Daily News Archives

May 2008

 

05/31/2008 - Back doing a little better this morning!
05/30/2008 - Injured my back--cut on hold.
05/29/2008 - Another busy day; Working out at home vs. a gym; Leg day.
05/28/2008 - Nice day off yesterday, but lots to do today.
05/27/2008 - I'm off today; Need to work on some JSF stuff; Goals this fall.
05/26/2008 - Memorial Day plans; Had to work yesterday.
05/25/2008 - Weekly measurements; New meal plan for weeks 10-?.
05/24/2008 - Saturday plans; Diet; More new features coming soon!
05/23/2008 - Cheat meal AND missed my leg workout.
05/22/2008 - Feeling great; Thanks; I <3 Viper.
05/21/2008 - So groggy this morning.
05/20/2008 - Still stalled; 14 year wedding anniversary tomorrow.
05/19/2008 - What a Monday so far (and it's only 8:55 AM!)
05/18/2008 - Hotmail now accepting our mail again; Weekly measurements.
05/17/2008 - Hotmail issues continue; Still holding some water; Bug squashing.
05/16/2008 - A couple of issues with the new upgrades you should be aware of.
05/15/2008 - Upgrades completed; Help with new features; June "100 Challenge" open.
05/14/2008 - Today is the big day: I'm rolling out the major hardware and software upgrades!
05/13/2008 - Tomorrow?!
05/12/2008 - Update on new servers; More on the new blog feature!
05/11/2008 - Weekly measurements; Server benchmarks; Even more new features.
05/10/2008 - Server update/pictures; Forbes article.
05/09/2008 - New servers will be here today; A few words about AtLarge Nutrition.
05/08/2008 - Using food for comfort; New forum rules; New server O/S selected.
05/07/2008 - Bad day yesterday, but it ended on a high note.
05/06/2008 - New JSF servers are on the way; Muscle loss?
05/05/2008 - Weekly measurements/progress report.
05/04/2008 - Measurements postponed until tomorrow; Thanks!
05/03/2008 - New servers ordered--detailed specs.
05/02/2008 - IMPORTANT! Major upgrades are on the horizon: please read!
05/01/2008 - Monthly photos.

 

May 31, 2008

I forced myself to get up and out of bed this morning. I'm hobling around like a little old lady, but at least I'm up and moving around. I'm actually typing this update from my home office, so that's an improvment over yesterday. Later today I plan to take a long soak in my jetted tub, and I will continute with the ice packs and Aleve.

Yesterday morning I was feeling pretty negative, but this morning all that negativity is gone. I've come to grips with what happened, and it's a minor bump in the road. I have absolutely nothing to complain about. If you play hard then sometimes you get hurt. Happens to everyone. Right now it's my turn.

I want to thank everyone for their supportive emails, PMs and posts. They meant a lot to me, and really helped me adjust my attitude yesteday.

I know I won't be deadlifting or squatting for at least a few weeks, but my aim is to get back in the gym--even if it's just a light workout--by the end of next week. Of course I'm not going to do anything stupid and force it, but I'm going to stay positive and focus on putting this behind me.

 

May 30, 2008

I'm writing this update on my laptop from my bed because yesterday I injured my back while doing squats. As I wrote in my journal last night, I can't stand up straight, and getting out of bed and walking is pretty agonizing. The exact same thing happened to me about two and half years ago (January 2006) while doing squats, and now it's happened again. I was well warmed up, I was not going very heavy, my forum was tight and I was not fatigued. I was simply coming up from a rep and it was like someone hit me in the lower back with a baseball bat. The pain was excruciating, and I had to immediately bail out. I don't know much about back injuries, but I wonder if I'm popping a disc out or something. Maybe I have a disc that is prone to doing that? The pain is in the exact same spot as it was last time.

So, this really sucks. Last time the injury healed on it's own (I didn't go to the doctor) and I've been fine since. I was completely out of action for a few weeks, as I recall, and it took even more time before I was able to do any real back and leg work again.

Obviously cutting while unable to lift is not a good thing--especially as I dip below 8% body fat. I'm going to put my cut on hold and eat maintenance levels until I can return to the gym. I'm going to rest this weekend, and I may go to the doctor on Monday depending on how I feel. Honestly, right now I'm paranoid about ever doing squats again.

I'm not going to say that I'm not feeling a little angry and discouraged right now, because I am. That's not helping matters, so I'm going to lie here today and try and get my mind right. I know I need to put things in perspective and think positive, but right now that's proving to be difficult.

 

May 29, 2008

Yesterday was a very busy day, and today is going to be more of the same. In fact, I've got an early morning meeting that I need to start getting ready for right now. After my meeting I've got quite a bit of work to do, but I'll break away long enough to get my leg workout in this afternoon.

I know some people love going to a commercial gym, but for me and my lifestyle, having a home gym makes the most sense. There's no way I'd have time to break away for my workout in the middle of the day if I had to drive to commercial gym. Over the years I've worked out first thing in the morning, in the evenings after work and at various times during the day, and for me there's no question that my ideal workout time is mid-afternoon. I think having three meals in me before my workouts helps boost my energy level and strength, but it's still early enough in the day that I'm not feeling that post-work day fatigue. I love getting my workout in, taking a quick shower and sitting back down to work with a PWO protein/oats shake--all on my "lunch" hour.

Today for my leg workout I'm going to return to the backyard for walking lunges. I'm really looking forward to that, as it's been weeks since I've done them. The weather looks good, too. The lot behind my house is having a home constructed on it right now, and the framers will be upstairs working today. They are probably going to have a good laugh watching me lunge, red-faced and grunting, all over my back yard.

I'm late now! I need to get in the shower and get going. Thanks for stopping by today, train hard!!!

 

May 28, 2008

I had yesterday off from work, and my initial plan for the day was to work on some JSF stuff. I started off doing that, but my interest quickly waned. I felt like I needed a break from computers and stuff, so I wandered off to start measuring, planning and making final equipment selections for our home theater (details are in my New Home Journal). Getting away from computers was just the sort of break that I needed. It was a fun and relaxing day, and I also had a great workout!

Today is a cardio-only day, and I'm going to do 45-minutes of LISS cardio this morning. After my morning routine I've got to attend what promises to be a very protracted meeting, and then I have a ton of work to catch up on. It's going to be a long, long day.

