Sunday yet again, time for the weekly update.
Mileage is increasing steadily, run today was over half of my current single week record, with todays run being over half of my first stage goal distance.
So, what exactly am I doing with all this running you may wonder. Well, it's actually a fairly carefully constructed running program I've cobbled together from various other training programs I've found online ranging from Jeff Galloway's Run/Walk/Run program for people shooting for completion of a Half-Marathon to programs designed to achieve specific time goals for Half-Marathons. I've looked them all over, and done a decent amount of independent research into various training options and strategies, and put together the program I'm using now, and the one I'm going to transition myself into in the next few weeks.
Currently I'm using two timed runs each at a total duration of 30 minutes, 20 minutes of intervals (80% "up", 20% "down") and a 5 minute warm-up and cool-down on either side; and a single long run each week run with 5 minutes warm-up/cool-down on either side of mile repeats (80% "up" 20 "down") for the target distance of the week. The immediate goal of the timed runs is to improve my pace and thus the distance per run. The immediate goal of the long run is to increase my distance running ability progressively, by adding a mile to the distance each week, until I reach my current target distance of 12 miles. After that I'm going to decrease the long run to 10 miles a week for a while as I work on improving my pace on the 10-milers. Sporadically I'll increase the long run up past the 12 miles I went to originally, in steps and then back down to 10 again to keep working on pace. The goal of all this being to get myself to a point where I can easily run the race distance in a reasonable pace.
In addition to that I currently do a weekly treadmill run of 3 minutes at what I have tested as my VO2max, the threshold at which exercise becomes more anaerobic than aerobic, and 3 minutes at 50% thereof. Repeats of that for most of the workout duration are designed to increase the threshold, and I increase both the high and the low speeds on those workouts progressively to ensure I keep improving. At the end of those workouts I turn the speed on the treadmill up to see how fast I can run for 30 seconds continuously. Another metric I track during these runs, because there are fewer other things to distract me than most runs, is my turnover. I pick a minute, of my 3 minute up interval, and count how many times my feet hit the ground. The idea being that the more times they hit the ground, the further distance I can cover in the interval at the same stride length, and since my barefoot running style means that my stride length falls within a certain range that I can't change all that much, increasing turnover is the best way for me to gain speed.
Well, that went on a bit longer than expected, so I guess I shall save until next week the changes I plan to make to my running schedule to turn a weekly cycle into a 3 week cycle with even more vectors for improving my running efficiency and capacity.
So, what about the scale this week. 208, down a pound from last week. With the sadly low percentage of my diet composed of protein right now I'm not all that surprised by the thinning out my increase in running seems to be contributing too. My bodyfat seems to be holding pretty stable, which means I am sadly losing some muscle mass along with fat, but I'm working on plans to change that. So stay tuned. Always be the you you want to be.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 71)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Weight has been trending a little low this week so we’ll have to see what comes of that later on in the post.
The ups and downs with my weight, especially when my daily calorie intake is taken into question along with other factors, has lead me to the conclusion it is probably time to look into changing up my nutritional composition again. I’m thinking something similar to the Primal Experiment from January.
This time around, due in part to my increasing running mileage, I’m going to be keeping some more carbs in my diet, but I think I’m going to limit them to rice, and tubers. Other than that to flesh out some calories and load up for my long runs I’m going to be trying to keep to lean meat, veggies, nuts, seeds, and some fruit like before. It’s tasty, it’s not bad for me, and if my research pans out to be true may actually improve my times in addition to helping me lean out and put on some muscle.
The other thing that’s been tumbling around in my mind of late is trying to see what I can do about putting on some more muscle and seeing what I can do about some abs. So far it looks like my 6-minute abs is having at least some impact on my gut, and the circuits that I’ve been using to accompany it are doing pretty well all around as well. So, with some inspiration from going to watch Thor, I found the best information I could about a number of celebrity transformations for movie roles, Hemsworth for Thor, Bale for Batman, Craig for Bond, Butler for Leonidas, etc. I’ve been comparing what I could find about what they did to prepare for the roles, and there are a lot of similarities in their methods. Exactly what similarities I noted I’ll save for next week, but suffice to say I think that with a little work and some dedication I think I can probably replicate at least some measure of the results, albeit reduced because I don’t have 6 hours a day to work out and a staff of dietitians, trainers, and chefs to keep everything about me humming along smoothly. With what I do have though I think I can probably get good results, though it’ll take me longer than it did for the celebs.
