Sunday once again and time for an update.
Pretty smooth sailing this week. Hit the gym for some weights a few times throughout the week, which I hadn't done the previous two weeks, so feeling the wonderful soreness that happens as a result of that. Not been quite at my calorie goals sadly, but I'm managing to make at least some progress on cleaning up what I'm eating.
Light on the content this week as well I'm afraid. I've really not had all that much new stuff to talk about for a while so they may stay short for the foreseeable future. What I do have to say is that my mileage seems to have stalled a bit. My long runs haven't been getting much longer the past few weeks because I've been having to cut them short due to concerns of injury. Working on slowly but surely pushing the distance up to where I want it, thankfully I've got plenty of time before my race date to get into shape.
So, what does the scale have to say this week? 207, down a pound from last week. Not good in the short term, but in the long term I'm holding pretty steady really so I'm ok with that. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 79)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Not much to say this week really, all been going pretty smoothly.
Got a new piece of tracking tech this weekend, the Zeo Sleep Coach I'd been after for a while. Tried it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well, though it'll be a few days at least before I have any sort of truly useful data on habits. I've also been looking at the data from my daily measurements of my resting heart rate and noticing a few patterns I'm going to try to monitor more closely. Namely, when I go more than a couple days without exercising my resting heart rate goes up, a beat or two the first couple days and then a larger jump on about the third or fourth day. When I go for another run, it drops back down by most of the difference again. I was expecting to see a downward trend in the measurement over time as a training effect, but I wasn't expecting the variation to be that noticeable on a scale of days rather than weeks. Always good to see things working better than I'd expected. I'll keep posting updates on some of my non-weight measurements as I find interesting things to post.
So, speaking of my weight, this week the scale tells me 208, the same as last week, body fat has stayed the same as well. Steady as she goes I suppose. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Not much to say this week really, all been going pretty smoothly.
Got a new piece of tracking tech this weekend, the Zeo Sleep Coach I'd been after for a while. Tried it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well, though it'll be a few days at least before I have any sort of truly useful data on habits. I've also been looking at the data from my daily measurements of my resting heart rate and noticing a few patterns I'm going to try to monitor more closely. Namely, when I go more than a couple days without exercising my resting heart rate goes up, a beat or two the first couple days and then a larger jump on about the third or fourth day. When I go for another run, it drops back down by most of the difference again. I was expecting to see a downward trend in the measurement over time as a training effect, but I wasn't expecting the variation to be that noticeable on a scale of days rather than weeks. Always good to see things working better than I'd expected. I'll keep posting updates on some of my non-weight measurements as I find interesting things to post.
So, speaking of my weight, this week the scale tells me 208, the same as last week, body fat has stayed the same as well. Steady as she goes I suppose. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 78)
Sunday yet again and time for a brief update.
This week was pretty packed due to Harry Potter week so not much to talk about.
What brilliant revelations do I have this week? Eating popcorn in large amounts for as one of your primary meals of the day is not good for your nutrition, 4 hours of sleep a night is not really enough, a week of no training leaves you not fully equipped for your long run to be longer at the end than it was at the beginning.
Not all that revelatory, but whatever, I needed something to fill the space with.
So what do the numbers tell me this week? 208, up a pound from last week. So despite my terrible food this week I didn't do too bad, and my body fat stayed about the same as well so I'm really not too much worse off for wear. This week I'll do better. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
This week was pretty packed due to Harry Potter week so not much to talk about.
What brilliant revelations do I have this week? Eating popcorn in large amounts for as one of your primary meals of the day is not good for your nutrition, 4 hours of sleep a night is not really enough, a week of no training leaves you not fully equipped for your long run to be longer at the end than it was at the beginning.
Not all that revelatory, but whatever, I needed something to fill the space with.
So what do the numbers tell me this week? 208, up a pound from last week. So despite my terrible food this week I didn't do too bad, and my body fat stayed about the same as well so I'm really not too much worse off for wear. This week I'll do better. Until next week, be the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 77)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Not much to talk about this week so it should stay pretty brief.
Was pretty bad about doing any cooking this week sadly, and next week won't be much better since every night I'm going to be at the movies instead of home. Picked up some protein powder at the store today so that should at least improve the fractionation of my diet a bit.
Decided to do my long run on the treadmill this week. This had a few consequences. I lost more to sweat this week in absolute terms than I have before, despite being inside, which was to be expected really. The treadmill offers me a few nice benefits over running outside. For one, my run ends at the right place every time, no guess work to make sure that I finish my desired distance when I'm back at the apartment instead of half a mile off. As a result of that I also have more freedom to decide while I'm on the run that I feel good and can do another mile or some such, as happened today. It also allows me to focus more on my heartrate than on my pace. Once I find a pace that I can hold for the duration at about the right heart rate I'm set and I can just do my run and hit the zone. Runkeeper does not yet have truly robust support for heart rate sadly, I'd love to see them add better audio cues for heart rate, and the ability to key coaching off of it. The treadmill also let's me take the time to calculate my turnover, which is a number I like tracking to help keep my form in good shape among other things but which is hard to get on an outdoor run without a cadence sensor I don't have.
