Monday, April 28, 2008

11th Monday weigh in

I was all set to have a no loss week and stay at 245 when I stepped on the scale this am to see...

243

Total loss to date 27#'s. :)

Not too bad and I am overall happy with my diet and exercise. I keep finding ways that I can improve both but am still getting results at these levels so it's encouraging.

But I have been thinking about changing my attitude about loosing X pounds in a specific time frame because I'm not sure it's the best way to look at it. There have been times that I did not loose weight for X time and then suddenly drop a couple few #'s. I'm sure it's not a one day thing and that the efforts put in on those days that do not show any weight loss are very important to the day the scale does move. I've got no idea what other benchmarks to use and the idea has to be to keep the scale moving downward....it's just not as simple as saying 2#'s per week. It does average out like 2-3 but there is something unhealthy about feeling bad when you don't loose any weight one week however (everything is fine in that moment..the efforts are "working" just not showing up right then).

As always it's more to think about but the good news for today is that everything is still going according to plan and onward I go....

Monday, April 21, 2008

Monday weigh in

I thought this might be the day and it is....

First 25#'s down.

Weight today 245.

It's strange in a lot of ways because it feels like a lot and it feels like nothing. It was hard and yet it was easy....It's just a strange thing for a few reasons.

The main thing is that it is a good thing. I am 25#'s lighter and there just isn't any downside to that at all. I think this next 25 is going to be the dramatic part where I start to look a lot different. Maybe I just carried that weight as a super thin layer all over because even loosing 25 I don't look in the mirror and see it right now. That is a little mental jab to think you should see some visible results but this is a long game.... It's only the first quarter and I am up 14-0 so there is nothing at all "wrong" here it's just that weight loss on a big scale is so much harder than just the actions of eating right and exercising.

By the way I have decided that the simplicity of some things must be what confuses us because sometimes it is that simple...this is one of them.

1) Eat right
2) Exercise
3) see above

So it is pretty easy to figure out and after you change your mindset about food the "diet" portion is even fairly easy but what nobody tells you is what goes on inside you head all this time. I have yet to go back and read any of the diet books I've owned to see but I'm pretty sure now that unless the authors of those books were super fat at one time they are probably not able to get across this internal piece of the puzzle. And I'm not talking about willpower, cheating, or anything like that..the food part is really not that hard. :)

I'm probably going to get into this later because I feel like it's very important yet it's not something I hear very much about or see portrayed on the various diet reality shows or wherever. They focus on willpower and food almost exclusively...BL goes heavy on the exercise with personal trainers 4 hours per day...but the internal mental game....I don't see anybody dealing with that.

Anyway......

25 down is pretty freaking cool and it is very strange to be looking at that scale and see 245 where 270+ used to be just a number of weeks ago....220 is going to be all the more cooler. :)

This 4th of July BBQ I will be wearing smaller shirts.. It's going to be fun to stop paying the extra $2 for "extended size" shirts. I have been in XXL for a long time now. This BBQ season I will be sporting the less expensive and leaner XL. :) ;)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Espresso


I love good espresso.

On most days I stop by to see my buddy Shaun and we talk about a wide variety of zany topics and I watch as he pours some 4oz drinks with superior quality coffee like the above pic.

There is no other point of this post other than to give props to Shaun for this pour and many others like it, good coffee, convo with your friends and all in all some of the good things in life while it was on my mind. :)

I love good coffee.

Monday, April 14, 2008

AM walk


I had some time today to grab a quick 30 min. cardio with a walk around the lake.

If I move someday this will be the one thing I really miss about this place. I can step out and walk 3 min to the park and grab a walk around the lake. It's really nice and if I had a decent camera or could take pictures it would probably show more.

So I put on my hi tech hiking socks and sport specific hiking shoes (because I have become an urban assault nerd) :(

I geared up and hit the trail... and by trail I mean to say HOA maintained 6' wide level concrete walking path.

The weather was super nice and cool for this time of year and the sun was full. I saw a bluejay digging around in the grass, and a few ducks wandering around...the normal park/lake stuff. But then I spotted an 80 year old dude doing tai chi he looked pretty cool if you ask me. As I made the loop I see the same old guy doing pull ups on the monkey bars. I made him my hero for the day.

I think I'm going to google up tai chi now.

9th Monday weigh in

This was a tough week.

Because of the stall last week I mixed up my exercise and amped it up a bit. I made some adjustments and went to work.....

I did move the scale but it was the recognized "healthy weight loss" of 2# per week.

Weight for the 9th Monday 249.

This 2# was the hardest to loose so far.

Now I'm pretty sure my body has adapted to the new diet/exercise routine and is trying to compensate. This makes things much harder. :(

I even put in an extended work out by doing a 4.75 mile walk that took 1.5 hours.