There are just a few days left to get in on the June Challenge! Details are immediately below...

 

May 27, 2008

I'm more or less off from work today because I had to unexpectedly work on Saturday and Sunday. I just have a couple of work-related items to address this morning, and then I've got the entire day to do whatever I want. I think I'm going to work on adding some new features to the forum. Also, the JSF Merchandise was never re-designed to use the new logo, and I either need to get that done or just close down the store. It's actually costing JSF money each month because, understandably, no one wants clothes with the old logo. Procrastination used to be a real bad problem for me, but now I almost never procrastinate. I'm not sure why I've been uncharacteristically lax in dealing with the JSF merchandise. I guess it's just not been a very high priority.

The new JSF hardware is so overpowered for our normal day-to-day web and forum traffic that the it borders on ridiculous. The load averages rarely even see 0.10--even at peak hours with 700+ people on the forum and hundreds browsing the main site. In the past when this site and/or the forums have been linked to from very high traffic sites the servers crashed and burned pretty quickly. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the new hardware handles the load the next time something like that happens. Right now I feel like I have a couple of Vipers idling in the driveway with no roads available to open them up. :lol:

My training has been going well recently. I've lost a bit of strength, but that's to be expected while cutting. I've also lost a little muscle size, but not even a quarter of an inch from any one area. I'm definitely not as muscular as I was last year at this time. Once you build the muscle it takes a lot of work to maintain it--especially at my age. The time I took off from training took its toll, that's for sure. There was a time when I was hell-bent on getting huge, but that's not something I want anymore. I do like having a decent amount of mass, but I honestly don't give a crap if my arms are ever 18 or 19 inches again. When I bulk this fall the aim will not be to get huge, it will be to balance out my physique. Traps and delts are obviously at the top of the list. I'm looking forward to it, as I'm pretty sick and tired of cutting right now!

OK, I'm going to wrap this up and knock out the hour of work I need to do before I can enjoy my day off. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great day!

 

May 26, 2008

FLAG

Today we observe Memorial Day here in the US, so I've got the day off from work. We're having family over this afternoon for a barbecue and a movie, so I'm going to get my workout in this morning about an hour after meal #1. For dinner I'll be grilling sirloin burgers for the entire family, but I'm going to have a lean turkey patty and veggies.

Yesterday Lisa and I had a lot of fun driving around in her new toy, but when we arrived back home late yesterday afternoon my pager called me into work. A critical server had gone down, and that sort of thing is my responsibility. Up until that point I'd had a fun, but long and tiring day; I just wanted to kick back, relax and enjoy my Sunday evening. Instead I had to make the 40-mile trek (round-trip) downtown to diagnose and repair the server. Oh well, it's part of the job!

To my fellow Americans: have a safe Memorial Day, and please be sure to take some time to honor all the brave men and women who have given their lives for our country.

 

May 25, 2008

It's Sunday, and time once again for my weekly tape measurements and body fat reading.

My scale weight is identical to last week: 184.4 pounds this morning, 184.4 pounds last Sunday and 184 pounds the Sunday before that. I'm clearly stalled, and it's time to change my diet. More on that in a bit.

My body fat measurement this morning is 8.1% (as measured by the Fat Track PRO Digital Body Fat Calipers). That is nearly identical to last week's body fat reading of 8%.

All of my soft tape measurements (as measured by the MyoTape) are identical to last week's measurements.

Obviously changes are required at this point, so the question is "What should I change?" Well, my two main goals are slow, steady fat loss and lean mass preservation, so the changes I make this week will not be drastic ones. I thought about increasing my cardio, but I don't want to do that just yet. The longer I can wait to add more cardio the better. I also don't want to change my diet on training days just yet. I want to keep the intake of carbs and protein that surround my workouts as high as possible for as long as possible. So, what I've done is make some changes to my non-training day diet: I've reduce my calories by 125, reduced my carbohydrate intake and increased my healthy fat intake. I've replaced the eye of round steak at meal #5 with lean chicken breast, but my overall fat intake for the day is increased due to the addition of olive oil at meal #3. I've also eliminated the brown rice from meal #3, so my carb sources on non-training days are grapefruit and veggies. Here's the new meal plan for weeks 10-?.

I'll see how these tweaks work for the next couple of weeks. The next change to my diet will likely be a full-out carb cycling diet.

OK, it's going to be a beautiful day today! I'm off to detail cars and then Lisa and I are going to go for a nice, long drive. Enjoy your day!

 

May 24, 2008

Ah, Saturday... and a three day weekend as well! I think Lisa and I are going to get our weekend chores out of the way this morning (house cleaning, grocery shopping, yard work) and then just relax. The forecast is calling for a very rainy afternoon, so kicking back and watching a couple of movies sounds pretty good. Tomorrow the skies are supposed to be crystal clear, so I'll probably spend half the day performing the initial detailing of Lisa's new car. The way I detail a new car is a fairly long and labor-intensive process, but when I finish the paint will look like liquid glass and be well protected from the elements. Truth be told, I'm actually looking forward to doing the work. When I'm done we'll probably go for a nice long drive to nowhere in particular...

Unfortunately my cheat meal yesterday is going to make my weekly measurements (which will be taken tomorrow) a little off. I think it's safe to say I'm still stalled, so I will be changing my diet around a bit tomorrow. Nothing drastic, just some changes to my non-workout day diet--a few less carbs, a little more fat.

Now that the new JSF hardware and software has been installed and are pretty much tweaked and "dialed in", I'm going to start looking at adding some additional new features and further enhancements. Expect to see some new stuff start appearing by the end of next week. Stay tuned!

 

May 23, 2008

Well, yesterday turned out to be a really fun and exciting day, but not so great from a fitness standpoint. Turns out Lisa's new car was ready a day early, so we picked it up from the dealership and then drove around, oohing and ahhing over all the insanely cool new technology and toys. We were having so much fun that I missed my leg workout. Not only that, Lisa and I decided to go to our favorite Mexican food restaurant to celebrate our 14 year wedding anniversary.

