I hit the weights last night, man has my muscle density gone down.  I was struggling pretty good to get what used to be my mid range sets.  Think I pushed a little too hard…have this crazy kink in my neck.  I weighed myself today and I’m about 10lbs over my last recorded weigh in, which isn’t too bad considering how hard I’ve fallen off the wagon.

We’re back at it though, I’m still shooting for 100lbs over all by October…but am hoping for a bit more than that.

week 31 – 342 (with shoes and other gear on)

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I dropped a considerable amount of weight in a relatively short amount of time.  My clothes were starting to get pretty baggy, I was feeling better than I have in a long time…and I decided that if I didn’t lose another pound I would be content where I was….

epic fail

I’m targeting Saturday as my start date for the new regimen.  I’m going to be starting from square one again…there will be some growing pains and bullshit I’ll need to live through again…but I’m hoping to come out better on the other side.

Time will tell….

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I am pretty much done doing the modifications I can afford to the bike right now and she is purring like a kitten.  I’ve adjusted the smoker a bit and should be ready for a propane run this weekend.  Without these things to tinker with I am hoping to be able to find more motivation to get solid workouts in.  I have a few other things that need to be done around the house…but I can work that in around my working out.

I have maintained my weight through this dry spell, which is a bonus…but it’s not what I was hoping for coming in to this month.  I’ve set a high goal for myself for the end of May, and with hard work I believe it to be reachable.  I have a trip to the farm coming up…so that’s going to be a few days off from the normal routine, but I should be able to walk/run a bit out there to make up for it.  I’m going to try a little on the country road and see how that treats me.  If I can run a mile I’ll be pretty happy.

week 26 – 330

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This morning I hit the elliptical pretty hard and lifted afterward.  My arms haven’t lost anything, but my shoulders went down a little.  I’m going to work the weight training back in and see how that works out for me.  Not much else going on…need to find motivation.

Since I’ve stayed level for so long, it’s going to take a bit to get the body burning things the way it’s suppose to again.  I expect things to actually go up next week.  We’ll see I guess.

week 25 – 329

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I mentioned before that I stopped using livestrong for a little bit.  Now I’ve started logging everything like I was before.  At this point, I don’t feel it’s so necessary to log stuff to know where I am with my eating.  I have a feel for where I’m at and how I’ve been doing over the last little bit.  I’m doing it now in an effort to get back into the pattern of behavior that helped get me down to where I am today.  I’m going to do all I can to really push to the end of the month.  I don’t feel that my 20lb goal is going to be achievable, but I’m going to work as hard as I can to see.  I’m hoping to be sub 300 by my birthday.  I feel that is achievable if I work as hard as I had been previously.  Time will tell.

week 24 – 329

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My goal for this month is to be down 20lbs which brings my overall total to 100lbs lost.  I’m going to have to push pretty hard to hit that goal…I’ll need to up my average to 7lbs a week.  I think that is obtainable but it’s going to take a lot of work.  I may have a trip for work coming up the end of the month as well and that puts a kink in the plan.  We’ll have to see how it goes.  I am optimistic though, seeing how the weight can come off when I stick to the plan I think my goal is achievable.

I’ve been forgoing weight training for the past little bit in an effort to focus more time on cardio.  Starting this weekend I’m going to work weight training back into the routine.  I’m not going to sacrifice cardio time for weight training though.  I’m going to work the weights on Saturday and Sunday along with 2hrs of cardio.

Week 23 – 330

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I think I have figured out what my issue is, and it’s been a problem with me my whole life.  My interests in things are seasonal.  When fall comes around, I’m all in to hunting…winter is all about the sleds…summer is all about the bike.  I don’t have a sled so all I can do about that is drool over craigslist, but when the opportunity has come to get the bike going I’ve been all in to that and everything else has taken a back seat.  The positive side to that is I can get some stuff done pretty quickly that way…the down side is that everything else suffers.  The bike is pretty much setup for the year right now.  I still need to get the carbs in sync a bit better, but that is going to require me to buy a tachometer…and that might wait a little bit (probably another post about this topic today).

With the bike ready for the road, I think I’m ready to get back in the gym full time.  I have 20 more lbs to lose to hit my initial goal of 100lbs for the year program.  After 5 months of dieting change and 4 months of good workouts 100lbs is in sight…that’s just crazy.

Week 22 – 330

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This week I’m down 4lbs.  I hit 2x 3 days this week and missed 1 day (friday), the other days I went 1 time.  I have been just doing cardio and scaled back my lifting quite a bit.  I still need to hit it at least 1 time a week though.  I don’t want to lose what I’ve gained, but I’m content to just maintain for a little while until I’m ready to focus on the superhero workout.

