Week 1

I was very satisfied with how this week went in terms of my goals. The intensity was not as high as I would of liked, but for a warmup week, I could not have asked for a better start. In the future I will have to step up the intensity a lot if I want to step anywhere near my goals.

Nutrition

Surprisingly, this was the easiest part for me. I allowed myself one cheat night on Saturday, since I was with friends for the night and have a couple of beers and a burger. Other than that, everything was spot on and if I can keep this up for 10 weeks, I am confident in the results that I will see. In terms of actual food logs, I wasn't as consistent in logging as I need to be, but here is a glimpse into what I did record:

Tuesday

8am : ¾ cup oatmeal w/ ¼ cup of raisins and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

½ banana

11am: Myoplex Ready to drink protein shake (post workout)

230am: Medium to large Salmon piece w/ vegetables.

445: Myoplex ready to drink protein

7 – Plain grilled chicken breast terryaki w brown rice and small salad

Wednesday

8am: Cereal w milk and 160 calorie muscle milk light protein shake

11:15 : Double scoop protein shake

12:30 : Salmon and veggies

3 pm : Qwest protein bar

6pm : Chicken and brown rice

Sunday

10am : 4 egg whites w/ Spinach, turkey, feta w whole wheat pita and Apple Sauce

2:30pm : Hard Boiled egg and greek yogurt

4:15pm : ½ turkey sandwich with banana

7pm : Qwest Bar

830 pm: Protein Shake (pre workout)

11:30 pm : Chicken breast and cottage cheese (post workout)

The diet remained very clean through the week, I just need to make sure I do a better job recording everything this week.

IMPROVEMENTS – 1. As stated above, better food logs. 2. Although its been clean, I need ot cut down meal sizes at night. 3. Does anyone know a good Iphone app for logging food?

Workouts

I had a good frequency with my workouts this week. The intensity was lower than I wanted, but for a warmup week it was easily enough work. I got measurements on Tuesday with my trainer. I left the sheet at home right now (blogging at coffee shop) but I do remember I weighed in at 215.5. I will get the rest of the measurements next week. I like the 3 on 1 off routine I have going alternating between upper body, core and cardio and lower body.

Tuesday : Upperbody

Wednesday: Core and cardio

Flat lying bicycle crunches 2x1min 8/10

10lb medicine ball oblique Vturns + Ball Toss. 3X15 6/9/9 out of 10

Incline Crunches – 1x12 no weight (highest incline) 1x12 3 notches down. 1X12 all the way down.

(Def struggled on these and not what I used to be able to do)

90 second Plank circuit – 30 sec front, 30 sec side, 30 sec side in a row. X3 7/8/9.5 Last set I added an additional 30 sec front at end of circuit. Felt good.

Hoisin AB Crunch machine – 1x10x70lb 7/10 , 1x50x15 8/10, 1x55x15 8/10

½ mile run 4 minutes 33 seconds. 7 mph for .2 miles, 6.5 mph for .2 miles. Then 7.5 mph for .1 miles. 8/10

Realize its going to get long writing down each exercise, so I wont put you guys through that right now. Let me know in the comments if you guys do want that though. Thursday was Leg day which is the hardest workout by far. This was my laziest workout of the week cause I was distracted by the NCAA tournament the whole time so hoping to get a much better leg workout in today. Friday was my off day followed by upper body on saturday and core on sunday.

WHAT I NEED TO IMPROVE – I need to plan ahead my movements in the gym better so I am not wasting time figuring out what to do next. I also need to step up the intensity more this week. Starting it off with legs today will set a good standard :D. Worked out with a friend last night also and found it easier to have a higher intensity. Just having someone next to you pushes you not to quit early and work harder then them, hopefully the felt the same and had a high intensity workout as well.

POKERFinally, the part that most of you probably read this blog for. Not very happy with how many hours I put in this week. The NCAA tournament cut into my time a ton on Thursday and Friday Saturday. This week I shouldn't have that as much of a distraction with fewer games on. Plan on playing every day except Saturday since we have our Fantasy Baseball Draft (live Auction!).

Stats for this week – 28 hours +$1570. Ended up right about the hourly rate I am looking for in the games I am playing. Was hoping for a lot more rake back this month from the promotion that Tulalip is running. They have 12 drawings every Wednesday and Sunday for $750 each. There are various ways to earn tickets such as playing in the nightly tournaments, or playing certain cash games or making a full house. I should have been drawn once or twice by now, but am empty so far. Wednesday is the last day I can make it for drawings so hopefully variance levels out.

Hand Of the Week

I loved this hand so much. Love every bit of my thinking through, but also considering the opponet. Ill try my best to do a Hand of the Week every blog, but this blog is already getting very long. Let me know what you guys want to see in the comments!

Hand: QT o 3/5 nl.

Preflop – Weak player posts dead BB and SB in middle position. He checks and I raise to $25 in the cutoff. Button calls who is playing about $1500 and is a winning player in the game. The button sometimes plays in the bigger games. I think he is a winning player and can hand read some but he is a amateur player afaik. Both blinds call and wee see a 4 way flop. I am playing about $500 effective and have been very quiet at a table where people a drinking a stacks are deep.

Flop Q75 r

Both blinds check to me and I decide to check since I will most likely only get 1 street of value on this board and want to control the size of the pot. Also the button player is the type who I might be able to induce bluffs from. I check and the button bets $60. Folds back to me I call. I still consider his range wide and feel I am comfortably ahead of it.