It's funny because I remember last year feeling really guilty about breaking my diet for some Mexican food. You know what? I still reached my goal of 6% body fat, and the world did not stop turning. I learned a valuable lesson last year, and I'm glad that the lesson has stuck with me. I don't feel one bit of guilt over what happened yesterday. Yeah, I know my aim was to go through this entire cut without any cheat meals. While that's not the way it worked out, I've still been remarkably consistent: over the past two months I've had exactly two meals that were deviations from my planned diet. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

What I do have is BLOAT! Man, I am a water balloon this morning--5 pounds of water weight gain overnight! My body is just not used to all that salt.

Well, I hope this update has not demotivated anyone. I wish I could sit here and truthfully say that I'm always 100% consistent and glorious beacon of golden light, but that would be a load of crap. Besides, I don't have to be perfect to reach my goals. I'm just a guy who used to be really fat and really out of shape, and now I'm not. I did it with hard work and consistency, but perfection was never part of the equation.

 

May 22, 2008

Even though I woke up feeling very groggy and "out of it" yesterday morning, I had an extraordinary amount of energy once I finally shook off the cobwebs. I still have no idea why I woke up in such a daze; normally I jump out of bed and am pretty alert within minutes. Yesterday morning I felt as if I'd been drugged or something. This morning? I woke up feeling alert and well-rested, as I usually do.

Lisa and I would like to thank everyone for all their kind posts, emails and PMs congratulating us on our fourteen year wedding anniversary! Lisa is absolutely thrilled with her gift, and we'll be picking it up from the dealership first thing tomorrow morning! I'm really happy for her. I'll post some pictures after I get it detailed (I'm never satisfied with the job that the dealers do).

All this shopping for new cars has, unfortunately, re-whet my appetite for the Viper SRT10 coupe. One day I will own that car, but right now I simply can't afford it. Every time I look at a picture of it or see one I ache inside. One day...

I thought about having a cheat meal last night for our anniversary, but decided not to. I reserve the right to delay the anniversary cheat meal until this weekend. Perhaps while Lisa and I are out this weekend stretching the legs on her new car we'll stop off for a nice lunch somewhere. :)

OK, I've got to get to work now--lots to do today. Have a great day!

 

May 21, 2008

I hate it when I wake up feeling groggy. I have no idea why, but this morning I woke up and felt like I was still in a dream. I stumbled through my normal routine this morning: I put one of my contacts in backwards, set off the house alarm when I let the dogs out (I've never done that before), forgot how to spell our passcode when the alarm monitoring service called, tripped over my own feet and almost spilled an entire cup of coffee on the carpet and now my fingers feel like they have lead in them and I can't type worth a crap!

It looks like some changes to my diet are inevitable this weekend. I think I'm going to up my fats and reduce my carbs. I have a feeling the revised diet will only be in place for a couple of weeks, and then I'm going to have to go to a strict carb cycling diet to get down to 6% body fat. It will be interesting to see how the next 4-6 weeks play out...

The accolades for JSF's oldest sponsor keep piling up! Check out the press release from AtLarge immediately below today's update!

 

AtLarge Nutrition Press Release!

From the beginning, AtLarge Nutrition, LLC has been solely focused on offering the highest quality products that truly work as claimed. Despite the fact we are a small fish in a very large supplement sea, our hard work and commitment to quality has been recognized by some the biggest names in the industry. Men's Health Magazine recently named our protein product Nitrean as the #1 protein supplement on the market. Strength training legend Louie Simmons personally uses and endorses our products.

The opinions of the top publication in the business and a true strength sports legend speak volumes about our company, but the most recent endorsement we have received from Dr. Jeff Volek is probably our most significant recommendation ever! To fully understand the gravity of Dr. Volek's endorsement, below is a brief bio (taken from this website):

Dr. Jeff Volek is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and holds an adjunct appointment in the Nutritional Sciences [at The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.]. Dr. Volek is also a registered dietitian (R.D.) and has conducted several prospective research studies investigating a variety of dietary and exercise interventions. Dr. Volek is a leading authority and researcher in the area of dietary composition and effects on diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He has authored/co-authored over 100 scientific manuscripts as well as several book chapters, conference proceedings, technical reports and editorials. He is co-founder of the Nutrition and Metabolism Society and an Associated Editor of its newly founded open access journal Nutrition & Metabolism. He is also on the Editorial Board of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise and the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and routinely serves as an ad hoc reviewer for over a dozen scientific journals. His pioneering work with carbohydrate-restricted diets has been a major thrust for the movement to redefine nutritional recommendation to enhance clinical outcomes. Dr. Volek is routinely invited to present his research findings at the national and international level to professional organizations and to industry. Currently his research is focused on studying novel roles for different dietary supplements and the physiological adaptations to different dietary and exercise regimens with an emphasis on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, weight loss/body composition, and metabolic/endocrine adaptations. His laboratory in the Kinesiology Department has the capabilities of doing state-of-the-art assessments for body composition and biochemical and functional measures related to risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Bottom line, Dr. Volek is one of the leading minds in sports nutrition. Here is what he has to say about AtLarge Nutrition's products:

"AtLarge Nutrition is a first class operation offering an assortment of superior quality supplements for the physically active individual who takes their health seriously. There is careful attention to formulation of products that are proven safe and efficacious. Their two thermogenic supplements, Nitor and Thermocin, exemplify their dedication to raising the bar of excellence in the supplement industry. These 'fat burners' contain a blend of scientifically validated ingredients to aid in natural enhancement of energy levels and fat loss. Keep up the good work!"

    - Jeff S. Volek, PhD, RD: Exercise and nutrition researcher at the University of Connecticut and former competitive powerlifter

The biggest, best, and most respected in the industry ALL recommend AtLarge Nutrition. Check us out and find out why!

 

May 20, 2008

I've not felt as hungry this week as I normally do while cutting. I think my body has adapted to my current caloric level, and that's why my fat loss has stalled. I'm going to continue as-is until Sunday, but if there has been no fat loss again this week I'll be cutting some calories for sure. Also, I may increase my cardio. I'm still amazed that I've been able to cut from 199.8 pounds/12% body fat down to 184 pounds/8% body fat without altering my initial cutting diet or training.