Last week I thought I could have done more (we can always do more) but this week I feel like I put in enough effort that I should have lost 3-4#'s. I think sticking with it long enough is going to cause a correction. I think my body might prefer to keep things static but I have other plans.

The current 2 week trend now is that it's going to be a lot harder to move the scale so for next week the exercise goes up another click. My diet is pretty good. I will keep looking at it but it is pretty good.

Anyway 2 hard earned pounds this week....

2 is not exciting but it is another 2 down and not 2 up, so now it's time to get at week 10.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Plateau busted

The Plateau didn't last long and the scale has started to slowly respond.

What's in my mind now is that I lost a week towards the next goal and I'm not sure just yet how I'm going to make up for that.

It's a bit of a problem where I didn't want to panic about a temporary stall but now I don't want to miss my goal or do anything wacky in order to make it either....

Not sure what I'll do next but if I wait for 1-2 weigh ins it might auto-correct.

Looking back on it I really should have done more Mid week last week when I saw what was happening. I had to make some adjustments in my exercise program and I was just too slow to implement those changes.....sucks!

So, I guess the next 2 weigh ins will tell the tale because I have ground to make up.

On the larger scale it's insignificant but mentally it's a challenge if the progress stops and goals get questionable...it's a problem. If these things continue of get worse/last longer it's going to get even harder and I'm going to have to make some adjustments and hard decisions.

For today I'm glad that the Plateau is busted but it's something I'm going to have to think about before it happens again.

Monday, April 7, 2008

8th Monday weigh in

Rats! Plateau week. :(

Nothing to report.....

In the back of my mind I knew that a time would come when my body would adapt and I would have to step it up, I was just hoping it would be months away.

It might be that or something else but either way the lesson I learned is that I should have done something sooner in the week to avoid this. So I have no excuses I could have done more to try and change things up so that is the plan for next week.

It's a real drag not to have made any weight loss this week but now there is a new week in front of me to manage and I'm going to focus on that so the next weigh in will go better.

I picked up a pedometer that I'm going to start using today so I expect to make a mid week post on that as well as if I can break the plateau before the next weigh in but other than that it's a bleah sort of post for now.

Holding on to 251 :)

Monday, March 31, 2008

7th Monday weigh in

7th Monday weigh in a 1st mini goal update.

251 (-19# to date)
45% body water.

I'm going to stop measuring body fat% for now until I loose some more weight. What I want to do is get down a bit and go to a Dr. and have them measure it. Actually I want a full blood panel done as well but I'm going to hold off until I think I've made enough improvements to make it worth checking.

I could have went in and done it 7 weeks ago but it's probably better that I don't know what my blood levels were... :(

My first mini goal date is tomorrow and the goal was to loose 10# on 04/01/08. I am at -19 now so by tomorrow I should be somewhere between -19 and -20 doubling my goal. Sweet! My first instinct was to increase my goal for next month but that does not seem like the right thing to do.

I am averaging weight loss of 2.7# 's per week. It's too close to the well established 2# per week for me to get carried away and make myself a goal that might not work out. I'm going to go conservative (normal) for my next goal and stay with 2#'s per week and shoot for this.

2nd mini gaol:
Get down to 240# on 05/01/08
Continuing my exercise program and keeping my body water at 44-45% or more.
This way I ensure weight loss is fat loss and not water/muscle.

Progress! Pretty cool.

Things are going good and I think to celebrate my 20# weight loss I'm going to buy a chin up bar. My old brain might say losing 20 should be cause to celebrate with a "cheat day". This day I want a chin up bar a lot more than a cheat day to get an idea of what my mindset is like right now.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

1st healthy BBQ

I had my first crack at doing something a little healthier on the grill today.

What would have been bad ass burgers and fries last year was kick ass chicken burgers and steamed broccoli today. :)

I was wondering if the ground chicken was going to hold up because it was a lot different consistency than beef but it held on and kept together long enough to make the flip and get on to the fresh wheat buns from Whole Foods. I made them like any other burgers (with my secret spices) only thing I did different was use some Sriracha on the cooked burger along with mustard...nix on the mayo and catchup. These chicken burgers turned out better than I expected and I'll have no problem making them again as the BBQ season gets into full swing.

I think there will be more of these burgers, grilled salmon, chicken, and who knows what else but we do a lot of grilling so more healthy options are going to be tested soon.

But back to the sriracha...man do I ever love this stuff! I had never tried it until a month ago but not that I've tried it I find that it seems to make everything taste better. From eggs to chicken burgers to pasta....delicious. I wish back in the day when I believed you had to eat diet industry gimmick foods to be healthy that I know about this stuff. I bet it would make the blandest plastic tray "meal" taste pretty good. It is really good stuff.

