The Screaming Viking

I’m on a down swing in my workout routine.  I’m not seeing big results on the scale and things are getting to be monotonous.  I realized the other day that I was using the balance scale incorrectly…once I started using things correctly it added 12 pounds to my overall weight.  I still lost 2lbs last week…but seeing the number go up instead of down was just a killer.  I had passed what I considered quite a milestone, only to see it “taken away”.

The weekend was rough, in 4 days I got 2 workouts in for 40min each…I just had no motivation.  I think a lot of it comes from not seeing the drastic results now like I was before.  My clothes have fit pretty much the same for quite a while now, the scale went up (actually went down…but the psychological effect was “up”), and I’m getting irritated about not being able to eat whatever I want.  My knee is also turning into a larger problem.  It pops and snaps now anytime I straighten it out.  I wouldn’t call it painful yet, but there is a sensation from the pop.  It’s very similar to when you pop your knuckles, only it happens all the time.  It is a bit concerning.  I am holding out hope that I can drop weight and rehab it a bit, but more and more that seems like it’s only delaying the inevitable.  Surgery is seeming more and more like a foregone conclusion.  I think there’s been too much weight on it for too long.  Hopefully I can drop weight and build strength back in the knee quickly enough that it doesn’t impact the other one.  I’m hoping to have a doc look at it the beginning of next year and if something needs to be done to it have it worked on in the spring.  I don’t want to struggle with crutches on the ice, and I want to make sure I have a solid healthy foundation to try and work through the down time. Read the rest of this entry »

As of the Thursday weight in I had dropped 70lbs.  I’m basing this on the readings from the balance scale which I believe to be accurate.  I had a 4lb loss over the course of a week (Thursday to Thursday).  I credit this largely to the livestrong site.  I came in quite a bit under the line they established for me, so maybe I should have been down more but without the site I wouldn’t be as aware of what I’m putting in my mouth and how it relates to the daily workouts.  My goal was 5lbs and I hit 4…so I’m good with that.

The weekend didn’t work out so hot for me.  I had a good time, but I consumed a bit too much and didn’t work out as much as I would have liked to.  I got 30min in on Saturday, but the elliptical was quite a bit different than the one I’m used to.  The one’s at snap seem to simulate a cross country skiing type motion but the ones at the hotel simulate a running motion.  I couldn’t get the motion down and didn’t really get the work out I would have liked.  I also credit this new motion for putting stress on my knee that I wasn’t used to.  That along with the plethora of steps at the sporting events really fubar’d my knee.  I didn’t work out on Sunday, I was lazy…all my fault.  Can’t blame anyone or anything else.

I posted on fb about the couple of nagging “hurts” (I can’t classify them as injuries yet), my wrist and my knee.  I can’t do much about my knee, but I can help my wrist a bit.  I blogged a little bit ago about those lifting gloves I bought with the wrist straps.  Before I started lifting I tightened up the straps and made sure it came across the part of my wrist area where my hand would rest on the straps while I’m working out.  To my surprise, this helped immensely.  I didn’t even notice any twinges at all.  I pushed 275 for 8 reps this morning.

I need to rededicate myself to this workout routine.  I’ve been getting a solid work out in each day, but my two a days are not happening.  My goal this week is to hit 2 a day every day.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been tracking what I’ve been eating on the livestrong.com site for a week now…and wow what an eye opener.  To hit my goal of losing 5lbs a week I need to stay under the 1300 calorie bar (1282 actually).  Anytime I have tried to lose weight in the past it has seemed like such a guessing game.  Laying things out in a simple to understand equation have made what I need to do so much clearer.  I don’t think it’s “accurate” but I do believe it gives a good generalization of what’s going on.

This has also shown me just how important my two-a-day workouts are.  On the days where I only get one work out in I’m right up against the bar or just over.  And while I’ve been under the magic 2000 cal a day mark…I don’t think just being under that is going to drop the pounds I want to.  On the days where I have hit the two-a-day goal I have been well under the bar…two of the days I have burnt more calories than I have taken in.  As I’ve said previously, though I don’t think the numbers are accurate I think they give a good representation of what’s going on.  I believe carrying a negative balance for the day is a good thing for my body at this point.  I don’t think I’ll hit the starvation switch…and I think as long as I am eating and working hard it will cut in to the fat that permeates my physique.

I really like the comparison this site makes to your daily intake, the amount you burn doing specific work outs, and the number their “science” says you should hit to achieve your goals.  Last week I was doing a piss poor job of keeping my intake down and wasn’t getting in all the working out I need…and it showed when it came time to step on the scale.  I didn’t go up, but I only went down 2lbs.  While that is an acceptable number for sustained results, I do believe that if I more closely reign in my consumption and stay focused on working out I can easily hit the 5lbs a week mark.  I believe 5lbs a week is sustainable till sub 300, then I expect to drop back to 3lbs a week.

I also no longer think I need 2 work outs a day per se, but I need to have a “how hard I work” goal for those workouts.  I think if I burn 2-3k calories over the course of the day along with the carefully monitored intake I should be pretty much on track.  Right now I’m not at a point where I can reasonably burn 2k calories in a session…I’m doing around 1500 if I push really hard (which isn’t too tough honestly).  In another month or so I’m hoping I can get to 2k a session doing cardio.  I’m thinking that my calories burnt during a work out will go down as my weight goes down though.  I’m not sure that a guy at 250 can reasonably burn 1500/hr even if he appears to be busting his ass as much as a fat man is.

We’ll see, a lot of trial and error involved in this.

What tools are sufficient for measuring progress while working out?  Do you use a tape measure and record circumference of various parts of your body?  That’s certainly a valid check depending on what your goal is.  I think most people can agree that the scale overall is not the best way of measuring your progress…but it’s another valuable tool.

I have been using the gymtechnik website to track workouts, and it’s pretty good overall.  I had tried their BB app, and it was slow and shitty.  I ended up subscribing to the site though so I could track my workouts the way I wanted to.  The free options only gave you the ability to track one work out a day, and with me doing multiple work outs with multiple exercises I needed the pay setup.

A guy at work turned me on to the livestrong.com website.  This site allows you to track your workouts to some extent, but the strength of this site is how it guides you along your path.  When you setup your profile you put in your height and weight, chose your activity level and then tell it what your goal is.  I said “lose 5lbs a week”.  The site told me I would be able to consume 1307 calories and lose 5lbs a week…

1307 calories sounds like a ridiculously low amount to eat during the day, and when I started adding up what I do eat it blows that number out of the water.  The other side of the site though is your workout routine.  You enter what you’ve done (bike, elliptical, treadmill, lifting…etc) the time and so forth and it figures out what kind of calories you would burn during your fitness routine or you can free form it.  From a simple equation using your calories consumed and your calories burnt it shows you your calorie balance for the day.

What sucks about the site is there is no way to track individual exercises.  On the gymtechnik site I am able to track how one session of lifting or cardio compares to another…there’s no real good way to do that (that I can see) on the livestrong site.  If it had that feature, I could see myself using it exclusively.  The way it stands though, I’ll be using both sites until my gymtechnik subscription expires.  At that point I’ll probably track my weight training in a spread sheet.

I don’t think this site is “accurate” as far as the numbers are concerned.  I do think it’s ball park…but there is really no way to measure with any amount of certainty what it is telling you.  What it is doing for me though is making me more aware of what I am consuming on a daily basis and how that relates to my goal and my workout routine.

We’ll see how it goes, free to try and it’ll keep 45days of data.  If it seems helpful to me I’ll pay for a year subscription.  It’s worth helping them out a bit with some scratch if it helps me out.