By the Numbers

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Agreed on the machines, Cory & Hale. Yet I think I like the elliptical because it shows the biggest loss numbers - I realize I'm only fooling myself. Well done on all those exercises, Hale! The list in your post above is very, very impressive to me.

By the way, I'm not sure Hale and I should be communicating with each other - our respective Provinces are on the verge of a trade war. LOL!
 
Brent: Quite frankly, the number of reps in that list of exercises is embarrassingly low so I wouldn't put much stock in that. I had started with ridiculously low numbers with the plan of painlessly incrementing the volume. The first week I felt it in my abs despite the low reps but I was hoping to do max sets on Saturday to recalibrate how much I might want to accelerate the volume increase. Best laid plans...

If you're using a Concept2 as a rower, it will give you a much more accurate read on calories burned. Translate the same effort/sweat to what it takes on the elliptical and you should have a calorie burn match. It doesn't quite work for me because it's hitting less developed muscles and probably requiring more effort than the elliptical to get the same calorie consumption.

I can understand BC not wanting to assume the environmental risks associated with the TPP, but, Alberta has been a corridor for products coming from and to the west coast for decades and there was never a question of imposing some kind of barrier to the flow of goods or making any profit on it. If there were only a reasonable way to get the parties who benefit from the movement of the goods to be fully accountable for the ancillary costs and risks associated with the traffic. A trade war within a country. Ridiculous.
 
Low reps or not, I remain impressed. I keep it pretty simple at the gym, to my detriment I'm sure.

I will check the rowing machine to see which brand is at my gym but, if memory serves, I recall burning about 150 calories over the course of 9 minutes rowing 2,000 metres. THAT was a workout in and of itself. Loved it. And I know you go further and quicker - AWESOME! In any event, I suspect that was an accurate count. I'm under no illusions with the elliptical.

It's a political football here and a tenant upon which the gov't coalition is founded upon. The same coalition is selling fracking licenses in the Peace River District like they are going out of style, so the irony is not lost on me. Legally, the feds have the jurisdiction and it's an easy win in the courts. Still, you'll see a lot of "gov't assisted" protests in these parts. How often can you say that?
 
Day 34. HRV: 10, BP: 106/66 - 49, 106.7 Kg, 8.5 hr sleep .

My back felt pretty normal last night with just a bit of stiffness this morning so I booked racquetball for tomorrow morning for my rest day. Harvey gave me the thumbs up with the 10 so I upped the cadence for both the bike and elliptical by one and kept the time at 20 minutes for each of the two machines. It's my first time deliberately going with a 66 RPM rate on the elliptical. At 83 cadence, the bike reported 346 and 443 watts for the regular 2/6 gear and interval 2/8 gear. The graph showed 134/156 average/max heart rate which is the lowest calorie effort at 40 minutes this year. I have plenty of room to bump both soon. Although the heart rate recovery was only 60, it recovered down to 96 which is the lowest it's been this year 2 minutes post workout.

Lunch was a bowl of rice with leftover curried chicken. I skipped the apple since there was a bit much.
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As my son and family were coming by, Spice put on coconut rice bowls with grilled salmon with sesame seeds and fresh lime, teriyaki grilled broccoli, buried in the rice so not seen in the photo, avocado, edamame beans, red cabbage, organic watermellon radish sticks and carrot sticks and iced sparkling water with fresh lemon. She made up some wild mushroom soup as a starter. A couple cups of coffee and a slice of banana loaf cake rounded the evening.
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Pre-workout breakfast this morning was some blueberry pancakes with some butter and a blueberry syrup, a pair of eggs and a small banana with 3 cups of coffee whitened with 2% milk. I had one more pancake than shown in the photo.
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I can't complaian about either the quantity or quality of the food I'm consuming Em. Better yet, last night's dinner was a repeat of the fancy salmon bowl. I also attended an social gathering later in the evening to run a pair of video cameras and had a beer with my older brother. Earlier at lunch I had one of the oats/black beans/grains veggie burgers Spice had cooked up last week. This time it had a slice of pineapple, 2 slices of swiss cheese, avocado, red cabbage and a spicy Japanese mayo and was wrapped in naan bread still from the take away Indian food last Thursday.
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Day 35. 5 weeks done and day off the workout schedule.