My left calf is dead from my jump rope experiment and forcing me to do more recovery that I wish I was doing. It's sad but pacing myself is VERY difficult because I want to do more... now not take it slow and steady. I am going to try and do core and some upper body work on my TRX knock off the JHF. :) in order to give the leg another day.

The TRX (and JHF) are suspension training devices that you anchor in a doorway and then use the handles to perform some pretty serious bodyweight exercises. I'll post a picture of my homemade version as well as a link to the official TRX website.

My version:



The real deal:

http://www.fitnessanywhere.com/index.php


It is an awesome piece of equipment!

7th Monday weigh in will be in about 12 hours.......

Friday, March 28, 2008

Child's play

So I just skipped rope for the first time in a few decades.

I thought I would do 100 loops, 3 sets for 300 loops total.

Hahahahaha!

It went like this:

1st set 75 loops.
2nd set 25

Fine 200 more loops to go right? Hahahahaha!

3rd set 42 loops (oops this is way hard)
4th set 33 loops (oh boy, cardio is dead) :(
5th set 25 loops

How about stopping at 200 loops for now?

Yeah that seems like the right thing to do.

Jump ropes are evil tools.....to be continued....

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Bumped the conditioning

I already bumped up the conditioning routine I posted Monday.

I'm doing the same thing but 6 sets.

It gives me 18 min. active and 5 min rest but it isn't really "rest". I do the min. drills with a LOT of intensity and need to rest periods just to survive. :)

It's a freaking hard workout!

I'll do 6 sets like this for a few weeks and them I'm going to change up exercises. I think I'll add one exercise at that time and drop back down to 5 sets.

The exercise is really doing a lot for my energy I can say for sure. There have been a few times now in mid day when my food has been particularly good I am feeling really strong. It's pretty strange to just be walking and feeling a lot stronger when you are not even doing anything but that is what's going on.

For the record I think this is a marker I'd like to make:

6 weeks into eating healthy and exercising and I am sure that I feel a difference. I felt the first rush of something 2-3 weeks in of just eating clean food, I think this was like detox of the junk and a new influx of good food/fuel. About 4 weeks in and I could tell I was getting stronger...but 6 weeks seems to be a mile marker to me as a point where I can say for sure everything is starting to work. I am closing in on 20#'s and that is going to be great but I can't know yet if this improved feeling is going to double when I get to 40 or what is going to happen.

Still the hardest thing for me to deal with is the time...waiting.

This is a slow paced situation and there is mental effort involved in keeping it together.I'm not interested in eating unhealthy or stopping exercise it's just really hard to loose weight slowly over months like this and most likely over a year.

One way to look at is would be that I am on target.... Loosing weight steadily, diet is good, exercise is on track so just set the cruise control and enjoy the ride to the end goal sometime in 2009.

That would be good if I could override the part of my brain that is screaming for faster results but I can't. It's just a continuous effort to keep reminding myself by using logic that "everything is as it should be".

It's tough, but it should be.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Monday #5

Monday weigh in #5.

254 (-16#'s to date wonder when I'll hit 20?)
43% body fat (this # is bound to start dropping any day now....)
44% body water (closing in on my 45% goal)

Holiday eating went fine and the one meal "off" did not have any effect on the scale.

Food wise it was not healthy to begin with..ham, potato salad, baked beans, I tried to add a little more salad just to take up plate real estate and get reasonable portions. My old ways would have given me big ass portions of potato salad and ham for sure and probably a second trip as well.

So meal wise it was manageable but I also had 1.5 beers and some cake. The cake was angel food cake (fine) with berries (cool) and a pudding filling (ooooh so close). :)

Anyway, I'm glad I made that choice to just eat with everybody, have a beer, play some Wii, and have a family get together day. It was good.

Exercise is going well for me however Shaun let me borrow his TRX body weight workout system and it was so much fun testing out all the things I could do with it I over did it and now I'm toast for the day. I am also really happy with the Never Gymless book I picked up and am still experimenting with the workouts. I developed a conditioning interval workout that is doing a good job of working me over it goes like this:

60 seconds of speed punching hooks and jabs with the surgical tubing resistance bands.
60 seconds of mui thai clinch/knees I alternate and try to bring the knees up high.
60 seconds of sandbag fun I do random lifts and carries with the 50# sandbag
60 seconds rest

X 5 sets

It's 15 min active but those 4 min rest do not offer enough recovery time to = "at rest".

I plan on adding sets and additional exercises as soon as I can.

That's conditioning day and it's 3 days per week with core, 3 days strength, and one day off.

So there is nothing very exciting to report right now it's just about doing the deal.

I'm interested to see where I wind up at on the first goal date April 1 but with my 10# goal knocked out early there has been no pressure to make it and yet I started working harder anyway. I did it because I got strong enough to do it nothing else so I'm encouraged by that.

More later...