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?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
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?
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
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
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Ketosis
Ketosis, I has it :) Going to do a light cardio workout this morning and hopefully burn some fat.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Boring: HST Day 7
Have I been getting the days right? For some reason Day 7 feels like a numerical jump or something... whatever, it's definitely day seven, AKA first day of 10's, and it was good.
After two days off, I woke up just a tad late (I guess my body started getting used to sleeping in... or perhaps this we due to staying up too late playing Fallout 3? It's hard because I'm really in the home stretch) for getting dehydrated fully before hitting the gym to do the work out I wanted, which was the full list of exercises (like last day of 15's) because realistically I'm not going to be able to lift again until Monday, four days from now :( So, I got into the gym about 20 after seven and jumped onto the elliptical for a short 5 minute warm-up, then hit all my exercises as quickly as possible.
Bench, bench dumbbell rows, barbell bench, seated rows, incline bench, chest crushers, incline dumbbells, assisted pull-ups, squats, calves, clean and presses, lunges, Arnold dumbbell presses, dead lifts, and on and on... everything was pretty easy, with the lunges and incline dumbbells as always feeling the most challenging. Pull-ups also felt just right. Did eight strap hanging straight leg lifts before doing 10 curled leg lifts, which felt good, oh and the back extensions with 20 lbs. felt really good today. I have to day that I can't wait for the clean and presses to get more challenging, as that whole body hit/pump/heart rate increase you get is awesome. I got that on the last day of 15's but in dropping down to 10's, I've lost it.
So, it was simply a good work out. If I'd had more time, I might have jumped on the treadmill for some sprints, but I simply didn't, so instead I grabbed some 45 lb dumbbells, lifted them to my shoulders and did a set of 10 squats. It felt good, but even with them being 10 lbs. lighter than last time, the left dumbbell kept slipping off my shoulder. I've really got to concentrate on proper form as I suspect I'm letting that shoulder lean forward more than the right. At the same time, I may just not be as strong on that side, so I'm going to focus on keeping that arm up correctly from now on. I think I'll keep throwing these into my work-outs going forward, staying at 45 lb. dumbbells until I'm doing them perfectly.
I have a bodyfat monitor that I keep meaning to start using. I think on some level I'm waiting to drop a little more weight before I turn it on because I don't want to see the truth about my body fat percentage. But as much as the truth can hurt, it's better to know, so perhaps tomorrow I'll "remember".
Low carb is going well as I continue to stay in ketosis. I'm fairly certain that I was running a calorie deficit on my two work-out days off. I just wasn't that hungry, and I did a better job of eating a small meal every two hours or so. Hopefully, I can keep that up.
Weighed in today at 235 with nylon shorts and wet cotton t-shirt, so weight loss is on track.
After two days off, I woke up just a tad late (I guess my body started getting used to sleeping in... or perhaps this we due to staying up too late playing Fallout 3? It's hard because I'm really in the home stretch) for getting dehydrated fully before hitting the gym to do the work out I wanted, which was the full list of exercises (like last day of 15's) because realistically I'm not going to be able to lift again until Monday, four days from now :( So, I got into the gym about 20 after seven and jumped onto the elliptical for a short 5 minute warm-up, then hit all my exercises as quickly as possible.
Bench, bench dumbbell rows, barbell bench, seated rows, incline bench, chest crushers, incline dumbbells, assisted pull-ups, squats, calves, clean and presses, lunges, Arnold dumbbell presses, dead lifts, and on and on... everything was pretty easy, with the lunges and incline dumbbells as always feeling the most challenging. Pull-ups also felt just right. Did eight strap hanging straight leg lifts before doing 10 curled leg lifts, which felt good, oh and the back extensions with 20 lbs. felt really good today. I have to day that I can't wait for the clean and presses to get more challenging, as that whole body hit/pump/heart rate increase you get is awesome. I got that on the last day of 15's but in dropping down to 10's, I've lost it.
So, it was simply a good work out. If I'd had more time, I might have jumped on the treadmill for some sprints, but I simply didn't, so instead I grabbed some 45 lb dumbbells, lifted them to my shoulders and did a set of 10 squats. It felt good, but even with them being 10 lbs. lighter than last time, the left dumbbell kept slipping off my shoulder. I've really got to concentrate on proper form as I suspect I'm letting that shoulder lean forward more than the right. At the same time, I may just not be as strong on that side, so I'm going to focus on keeping that arm up correctly from now on. I think I'll keep throwing these into my work-outs going forward, staying at 45 lb. dumbbells until I'm doing them perfectly.