Well, further details on that to come later, for now though let’s take a look at the numbers shall we? 209, down a pound from last week. So as I suspected, I dropped a bit over the week, but with some increased caloric intake I think I can remedy the losses with some more muscle. Body fat is down, if only slightly, so at least the spread is moving in the right direction even when the needle itself isn't. Until next week, keep working toward being the you you want to be.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 70)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
This week had some ups and downs on the scale, though it seems to have leveled off now, I think mostly due to some changes in my workout volume. That being mostly taken care of now should help keep things pretty steady again.
Shortly before writing this post I completed my second distance based training run, 4 miles with warm-up/cool-down, and I have to say, it was easier than I expected for something a little over a mile past my usual distance. I'm hoping that stays true as I keep packing on the miles over the coming weeks.
This week, while pondering the meaning of life and everything I suspect, I stumbled across a realization about myself. For reasons I have not yet been able to determine I have a pretty terrible sense of personal awareness. Which is to say, I'm less good than I feel I really should be at things like figuring out when I'm starting to get dehydrated, monitoring how fast I'm running, gauging how much and what quality of sleep I'm getting, what's hard enough and what's too hard in terms of my resistance training. I'm not completely worthless at those thing, I'm just not as able as I feel is normal to determine when something is only slightly off from the baseline, instead noticing things when they are becoming a bigger issue that could have been mitigated or prevented had I known what was going on that little bit sooner.
Now comes the realization. This is why I love things like Runkeeper and Dailyburn so much. They let me collect data about myself easily that I can use to figure out the answers to those questions quicker, and in some cases predictively. Knowing "I lost 34 ounces of water on that run" is much better than "I'm a little thirsty" and allows me to get back to my baseline state that much quicker. Keeping my sleep journal for the last week or two has let me figure out at least a little bit more about how I view my sleeping and opened up a bit more into the quality of my sleep. Collecting data helps me fill in the gaps and become better at maintaining myself at optimal efficiency. Bring on the data I say, I've got spreadsheets enough for all of it.
So, what do the final numbers of the week from the scale tell me? 210, same as last week. Little bit of bouncing around during the week, more than normal at least, but all balances out in the end. Until next week, be the you you want to be everyday.
This week had some ups and downs on the scale, though it seems to have leveled off now, I think mostly due to some changes in my workout volume. That being mostly taken care of now should help keep things pretty steady again.
Shortly before writing this post I completed my second distance based training run, 4 miles with warm-up/cool-down, and I have to say, it was easier than I expected for something a little over a mile past my usual distance. I'm hoping that stays true as I keep packing on the miles over the coming weeks.
This week, while pondering the meaning of life and everything I suspect, I stumbled across a realization about myself. For reasons I have not yet been able to determine I have a pretty terrible sense of personal awareness. Which is to say, I'm less good than I feel I really should be at things like figuring out when I'm starting to get dehydrated, monitoring how fast I'm running, gauging how much and what quality of sleep I'm getting, what's hard enough and what's too hard in terms of my resistance training. I'm not completely worthless at those thing, I'm just not as able as I feel is normal to determine when something is only slightly off from the baseline, instead noticing things when they are becoming a bigger issue that could have been mitigated or prevented had I known what was going on that little bit sooner.
Now comes the realization. This is why I love things like Runkeeper and Dailyburn so much. They let me collect data about myself easily that I can use to figure out the answers to those questions quicker, and in some cases predictively. Knowing "I lost 34 ounces of water on that run" is much better than "I'm a little thirsty" and allows me to get back to my baseline state that much quicker. Keeping my sleep journal for the last week or two has let me figure out at least a little bit more about how I view my sleeping and opened up a bit more into the quality of my sleep. Collecting data helps me fill in the gaps and become better at maintaining myself at optimal efficiency. Bring on the data I say, I've got spreadsheets enough for all of it.