Still a bit of stiffness in the back but racquetball will be on.

HRV: 10, BP: 105/65 - 51, 106 Kg, 7.5 hr sleep though start and end later than usual. I'm cooking up an oatmeal now so I have time to get it settled. According to the Garmin's weight graph, the weekly average weight is down another kilo so whatever I'm eating and doing is ahead of my target. At 3500 calories per pound, that's 7700 calories per week or 1100 deficit per day despite TDEE also being down over 100 calories per day. View attachment 25149
Cake and coffee is planned at my folks this afternoon. There's been more snow and the temperature is -17 F here this morning.
 
Yesterday's racquetball went my way yesterday. I won both games 21 - 18 and 21 - 15. I wore my heart rate monitor just to see what kinds of numbers I would get and found the Garmin reported 551 calories over 49 minutes of active play with average and max heart rates of 143/162. A bit of play is can be a fairly decent workout with lots of interval like spikes and valleys in the graph. Maybe not so much a rest day after all since the time and calories burned are beyond those of a typical morning workout.
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In the course of the day I picked up some sniffles and sneezing and had a bit of a runny nose by evening. My back seemed unperturbed by the racquetball game but I still had a bit of achiness this morning so I'm leery of taking on the weight aspects of the workout just yet. I think tomorrow I'll try one set and see how it goes.

Day 36. HRV: 6, BP: 108/66 - 56, 106.5 Kg, 8 Hr Sleep.

The sniffles may be reflected in the HRV reduction and slightly elevated morning heart rate. Or it could just be typical Monday morning stress and another cold day. I decided to repeat my last 2 machine cardio workout for 40 minutes including the 4 one minute increased resistance intervals and got my lowest heart rates based calorie count to date at 406. The average rate was 130 with a peak at 153. In addition, the HRR was only 58 but recovered down to my lowest post work out pulse rate this year: 94. I'm taking this as a clear signal to further increase the rates on both machines starting tomorrow.

Lunch yesterday was grilled cheese sandwiches using 15 grain bread, Swiss cheese, bacon and Granny Smith apple slices cooked in with garlic dill pickles and the remains of the apple on the side and two small bowls of lobster bisque soup. The leftover soup was dumped as it had started curdling and we left a piece of sandwich uneaten.
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I dropped by my folks place for coffee and pie. My dad is nearly 90 and the neighbors generally have the walks shovelled if my father hasn't already got to it but there remained a bit of snow cleanup for me to do. I also climbed on a chair and removed and reinstalled some light fixtures my mother wanted to clean as neither of them really is safe standing on a chair any longer. I had 2 pieces of store bought blueberry pie with dollops of real whipped cream my mother had just beaten in her mixer followed by a couple cups of coffee. The piece not depicted was a bit bigger and had more whipped cream. They also put on some pretzel/chip mix and I had a reasonably small amount of those. I guess I had a bit of a craving for salt owing to the sweat loss from playing racquetball earlier.
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Spice let me know I should pick up dinner on my way home and I picked up a pair of foot long submarine sandwiches from Subway. I had a roast beef sandwich on 100% whole wheat with Swiss cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, jalapenos and olives with no dressing. I ate half and kept the other half for lunch today.

Breakfast today as often was my standard oatmeal but with the ground flax seed again substituted by a whey protein powder. I'm slowly building a tolerance to the excess sweetness.
 
Day 37. HRV 9, BP: 112/69 - 51, 107.2 Kg, 7.5 Hr sleep.