Turn 4.

I check. Button Bets $60. When he chooses the same bet sizing on the turn as the flop I am not liking the situation as much. I take out the nutted part of his range with this sizzing (QQ, 77,55,86). I also take his stone air bluffs out of his range (such as 98). I feel he has showdown value that he wants to ekk out another bet. I call though planning to evaluate the river and the price I am getting on the turn. Since I have the top of my range I feel folding it not a good option yet.

River A

I check. This river is one that I feel if he was bluffing he would continue. I also feel that the only hands that improve in the villains range is AQ and A7 and possible Ax he was barreling on flop and turn. Villain bets $110 into a pot of $340. I have $375. The key part to this river is I respect the villains game enough to value bet thin. I believe this player would bet KQ and AT hands on this river as my hand looks exactly like a weak queen or JJ. I feel that his turn and river sizing indicate exactly that he is going for thin value in my eyes. I feel calling here is not a option at all as I beat 0 value hands. I do feel though that I can turn my hand into a bluff profitably and fold out almost all of his value range other than sets and straights. I might even get him to fold a hand as strong as 57. I believe the villain will fold all of his 1 pair hands as I am trying to rep 2pair plus hands here. IMO no one in the 3/5 player pool EVER turns a made hand into a bluff on the river. He expects to see almost always NUTTED hands because that is what EVERY OTHER player has in the 3/5 player pool here. Obviously I am acting on a lot of assumptions here and I don't try this move against many players, but I felt everything added up here.

I shove $375 villain folds KQ

Just felt this was a cool hand since the situation comes up so rarely at these stakes and stack depths.

What I need to improve on – 1.) Hours 2) Work on my game more and review my play

Weather is starting to look up here in Seattle. Currently writing at a coffee shop on the beach and the weather is awesome. This Saturday is our Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft in the league I play in every year. Looking forward to kicking all their asses and have been doing some research to get ready. Ill post the results in the next blog. Other than that though it will be the usual grind this week of Poker and working out. Looking forward to a better week this week and just keep improving.

Ill leave you guys with 2 things. First is one of the coolest golf shots you will see from Bay Hill yesterday. Ill also leave you with an updated picture of my bracket. It looks messy, but I still have a decent chance to make money in 2 of the pools since my final 4 is intact. LETS GO FLORIDA and Louisville!

The Grind

I am back in Seattle for 10-11 weeks (minus a possible 4-5 day trip to Florida for WPT) and it is time to get back onto the grind. What is the grind? For me it is playing lots of hours of poker and spending lots of hours in the gym, while maintain a healthy diet. These three things will be my primary focus over the next 10 weeks until I head off to Vegas for the WSOP. I wil be blogging here at least once per week with updates in my progress. Look for updates on my diet and exercise (food and workout logs) as well as updates on poker progress.

Why?

I find that while I am traveling I have a hard time getting on a schedule and getting in consistent workouts and hours at the table. While I am at home for a significant amount of time I just feel more productive when I set up a program like this. I feel that blogging about it will also help me stick to the workouts and diet to achieve my goals.

Nutrition

My diet while at home is going to be pretty basic. I will focus on high protein intake. I will only be intaking “quality” carbs such as brown rice, oats, and other whole grains. I will also be focusing on low fat foods and low calorie intake. Here are some of my available menu items

Breakfast – Egg Whites, oatmeal, protein shake, protein bar, hard boiled eggs, smoothies, greek yogurt.

Lunch / Dinner – Chicken , fish , Brown rice, veggies, turkey,

Snacks – Protein shakes / bars, greek yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese

This is not everything that I will be eating, but as you can see it is just a very clean diet. Clean, lean proteins with clean carbs. Following some basic dieting rules like limiting carbs I intake later in the day. As far as supplementation goes, I plan on taking a daily multi vitamin, fish oil, and a fat burner.

Fitness

My goal is to work out 6 days a week using a 3 days on 1 day off. My rotation of workouts, at least at the beginning, will be Upper body , core and cardio, and lower body. I will be doing sets of 12-15 reps to help work some cardio into my lifting. I also plan on doing lots of plyometric exercises that will get my heart rate up while lifting. Movements such as up downs, box jumps, kettle bells etc will all incorporate cardio into my workouts. I also want to do 10-20 minutes of additional cardio at the end of every workout.

Poker

Hours, Hours, Hours. Basically the only way to describe this part of the grind. Im looking to put in 50ish hours per week at the tables. I plan on putting in more time working on my game. Towards the latter end I will put a lot of time into my tournament game to get ready for the WSOP. Will be playing my normal small-mid stakes live games 3/5nl, 2-2 and 2-5 PLO.

Goals

To be completely honest I really don’t have any hard number goals for this grind. My main goal is to follow thru everything until the end. In my workout and diet logs I want to rate each day and try to improve on my ratings throughout. In terms of fitness and nutrition, as long as I follow through on my diet and work hard in the gym my measurements will take care of themselves. I want to make small weekly goals that will help achieve everything. For example this week I was trying not to hit the snooze button.

Hopefully you guys will enjoy following my process throughout this. Feel free to comment on here with any help or suggestions on the diet and exercise.

Today I will leave you with a picture of my bracket for the NCAA Tournament. Really like this bracket and did a fair amount of research. I am really high on VCU and Florida.