Weight: 179.9 lbs.

Exercise: Lifted weight for 90 minutes following the Stronglifts 5×5 program. Accomplished squats, overhead press and deadlift. Mowed front and back lawns and worked outside around the house for about 3 hours.

Breakfast: Reheated shredded hash brown potatoes with onion, garlic, black beans, red and green peppers topped with hot sauce and ketchup

Lunch: Reheated sweet potato macaroni & cheese from Alicia Silverstone, based off a recipe from EcoSalon (all oil omitted).

PM Snack:

Dinner: 2 quart bowl of mixed green salad with cabbage, carrots and almonds, topped with Chef AJ’s Husband’s Favorite No-Oil Dressing and 2 servings of reheated Cheezy Scalloped Potatoes with Sriracha hot sauce mixed in.

Synopsis: It was a great day! I stayed active all day long. I had plenty of energy to keep up with the list of things I wanted to accomplish today. I had hoped to get more work done around the house, but knocked off at about 4PM in order to get my weight training in.

The morning started with potatoes of the shredded, hashed variety. More leftovers from the day before. Topped the dish with some hot sauce and ketchup and ate them up. This tied me over for a few hours and I was able to get the entire house vacuumed while my wife followed behind with the steam cleaner on the tile floor.

As lunch time rolled around I remember the leftover sweet potato mac and cheese, so I took about 30 minutes and reheated the dish and played a some XBox 360 until I finished. Then it was to the outdoors, as it was a beautiful day with temperatures approaching 80 degrees! The shirt came off and I wore shorts as I cleaned up the yard. I mowed both the rear and front lawns before I pulled off in a different direction and had to run some errands. When I finished the lawns I took a break and decided I would give myself about 45 more minute of work as it was approaching 4PM and I wanted to lift weights.

This was the first time I worked out in my home gym, which is really nothing more than a squat rack (Weider Club 500) in the garage. Until today I had not lifted in 20 days because of family responsibilities and probably just being lazy getting to the gym. No longer do I have to wait for the squat rack or deal with the “gym mentality.” I just walk into the garage and lift whenever I want to.

I was amazed at how well I lifted today. I was planning to deload (removing weight) since I had taken so much time off, but decided against it as I was warming up. I felt very good, so I decided to attempt my workout weights and not remove any weight. All lifts went very well and I was very pleased with how the weight lifting went. Hopefully this trend continues. I have a new Rogue Fitness R3 power rack and Rogue Utility bench arriving on Friday and cannot wait to get those put together and take the workouts to a new level.