Life after Work

Been quite a while since my last post, life has been busy.

Got a promotion at work to a very different position which has me working more hours and at somewhat odd times in some cases. As such it put a rather large cramp in my usual workouts. As a result I ended up taking nearly a month off from running with only minimal strength training either. I've since gotten back on the wagon and started running again and increased my resistance work.

I've learned a couple important lessons from this incident though. Firstly I've learned that I need to relax a bit and not stress about getting out for a run every day. Any running is better than no running, and missing a day because work is just not lining up right or my body is just not in condition for it that morning doesn't need to be a big deal. One day off can be just that and not snowball into a week or more without any running at all. Starting back in slow, 10 minutes or so a day, and as often as I can manage, with a day off when scheduling or recovery demands, and building up the time from there. Hoping to get to a point where 30 minutes a day can be reasonable with more on weekends (up to as long as 2-2.5 hours perhaps). The real trouble is soon going to be weather, as things start warming up either I'm going to need to be out earlier or move inside.

I've also learned that with frequent application of gravity the body can become surprisingly stronger in a short amount of time. While I did not reach my goal of unassisted pistol squats, I did manage to improve my ability, and move closer to that goal, using doorway assisted squats. I've also started playing with some inverted work, headstands for now but eventually handstands are a goal. Also made good progress on my pushups and bridges as well. Leg raises and pull-ups have sort of stalled but I'm sure they will progress again shortly, if after a bit of tweaking to bust the plateau.

In terms of my diet of late I've been having some interesting opportunity to experiment on that front. My food choices still leave some room for improvement, but my timing has been changed up a bit. I've been finding myself unable to get much chance for a decent breakfast, so I decided to use my new schedule as an excuse to finally try some intermittent fasting. Instead of the normal 8-12 hours of not eating that comes from sleeping after dinner and before breakfast I've been not eating lunch until 1:30-3 which, given my usual habit of ending my feeding window around 9-11 in the evenings an average of 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating a day. So far I've not been having any issues with excess hunger or rapid weight loss so I'm not concerned with the ramifications at present. It'll be interesting to see how things progress over time as I refine my plan.

So there you have it, a summary of my last month or two. In the next interval I'm hoping to continue progressing with my cardio and my resistance. Here's hoping things keep going as well as they've been going the last week or so.

So what's the weight looking like. 203.6, up around 2 since last time. Overall, I'm not really bothered by that. A little weight fluctuation isn't abnormal for me, I'm still feeling and looking good. Anyway, until next time, keeping being the you you want to be.