The increase in the weight scale reading was a surprise to me but I'm reasonably certain I haven't put 2.5 lbs of the equivalent of 100% fat food less the water into my body in the last two days. It may be something to do with the respiratory sniffles I have or something else that is somewhat different over the last 30 plus days. I'm sure this blip will be smoothed out and I will end up with a lower average weight this week than the previous. The weekly average loss has been getting a bit smaller even though I've made a point of ramping up overall exercise activity daily.

Harvey sent me down to workout and with my back at about 95%, I elected to do the 20 minutes each on bike and elliptical with the two one minute medium intensity intervals for each but with cadence increased to 84 on the bike and 67 on the elliptical. The bike indicated power output of 353 and 452 watts at the two resistance levels. Even if the absolute numbers are bogus, I still expect that the ratio represents about a 28% increase in effort on the bike. My watch didn't catch my initial 'start' press so I'm missing several minutes at the beginning of the activity, but, I can select the interval in the graph and compare it with the previous matching interval and extrapolate an average heart rate of 135 with a peak correctly measured at 161. The bike heart rate was still below the average and the elliptical was almost entirely under 160 so I believe I need to increase the pace on both even more. I did one set of the resistance exercise with 4 by 10 sec bird dog per side, 8 reps on curl/press and push-ups and 16 sit-ups and my back still seems fine. The dumbbell presses were tough at 35 lbs but I got them done. Based on today's efforts, I plan to repeat the single set of resistance and do 40 minutes on the bike and elliptical at 85 and 68 pace with the medium intensity intervals. I will reintroduce the rower portion tomorrow as an easy 12 minute row in the evening at a 2:05 pace concentrating on correct form to ensure that does not become a factor causing my back to ache.

I had an oddball day yesterday as I spent most of it editing a 3 camera recording of 5 short performances my brother and I took last Saturday night. Spice shopped and came home with sausage rolls and a chicken noodle soup. I had a one sausage roll for lunch with a mug of soup she bought in honor of my sniffles. I had the 2nd 6" half of my roast beef Subway sandwich for dinner, attended a mini local film festival of locally produced shorts with my brother and finished off the evening with a small banana as I got hungry at about 9:00 in the evening. Post workout breakfast was the oatmeal concoction including the usual ingredients of the past few days.View attachment 25155
 
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Excellent meals, Hale.

Blips on any scale are part of it. It'll all balance out for the good if you keep on keeping on!

The rowing machine is indeed the one you referenced earlier. And I located the tension wheel on the side of the machine which has improved my time a bit. Who knew :)
 
Brent: The blip is fine but bucks the trend analysis. I know there are various possible explanations but it remains a data point within a pretty standard range of deviation, except, this one requires me to broaden the range or accept that I may want to tweak my plan. I am in a position to make adjustments so that is my preferred response. If I overshoot, it will not be difficult to scale back a bit. What I'm aiming for is the minimum investment that will provide me with an acceptable level of health and fitness. I'm looking for a level that is sustainable into my 70s so I don't want to make it excessively onerous.

As to the rowing machine - the adjustment dial is for a drag factor which isn't really equivalent to a resistance or a tension. It's more like picking a distance from the oar pivot to your hand placement. You need to pull harder if your hand is closer to the oar lock and you have to pull a bit farther if your hand is further from that pivot, but both positions can move the boat at the same speed with the same total energy expenditure. The WaterRower and magnetic resistance rowers are different in that you can effectively change the resistance by changing the water level, within a limited range, or by dialing in a set amount of magnetic resistance. The Concept2 can't readily be adjusted or messed with and is closer to a true ergometer which is why your results in one gym are directly comparable to another in a different gym and it is used as a level playing field in competitions. For most users on a clean Concept2, a drag setting of 4 works well. I've done my best hour long efforts at about a 5. A dirty machine may require a deviation from your typical best setting and there is a menu for calibrating this to your optimum once you're determined that on a particular machine.

Day 38. HRV: 7, BP: 107/68 - 51, 106.4 Kg, 8 Hr blissful sleep.

