New Header....

I would like to change my header to incorporate the following picture I made...



It symbolized the bricks that need to be in place and the wall we will try to go past during a race.
What do you think?

Week Fourteen

First week of the second quarter...

It seems that this has been a continuation of last week. I have not gone to the gym and worked out as hard as I have in the past few weeks.

I think the cutting back on intensity is helping out a bit. I hit a new low weight this week 191.6# I think I had been overtraining a bit and the rest is paying off.

Heavy Weight for the Week: 193.6 LightWeight for the Week: 191.6 Cardio Training: Swim 0 yards (second weeks of no swimming) Bike 5 one-hour classes (~100 miles) Run 13.5 miles Weights: 2 sessions of upper body Misc.: Sit ups Body Fat %: 11.3

A Quarter of a Year and Counting

Ok... so I've been at this for 13 weeks. Above you can see a graphical representation of my weekly average weight as well as % body fat. All in all not that bad. The trend lines are all heading in the correct direction, and I have not starved myself to get to where I'm at.

There is plenty of improvement that can occur in the next 13 weeks. I hope to hit a weight of 185 pounds in the next thirteen weeks. That will take me to the end of the summer when I will compete in my long race for the year. I also would like to be sub 10% body fat during that time.

It's all about baby steps...

Week Thirteen

That's a quarter of a year that I've been at the training. There have been some good weeks and then there has been weeks like this one.

This has not been one of the stellar hard workout weeks for me. On the positive side, I did get a chance to work out five times this week. Saturday I did a double spin class. On the negative side, I didn't get into the pool once and I only ran twice. Like I said in an earlier post I had one of my worst workout days this week also. I also missed my Thursday workout because I wasted my day trying to pick up relatives from the airport. The stress level was pretty high after that. All this gloom and doom....

My wife always tells me that all guys have to do is to do a few situps and they will shed weight. I guess she must be right as I hit my low weight for the quarter on Sunday. Yahoo...192.6 pounds.

Heavy Weight for the Week: 194.6
Light Weight for the Week: 192.6
Cardio Training: Swim 0 yards
Bike 6 one-hour classes (~120 miles)
Run 4 miles
Weights: 3 sessions of upper body
Misc.: Sit ups crunches
Body Fat %: 11.2

Bad day of working out...

I went to workout yesterday, and I did my normal spin class. It was supposed to also be a run night for me (4.5 miles @ an easy 10 minute pace)...

I got done with the bike and stepped on the treadmill... started the run and bonked just before a mile. I struggled to finish the mile just so I could put something down on the log for the day. I just couldn't get relaxed or comfortable, and it was the worst I felt in a long time. The weird thing was that I didn't run out of energy with the typical bonk, it was more of a drained feeling.

I'm glad that when I went back today I felt better after the bike enough to due a full weight workout.

This ever happen to anyone else?

Week Twelve

Three months and counting. I have been trying to make a difference in my body over the last few weeks (really hard and long workouts) and I think it is making very little babysteps. Next week I'm going to post a spreadsheet that will show my progress over the last quarter.

The gym this week has been crazy. Countless amounts of newbies all over the place, at least this will not last long.

I rode in a beginning spin class on Thursday (missed my regular scheduled spin class) and I had a kind of a funny experience there. One of the newbies showed up and asked me if she had to move and set up the bike herself. She was what I would call a Miss Priss. You know the kind... "I'm here to be seen and not to sweat". I guess if you don't know what to do it is best to ask.

Heavy Weight for the Week: 194.6
Light Weight for the Week: 193.0
Cardio Training: Swim 1500 yards
Bike 6 one-hour classes (~120 miles)
Run 14 miles
Weights: 3 sessions of upper body and one session of lower body
Misc.: Sit ups crunches
Body Fat %: 11.4

Parking Lot

Why do some people wait for a "good" parking space at the gym?

Isn't this the last place where you would find parking spot squatting going on?

Week Eleven

It's finally over... the Holidays are past us.

These last few weeks have been hectic in our family as we sponsored Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day dinner and Festivus at out house. All this while trying to clean up from the drywallers mess in the basement. So needless to say I would not have been surprised to see that my fitness level would have dropped.

When I went to the club this morning I was amazed to find the place relatively half empty. I am sure that a lot of people were sleeping off last nights New Years Eve festivities. At our house it was stay up to midnight and open up a few bottles of kid friendly "champagne".

Over the last week I have been trying to keep the workouts hard to make up for the fact that I would be eating junk and drinking some adult beverages. So all in all, I am happy with the results for the week.

Heavy Weight for the Week: 195.2
Light Weight for the Week: 193.6
Cardio Training: Swim 1300 yards
Bike 5 one-hour classes (~100 miles)
Run 10 miles
Weights: 3 sessions of upper body
Misc.: Sit ups crunches
Body Fat %: 11.3

Weight Loss for New Years Resolution

Most people will have a New Years resolution like stop smoking, quit drinking, or exercise more. The resolution most people have is to loose some weight. Smallstep.gov is a site that tries to help with this issue. There is a list of over 100 small steps that one can do to help with the weight loss. These are meant to be small steps in the battle over obesity. Take a handful and implement them in your life. Remember that the weight gain didn't happen overnight and neither will the weight loss. It has been four years for me to get to where I'm at and I'm still struggling to improve my fitness level. Do what works best for you. If your going to do a Atkins or South Beach diet remember that once you are off the diet you will put weight back on. With me it is simple thermodynamics. I expend more calories then I take in.

In hindsight, if I were to do it over again I would take a picture of myself as nude as possible (front, side and rear), and take general measurements of my body (neck, chest, arms, waist, hips, thighs, etc) along with the starting weight. Set a short term goal and a long term goal with a date to achieve each goal. Hang the pictures and the short term goal on the refrigerator door. This is meant to be a deterrent and a reminder of your goals.

I used to weigh myself on a daily basis at the same time of day with the same condition and chart the weight on an spreadsheet. I weighed myself in the morning after using the bathroom. After you have developed your weight loss habits (it takes 21 days to form any habit) post your spreadsheet on the refrigerator door as well and update it every week. This will be a visual cue that the weight loss is working. When you hit a short term goal reward yourself (buy a new bike, exercise clothes, set of dumbbells etc.) and set a new short term goal.

Note that if you don't do this for yourself you may fail. It will help if you have someone else going through the same process as you go through it. Make it fun... wager a lunch over who looses the most weight. Finally, you have to treat this as a LIFE CHANGING EVENT. If you don't you will just yo-yo diet and will put on the weight again (if not more).

Good Luck!