I slowed down for a month, and then just started up again. It's not healed, and in fact, apparently will never heal up on it's own. I just have to listen to my body and when I feel weird down there, just stop and rest it.
I broke a bench press PR this year. I did several 5 and 6 week programs. I did the 10,000 kettlebell workout and mass made simple from Dan John. I tried Dogg Crapp training. I did 5/3/1 early in the year. Now, I'm doing StrongLifts 5x5. I guess I'm a program hopper. I regret nothing.
I didn't get back into MMA this year. It will have to be in 2014.
My dry-fire practice actually has picked up considerably this year. I credit this to getting my home gym set up and my SIRT training pistol. Now, between sets of my workouts, I dry fire. It has made a great difference in my drawstroke, draw index, and first shot accuracy and time. I rigged up a velcro belt with a Safariland ALS and some old Raven mag pouches and I can work all my stuff. It's great. My actual live fire time still hasn't picked up, but I haven't completely regressed because of dry-fire. It's great.
I have maintained my friendships, and fostered new ones. I'm very lucky to be involved in that community. I've also been able to help some guys on their fitness goals. So I'm trying to give back as much as I'm taking. I feel good about it.
I took AMIS. See the AAR in the previous post.
My reading has increased considerably this year. I read a metric shite-tonne of fitness articles and blogs. I think I handily met this goal.
On to the self-defense audit...
Using the same 6 categories as previous years, I'd rate my strengths as follows:
- Mindset
- fitness
- tactics
- pistol
- deescalation
- empty hands
I certainly feel the lack of empty hand training for this year. I'll get back to it as soon as I can. My fitness is very good this year. I'm stronger than I've ever been. I probably can't run as far, but that aspect can be trained up rather quickly. The strength thing is what takes time. I've got to keep building my strength base. I've done more dry fire this year than in previous years. I still need to compete in IDPA to keep the competition aspect on point. I feel like I'm putting the tactics together more and more as I pick my friend's brains and take some really relevant training.
Goals for 2014:
- Keep the family happy, healthy, and safe.
- after moving, join up at ATT gwinnett or some other Jits program (this could possibly displace my deadlift and bench goals, I'd prefer to do martial arts over weights)
- Move closer to my new job, get yard, basement, and pimp out both of those things with man shit.
- Once I move, compete in an IDPA match every 2 months, at minimum (I'll be closer to a solid local match)
- Deadlift 500 lbs
- Compete in at least 2 5ks or 1 10k
- Benchpress 300 lbs
- Continue to put time into helping local trainers with their courses, and continue writing my own courses
- Keep the diet in check using a combination of low carbs and intermittent fasting, while keeping the protein up. I'd like to try to get to 10-12% bodyfat, just for the hell of it.
- Take a training class (with Shivworks as the default, but might expand my horizons and take a speed/performance shooting class)
- Keep dryfire practice up, get a more regimented routine.
I think that's pretty good.
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