Looking at the above numbers, I've lost 6.6 pounds of lean mass since starting my cut. My starting weight of 199.8 was right after my vacation. I ate a lot of junk while on vacation, so it was a very bloated 199.8 pounds. I think at least 4 or 5 pounds of the lean mass I've lost over the past two months was just water. So I may have lost a couple pounds of muscle, and as I get down to 6% I'll certainly lose a little more. I have to admit, I feel pretty small right now! I don't have the desire to be huge, but I admit that I am looking forward to bulking again next fall and putting some muscle back on.

Tomorrow Lisa and I will be celebrating our 14 year wedding anniversary! We've actually been together for 19 years this December, but we were married on May 21, 1994. Today she's getting her anniversary gift, which is a new car. After putting up with me for almost 20 years, she really deserves her own island, but I'm hoping the car will appease her for the time being. :)

 

May 19, 2008

Man, I am running WAY behind this morning. I got up at my usual time of 6:00 AM, but all my usual morning tasks took 2 or 3 times longer than normal to complete, and I also had a few unexpected issues to deal with. I hope my Monday morning thus far is not a harbinger for the week to come!

So, I'm sorry for the short update. It's already almost 9:00 AM, and I've got to get this uploaded to the server right now or I'll miss my self-imposed deadline for the first time ever. After almost 2,000 days without ever missing an update or posting an update late, I don't want to mess it up now! I know it's silly, but I'm kind of proud of that unbroken streak.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great Monday!

 

May 18, 2008

Just a quick note before I get to the meat of today's update: It looks like Hotmail.com/Live.com has finally decided that mail from the JSF servers is worthy of being delivered to their users. So, if you have an account with one of those services (you have my sympathies), then you should be receiving mail from JSF once again. Keep in mind that most of the time emails from this site will still be placed in your spam folder, so be sure to whitelist support at johnstonefitness dot com if you want to avoid that.

OK, it's Sunday and time for my weekly measurements...

My scale weight over the past week is nearly identical to last week: 184.4 pounds this morning, 184 pounds last Sunday. I believe this is the first time on this year's cut that my scale weight did not go down. Let's look at the rest of the data, and then I'll make some choices.

My body fat measurement this morning is 8.0% (as measured by the Fat Track PRO Digital Body Fat Calipers). That is identical to last week's body fat reading. Hey, at least that is some verification that our caliper skills are fairly consistent!

Moving on to my soft tape measurements, the only change this week is that my waist size is down to 30.5 inches (as measured by the MyoTape). Last week my waist measurement was between 30.75 inches and 30.5 inches, so that's a little improvement.

It's interesting to note that last summer my waist size was 30.25 inches (my all time low) at 6% body fat. I'm just a quarter inch from that mark now, but still at 8% body fat. Further, my "trouble spot" (just below my belly button, and where I take my "waist" measurement) seems less obvious than it normally is at 8%. While I'm very happy about that, the downside is that I've got some additional loose skin in that area that I've not had before. I'm almost 40 years old now, and like it or not my skin is not as elastic as it once was. That's just age. Yes, I'm well aware that there are some people who say there's no such thing as "loose skin". Well, I say those people are wrong!

Now, even though loose skin and reduced skin elasticity are very much real problems as we age (especially for those of us who have lost a significant amount of fat), I do think there are some things that can be done to help reduce the appearance of loose skin. The most obvious is to fill that skin up with muscle. Yesterday on the forum I answered a question about my ab routine ("I haven't directly worked my abs in a long time"). While I feel the abs get a very good workout while doing just about every other kind of lift (particularly big compounds), I think it may benefit me to start doing direct, heavy ab work again--especially when I'm bulking. Increasing the size of my abs is probably my only hope of tightening the loose skin in that area.

OK, so this week it seems I've hit a little plateau. This is actually my first stall since I started this year's cut, and that's pretty good. I'm far more concerned about muscle loss than losing fat quickly, so I'm going to wait it out another week before making any changes. If I don't drop some fat this week, I'll make some adjustments. I'm in no rush, and I'd rather err on the side of caution.

 

May 17, 2008

Unfortunately Hotmail, with their draconian, overly-aggressive "spam" filtering practices, is still unfairly dropping all emails from the JSF servers. They are not refusing our emails, they are silently dropping the emails only after their servers have accepted them for delivery. Not only has there never been so much as a single word of spam sent through the JSF mail servers, we are in full compliance with all of Hotmail's "requirements". While I resent the extra workload, I'm working as hard as I can to resolve this issue. For more information, please see this post. If you want to register for this forum, you'll need to do it with any email account in the world other than Hotmail until this is resolved.

My weight is a bit higher today that it was last Saturday. I'm still holding some water from my little dietary indulgence on Wednesday night. I think the excess water will be gone by tomorrow, so hopefully my weekly measurements won't be skewed. My body didn't really care for that cheat meal. I slept very poorly that night and was groggy and "off" all day on Thursday. That little deviation was a fantastic reminder of why I choose to eat healthy and clean.

I've got some housecleaning to do, and then I'll probably spend the rest of the day squashing a few little bugs/annoyances I've noticed since deploying the new hardware and software. Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day!

 

May 16, 2008

A few bugs in the new forum software/server configuration have been unearthed over the last 36 hours, but nothing too major.

Probably the most serious issue is that hotmail and yahoo seemed to be silently dropping emails from the new server. The frustrating thing is that their mail servers were accepting the mail, and then just dropping them. I think I figured out what the problem was and have corrected it (the SMTP server is multi-homed and was sending emails from one an IP addresses that didn't match the name of the server). I've re-sent all registration emails that are still pending and they should get through now.

Another issue a few users have been having is that they are getting a "You must wait 10 seconds between searches" error even though it has been much longer than that since their last search. This is mainly happening when the "New Posts" or "Today's Posts" quicklinks are used. It seems this is only happening to a very few users (I personally can't duplicate the problem), but I've opened a support ticket and hope to have a resolution quickly.

Considering the massive scope of the recent upgrades, this is a pretty short punchlist. I'm very happy about that.

I should have an exciting new forum feature or two ready to roll out sometime this week, so keep your eyes open for those announcements.

OK, I'm running very behind this morning and I've got a lot of work to do today. Thanks again for all the great feedback on the recent upgrades!

