Final Day Before Vacation

Weighed in at 131.5 lbs. I'm thinking that I might be a bit heavier today despite still being in ketosis and not having eaten enough yesterday because I was either more hydrated this morning (or less dehydrated after my workout, which was less intense than my lifting days) or because my muscles are still pumped up from yesterday's lifting (which also means more water). Anyway, a little over a pound a week over the last six weeks is not a bad run. I just have to do this three or four more times :P

HST 17 & 18

Finished up yesterday with my max 5 rep weights, and discovered a few where a little too light, but most were just about right. Also did what I believe was a personal best 205 lb squat at 5 reps. My right wrist complained on my 195 bench and I couldn't do my reverse wrist exercises/lifts at all because of the injury in my right hand (which I think is the same as the wrist one). Bummer.

I may just jump back into HST again now, but we'll see...

Final weight over the last two weigh-ins: 231 lbs

Not bad. Now I'm off for a vacation to Seattle and Whistler in Vancouver!

HST 16 and low carb

Somehow I missed a day in there... not sure when, but it must have been in the last couple of weeks as things have gotten quite busy at work. Anyway, today was day 16 and I made it through, although I have to say it started out slow. I didn't have a lot of drive to power through my lifts until towards the end. The lifts are getting heavier, so they are harder, but you don't always feel ready to do lifts unless you've warmed up with lighter weights. By the second half of my work out I was definitely warmed up and things felt good, but... well, I just didn't have as much power today for some reason. Anyway, about two hours after the work out I did a ketone test and it was redder than I've ever seen one. I was in super-duper ketosis, that despite having a couple bits of pancakes at breakfast a few beers last night. I guess whatever glucose I had was burned off during the work out (they are getting pretty intense now that the weights are within 10-15% of my max five reps).

Anyway, 5 minute elliptical machine warm up, followed by lifts, including continued extra sets on the seated cable pull-up machine, then I did two minutes of jump-roping, one minute of jumping jacks and finally 10 minutes on the bike.

Weight-in - 233.5 with very damp cotton t-shirt but nylon shorts

HST Day 13 and 14

Good workouts, obviously getting heavier and harder. I'm really feeling them in my muscles the next day now. Haven't been doing front squats because I don't think legs can take it, but have been doing seated pull-ups to hit lats more than one set of assisted pull-ups seems to be doing.

Fell off low-carb for almost a week, but back on.

Day 13 - 236.5
Day 14 - 234.5 back in ketosis (clearly water-weight)

HST Day 11 and 12

Monday's HST workout was okay. I cheated hardcore on lowcarb this weekend with Beer, Burgers, Nachos, Ice Cream and Cookies, so by Monday morning I actually felt kinda crappy... who knew that junk food sometimes makes you feel bad? Anyway, despite the large amounts of carbs, I was feeling a bit lethargic and unmotivated, but I made it through anyway. I could still feel the workout on Tuesday, so I didn't go to the gym, and I realized I was low on potassium because some of my muscles came close to cramping up a few times, so I picked up a bottle of the the stuff from Wallgreens.

Today, day 12 was my last day of 10's and I'd say about half the exercises were challenging... I should pull up my graph and go through them now before I forget... okay, in reviewing them, there are actually few exercises where I maxed out at 10 reps, but most were at least challenging, and doing them quickly back to back is definitely a pump. It's also fun because the weights are finally starting to get respectable as I'm starting to approach my max weights. It will be interesting to see if any of my max 5 weights have gone up or down.

I capped my workout off with 10 front barbell squats with two 25 lb weights on a full barbell (total 95 lbs), which is up 30 pounds from my workout on Monday, and it felt good. I'm going to keep adding weight to this exercise and figure out where my max is, but I don't want to rush it because I want to A) let my body adjust to the new exercise (tendons and such need to be allowed to grow stronger) and B) I want to make sure my form remains good.

I also added a seated pull-up exercise to both work-outs (been doing this for awhile), doing 160 on Monday and 170 today.

After my weekend of debauchery I weighed in at 138!
But today I weighed in at 134

HST Day 10

Should have skipped one more day, but I did HST lifting today anyway because I want to switch over Mon-Wed-Fri so I can do Yoga at night with the woman on Tues. and Thurs.