With Harvey's all clear, I attacked the workout as planned with the fastest pace on both machines this year; 85 on the bike and 68 on the elliptical. I also tried a different gear setting for the last bike interval. The watts were 18 minutes at 360 (gear 2/6), 1 minute at 462 (gear 2/8) and 1 minute at 629 (gear 3/6). The heart rate graph had an average rate of 141 peaking at 167 with a new high HRR of 64 with over half of the elliptical effort being over 160 which I find to be a good level of effort. The bike effort still seems a bit low and I'm going to bump cadence again tomorrow and make both intervals at the higher output level of gear 3/6. Total heart rate based Calories were 447 which is not too much above previous amounts. If one were to assume my earlier calorie numbers were accurate, then the current numbers should be even higher but the fitness adaptations are resulting in lower heart rate calories for proportionately greater work performed.

One set of resistance was performed as planned and I expect to spend a 12 minutes on the rower this evening at a relatively easy pace. I believe the sniffles have passed. I dodged a full blown cold and my back is feeling up to adding back in the rower. At the start of next week, if all is well, I'll resume the double sets of resistance and add something for the quads. I'm liking the 40 minutes aerobics in the morning and hope to add more rowing as a separate evening component until the weather allows some more outdoor activity. HRV is best measured in the morning but I'll move the BP monitoring to a quiet time in the evening since the 3 reading average is biting into my morning start up time.

Spice's job hunt efforts didn't work as hoped so lunch yesterday was kind of unplanned and I wound up with a can of chunky chili at 648 Calories and an apple. Given the scale bump, I decided to turn lunch into a mini fast and only ate the apple. I was definitely hungry for dinner and the lunch planning had carried over a bit to dinner. I had a pair of turkey wings and two bowls of mushroom soup leftovers. The 2nd bowl was full to the top and I dumped most of the turkey skin. Later in the evening we split a can of oysters with some crackers for about 200 Calories.
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This morning was once again the oatmeal complex.

Hopefully I will be able to tame the scale a bit better with the mini fasts and the additional time and workout intensity I've planned. According to Harvey, the total effort should be maintainable. I'm only concerned that evening rower time will cut into social activities though with the weather we are having, it will be cutting mostly into TV screen time and that's all good.
 
Hale said:
What I'm aiming for is the minimum investment that will provide me with an acceptable level of health and fitness. I'm looking for a level that is sustainable into my 70s so I don't want to make it excessively onerous.
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Sounds very sensible to me. As does rower time cutting into tv time. That wing looks delicious.
 
LaMa: We had a brother ambush us last night so the evening row didn't happen. Best laid plans and all. I'm not being quite sensible as I've given myself a deadline to get to 95 Kg. I'm still ahead of schedule but am trying to allow for stalls and plateaus and some of the effort today and the mini fast yesterday is a response to the scale moving up significantly two consecutive days this week. The weather is still damn cold here so outdoor activities remain pretty much on hold.

Day 39. HRV: 10, BP: 107/67 - 53, 106 Kg, 7 hrs sleep. Even though I was a bit light on sleep, Harvey kicked me in the butt. That's my 3rd 10 in the last 6 days which is a pretty good indication that I'm not over training.

Given that I missed my planned easy row last night, I moved it to this morning managing the 12 minutes at a more leisurely 2:04/500 m pace for 2907 metres. I kept the 20 minutes each on the bike and elliptical with the 2 one minute increased intensity intervals on each machine as well. I upped the cadence on the bike to 86 and made both intervals at the tougher gear of 3/6 I tried yesterday. Watts were reported at 367 with 644 at intervals making a dramatic bump in the heart rate graph. I maintained the elliptical at 86 as on the previous day expecting the increased heart rate after coming off both rower and a bigger effort on the bike would result in an increased heart rate on the last machine despite it being at the same resistance and speed as previously. As anticipated, the average and maximum heart rates were up at 148 and 170 with a total of 616 Kcals energy expenditure logged. HRR was 62. The graph shows the steep rise from the bike intervals in the 2nd part of the graph. I believe 1 minute intervals may be a bit long but you can see that there was still room for the rate to climb to the levels in the 3rd section of the graph.
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In addition I did a single set of my planned resistance work. I don't expect to have enough time to do this much every morning but decided to give it a shot today and see how Harvey responds. Tomorrow, I have to get up even earlier to drop a brother at the airport for a trip to LA so I'll probably be tired, but as that is the brother I'm working for, I'll have until noon to put in a workout so I will probably repeat what I did today.