I have a bodyfat monitor that I keep meaning to start using. I think on some level I'm waiting to drop a little more weight before I turn it on because I don't want to see the truth about my body fat percentage. But as much as the truth can hurt, it's better to know, so perhaps tomorrow I'll "remember".
Low carb is going well as I continue to stay in ketosis. I'm fairly certain that I was running a calorie deficit on my two work-out days off. I just wasn't that hungry, and I did a better job of eating a small meal every two hours or so. Hopefully, I can keep that up.
Weighed in today at 235 with nylon shorts and wet cotton t-shirt, so weight loss is on track.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Not Going to the Gym
Taking two days off from the gym to recover has been surprising difficult. I've actually had a harder time not going than I do going, as I find myself really wanting to hit the gym when I wake up in the morning. I really miss the way a good work out wakes and warms you up, and I find myself worrying that I'm not making the most of being on a diet because I'm not burning the extra 300 to 600 calories per day at the gym. On the flip side though, I haven't been as hungry as days I work out, so I've been able to eat less, and that may balance things out. Still, I'm really looking forward to hitting the gym again tomorrow morning for my first day of 10's.
I'm also considering doing more high intensity cardio on my lifting days, and then doing fairly low intensity cardio on my off days to see if I can limit my long term fatigue a bit more... you know, that's silly and just me trying to figure out how to hit the gym everyday when I know that I really need to take a day or two off a week for optimal results. *sigh*
My routine is going to get a bit disrupted this week as we are heading up to Lake Tahoe to meet my sister for the weekend. We'll do some snowboarding on Saturday, when I should be doing Day 2 of 10's, so I'll be getting some exercise, so Day 2 is going to slip to either Sunday evening or Monday morning. So I'm going to start off day 1 of 10's tomorrow with some extra exercises, a bit like I did on my last day of 15's, given it will be two to three days before I do a true lifting workout again.
We gave notice that we won't be needing our $200 per month parking spot anymore, so we need to leave the car down at my Dad's house when we get back from Tahoe. We also need to sell the car. I need to do some research and make some calls to figure out the best way to do that, whether we should sell it privately or just go to Carmax (which is way out in Modesto) and see what they offer. What a pain in the ass. I can't wait to not have a car again. At least we have a place to park it for now.
Went to an IGDA mixer last night and hung out with some interesting guys. One was an artist at everyone's favorite Star Wars company, the other was a programmer behind the procedural drunk guy in GTA IV and another was the owner of a DS developer. It was fun to have drinks after work again. Oh, and they had this lamb burger that was really good! I'll definitely be going back sometime.
I'm also considering doing more high intensity cardio on my lifting days, and then doing fairly low intensity cardio on my off days to see if I can limit my long term fatigue a bit more... you know, that's silly and just me trying to figure out how to hit the gym everyday when I know that I really need to take a day or two off a week for optimal results. *sigh*
My routine is going to get a bit disrupted this week as we are heading up to Lake Tahoe to meet my sister for the weekend. We'll do some snowboarding on Saturday, when I should be doing Day 2 of 10's, so I'll be getting some exercise, so Day 2 is going to slip to either Sunday evening or Monday morning. So I'm going to start off day 1 of 10's tomorrow with some extra exercises, a bit like I did on my last day of 15's, given it will be two to three days before I do a true lifting workout again.
We gave notice that we won't be needing our $200 per month parking spot anymore, so we need to leave the car down at my Dad's house when we get back from Tahoe. We also need to sell the car. I need to do some research and make some calls to figure out the best way to do that, whether we should sell it privately or just go to Carmax (which is way out in Modesto) and see what they offer. What a pain in the ass. I can't wait to not have a car again. At least we have a place to park it for now.
Went to an IGDA mixer last night and hung out with some interesting guys. One was an artist at everyone's favorite Star Wars company, the other was a programmer behind the procedural drunk guy in GTA IV and another was the owner of a DS developer. It was fun to have drinks after work again. Oh, and they had this lamb burger that was really good! I'll definitely be going back sometime.
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