 

May 15, 2008

As most of you know, yesterday was the day for JSF and the JSF forums to transition over to the new software and hardware. With the exception of my diet (more on that in a bit), everything went 100% according to plan! Considering the scope and complexity of the project, I'm very surprised (pleasantly so, mind) by how perfectly smooth the transition played out. Initial feedback on the new forum software and the greatly increased speed has been overwhelmingly positive. I put a lot of effort into this project, and seeing how happy everyone is with the changes made it all worthwhile. Thank you!

Remember, for details, comments and questions on the new software (and links to documentation on all the great new features), please check this thread. For details, comments and questions on the new hardware, go to this thread.

There are so many new features on the forum that it all may seem a little overwhelming at first. There are literally hundreds of new features and enhancements, but the major new features are blogs, photo albums with user comment system, enhanced member profiles with user comment system, social groups and friends lists. How you learn about these new features is up to you. Most of the features are pretty self-explanatory and can be learned just by playing around. The best place to start is to log into your User Control Panel (if you don't have a forum account then create one--it's fast and free). Once you are in your Control Panel, start exploring the options on the left-hand side of your screen. As you'll see, there are lots of ways to customize your JSF experience to best match your preferences and goals. Have fun, explore and don't be afraid to try something out!

OK, so about my diet... Yeah, I had my first cheat meal in almost two months last night. As least it wasn't a spur of the moment cave-in; I decided early in the day that if the transition and re-launch of the new JSF went well, I would reward myself with a nice cheat meal and a drink. I don't regret it, and I'm glad I did it. I'm pretty dedicated, but a few people seem shocked when they learn I'm not in the perfection business. Sorry to disappoint you. Anyway, the meal was a nice reward, but today forward it's back to my regular diet!

The June "100 Challenge" is open for entry! Details are below...

Registration for the June 2008 "100 Challenge" is now underway! Your Official Challenge post must be made by 7:00 AM (EDT) on June 1, 2008 if you plan to participate--NO EXCEPTIONS! To participate, you must be a member of the forum. If you are not a member, simply create a free account. It can take up to 24 hours for your account to be activated, so don't wait until the last minute to register! For all the details, official rules and sample entry data, just head over to the June 2008 "100 Challenge" thread on the forum. If you are ready to work hard and want to challenge yourself in a fun and competitive environment, then please take part!

 

May 14, 2008

I'm writing this very early Wednesday morning because today is the big day for the major JSF hardware/software upgrades!

If you are reading this (and I've not added additional information below this paragraph), then that means I've not yet shut down the old server, or am still working on getting the new server fully deployed. I've got quite a bit of work to do before all the changes are complete, and there will be periods of time today when the entire main site and the forums will not be accessible. I promise to work as quickly as I can! I'll update this page when the transition is complete. Hang tight!

UPDATE: The new hardware is in place, and everything is now being served from the new web server! The transition has gone very well so far. I still have some work to do before I can open the forum, but we're getting close! Check back soon...

UPDATE #2: All the hardware and software upgrades have been completed successfully! Please read this thread for more details on all the new features. Have fun!

 

May 13, 2008

As of this morning I'm far enough along in the new server/new software project to project a date for deployment. If things go really well today, then it could happen as early as tomorrow. I'm not going to rush it, though, so if I feel I need a little more time to polish and test, then I'll take it. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, then I'd say there's a 95% chance it's going to happen on Thursday. Keep in mind that there will be significant downtime while everything is changed over. I plan to start the process very early (like 5:00 AM), so hopefully by mid-day on the day of deployment we'll be back up and running on the new hardware and new software.

Yesterday a forum member commented that some of my daily updates recently have been just a tad on the technical side, and I may have inadvertently scared some people about the upcoming changes. I'm very sorry about that, and I'm probably guilty as charged! Please read my response here, and always feel free to voice any comments and/or concerns about the upgrades in the new hardware/software discussion thread.

I promise, these changes are going to benefit this community a great deal, and the learning curve for the new forum features is not at all steep--everything is very intuitive and easy learn. Most of you will pick up everything without even needing to read the documentation (documentation will, of course, be made available). Further, the new hardware will provide a much faster and more enjoyable experience, and will allow for a considerable growth and increased reliability/uptime.

I'm going to get cracking on finishing this project up--wish me luck! )

 

May 12, 2008

I had a very busy weekend, but I still managed to accomplish a tremendous amount of work on the new JSF server project. If you missed my daily updates this weekend and are interested in reading more about the new servers (including some additional new features, benchmark comparisons between the old and new servers and other miscellaneous bits of information), here's Saturday's update and Sunday's update.

Yesterday I quickly mentioned that I purchased an additional add-on product that integrates seamlessly with the forum: blogs! This morning I'd like to talk a little bit about this new feature, and what it means to the forum members.

The new blog feature is a full-featured blogging add-on that will enable JSF community members to create their very own online blogs within the forum. The most popular section of the forum is the Fitness Journal section, so I'm certain that providing a seamless method for those users to create their own JSF fitness blogs will be a very popular option. Of course your blog is yours to do what you want with, so you can make it about anything you want. Here are just a few of the features you can expect:

Sound cool? I think so!

As I mentioned at the top of this update, I accomplished a lot of work this weekend. In fact, the lion's share of the work is done! Honestly, I'm surprised at how quickly I've managed to put this together. About all I have left to do is get the SSL virtual hosts working (I use SSL for administrative purposes), get netfilter/iptables configured, do a security audit and lock everything down tight, tweak a few support programs and optimize Apache/PHP/MySQL. Once I accomplish those tasks, we're going to be about ready to roll out the goodies. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I'd say it's going to happen by next weekend at the latest. There will be significant downtime involved--probably a half day or more. I'll keep you all posted...

 

May 11, 2008

I've got lots to go over this morning, so let's get the ball rolling!

First of all, it's Sunday and time for my weekly measurements. My scale weight over the past week (using last Sunday's weight as a base) has dropped 3.2 pounds, moving from 187.2 pounds down to 184 pounds. Wow, that's a bit too much weight loss for just one week, especially because I'm at a fairly low body fat percentage. My weight loss should be slowing right now, not increasing. I suspect I've lost some lean mass. Let's see...

