Sunday yet again and time for the weekly weigh-in.
Been a fairly smooth week this week. Managed to keep my calorie intake close to what I was shooting for most of the week, even kept my protein fairly high, and tried out a few new restaurants that I hadn't been to yet. Tried out a great pizza place a couple miles down the road, and found a pub that has beer floats made with lambic. An interest culinary week all told.
Kept up with my workouts this week as well, made steady progress with increasing weights and so far haven't had to increase my rest days due to stalling, though I suspect that will happen fairly soon. Need to make sure I get in 2 runs this week in preparation for my race next weekend though.
I'm not really overflowing with information to fill this space today for some reason, so this will be a fairly short post today. Next week there will be some final results from my muscle building experiment, and hopefully some information related to what my next experiment will end up being.
So, what do the numbers say this week? 207, up 3 pounds from last week. Body fat is down meaning that gain is all muscle. Not dropping fat that much any more but I'm putting on muscle at a pretty good clip. So far since I started this trial I'm up 8.6 of muscle and down 4.1 of fat, which is a pretty good rate of return for the amount of time I'm putting in.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 65)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
The bulking experiment continues as planned, with this week including 2 workouts and the introduction of some nutritional supplementation to help me achieve my goals. Firstly, I added protein powder to my daily intake to help boost my protein content toward where I'd like it to be. One scoop straight into my morning smoothie, which also includes the second thing I added, a scoop of creatine to said morning smoothie. Some of you may have a negative knee jerk reaction to that, but trust me when I say I've done the research into it, and I have determined that I have no reason to worry and that the benefits are well worth it, especially as I have not experienced any of the side-effects thanks in part to my not using a loading phase.
So, what all have I been doing? Well, one workout each this week of my lifting routine, and one run through the nearby neighborhood, which allowed me to get some better distance and pacing going on than the run down the major street I had tried the last time. So far? It looks like I've been putting on some muscle and either dropping or not adding any new non-visceral fat. I feel great, and am starting to look more like what I wish I did, so all in all doing pretty well. Trending on my weight and body fat look good.
While I'm talking about trends and tracking, I'd like to mention a few things. Firstly, a website called CureTogether. It has listings for bunches of medical conditions that you can track symptoms with severity, treatments you've tried, and things you suspect cause it. I've been using it for a little while now to track the severity of things like various persistent aches and pains, headaches, and some various other things. They also provide graphs to help visualize what treatments people have found most effective so that you can figure out things that might be worth trying yourself. Which leads me to my next little update. Since the move Lara and I have got a new bed, a queen sized compared to the previous full, and I must say I love it. The memory foam is entirely worth it. Due in large part to the changes to my sleep quality and patterns related to the move and the mattress my back pain has nearly disappeared, my neck is less stiff, and I'm feeling better all around. That plus some other trends I've noticed have been leading me to believe that a number of my minor complaints of aches and pains in life may all be connected to one or two root causes that I just need to track down. Thank goodness I track "everything", should make it easier to find out what's causing the little stuff.
So, now that the semi-digression is over, what do the numbers have to say today? 204, up two pounds since last week. My body fat is down 1% since last week, which combined means I put on about 3 pounds of muscle and dropped a pound of fat in the last week. One of these days perhaps I'll actually manage to combine things in such a way as to have visible abs. For now, I'm going to follow my own advice, do something every day to make myself the me I want to be.
The bulking experiment continues as planned, with this week including 2 workouts and the introduction of some nutritional supplementation to help me achieve my goals. Firstly, I added protein powder to my daily intake to help boost my protein content toward where I'd like it to be. One scoop straight into my morning smoothie, which also includes the second thing I added, a scoop of creatine to said morning smoothie. Some of you may have a negative knee jerk reaction to that, but trust me when I say I've done the research into it, and I have determined that I have no reason to worry and that the benefits are well worth it, especially as I have not experienced any of the side-effects thanks in part to my not using a loading phase.
So, what all have I been doing? Well, one workout each this week of my lifting routine, and one run through the nearby neighborhood, which allowed me to get some better distance and pacing going on than the run down the major street I had tried the last time. So far? It looks like I've been putting on some muscle and either dropping or not adding any new non-visceral fat. I feel great, and am starting to look more like what I wish I did, so all in all doing pretty well. Trending on my weight and body fat look good.