Treadmill runs do have a couple limitations though. Firstly, The treadmill can only go for so long it would seem. Today my run lasted so long the treadmill stopped being able to track the time and thus shut itself off. Luckily there is a second treadmill I was able to make the migration to and finish my run. The other benefit that outdoor runs have over treadmill running is moving air. As you run outside you get a lot of air moving past you that helps with your cooling and keeps your clothing that little bit drier. That little bit can be important sometimes, and long runs are one of them. (The squeamish should consider to skip this segment) About 7 miles into this run I ran into some problems with jogger's nipple, leading to a small amount of blood loss. Nothing serious of course, just annoying and unexpected. Picked up some roll-on anti-chafing product from RoadRunner down the street and hopefully that should prevent any further issues.
So anyway, what about the numbers? 207, down a pound from last week. Bodyfat about constant so no worries there, no worries just facts of life. Hopefully in a week or two when I can actually get back to my weight training that'll improve more, sadly due to an injury my training partner wasn't able to make it so I stayed content with my running this week to help her recuperate from her burn. Until next week keep being the you you want to be.
Not much to talk about this week so it should stay pretty brief.
Was pretty bad about doing any cooking this week sadly, and next week won't be much better since every night I'm going to be at the movies instead of home. Picked up some protein powder at the store today so that should at least improve the fractionation of my diet a bit.
Decided to do my long run on the treadmill this week. This had a few consequences. I lost more to sweat this week in absolute terms than I have before, despite being inside, which was to be expected really. The treadmill offers me a few nice benefits over running outside. For one, my run ends at the right place every time, no guess work to make sure that I finish my desired distance when I'm back at the apartment instead of half a mile off. As a result of that I also have more freedom to decide while I'm on the run that I feel good and can do another mile or some such, as happened today. It also allows me to focus more on my heartrate than on my pace. Once I find a pace that I can hold for the duration at about the right heart rate I'm set and I can just do my run and hit the zone. Runkeeper does not yet have truly robust support for heart rate sadly, I'd love to see them add better audio cues for heart rate, and the ability to key coaching off of it. The treadmill also let's me take the time to calculate my turnover, which is a number I like tracking to help keep my form in good shape among other things but which is hard to get on an outdoor run without a cadence sensor I don't have.
Treadmill runs do have a couple limitations though. Firstly, The treadmill can only go for so long it would seem. Today my run lasted so long the treadmill stopped being able to track the time and thus shut itself off. Luckily there is a second treadmill I was able to make the migration to and finish my run. The other benefit that outdoor runs have over treadmill running is moving air. As you run outside you get a lot of air moving past you that helps with your cooling and keeps your clothing that little bit drier. That little bit can be important sometimes, and long runs are one of them. (The squeamish should consider to skip this segment) About 7 miles into this run I ran into some problems with jogger's nipple, leading to a small amount of blood loss. Nothing serious of course, just annoying and unexpected. Picked up some roll-on anti-chafing product from RoadRunner down the street and hopefully that should prevent any further issues.
So anyway, what about the numbers? 207, down a pound from last week. Bodyfat about constant so no worries there, no worries just facts of life. Hopefully in a week or two when I can actually get back to my weight training that'll improve more, sadly due to an injury my training partner wasn't able to make it so I stayed content with my running this week to help her recuperate from her burn. Until next week keep being the you you want to be.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 76)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
This week has seen me testing out some fun things, and making a few changes to the routine to accommodate scheduling. Scrapped the Wednesday run since I had to be at work early, and had been out late for a midnight movie with friends, switched my Tuesday treadmill run out for a VO2max test, and my Friday Tempo run out for a Maximum Heart Rate test. Both of those went well. Today I had to scrap my 9-miler due to weather conditions not cooperating with my plans, and I'm working on backup plans for future runs to ensure that I can still get my training miles in even if the weather doesn't want to play nice.
The running is only one aspect of my workouts though, and this week I promised a more detailed explanation of the new resistance training plan I'm working on so here it goes, broken down by the day.
Sunday is abs and full-body circuits. My ab routine goes 1x10 myotatic crunches, 1x10 TVA contractions, 75 two-handed kettlebell swings with a 20 pound kettlebell, and 30-seconds of plank in the pushup position, and on each side. After that my full-body routine is 2 circuits of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 20 lunges (10 each side, alternating), 20 dumbell rows (10 each side), and 30 jumping jacks. Once I get through one round of that I go through a second round, in both cases with as little rest as possible between exercises. Fridays I do the same thing as Sundays to finish off my week.