My body fat measurement this morning is 8.0% (as measured by the Fat Track PRO Digital Body Fat Calipers), down from last week's measurement of 8.8%. That means I lost 1.75 pounds of fat over the past week--a perfectly normal amount--but I also lost 1.44 pounds of lean mass. Was that lean mass loss water, muscle or both? I suspect a little of each. When cutting down below 8% some amount of muscle loss is unavoidable, but I do what I can to keep it to a minimum.

Now let's check out the tape measurements and see if I lost any muscle size...

Over the past week I lost a quarter of an inch from my waist (actually a little more than that, but not quite a half inch) and a quarter of an inch from my hips (as measured by the MyoTape). All other measurements did not change.

So if I lost a little muscle it's not really showing in the form of reduced muscle size. You'd think at this point in my cut I'd need to reduce my calories, but clearly I do not. In fact, I'm going to continue eating eye of round steak since it doesn't seem to be hurting my progress.

Moving on to the subject of the new JSF servers and the new Forum software, I've got several items to discuss. First of all, if you are interested I posted some benchmarks for the new web server, and then a couple of posts later I performed the same tests on the existing web server. You can check out the detailed benchmark results starting here, but the bottom line is the new web server is literally around 100 times more powerful than the existing server when it comes to serving up web pages. The new server was easily able to handle serving up 100,000 web pages at a rate of 1,000 simultaneous requests--all in around 25 seconds! The existing server? It crashed before even 10% of the test could be completed.

I've got a choice to make with regards to the new forum software: upgrade before the new servers are in place, or put the new servers in place and then upgrade the software. Right now I'm leaning very heavily towards performing the forum upgrade before deploying the new hardware, so there may be some downtime in the near future while I do this.

Also, in addition to all the great new forum features that the new software will bring, I've decided to purchase an additional add-on product: vBulletin blogs! This cool product will allow JSF members to create their own blogs right here on JSF. There are so many cool features and ways to customize your blog that I think you all are going to be blown away. I'm out of time right now, but I'll talk in more detail about this cool new product in the coming days.

Between the new hardware and all the awesome new upcoming features, this is by far the most significant set of changes in the entire 5-year history of JSF. This is an exciting time, and I think these changes are going to take our community to a whole next level. I want to thank everyone for their continued support, without which none of this would be possible!

 

May 10, 2008

One of the new servers was delivered yesterday (the other server was somehow delayed by FedEx). I don't mind that one of the servers was delayed, as I have plenty to work on. Even though the two servers will have specific functions (namely one will be a database server and the other will be a web server), I am configuring each server to be able to run everything independently if the need ever arises.

Actually that subject dovetails into an interesting observation. I ran some apache/mysql stress tests on the new server last night--tests that bring the current servers to their knees--and the load average never went past .05. That's pretty astonishing, and I'm now questioning the need for two servers. What I may do is initially deploy just one server and see how it holds up. Maybe I'll keep the second server here at home as a backup. The spare server could be quickly deployed when we grow beyond the capacity of the single server (or if the live server were to suffer a hardware failure). I like the idea of having power in reserve and not wasting resources.

Anyway, I'll continue to mull that over. In the meantime I posted some geek porn yesterday and, a little further down, talked a bit about what I was able to accomplish yesterday afternoon and evening.

Forbes recently interviewed me for an article they were doing on home gyms. The author spent about 30 minutes on the phone with me, and I think she did a good job with the article. You can check it out online here.

 

May 9, 2008

I'm very excited this morning because the two new JSF servers are on the FedEx truck and out for delivery! I got up extra early to get a jump on my regular workload, so hopefully I'll be able to knock off from work by mid-afternoon and get started working on the big project. I'm redoing everything from the O/S up, so I've got a tremendous amount of software to install, configure and test before I can deploy. I know you all are as excited as I am about the new hardware and forum software, and I promise that I'll do my best to get the work done as quickly as possible.

I've decided to put the JSF Amazon Mall on its own separate server (I'll be using one of the existing JSF servers), so JSF will actually soon be running on a total of three servers. The JSF Mall tends to use a fair amount of server resources, so dedicating one of the old servers to power just the JSF Mall just makes good sense. Doing so will make the Mall much faster than it is now, and will allow the two new servers to dedicate 100% of their power towards the most critical sections of JSF. My number one goal is to make JSF and the JSF Forum as fast and responsive as possible, even at peak traffic times and during periods of extraordinarily high amounts of traffic.

I want to talk about JSF's oldest sponsor for a few minutes. AtLarge kicks butt, and they deserve a pat on the back...

I recently received yet another big order from AtLarge Nutrition. I placed my order on a Monday morning, the order shipped in less than an hour, and everything was sitting on my doorstep by Wednesday afternoon. It's not like I'm getting any special treatment here, either: in all the years that AtLarge has been a JSF sponsor, they have been 100% consistent with their customer service and incredibly fast shipping times for all of their customers. I continue to be proud to have my name associated with such a fine company.

I remember when AtLarge first became a sponsor here at JSF all the way back in January 2005 (I can't believe it's already been over 3 years!) During our initial talks, I was very impressed with AtLarge's philosophy towards supplements and customer service. They seemed different from most of the other supplement companies out there, and I really liked that. They offered unique supplements like ETS, which was the very first AtLarge product I tried, and the one that really sold me on their company. Also, AtLarge was creating great tasting, high quality protein blends like Nitrean while most other supplement companies were only offering inferior whey-only products. These days just about every supplement company has jumped on the protein blend bandwagon (with good reason), but Nitrean was one of the first and is still the best. It's the only protein powder I use.

These days AtLarge still has a pretty tight offering of products, but they've continued to expand their line with some really unique, well thought out supplements like Results and Maximus.

So, I'd like to extend my personal thanks to the entire AtLarge team. I, and the rest of the JSF community, appreciate all your hard work. You guys make me proud.

 

May 8, 2008

Yesterday I wrote a bit about the intense cravings I experienced on Tuesday evening, and how I fought off the desire to stray from my planned diet. Yesterday I had absolutely no cravings for junk food. I thought about why my cravings were so strong on Tuesday, and non-existent on Wednesday. The answer seems pretty obvious: Tuesday was a very stressful day for me, and yesterday was not. I think the desire to use food as a source of comfort and as a reward is so ingrained in most of us that it's almost impossible to change. I completely changed my lifestyle over five years ago and I still find that the same old stuff triggers cravings for junk food.

