Weekly Weigh-in (Week 62)

Sunday once again and time for another weigh-in.

Going to be kind of a hodge-podge this week I think. Firstly, I would just like to say, in case any of you didn't know already, that Renaissance Festivals are awesome. Why does this have anything to do with this post? Well, Ren Fest has a lot of walking around and being outside involved, both of which are great for you, but the more relevant thing is that for me anyway they also involve costumes. Previous years I had gone with a nice all consuming cloak that Lara and I made, mostly Lara I will freely admit, a few years back. This year I was, as is often the case, bit by the creativity bug and so we embarked on a new costume quest. The result was a kilt and a Jacobite shirt. Mostly I brought this whole anecdote up to brag about the fact that the shirt, according to the pattern it was based off, is a size medium. Considering I used to wear shirts in a XXL, I'm calling that a hell of an accomplishment.

Secondly, I started using a new iPhone app this week to track my food and my weight. Meal Diary has served me well for a good while now, but with my food choices straying further and further from my original printed list over time, and no sign of going back any time soon, it's categories are becoming less useful. Further complicating it's usage is the fact that with my bulking phase upcoming I find myself needing to track my caloric intake and specifically my protein intake more accurately than I had been previously. For this, and because as an added benefit it allows me to enter my body fat when I make the measurements, I have switched over to using Daily Burn's iPhone app. The design is rather nice, and since I already had an account with them which I had been rarely using it was a simple setup. For any food that I eat which is packaged or from a restaurant I can just search for it, select a number of servings, and be on my way. For homemade food they also have a database of USDA food options that you can use to compose your meals, or in some cases I just find the closest thing that I can manage and call it good. So my method may not be perfect, but it's more detail than I had before. As an added benefit it tracks micronutrients like various vitamins and sends you an email every day letting you know if you are getting way too much or too little of certain nutrients.

That's about all for this week I think. Next week I'll be back with something, most likely details on the specific caloric plan I'm working with for my bulking phase, and what I'm going to need to do to accomplish it.

So what does the scale have to say this week? 202, same as last week, though my body fat trend line is now below 10% for the first time in recorded history. So while progress is slow so far, I'm also not actively into my bulking phase quite yet. So until next time, be the you you want to be.