While I'm talking about trends and tracking, I'd like to mention a few things. Firstly, a website called CureTogether. It has listings for bunches of medical conditions that you can track symptoms with severity, treatments you've tried, and things you suspect cause it. I've been using it for a little while now to track the severity of things like various persistent aches and pains, headaches, and some various other things. They also provide graphs to help visualize what treatments people have found most effective so that you can figure out things that might be worth trying yourself. Which leads me to my next little update. Since the move Lara and I have got a new bed, a queen sized compared to the previous full, and I must say I love it. The memory foam is entirely worth it. Due in large part to the changes to my sleep quality and patterns related to the move and the mattress my back pain has nearly disappeared, my neck is less stiff, and I'm feeling better all around. That plus some other trends I've noticed have been leading me to believe that a number of my minor complaints of aches and pains in life may all be connected to one or two root causes that I just need to track down. Thank goodness I track "everything", should make it easier to find out what's causing the little stuff.
So, now that the semi-digression is over, what do the numbers have to say today? 204, up two pounds since last week. My body fat is down 1% since last week, which combined means I put on about 3 pounds of muscle and dropped a pound of fat in the last week. One of these days perhaps I'll actually manage to combine things in such a way as to have visible abs. For now, I'm going to follow my own advice, do something every day to make myself the me I want to be.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 64)
Sunday yet again, so here we are for the weigh-in.
This week has been an interesting one. Started work at a different location, lots of things different but many the same, or at least eerily familiar. In addition we've gotten mostly unpacked at the apartment, only the office remains and that because we don't yet have a desk. This week I had some time off, and now access to the fitness center with a weight machine, so I started in on my workout program.
So, for those who don't know yet, which is probably most of you, I came upon a book a while back called The Four Hour Body, written by a one Tim Ferriss. Not entirely unlike myself he is a self-experimenter, but he's been doing quantified experiments using himself as a subject for nearly ten years now, which has resulted in this book. So I'm taking some of the things he discusses and testing them out on myself. My Primal experiment is sufficiently similar to his Slow-Carb diet that I can say with reasonable certainty that it seems to work about as predicted, though since I didn't try that when I had the dramatic amounts of weight to lose that most of the people who have tried it out had I can't quote such impressive numbers. The 4HB is also where I got the idea to try my icing experiment, which also worked out pretty well for me.
So now, with my weight under control, and my body fat sufficiently low, it was time to try something new, adding muscle. Being the kind of guy who finds extreme claims worth testing, I latched onto the idea behind the chapter in the book called Occam's Protocol. The premise is that by doing a single set to failure of a weight lifting exercise you will stimulate more growth in less time than by doing endless reps broken into multiple sets and with almost certainly lower weight. This honestly makes sense to me, even more reason to try it out. Further, under the idea that the larger your muscles get the more time it takes your body to recover from major strain to them this protocol uses a startlingly low frequency, starting with 2 days off between the A and B workouts, and then building up to 4 or more days between as time goes on. This part leaves me a bit dubious, but I can't say I don't find the idea attractive. Thus, I felt the need to test this out, as the worst case is that I make no progress on putting on muscle, and the best case is upwards of 20 pounds of muscle in a month. I don't expect I'll get results anywhere near that good, but I won't know unless I try, and the "typical" 10 pounds of muscle a month isn't bad either.