So, what do the final numbers of the week from the scale tell me? 210, same as last week. Little bit of bouncing around during the week, more than normal at least, but all balances out in the end. Until next week, be the you you want to be everyday.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 69)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
Interesting week this week. Kept up with what I'd been doing before and started some new things for good measure.
Firstly, if you've not blocked the app from your Facebook feed you've probably noticed I'm logging runs through Runkeeper a bit more often than before, I think 4 days in the last week. I decided at some point this week that I wanted to start training for a half marathon. No specific reasons other than to push myself past my current limits, and because having a specific goal in mind makes that easier for me. So I put together a training plan for my running with scheduled runs at various durations and distances so that I have something I can refer to to keep on track. So far I've done one of the timed runs and one of the distance runs on my new plan and it's going well so far.
Also this week I decided to start working on the exercises from the Pre-Hab chapter from 4HB, because they are easy enough to fit into my schedule on otherwise "off" days, and they won't hurt anything at the least, and at the best might help prevent injuries down the road. That combined with my 6-minute abs workouts and associated bodyweight circuits should keep me busy most days. I've also started with a weekly treadmill run, to coincide with Lara's biking, to push my aerobic threshold up, and once I get my heartrate monitor, alternated with a run to increase my bodies ability to handle lactic acid buildup. All that should workout to me being in much better shape overall, and staying that way.
In the wonderful world of me being a ridiculous data monger I've decided to start keeping a sleep log and tracking statistics related to my sweat rate. First, the less disgusting of the two. In an effort to improve all aspects of my life through better data collection I've decided to start tracking my perceptions related to my sleep, quality, time it takes to fall asleep, how much I wake up during the night, and if I wake up too early. So far it's been feeling fairly productive, though since it's all based on perception rather than numbers there is only so much it can do. The Sweat Rate data is an effort by me to make sure that as I increase my mileage further I avoid dehydration. When I run, like most people who do so, I sweat. How much I sweat is a variable number based on pace, temperature, humidity, and dew point, or at least that's the theory. By weighing myself before and after a run, and knowing how much water if any I ingested while on the run, I can determine how much water weight I lost over the course of my activity. That number combined with the duration of the activity can allow me to calculate a loss per hour which I can track against the conditions listed above to hopefully determine a predictive method for my sweat rate that will let me ensure I stay properly hydrated as my mileage increases.
Anyway, that was a fairly long post today and so I shall sum it up fairly briefly with numbers. Scale tells me I'm at 210 this week, same as last week, which is what I'm after right now. Until next week, always push yourself to be a better you than you were when you woke up.
Interesting week this week. Kept up with what I'd been doing before and started some new things for good measure.
Firstly, if you've not blocked the app from your Facebook feed you've probably noticed I'm logging runs through Runkeeper a bit more often than before, I think 4 days in the last week. I decided at some point this week that I wanted to start training for a half marathon. No specific reasons other than to push myself past my current limits, and because having a specific goal in mind makes that easier for me. So I put together a training plan for my running with scheduled runs at various durations and distances so that I have something I can refer to to keep on track. So far I've done one of the timed runs and one of the distance runs on my new plan and it's going well so far.
Also this week I decided to start working on the exercises from the Pre-Hab chapter from 4HB, because they are easy enough to fit into my schedule on otherwise "off" days, and they won't hurt anything at the least, and at the best might help prevent injuries down the road. That combined with my 6-minute abs workouts and associated bodyweight circuits should keep me busy most days. I've also started with a weekly treadmill run, to coincide with Lara's biking, to push my aerobic threshold up, and once I get my heartrate monitor, alternated with a run to increase my bodies ability to handle lactic acid buildup. All that should workout to me being in much better shape overall, and staying that way.