Week 21 – 335

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There are a couple of key points of his blog that I made a mental note of.  He has plateaued a couple of times for about a week or two each time.  It’s difficult to put in all this work (and it’s a pile of work) then look at the scale once a week to see no progress.  We should be able to nut up and push through this, the way we feel and the workout itself should show us there has been some progress, but seeing the scale not show that progress is quite a hit.  There were also a couple of times that he has gained a couple of pounds.  Reading those entries the result was expected and not something that seemed to surprise or bother him.  Given all the tools available, calorie counter on the elliptical, livestrong…etc…it shouldn’t come as a surprise at all when you go up.  This past week for me hasn’t been good, so I would be pleasantly surprised to see any loss on the scale and not shocked to see it go up slightly.  I haven’t had to deal with a “back slide” yet…so we’ll see what kind of psychological affect that has when it happens.

Something else I noticed is that he hasn’t worked in much weight training at all.  Before reading through his blog I had decided to cut back on my weight training.  Ideally I’d like to hit chest and shoulders 2 days a week, then a quick hit on my arms 2 days a week.  I’ve decided to switch from “power” lifting back into a maintenance mode type of lifting.  The reason for this is I’d like to not lose what I’ve gained, and I want to focus on losing the weight before I worry about building up the muscles to where I’d like to see them.  I’m focusing more on the elliptical to get the weight down, then I’ll come back for the weight training.  With the progress I’m seeing so far, I should be able to hit the “superhero” work out a little ahead of schedule.  The woman and I are planning on going to vegas this summer, so hopefully after that I can work in the weight training.

I had originally planned to focus on weight loss for a year, then switch to weight training…then evaluate some MMA training.  I’ve decided that with my knee issues…even if the bone bender can get things lined back up, even the 1 fight I’d hoped for is not terribly reasonable…and most likely neither is skydiving.  I’m a little disappointed by this, and maybe my assumptions will turn out to be wrong, but for right now we’ll focus on the weight loss and see where things go from there.  About June I’m planning on implementing the superhero workout for my upper body with what excersizes I can do for my lower body.  The key to that is I have to be able to do them both equally with either leg.  I’ve never been lacking for leg muscle, so I’m not even concerned about not being able to work out my legs.  If I need more definition there I’ll use the elliptical on it’s weight training routine….no biggie at all.

Looking at this dude’s progress makes me feel like I’m on the right track.  At week 17 he lost 46lbs or 12.8% of his original body size.  At the same point I was down around 65lbs for 15.5% of my original body weight…I think.  Getting an accurate reading was impossible, so I am going off a reading from a dr. office 2 months before.  I could have easily been 10-20lbs heavier than that…and it wouldn’t shock me at all.  I believe I stayed on the bike too long, I should have only ridden it for a couple of weeks to a month, then moved on to the elliptical as it was I rode it for around 2 months.  The elliptical is leaps and bounds a better workout.

Check out his blog, if your grinding out some weight loss it’s well worth the read.

link

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I don’t think those numbers are “accurate” per se, the important thing to log is the overall downward trend.  I’ve only been able to get what I would call an accurate measurement from a balance scale for the past 3 weeks, so there isn’t large amount of data from which to draw conclusions.  So far, the early indications are livestrong is pretty damn close in it’s predictions about weight loss.  They say I need to be below their red line to lose the specified amount per week (5 pounds).  On weeks when I’ve been over the line the majority of the time, or drastically over the line a couple of times…I haven’t lost the desired amount, instead only losing 2.5 lbs.  This past week when I made a targeted effort to stay below the line I come in at 7lbs lost.  I was in a “calorie deficit” for 5 of the past 9 days (burnt more than I’ve taken in), one day I was 100 calories over the mark, the rest of the days I was well under the mark, consuming only 100-200 more than I burnt.

Looking at the data in this way makes it very easy to see why you have more success one week and not so much the next week.  It takes pretty much all of the guess work out of what you are doing and lays things out in black and white terms that are easy for anyone to understand.  I am a believer in the net calorie tracking system.  I’m on wax right now saying if you are not using something like this to monitor your intake vs burnt vs goals you are not doing everything you can to maximize your weight loss.

The wife gets pretty surprised when I say I’m running a calorie deficit.  On a normal day I get my 2hrs on the elliptical in and eat my turkey sandwich, beans and apple for lunch, nutri-grain bar for snack, something cooked at home for dinner I end up with a 500-1000 more calories burnt than consumed.  I’ve said before I don’t think these numbers are gospel, but I think they ballpark things pretty well.

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