Good workout today, but I could feel some fatigue. Pretty strong in everything, including pull-ups and lunges. Did some 45 lb dumbbell squats and still having trouble keeping that left one up on my shoulder. Did some forward barbell squats with no weight on the bar to practice later and found those to be cool, although the weight on my shoulder muscles definitely feels uncomfortable. I'll try a pad next time.'

Didn't do a warm up today because I'm going to meet some friends for breakfast and cheat on my diet! Yum! And tonight I'm cheating too because I'm going on a red shirt brigade run in Hayward where there will be too much beer tempting me, so might as well accept it and enjoy :)

132.5 wearing nylon shorts and cotton t-shirt. Perhaps weight loss in not a fluke?

Friday Morning

Ten minutes on the stationary bike at level 10, and was surprised heart rate got up over 130 bpm. Switched over to walking on treadmill for ten minutes at 14 degree angle at 3.0 and 2.9 mph, and was surprised to see my heart rate go up over 150! Despite wanting to do more, I stopped at that point, weighed in and just came upstairs to have blueberries. Going to skip most of the other supplements this morning, although I did already have protein, wheatgerm and glucose earlier, so not really skipping :P

Weighed in at 133.5 - wearing cotton shirt and shorts too. Perhaps today's weight loss is a fluke?

Busy - Day 9 HST

Work has become pretty busy all of a sudden, which is great because not having signed projects makes Jack a little worried about his job. Apparently, I didn't didn't have anything to worry about as they just moved three people and five projects under me. And the projects are actually pretty damn cool, so I'm excited.

On the workout side, my big inspiration to post an updated before I forget to do so, I did about 35 minutes of cardio on Wednesday, keeping it light. ten minutes on the elliptical at, crap don't remember, but I think around level 11, ten minutes walking on the treadmill at angle 14 and 3.0 to 3.1 mph, then five minutes on the bike at level 9 and 10. At the end of the day, I felt the workout in my legs, but I was mostly good to go yesterday morning for day 9 of HST.

But I wasn't super great to go on day 9. I could definitely feel a bit of fatigue had built up, but I was able to power through all my leg exercises fine (although I didn't do the dumbbell squats again). I was fine, but I knew I would need to take a day or two off to allow my body to repair. Oh, and near the end of my workout, I could definitely feel my muscle close to cramping, especially my calves. I haven't had a banana for over a week, so I think my potassium levels are down. I made sure I ate some blueberries after my workout yesterday hoping those would help. I've been skipping some of the normal fruit intake because I wanted to make sure I got back in ketosis, but I'm there, so now I need to remember to eat good stuff.

Back to lifting, did 10 straight leg lifts and then 10 curled, had to switch to alternating forward lifts and bicep curls, and I barely finished the 10 assisted pull-ups (although I think I may have done 11 total). I also added machine pull-downs at 160 because I want to hit my lats more. I can't do unassisted pull-ups, and that's embarrassing, so I'm inspired to work those muscles a bit more. I wrapped up the workout with five minutes on the bike, and was amazed to find that I had no problem keeping my heart rate up around 150 bpm, when usually I have a hard time keeping it over 130 on a bike ride. I guess when your body is destroyed after a good work-out, it's just easier.

I think I need to break down and just buy a new pair of wireless headphones. My last pair is dead and I'm missing music and entertainment at the gym. Yes, I could use wired headphones, and did on Wednesday, but my nylon shorts don't have pockets, so I had nothing yesterday.

Going to go in and ride the bike a bit this morning - a VERY light cardio work-out. I've promised myself I would not push it for at least one day. Saturday we have plans to see an old friend for breakfast, so I'll probably skip a day there, which I'm sure my body needs. Why is it so hard NOT to work out?

Wednesday weigh in - just under 235
Thursday weight in - 234

Ketosis

Ketosis, I has it :) Going to do a light cardio workout this morning and hopefully burn some fat.