In the wonderful world of me being a ridiculous data monger I've decided to start keeping a sleep log and tracking statistics related to my sweat rate. First, the less disgusting of the two. In an effort to improve all aspects of my life through better data collection I've decided to start tracking my perceptions related to my sleep, quality, time it takes to fall asleep, how much I wake up during the night, and if I wake up too early. So far it's been feeling fairly productive, though since it's all based on perception rather than numbers there is only so much it can do. The Sweat Rate data is an effort by me to make sure that as I increase my mileage further I avoid dehydration. When I run, like most people who do so, I sweat. How much I sweat is a variable number based on pace, temperature, humidity, and dew point, or at least that's the theory. By weighing myself before and after a run, and knowing how much water if any I ingested while on the run, I can determine how much water weight I lost over the course of my activity. That number combined with the duration of the activity can allow me to calculate a loss per hour which I can track against the conditions listed above to hopefully determine a predictive method for my sweat rate that will let me ensure I stay properly hydrated as my mileage increases.
Anyway, that was a fairly long post today and so I shall sum it up fairly briefly with numbers. Scale tells me I'm at 210 this week, same as last week, which is what I'm after right now. Until next week, always push yourself to be a better you than you were when you woke up.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 68)
Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.
This week brought with it some big changes to my workout plan that I'm exploring for various benefits. It also brought some good preliminary numbers in terms of body metrics and very delicious food at an event we got invited to yesterday.
So, what have I done to my workout plan? Well, as I mentioned last week I finished up my bulking phase and have decided a combination maintenance phase and some dedicated time working toward a six-pack was in order. As such I decided to experiment with the 6 Minute Abs chapter of 4HB. It's a pretty simple set of exercises, short as the name implies, that leaves me feeling like I've put in some hard work. A set of 10 myotatic crunches, 10 12-sec TVA exercises (the humorously named cat vomit exercise), and 75 2-handed kettlebell swings. You do this twice a week and when combined with a diet that allows you to stay under 12% body fat it is supposed to yield pretty impressive results in the abdominal region. We'll see how that pans out.
This week also saw Lara decide to join me in the gym, yay Lara!, with some stationary biking. As a result, I needed a plan that would keep me busy a bit longer than 6 minutes at a time. To help with that I decided to add on to the 2 6 minute abs days with some bodyweight circuit training. A circuit comprised of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 10 lunges on each side, 10 dumbell rows on each side, and 20 jumping jacks gets my blood pumping pretty well and presents a good full body workout in a short time. Last time in I completed 2 full circuits, working my way up to 3 and then increasing the weight on various exercises to increase the difficulty and get a better burn. Because I was in need of a 3rd day a week to workout I'm going to fill that day with some work on beast skills, right now trying to work on pistol squats, and then some treadmill work at or near my vVO2max to help increase that threshold. Better cardiac health, better respiratory fitness, and better running speed, all from a fairly short workout overall. I can live with that.
So what does the scale have to say this week about my efforts. 210, up a pound from last week, combine that with a .2 drop in body fat and I'm not doing terribly. I'm going to be shooting for keeping my weight fairly steady for now, or at least not actively trying to put on or lose weight, and see what happens. Until next week, keep striving to be the you you want to be.
This week brought with it some big changes to my workout plan that I'm exploring for various benefits. It also brought some good preliminary numbers in terms of body metrics and very delicious food at an event we got invited to yesterday.
So, what have I done to my workout plan? Well, as I mentioned last week I finished up my bulking phase and have decided a combination maintenance phase and some dedicated time working toward a six-pack was in order. As such I decided to experiment with the 6 Minute Abs chapter of 4HB. It's a pretty simple set of exercises, short as the name implies, that leaves me feeling like I've put in some hard work. A set of 10 myotatic crunches, 10 12-sec TVA exercises (the humorously named cat vomit exercise), and 75 2-handed kettlebell swings. You do this twice a week and when combined with a diet that allows you to stay under 12% body fat it is supposed to yield pretty impressive results in the abdominal region. We'll see how that pans out.
