Kirby is a MONSTER!

Never stopped to think just how brutal Kirby is.

Golems of Amgarrak

New Dragon Age Origins DLC announced!  James and his team have been working hard!

Due out August 10, Golems of Amgarrak sends the player character and his party deep into the underground in search of a dwarven expedition that went missing while searching for the secrets behind golem creation. It's a high-level adventure that promises great challenges, great rewards, and a new terrifying creature to stab, beat, and spell to death.

Progress

I’ve been seeing some pretty motivating results lately at the gym.  I’ve foregone weight training for cardio.  Hour and a half, 7 days a week, with a good diet all week.  40 minutes of interval, then the rest is a sustained pace, and the odd high-intensity sprint.  I burn AT LEAST 600 calories of cardio a day.  Usually 700.  I’m currently losing about half a pound a day!  I can see a visible difference now.  My face is thinner and I have less of a gut!

I started at 176 about 2-3 weeks ago.

Goal Setting Recommendation: To move to the next weight range you need to weigh 159 pounds to be in the NORMAL weight range.

I’ve lost 8 pounds since I started, and need to lose 9 more to get into the healthy range.  So 2-3 more weeks.  My current goal is 155.  Once I reach it though, I’ll probably just set a new goal like 145.

Pretty soon I should be able to fit into all the clothes I have from Winnipeg.  And my goal is to be in even better shape than I was then.  Once I have lost my gut and at a body-fat percentage I’m happy with I will start re-introducing weight training and bring my caloric intake up a bit to get a bit more muscle and definition.  By next summer, I’m hoping to look the best I’ve ever looked!

It’s so awesome to finally be seeing results and have a clear plan on how to proceed.  I’ve been trying to lose weight for about a year now, and it used to be so shrouded in mystery, and felt out of my grasp.  But it’s a simple math equation.  End the day at a calorie deficit and you lose weight.  Simple as that.  Plus a bunch of handy tricks for keeping your metabolism up, like taking the stairs at work, drinking ice-water, tea, spices, etc.

I have before pictures from 3 weeks ago.  When I reach my goal of 155 I will take new pictures.  And if I’m feeling confident enough, maybe I’ll post them on here to show the difference!

Sucker Punch Trailer

James pointed me to a cool trailer for a new movie, Sucker Punch, from the director of 300 and Watchmen, Zack Snyder.  Granted, in my opinion, he has a habit of making better trailers than movies, but none the less, here’s another great trailer.

First Look At Dragon Age II In Motion

Game Informer was here a few weeks ago to get an exclusive look at what we’re working on and the video just went up!  Go check it out!  This is where I work and what I’m working on!

Tron Trailer

Another trailer to add to the list of trailers that do it right.  I wasn’t even looking forward to this movie until this trailer.  Also, Daft Punk doing the OST?  Bought.

140 BPM

 

I’ve finally found a workout program that works for me.  I’ve been trying all sorts of different things over the past few months, focusing heavily on weight training.  But my main goal is to lose my gut so I can fit into all the nice clothes from 2 years ago.  So I’ve done a ton of research and found the most effective use of your time when trying to lose weight is cardio.  I’ve figured out my BMR, and through a combination of diet and 7 day a week cardio (elliptical at the gym), am on a 750 calorie deficit.  I’ve been on this for just under 2 weeks now, and I’m losing 1 pound every 2 days!  So far I’ve lost about 7 pounds!!  This is more results than I’ve seen in years and it really has me motivated.  At this rate, in 1 month I’ll be visibly thinner, and in 2 months I should look pretty damn good!

My cardio is one to one and a half hours on the elliptical every day.  I tend to do half an hour of interval, then an hour of sustained.  I’ve actually really started to love it.  It’s a great way to work out any stress of the day, and when I’m done I feel fantastic.  I just put on my iPod and get lost in the music until I’m done.  And for that reason I made a playlist explicitly for using while doing cardio.  With this in mind all the songs are around 140 bpm, this way if I go the beat, I’m getting about 140 strides per minute, which keeps my heart at about 125 bpm which is the weight-loss zone.  The playlist is about an hour and half as well, the perfect length for my work out.

I’ve included the playlist.  You can hear it by pressing play on the playlist to the right, but for those of you also working out, or planning to start, give my playlist a shot for your cardio!  For a limited time you can download it from this link!  Just chuck it on your iPod!  The order is somewhat important, as there is peaks and valleys for interval, and it starts with a warm up song and ends with a cool-down song!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3206439/140%20BPM.zip

And the playlist:

1. MCP – Grid Runners
2. Innerpartysystem – Last Night In Brooklyn
3. Midnight Juggernauts – Safari World
4. Mimosa – Get ‘Em
5. La Roux – Tigerlily
6. Grafton Primary – Relativity (Tommy Trash Remix)
7. Royksopp – Tricky Tricky
8. The Presets – My People
9. She Wants Revenge – Tear You Apart
10. Hot Chip – Ready For The Floor
11. Zero 7 – Mr. Mcgee
12. Hercules And Love Affair – Blind
13. Grafton Primary – Telling Lies
14. Royksopp – The Girl And The Robot
15. The Presets – A New Sky
16. M83 – We Own The Sky
17. Tiesto – Elements Of Life
18. Van She – Kelly
19. Imogen Heap & Tiesto – Hide & Seek (remix)

Good luck on losing weight and getting in shape!  Enjoy the soundtrack!