Boring: HST - Day 8 and Low Carb

With the weekend snowboarding trip, which I'll write about in another post, I missed doing my Day 8 HST lifting on Saturday. In fact, my legs were not ready even yesterday to get back in the gym, so I didn't do day 8 until today, five days after my last workout, which part of me is bothered by because the whole point of HST is a regular increase in load. Will messing up my schedule ruin this round of HST? I don't know, but I'm guessing not. At least I'm hoping not! Either way I decided to keep going on it, which is what I did this morning.

I did the full workout again because it's just way more fun. I just really love to do full body exercises like Dead Lifts, Squats and Clean and Pushes on the same day because... well the intensity just rocks! I'm hoping I can keep this up, in fact I'd almost like to add even more intensity to my work-outs, but I know that I'll have to go step by step and cut back if I find myself on Day 9 or 10 with muscles or a body that is too fatigued. Once again, it's the balance of pushing the body, but not pushing it so much that it gets burned out. To do this, I'm going to keep my non-HST days at a low intensity and rest at least one day a week (even though I really don't want to). We'll see how it goes.

On Saturday night I fell off the low carb diet when the beer and mashed potatoes at the very fancy restaurant we went to just looked too good to pass up. Sunday, I continued to enjoy carbs, after all, I was still on vacation, and yesterday I just couldn't bring myself to go full non-carb yet. But I promised myself that I would start again today, a promise I've kept so far. God I love carbs. Saying goodbye to them is so hard and I can't wait to eat them again.

Okay, back to the workout this morning: I didn't eat anything before going because I figured I already had plenty of glucose stored up, and if I want to kick start myself back into ketosis, I need to burn it all off. And mostly, probably due to the glucose, I had a lot of energy this morning. My legs were still a tad tired from snowboarding, but they held up quite well. In fact even the usually challenging lunges went very well and felt easier than usual; my legs didn't start to really fail until the very end of my set of 20 (10 for each side). Arnold Presses, even after doing Clean and Presses, felt almost too easy, my incline dumbbell presses felt easier and I did 10 straight leg lifts followed by 10 curled legs with no problem. Basically, everything was a couple degrees of difficulty easier. It's a "No duh!" but carbs do wonders for athletic performance. I'm probably going to miss them.

After my workout I took my normal whey protein, glucose, vitamin, fish oil and creatine supplements, and I ate a few blueberries, but a bit less than I normally do (because I want to kick start myself back into ketosis). The rest of the day I plan to stay extremely low carb as well, and I'll do a P test tonight and in the morning to see (hopefully) if I'm back.

A couple of things that are interesting (at least to me):

1. I've noticed that my motivation to get back in the gym drops after two days of not going, which is one of the reasons I hate the two day rest period you are supposed to take when doing HST. Basically, I get up in the morning and rather than being excited to get dressed and hit the gym like I usually am, I actually consider not going. This morning I considered watching some TV shows that E doesn't like that I want to catch up while she is either out of the house or still asleep (we have wireless headphones I can use so the sound won't wake the other of us up). This lack of motivation seriously doesn't happen when I skip just one day; the motivation and excitement are still there. But for whatever reason after two days it's harder to get going. Add dropping off of your diet to the mix (like I did this weekend), and my motivation is even less. I have no idea why that is, but if this is typical behavior or a typical reaction then it must be really hard for out-of-shape or overweight people with bad eating habits to get themselves to the gym. And if this is a normal reaction, then when designing a work-out program for someone new, I'd want to do one that gets them in the gym at least every other day, but probably every day with only one or two days (split up) rest a week.

2. Despite falling off my low carb diet this weekend, I didn't put on any weight, or at least not as much as I would have expected given that I should be holding more water. Even after enjoying carbs for two days, my weight didn't go up. Did I somehow continue to loose weight even while doing carbs? Did I burn off the water doing my work-out this morning before I weighed myself again? Did I loose weight on Friday and Saturday when I was still on low carb, then gain it back on Sunday and Monday when I did eat carbs? Does it take more than two days of eating carbs to gain back the water weight? No idea, and frankly, my weight this morning could be a fluke, but yeah, weird. I really expected to have gained back at least a pound when I got on the scale this morning.

3. If I manage to get back into ketosis today, it will be interesting to see if I drop any water weight when I get on the scale tomorrow.

Weighed in at just under 236 with all nylon clothes.