Written by Jacob Cassidy

Operation Herculean Update – Week 2

Topic: Life Updates, Operation Herculean

Discuss: 4 Comments

Another week, another quarter inch of fat gone from my waist while my weight and muscles maintained their own. This has been an eventful week full of joy, love, and passion.

I’m currently in Las Vegas until the end of the month and don’t have access to the same scale and picture setup I’m using to document my transformation (each scale is slightly different), so I’m not going to be recording official measurements and pictures during the two Sundays I’m here.

Instead, I’m going to record what I’m doing during my working vacation to improve my fitness and build my physical foundation to prepare my body for the intense weight training and muscle building in the month to come.

This week started with me missing my weight training session on Monday while I ran around getting everything ready for my trip. Then 15 hours of sleepy traveling on Tuesday to reach my destination left me no energy for the gym once I arrived in Vegas.

Finally, on Wednesday I reached the gym with my sexy current workout partner and we joined a PiYo class (a combination of Pilates and Yoga).

Whew, that was a core workout! I managed not to completely embarrass myself from my lack of flexibility and weak core and had fun in the process.

I remember when I was a traditional weight-lifting only guy and thought yoga/pilates/whateveryouwannacallit classes were for sissies. All these guys grunting and thrashing their bodies in every which directions attempting to impress their peers with their “big” bench presses are missing out on key aspects of health and fitness.

Of course, so are the Yoga/Pilates/etc people who think lifting weights will turn you into a meathead and won’t lift anything heavier than the pink 10 pound dumbbell. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Weights have tremendous benefits and so does yoga and Pilates.

Any macho homophobia guys who think “girly” classes are “gay” are being very ironic. Personally, I’d rather spend my time working out surrounded by 20 hot fit females bending in all sorts of sexy positions as my backdrop, than with 20 top heavy hairy sweaty men grunting and groaning. But, that’s just me :)

On Thursday, my sexy workout partner and I joined a yoga class and then hit the weights working out our backs. Tender is a word I’d use to describe how my body felt the next morning.

Friday, there were no evening classes going on, so we did a quick chest and shoulder workout, took a shower, and headed out for a night of dancing at Haze, one of the newest nightclubs in Las Vegas in the newly open CityCenter, a city within a city.

I’ve seen most all the night clubs in Vegas after getting heavily involved in the scene for several months while I worked on developing my social skills, and in comparison, I wasn’t impressed with Haze at all. XS, Pure, Tryst, and others blow it away. Fortunately, the company with me was delicious and the dancing electrifying.

Saturday, after sleeping in until noon, we headed off to the gym to hit our legs, but along the way we realized how beautiful and warm the day was. Neither of us wanted to spend the time inside the gym so we drove right past it and headed up into the mountains for some hiking and sight seeing.

We were blessed by running into a group of wild burros and watched as they gently grazed a few feet from where we stood. After they moved on, we went higher up into the mountains and found a snowman with a lot of wood ;).

With our worked up appetites it was time to turn back as the sun was setting and head off to catch our reservation at Musashi, a highly rated Japanese steakhouse with teppanyaki chefs. I’ve never seen a teppanyaki show before and found it very entertaining with laughs, cheers, and delights going all around.

Next, my date took me to the Blue Man Group, one of the few shows I can watch because the blue men don’t speak. The hilarious show is almost entirely based off body language, facial expressions, and percussion instruments.

Sunday, Valentine’s Day, we drag ourselves sleepily out of bed at 11am and head off for a Girl Scout charity event we’re helping out on. Our job – collecting as many toys as we can at a benefits party for cancer children, plus donate gently used shoes and sunglasses for the devastated people of Haiti. This was a nice mix up from the charity I’ve been doing back in Alaska of falling and hauling trees through the snow for family members.

Once we completely filled up the SUV with toys, we headed back home for a nap, simply too tired to hit the gym today. My original plan was to workout on Saturday and Sunday to make up for the missed days on Monday and Tuesday. But, atlas, things don’t always work out perfectly. Life is messy and yet so beautiful. The key is to keep aiming for the center of perfection, and not to fret when things get off balanced, or even totally derailed temporary.

After our nap, my date made a home cooked dinner she had planned, and we snuggled up for a low key night watching my first movie of the year. Best Valentine’s weekend ever.

P.S. I’m moving the Operation Herculean Updates from Sunday to Monday. I found with everything going on with family and friends on Sunday, I just don’t have time to write a quality update then. Measurements will still be taken every Sunday morning.

Posted on February 16, 2010

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