I'd like everyone who participates on the JSF Forum to please take a couple of minutes and review the forum rules. There are a couple of new rules, and also some changes to the existing rules. The most obvious change is the addition of rule #4, but I'd really appreciate it if everyone would read the document in its entirety. Rule #4 is really just an extension of rule #1 (which prohibits rudeness towards another member), but it gets a little more specific about certain types of rudeness that are perhaps less overt than outright flaming.

Moving on to another subject, the new servers will be here tomorrow! After carefully evaluating the most recent releases of several Linux distributions, I've decided that I'll be running the new JSF servers on Debian Linux. Ubuntu LTS Server impressed me on several levels, but ultimately I felt much more comfortable working with Debian. Gentoo, which is the Linux distro that the current JSF servers run, was a distant third. I used to love Gentoo, but compared to the other two distros I evaluated its PMS (portage) is a complete mess.

Have a great day!

 

May 7, 2008

Man, I had one seriously crappy day yesterday. For the most part I'm a very positive person, but yesterday everything was irritating the daylights out of me. I have no idea what brought that on. Actually, I think it was work-related stress, but even that doesn't usually get to me the way it did yesterday. I wound up going to bed pretty early, and then I woke up this morning at 4:30 AM. Thankfully I was able to fall back asleep until 6:00 AM.

So last night around dinner time I was intensely craving Chinese food--specifically General Tso's Chicken. It was all I could think about! I'd have to say that last night was the most severe craving for junk food that I've had since I started my cut back in late March. I came dangerously close to giving in, but I did not. I had to fight one heck of a mental battle, though! I thought about how crappy I'd feel this morning, both physically and mentally. I reminded myself that even though I've made good progress, I still have work to do. I sat down at the computer and read through a few of my daily news updates, specifically the ones in which I committed to reach my goal with no cheats. Doing these things allowed me to put aside my stress and refocus on what I needed to do. It worked.

Of course I fully realize that one cheat meal wouldn't have killed me. That's not the point, though. The point is I enjoy challenging myself in different ways. Cutting down to 6% body fat with no deviation from my planned diet is a definite challenge. "Tests" like last night may seen insignificant to some, but I don't feel that way. Life is full of choices, and most of them are important on one level or another. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to follow through and--no matter what--I never make excuses. I'm not saying I'm always successful at everything I do, but even in failure I guarantee that you won't ever hear me making excuses.

You see, what I'm doing isn't just about fat loss. I'm mentally stronger today than I was yesterday, and that personal growth doesn't exist in some sort of fitness vacuum; it will benefit me in all areas of my life.

 

May 6, 2008

Dell has already shipped out the two machines that will eventually become the new JSF servers! The servers were not scheduled to ship until mid-month, so this news comes as a very pleasant surprise. Of course I ordered the servers with no Operating System/empty hard drives, so I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me before they'll be ready. The only data I'll be restoring is the actual web site content and all the forum data; everything else will be installed and configured from scratch. The new servers should be in my hands by this Friday at the latest. I've got a pretty busy weekend ahead of me, but I'll try to carve out a chunk of time to at least get the project started. At this point it would be premature to attempt to provide an estimated date of completion, but I'll keep everyone posted on my progress in the discussion thread.

The fat continues to melt away: this morning I woke up feeling especially lean, and my scale weight has dropped almost another half pound. I think the choice to cut with no cheat meals was a very wise one. My progress has been outstanding, and I feel great.

Yesterday someone asked about my weight now (at ~8% body fat) vs. my weight last July (at 6% body fat). Specifically, my scale weight is the same now as it was last July, but I'm at a higher body fat percentage. That's muscle loss, plain and simple. I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating for those who may have missed it. I took a pretty good amount of time off from training to move and get settled. My diet was crap during this period of time, and I lost muscle. Cause and effect. I knew going into this cut that I'd lost some muscle. Does it bother me? Maybe a little bit, but I wouldn't change a thing. I needed that time, and the trade off was worth it to me. I feel confident that the muscle I lost will return very quickly when I bulk again in the fall.

 

May 5, 2008

It's time for my weekly tape measurements and body fat reading (a day later than usual).

My scale weight over the past week (using last Monday's weight as a base) has dropped 1.4 pounds, moving from 188.6 pounds down to 187.2 pounds. Looks good so far, but let's break that number down...

My body fat measurement this morning is 8.8% (as measured by the Fat Track PRO Digital Body Fat Calipers). That means I lost 1.6 pounds of fat over the past week, and gained .2 pounds of lean mass. I want to stress once again that lean mass is not the same thing as muscle. Lean mass includes muscle, but it also includes everything else in our bodies except for adipose tissue (fat). There is no way I'm adding muscle right now. 2/10th of a pound is practically nothing, and is easily explained as either a small amount of water retention and/or slight variations with the caliper reading.

Moving on to my soft tape measurements, over the past week I lost another quarter of an inch from my waist, a half inch from my hips and a quarter inch from my thighs. My chest measurement also decreased a quarter of an inch. That's the first drop in my chest measurement since I started cutting, and it is due to fat loss. I had some visible fat in my chest area a month ago, and it's been slowly melting away.

My waist size is down to 31 inches! Six weeks ago it measured 32.5 inches, so that's a pretty significant improvement in just six weeks. Last July when I hit 6% body fat my waist measurement was 30.25 inches, so I don't have too much further to go now! Of course the drop from ~8% body fat to 6% body fat is tough to do, so I've certainly got some work ahead of me.

I'm very surprised that I'm still seeing such good progress using the exact same diet and training that I started with six weeks ago. I thought for sure that I'd need to drop my calories by now. I'm not going to fix something that isn't broken; I'm going to continue once again this week with no changes to my diet and training.

 

May 4, 2008

Today is my usual day for taking my weekly tape and body fat measurements, but Lisa is away on a business trip and won't be back until a little later today. Because I need Lisa's help to take the 7-site body fat caliper readings, I'm going to postpone this week's measurements until tomorrow morning.

I want to thank everyone who is participating in the JSF hardware/software upgrade thread. Over the years JSF members have played a very significant role in the evolution of our online community, and continue to do so to this day. It makes me feel good to see how much people care about the little piece of the Internet we've carved out for ourselves.