So how does it work? Well this is gonna get a little jargony so if you don't know or care about some of it go ahead and skip this knowing that it's essentially 2 types of exercises plus a little extra work each workout. Workout A is composed of supinated close-grip lat pulldowns, followed by shoulder presses, that's the minimum for the workout, I'm throwing in the optional ab exercises which means adding myotatic crunches and something referred to in the book as "the cat vomit exercise", which can be summed up as a gravity assisted resistance exercise for the TVA or corset muscle. The first workout, which I did this week, took me around 40 minutes or so, due majorly to the fact it included the establishment of the baseline values to work up from. The B workout consists of an inclined bench press, followed by leg curls (it was supposed to be a leg press in the machine version of this workout plan but I don't have the equipment to make that workable. Having to choose between Curls or Extensions on this machine I picked curls as the information I got from the book suggests the leg work is mostly to increase overall muscle involvement in terms of volume, and the curls worked the glutes which are some of the largest muscles in the human body.) and the optional exercise here that I added was the two-handed kettlebell swing to work the lower body even further. The B workout finishes up with 3 minutes at 85 rpm on the stationary bike "to minimize leg soreness". The B workout took me also about 40 minutes due to establishing minimums and the fact there were other people in the gym when I went this time around, and only one machine.
For now, I'm going to try this protocol out, keep track of my data the way I have been before, and get weekly photos to track my progress. Between all that I should have a decent ability to figure out what results I get from this plan. I think the hardest part for me is going to be eating enough, a problem I never thought I'd have, as getting nearly 4000 calories per day is not something I'm used to anymore, and getting enough protein in my diet is not proving easy either. As a result this week I'm going to be picking up some protein powder to add into the mix as that should help with both those problems.
So, what does the scale have to tell me this week? 202, same as the last couple weeks. What's not the same as the last month however is my bodyfat percentage, it had been holding steady at 9.5 for most of March, but this week, the day after the A workout in fact, it dropped to 7.3, and the following day to 5.5. It has since leveled out again at 7.3, suggesting to me the 5.5 was a fluke, but that's a fairly sudden change that seems promising at least at first glance. Luckily, I've got lots of data left to collect that will show whether it turns out to be significant or not. Until next week, do whatever it takes to be the you you want to be.
This week has been an interesting one. Started work at a different location, lots of things different but many the same, or at least eerily familiar. In addition we've gotten mostly unpacked at the apartment, only the office remains and that because we don't yet have a desk. This week I had some time off, and now access to the fitness center with a weight machine, so I started in on my workout program.
So, for those who don't know yet, which is probably most of you, I came upon a book a while back called The Four Hour Body, written by a one Tim Ferriss. Not entirely unlike myself he is a self-experimenter, but he's been doing quantified experiments using himself as a subject for nearly ten years now, which has resulted in this book. So I'm taking some of the things he discusses and testing them out on myself. My Primal experiment is sufficiently similar to his Slow-Carb diet that I can say with reasonable certainty that it seems to work about as predicted, though since I didn't try that when I had the dramatic amounts of weight to lose that most of the people who have tried it out had I can't quote such impressive numbers. The 4HB is also where I got the idea to try my icing experiment, which also worked out pretty well for me.
So now, with my weight under control, and my body fat sufficiently low, it was time to try something new, adding muscle. Being the kind of guy who finds extreme claims worth testing, I latched onto the idea behind the chapter in the book called Occam's Protocol. The premise is that by doing a single set to failure of a weight lifting exercise you will stimulate more growth in less time than by doing endless reps broken into multiple sets and with almost certainly lower weight. This honestly makes sense to me, even more reason to try it out. Further, under the idea that the larger your muscles get the more time it takes your body to recover from major strain to them this protocol uses a startlingly low frequency, starting with 2 days off between the A and B workouts, and then building up to 4 or more days between as time goes on. This part leaves me a bit dubious, but I can't say I don't find the idea attractive. Thus, I felt the need to test this out, as the worst case is that I make no progress on putting on muscle, and the best case is upwards of 20 pounds of muscle in a month. I don't expect I'll get results anywhere near that good, but I won't know unless I try, and the "typical" 10 pounds of muscle a month isn't bad either.