Lunch was some carrot on one of the bean based veggie burgers Spice made up last week with some leftover spinach watermelon salad with some tasteless cheese, watermelon radish and red cabbage. The watermelon had gone pretty gloppy but I ate most of it.
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It had come with a Granny Smith apple, but I had my fill and saved the apple for another day. I haven't mentioned it before, but there are often cookies, Halloween candies, Xmas candy canes, muffins and various baking left at the lunch nook for people to help themselves to. Yesterday there were double chocolate - chocolate chip cookies on offer. So far this year, I have not had any of the treats.

Dinner was grilled shrimp on quinoa with soy sauce and fresh pea pods on the side. Very yummy. Feeling a bit peckish after, I had one of the small bananas and 3 cups of green tea.
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Post workout this morning, oatmeal as often is the case. I had plenty of appetite by the time my workout was done.
 
Day 40. Time flies. HRV: 7 this morning, BP: 106/69 - 61 (Weird, usually my evening pulse is lower.) 105.6 Kg, 6 + 2 Hr sleep. I was up early at 5:00 to get my brother to the airport on time and just dropped right back to bed when I got home. The watch only reported the 6 hour sleep, but I definitely had a couple hours extra when I got home.

With the getting up extra early, I had a banana before heading out in the car a bit after 5. Sleeping in and watching the news this morning meant I had my oatmeal bowl later than usual and didn't work out until after I had the bowl as lunch. I duplicated the previous workout entirely logging an average heart rate of 154 peaking at 171. The difference was probably due to the fact that I made a harder run at the rower logging 3020 metres at a rate of 1:59 which resulted in a rise to 157 pulse for the rower and a 152 average for the bike portion. Nearly the entire elliptical portion was over 160. The Garmin reported 659 total Caloric burn which is the highest this year for a workout session. In addition I did one set of the resistance workout routine. This felt like a hard workout and I'm not convinced I want to put in this much work into cardio for the long term. However, I think it helped resolve the weight blip I've bumped into this week.

Lunch yesterday was a one egg French toast on 15 grain bread with half an orange and some margarine and blueberry syrup.
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We picked up dinner to go from a Canadian restaurant chain known as Swiss Chalet and stopped by to visit the grandson and family. It was a rotisserie chicken, quartered, fries with a dipping sauce and a multi-grain roll which, based on their website, come to a bit under 1000 Calories with the dark meat quarter and the skin removed. I declined on the Negerkuss desert and just had a coffee with 2% milk.
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I broached the topic of racquetball this weekend but have yet to get a commitment. I currently have restaurant fish and chips planned with my music industry acquaintances tomorrow and plan to watch my nephew compete in a local strong man competition afterwards. Saturday night is a planned movie night with a buddy with takeaway pizza on the menu.
 
Interesting that they still call it Negerkuss over there. Sounds like you're headed for a fun weekend!
 
I just called it that because I figured you'd get it. Especially after the cheek whistle face. Racquetball is confirmed for Sunday.
 
LaMa: I recall the older name from a visit in the 60s.

Day 41. HRV: 8, BP: 108/69 - 55, 104.8 Kg, 7.5 hr sleep. I had a leisurely morning ang worked out after breakfast. Eating a bit earlier should leave some room for fish and chips lunch.