Enjoy your day! :)

 

May 3, 2008

If you missed yesterday's update, please be sure to read it; there are some exciting changes coming to JSF and the JSF forums in the very near future! You can discuss the changes and ask any questions you might have in this thread.

Yesterday I finalized the specifications for the new JSF servers and then placed the order. JSF will be run off two identical quad core, dual CPU servers. The first server ("Iron") will be the web server (PHP/Apache) and the second server ("Steel") will be a dedicated MySQL server. Here are the salient details:

- CPU 1: Quad Core Intel Xeon E5420, 2x6MB Cache, 2.5GHz, 1333MHz FSB
- CPU 2: Quad Core Intel Xeon E5420, 2x6MB Cache, 2.5GHz, 1333MHz FSB FSB
- 16GB 667MHz (8x2GB), Dual Ranked DIMMs
- PERC6i SAS RAID Controller, 2x4 Connectors, Int, PCIe, 256MB Cache, x6 Backplane
- 2x146GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drives
- 2U Rackmount case
- Redundant Power Supply with Y-Cord
- 2xIntel PRO 1000PT Dual Port Server Adapter, Gigabit NIC, Cu, PCIe x4

Speed and reliability were obviously my two main concerns here.

SPEED: Dual processors, massive amounts of RAM and 15k RPM SCSI drives will allow JSF and the JSF Forums to perform much, much faster--especially at peak hours. Our overall membership and the number of members and guests online at the same time continues to grow; these servers should provide plenty of overhead for our continued growth.

RELIABILITY: Clearly the data on the hard drives is the lifeblood of this community. Protecting that data is critical. To that end, I selected dual hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration. If you are not familiar with RAID, basically RAID 1 (there are other forms of RAID, but I won't address those here) mirrors the data from one drive to the other in real-time. This provides true data redundancy, and allows for the complete failure of one drive with absolutely no loss of data or impact to the functioning of the server. The drives are also "hot-swappable", which simply means that if a drive happens to fail, I can replace it without needing to shut the machine down or interrupt service.

Additionally, the data will be backed up automatically each night, compressed and transfered off-site (to my home network). This compressed backup is then automatically backed up again to another storage device on my home network. That means that there are 4 backups of each machine in existence at any given time, none older than 24 hours. I archive the most recent 4 months worth of backups, so there are always multiple generations.

I've also ordered redundant power supplies with "Y" cords. Power supplies will eventually fail, and when they do the server goes down hard. Redundant power supplies prevent that from occurring and will help insure continuous uptime.

Finally, I've ordered redundant dual-port Gigabit network cards.

While I'm very excited about the new hardware, the most visible changes will be the new forum software. There are some really cool new features that I think you all are going to enjoy a great deal. These new features will allow you to create your own custom space, complete with blogs, stats, photos and user comments--and that's just scratching the surface of what you can expect to see in the near future!

Moving on to another subject... Lisa has been out of town half the week on business. She might be back tonight, but there's a good chance today's meetings will end late and she won't make the long drive back home until tomorrow morning. If she doesn't get back tonight I'll have to postpone my weekly stats until Monday (I need her help to perform the 7-point body fat test).

OK, that's about it for this morning. Enjoy your Saturday!

 

May 2, 2008

A major new version of vBulletin (the software that is used for the JSF forums) has just been released. There are some really cool new features in this new version that I think you all are going to enjoy a great deal. Just to name a few of the new features:

Don't worry if you don't know what some of that stuff means; there will be resources posted to learn about the new features, and the forum will continue to work pretty much as it always has for those of you who curl up into a tight ball and break a cold sweat at the thought of change.

While I could upgrade the forum software as it sits right now, there are some recommended support software packages that also need to be upgraded for optimal performance. All these upgrades are non-trivial, and I'm not comfortable performing them on the live servers: the chances of something breaking are pretty good.

So, all of this leads to taking the next logical step, and that is replacing the aging hardware that runs JSF and the JSF forums, and also the underlying Operating Systems. I've been giving it some thought, and I've decided to scrap everything and give JSF a complete hardware, O/S and software overhaul. This is going to be a huge project, it's going to be expensive and it's going to take some time.

The first step is I need to purchase two brand new servers. I am still working out the hardware details, but these new servers will be many, many times more powerful than the current servers, they will each have several times the amount (and speed) of RAM installed in the current servers, the new servers will all utilize hot-swappable drives in a RAID 1 configuration for true redundancy and enhanced reliability, storage space will be increased considerably and there will also be redundant power supplies and redundant network cards.

For the O/S I'll be using Linux, of course: either Ubuntu LTS Server Edition or Gentoo. I'm leaning towards Ubuntu.

Most of this work will be happening in the background, and will not cause any downtime. First I'll need to get the servers ordered. Once the servers arrive I'll work on them in my spare time here at the house. After I install the O/S & and all the support software, I'll need to get everything configured and tested. After that I'll shut down the live forums, import the existing data into the new system, run some tests and then launch the new JSF! The day of the launch should be the only day with any real downtime.

This new system will provide a much faster and more enjoyable experience for everyone, and it will greatly increases our ability to handle large amounts of traffic.

I want to thank everyone who has supported this site financially; these major upgrades would simply not be possible without you!

If you would like to contribute, now would be a great time to do so. Details on upgrading your membership can be found here.

I'm going to post this update in the technical forum. The thread can be found here. I welcome suggestions and comments from my fellow techies with regards to hardware and software.

 

May 1, 2008

My monthly progress photos are up, and I'm pretty pleased with the improvements I've made over the past few weeks. My "X" shape is starting to return, and I've lost a significant amount of fat from my entire body. There is clearly less fat on my legs as compared to last month: space is visible between my thighs (last month my thighs were touching) and my quads are starting to show a bit of separation. My face looks leaner. My mid-section is noticeably smaller and tighter, particularly around my lower waist. Unfortunately it looks like I was caught mid-breath when the camera snapped the photo; if my posing had been better my abs would look a little more defined. I probably should have taken another picture, but I was pressed for time and didn't bother.

From this point forward almost all the fat I lose will come from my mid-section. Like most men, my mid-section is the very first place fat is stored on my body, and the very last place it comes off. Next month's photos should show a fairly dramatic improvement in my mid-section/abdominal definition.

I'd better get some food in me and get to work. Have a great day!

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