So how does it work? Well this is gonna get a little jargony so if you don't know or care about some of it go ahead and skip this knowing that it's essentially 2 types of exercises plus a little extra work each workout. Workout A is composed of supinated close-grip lat pulldowns, followed by shoulder presses, that's the minimum for the workout, I'm throwing in the optional ab exercises which means adding myotatic crunches and something referred to in the book as "the cat vomit exercise", which can be summed up as a gravity assisted resistance exercise for the TVA or corset muscle. The first workout, which I did this week, took me around 40 minutes or so, due majorly to the fact it included the establishment of the baseline values to work up from. The B workout consists of an inclined bench press, followed by leg curls (it was supposed to be a leg press in the machine version of this workout plan but I don't have the equipment to make that workable. Having to choose between Curls or Extensions on this machine I picked curls as the information I got from the book suggests the leg work is mostly to increase overall muscle involvement in terms of volume, and the curls worked the glutes which are some of the largest muscles in the human body.) and the optional exercise here that I added was the two-handed kettlebell swing to work the lower body even further. The B workout finishes up with 3 minutes at 85 rpm on the stationary bike "to minimize leg soreness". The B workout took me also about 40 minutes due to establishing minimums and the fact there were other people in the gym when I went this time around, and only one machine.
For now, I'm going to try this protocol out, keep track of my data the way I have been before, and get weekly photos to track my progress. Between all that I should have a decent ability to figure out what results I get from this plan. I think the hardest part for me is going to be eating enough, a problem I never thought I'd have, as getting nearly 4000 calories per day is not something I'm used to anymore, and getting enough protein in my diet is not proving easy either. As a result this week I'm going to be picking up some protein powder to add into the mix as that should help with both those problems.
So, what does the scale have to tell me this week? 202, same as the last couple weeks. What's not the same as the last month however is my bodyfat percentage, it had been holding steady at 9.5 for most of March, but this week, the day after the A workout in fact, it dropped to 7.3, and the following day to 5.5. It has since leveled out again at 7.3, suggesting to me the 5.5 was a fluke, but that's a fairly sudden change that seems promising at least at first glance. Luckily, I've got lots of data left to collect that will show whether it turns out to be significant or not. Until next week, do whatever it takes to be the you you want to be.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 63)
Sunday again and time for the weigh-in.
Well, this weeks post is gonna be short, as the weekend has been consumed by moving.
Kept working on my pushups by greasing the groove this week, and I feel like I've made serious progress on that front. Went for a nice run early in the week as well. Starting next week I'm going to be working on Occam's Protocol in the fitness center here at the apartment, equipment permitting of course. Past that it's all gonna be about how much I can manage to eat and of what. I'll probably increase the frequency of updates a bit in some form, posting a quick blurb with how the workout went when I do a Protocol workout, weights, reps, and a summary of the caloric intake of the days since the last workout. Each week I'll likely through in a section at the bottom of this post with the update calorie goals for the following week, and possibly some tape measurements of various muscle areas. We'll have to see how this evolves as time goes on.
For now, let's just get you the numbers for this week shall we? 202, same as last week. Stalled a bit it seems, but at least it's not dropping. Body fat is still hovering around 9.5% which I'm fine with. As for caloric goals the Protocol reccomends 20 calories per pound of lean mass for 10 pounds more than your current weight, so that's 3845, and further it suggests 1.25 grams of protein for each pound of lean mass, so 182g per day. We'll see how well I can manage that going forward. Until next week, be the you you always wanted to be.
Well, this weeks post is gonna be short, as the weekend has been consumed by moving.
Kept working on my pushups by greasing the groove this week, and I feel like I've made serious progress on that front. Went for a nice run early in the week as well. Starting next week I'm going to be working on Occam's Protocol in the fitness center here at the apartment, equipment permitting of course. Past that it's all gonna be about how much I can manage to eat and of what. I'll probably increase the frequency of updates a bit in some form, posting a quick blurb with how the workout went when I do a Protocol workout, weights, reps, and a summary of the caloric intake of the days since the last workout. Each week I'll likely through in a section at the bottom of this post with the update calorie goals for the following week, and possibly some tape measurements of various muscle areas. We'll have to see how this evolves as time goes on.
For now, let's just get you the numbers for this week shall we? 202, same as last week. Stalled a bit it seems, but at least it's not dropping. Body fat is still hovering around 9.5% which I'm fine with. As for caloric goals the Protocol reccomends 20 calories per pound of lean mass for 10 pounds more than your current weight, so that's 3845, and further it suggests 1.25 grams of protein for each pound of lean mass, so 182g per day. We'll see how well I can manage that going forward. Until next week, be the you you always wanted to be.
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