Monday is Arms/Shoulders, 3x5 of each of modified dips (don't have anything the right height to support me so for now it's basically pushups but facing up instead of down), lateral dumbbell raises (aka Shoulder Flys) superset with bicep curls, and finished off with a machine shoulder press. Wednesday is Legs day, as it's the furthest away from my long runs and I don't have a run on Thursday in my regular rotation. 2x10 of each of squats, lunges, stiff-leg deadlifts, and machine leg curls. The squats and deadlifts here are being done with dumbbells instead of barbells because the equipment I have access to is dumbbells and a weight machine. Thursday is my Chest/Back day, 3x5 each of pushups with my feet on an exercise ball (adding an extra stability element compared to regular pushups and putting more emphasis on my chest than on my legs), pectoral/chest fly, machine chest press, and supinated lat-pulldowns.
Weeks one and two are being used for working out the kinks in the routine and for figuring out appropriate starting weights. After that I'm either going to increase every week provided I hit my rep count, or making the last set of each exercise "to failure" and increase the weight if I can get at least 2 more than the previous sets of the exercise. I'm not sure which option I'll be taking yet but either way the point is clear, keep the weight increasing. When I reach the limits of my equipment I'll have to figure out where to go from there, but when possible it's likely to be toward making the exercises more difficult through leverage disadvantage. Trick will be making sure I keep whatever I do safe.
For now I think that's all I have to say. If you have feedback I'd welcome it, either way it's time for the numbers for today. 208, up a pound from last week and back to where we were sitting for the weeks preceding. Bodyfat is still stabilizing after my measurement recalibration and I'm feeling pretty darned good these days. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
This week has seen me testing out some fun things, and making a few changes to the routine to accommodate scheduling. Scrapped the Wednesday run since I had to be at work early, and had been out late for a midnight movie with friends, switched my Tuesday treadmill run out for a VO2max test, and my Friday Tempo run out for a Maximum Heart Rate test. Both of those went well. Today I had to scrap my 9-miler due to weather conditions not cooperating with my plans, and I'm working on backup plans for future runs to ensure that I can still get my training miles in even if the weather doesn't want to play nice.
The running is only one aspect of my workouts though, and this week I promised a more detailed explanation of the new resistance training plan I'm working on so here it goes, broken down by the day.
Sunday is abs and full-body circuits. My ab routine goes 1x10 myotatic crunches, 1x10 TVA contractions, 75 two-handed kettlebell swings with a 20 pound kettlebell, and 30-seconds of plank in the pushup position, and on each side. After that my full-body routine is 2 circuits of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 20 lunges (10 each side, alternating), 20 dumbell rows (10 each side), and 30 jumping jacks. Once I get through one round of that I go through a second round, in both cases with as little rest as possible between exercises. Fridays I do the same thing as Sundays to finish off my week.
Monday is Arms/Shoulders, 3x5 of each of modified dips (don't have anything the right height to support me so for now it's basically pushups but facing up instead of down), lateral dumbbell raises (aka Shoulder Flys) superset with bicep curls, and finished off with a machine shoulder press. Wednesday is Legs day, as it's the furthest away from my long runs and I don't have a run on Thursday in my regular rotation. 2x10 of each of squats, lunges, stiff-leg deadlifts, and machine leg curls. The squats and deadlifts here are being done with dumbbells instead of barbells because the equipment I have access to is dumbbells and a weight machine. Thursday is my Chest/Back day, 3x5 each of pushups with my feet on an exercise ball (adding an extra stability element compared to regular pushups and putting more emphasis on my chest than on my legs), pectoral/chest fly, machine chest press, and supinated lat-pulldowns.
Weeks one and two are being used for working out the kinks in the routine and for figuring out appropriate starting weights. After that I'm either going to increase every week provided I hit my rep count, or making the last set of each exercise "to failure" and increase the weight if I can get at least 2 more than the previous sets of the exercise. I'm not sure which option I'll be taking yet but either way the point is clear, keep the weight increasing. When I reach the limits of my equipment I'll have to figure out where to go from there, but when possible it's likely to be toward making the exercises more difficult through leverage disadvantage. Trick will be making sure I keep whatever I do safe.
For now I think that's all I have to say. If you have feedback I'd welcome it, either way it's time for the numbers for today. 208, up a pound from last week and back to where we were sitting for the weeks preceding. Bodyfat is still stabilizing after my measurement recalibration and I'm feeling pretty darned good these days. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.
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