This week also saw Lara decide to join me in the gym, yay Lara!, with some stationary biking. As a result, I needed a plan that would keep me busy a bit longer than 6 minutes at a time. To help with that I decided to add on to the 2 6 minute abs days with some bodyweight circuit training. A circuit comprised of 20 squats, 10 pushups, 10 lunges on each side, 10 dumbell rows on each side, and 20 jumping jacks gets my blood pumping pretty well and presents a good full body workout in a short time. Last time in I completed 2 full circuits, working my way up to 3 and then increasing the weight on various exercises to increase the difficulty and get a better burn. Because I was in need of a 3rd day a week to workout I'm going to fill that day with some work on beast skills, right now trying to work on pistol squats, and then some treadmill work at or near my vVO2max to help increase that threshold. Better cardiac health, better respiratory fitness, and better running speed, all from a fairly short workout overall. I can live with that.
So what does the scale have to say this week about my efforts. 210, up a pound from last week, combine that with a .2 drop in body fat and I'm not doing terribly. I'm going to be shooting for keeping my weight fairly steady for now, or at least not actively trying to put on or lose weight, and see what happens. Until next week, keep striving to be the you you want to be.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 67)
Sunday yet again and time for the weekly update.
This week saw the completion of my first race, the warrior dash. For those who don't know it's a "mud run" with an advertised 3.4 mile course and a collection of obstacles along the route. Runkeeper tells me the course was closer to 3.3 miles than 3.4, which fits up with the rather different course layout that we ran compared to the posted map. The obstacles were also different from what was on the map. Regardless, it was a blast and I'm likely to do it again if I get the chance. My time came in around 48 minutes, which is slightly higher than I was expecting but not a problem, my goal was to finish plain and simple and I did that.
This week also marks the end of my bulking experiment, so it's time for some results and some analysis. I put in a total of around 3 and a half hours of total gym time over the course of the experiment, which is even less than I figured I'd end up at. Over the course of the protocol my weight values went up consistently as represented by this helpful list:
This week saw the completion of my first race, the warrior dash. For those who don't know it's a "mud run" with an advertised 3.4 mile course and a collection of obstacles along the route. Runkeeper tells me the course was closer to 3.3 miles than 3.4, which fits up with the rather different course layout that we ran compared to the posted map. The obstacles were also different from what was on the map. Regardless, it was a blast and I'm likely to do it again if I get the chance. My time came in around 48 minutes, which is slightly higher than I was expecting but not a problem, my goal was to finish plain and simple and I did that.
This week also marks the end of my bulking experiment, so it's time for some results and some analysis. I put in a total of around 3 and a half hours of total gym time over the course of the experiment, which is even less than I figured I'd end up at. Over the course of the protocol my weight values went up consistently as represented by this helpful list:
- Close-grip lat pulldown: 75 -> 105 (40% increase)
- Shoulder Press: 45 -> 85 (90% increase)
- Chest Press: 85 -> 115 (35% increase)
- Leg Curl: 45 -> 75 (66% increase)
Some good numbers, consistent increases across the board. The numbers would possibly have increased more if I had been better about my caloric intake, about 80% of the time I made my overall calorie goal, but I only made my protein goal perhaps 30% of the time, and that's being somewhat generous. Even despite that I made good strength gains and seem to have made some reasonable mass gains to go with it.
So where do I go from here? Probably going to do some testing with Slow-Carb mixed with testing out the 6-minute abs stuff from 4HB. I'm really not needing to add more mass now so much as redistribute what I've already got so that it looks better.
So what does the scale have to say about all this progress? Today the numbers came up at 209, up 2 pounds from last week, and 7.1% body fat, down half a percentage since last week. Since the start of this experiment I've gained 12 pounds of muscle and dropped 5.2 pounds of body fat. For the amount of time I put in I'd say those are some pretty fine results. Only time will tell what the future holds. Until next time, be the you you want to be.
Addendum: Sadly, due to a couple issues this didn't get posted until Monday morning. Sorry about that. Look for pictures to show up by Wednesday.
Addendum: Sadly, due to a couple issues this didn't get posted until Monday morning. Sorry about that. Look for pictures to show up by Wednesday.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 66)
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.
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 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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