I once again duplicated the previous workout in its entirety ending up with a 12 minute row of 3041 metres at a 1:58/500 m pace. Average heart rate was 148 with a max of 167 with 617 Calories which was a little lower and easier than yesterday's workout even though the row started out just a mite stronger. HRR yesterday was 58 and today only 54 which may be a sign of overdoing it despite what Harvey says. Overall, it felt like a comfortable level of workout though I will substitute some more weights for machine cardio soon.

Given that I had breakfast at lunch yesterday, there's nothing further to report there. Dinner was a skewer of chunks of filet mignon, onion, mushroom, tomato and red peppers and pineapple on quinoa with some teriyaki sauce. I had another skewer about as big as what is seen on the top half of the picture as well.
View attachment 25163 this morning's breakfast was a bog standard oatmeal bowl.
 
Day 42. HRV 9, BP: 113/71 - 55, 104.8, 8.5 Hr sleep.

6 weeks done. Rest day today. The scale had a reading one day this week that was higher that the highest reading the week before. I was accomodating an achy back and redoubled my cardio efforts once the soreness resolved. I ended up about where I wanted and the difference between the weekly averages was a loss of 0.7 Kg. We had a one day break in the weather yesterday as it hit -4 C but it's back to -25 this morning but expected to be above freezing Tuesday.

Based on the scale body composition percentages, my hydration is up, fat is down below 27% and muscle is up though still further down in absolute terms. I will resume doubling my resistance sets and will increase reps as well. My intervals with cardio don't seem to have helped maintaining muscle but I'm not ready to change how I'm doing them yet.

My nephew took first place in his 5 event strong man competition yesterday and he agreed to help me with proper deadlift form when our paths cross again so I'm hoping that will be soon.

Lunch yesterday was one piece of battered cod with tartar sauce with fried chips and malt vinegar. We had a buddy over at dinner and cooked a large Costco deli pepperoni and cheese pizza with some added tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms and parmesan. I had two pieces.
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Breakfast was whipped ip by Spice this morning. A couple coffees with 2% milk, two eggs, a couple strips of bacon and a couple slices of multi-grain toast with margarine. Rather than the orange shown, I had a small glass of 100% pomegranate juice.
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Once this digests, I'm off to a racquetball death match after which I'll lick my wounds over cake and coffee at my folks' place.
 
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Day 43. HRV: 10, BP: 119/74 - 49, 105.5 Kg, 8 hr sleep. Racquetball game was not kind to me as I missed some basic shots and my kid beat me handily in the first game and also won a reasonably close second game. The rec centre was busy despite the -23 C cold weather. The photo was taken just before 1:00 and the sun reaches its zenith at about 12:30 in these parts.
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I did double sets of my resistance this morning based on 5 10 sec bird dogs per side, 10 curl/press dumbbells at 35 lbs, 20 sit-ups and 10 push-ups. I did 12 minutes rower for 3068 metres at a 1:57/500 pace and kept the 20 minutes on the bike and elliptical at the previois pace though I dit the bike intervals at a reduced wattage of 462 in the easier gear of 2/8. The graph indicated a total of 616 calories with average and peak heart rates of 144 and 162 and an HRR of 60.

My mother put on cherry and blueberry pie with fresh whipped cream for coffee visit Sunday. I had a blueberry piece and a small peanut butter cookie with two coffees whitened with 2% milk. My strongman nephew showed up with a book on back health that he swears by. It is written for recovering from back injuries and features the bird dog as one of 3 key exercises to perform daily.

I also had 4 Tic Tac mints on my way over with Spice. She wasn't into cooking and talked me into hitting the McDonald's drive through on the way home. I had a coupon for two sandwiches for the price of one so we each had a Big Mac. She had an order of fries with hers but I passed. I did have a good sized tablespoon of peanut butter later in the evening.

Breakfast this morning was fairly late post workout and was pretty much a repeat of yesterday's with a half orange on top.
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It will be a later than normal night as I will be picking up my brother from the airport after midnight tonight.
 
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