Fit by 60! - TomO's Pledge

I will throw some recommendations at you. You can try now, or wait and see where this plateau takes you. Or don't follow them ever, haha.

1. Drop cals by 250 or so.

2. On HIIT, if you are conditioned enough, start busting out 15-20 minute sessions. I think I read up above that you did a session for 40 minutes. That is not HIIT. However, I could be wrong, if you are doing a couple of HIIT sessions that are lasting 15ish minutes a week, good.

3. Start taking more measurements. I would like to see arms, chest, belly, waist, thighs.

This is weight training that you are not used to and I would not be surprised to see some hypertrophy in the early stages.

How are you measuring body fat?
 
Steve said:
I will throw some recommendations at you. You can try now, or wait and see where this plateau takes you. Or don't follow them ever, haha.

1. Drop cals by 250 or so.

2. On HIIT, if you are conditioned enough, start busting out 15-20 minute sessions. I think I read up above that you did a session for 40 minutes. That is not HIIT. However, I could be wrong, if you are doing a couple of HIIT sessions that are lasting 15ish minutes a week, good.

3. Start taking more measurements. I would like to see arms, chest, belly, waist, thighs.

This is weight training that you are not used to and I would not be surprised to see some hypertrophy in the early stages.

How are you measuring body fat?
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Steve, I'm in NO position to argue with you -- you're much more knowledgeable than I am on this!

So . . .
#1 - I'll start dropping calories by 250 tomorrow.
#2 - That 40 minutes included 10 min. of warmup before and 10 min of cooldown after at an SS rate. So the actual HIIT part of the routine was 20 minutes.
#3 - Other measurements -- OK don't laugh!

arms - 15"
chest - 48"
thighs - 25"
calves - 17"
waist (narrowest part) - 40"
waist (belly button) - 43"
height - 72"

#4 - measuring body fat with both calipers and with DOD ab/neck/height ratio. They come out pretty much the same.
 
Tuesday, March 7, 2007

Weight: 243.2 - Plateau #2, Day #26

A little happier this morning with the weight, since at least it's down 1.4 pounds from yesterday. And, after all, I can't forget I still have a good shot at making my goal of 242.5 for the month.

I'm going to follow Steve's recommendations and drop intake calories by 250. My average this month has been around 2,750 a day, so I'll cut that to 2,500 a day.

My new, slightly modified routine will be:

Day 1: Pure HIIT - 10 min. warmup, followed by 11 to 15 all-out sprints, followed by 10 min. cooldown [goal = 700 cal.]

Day 2: Weights - BB Squat, BB Bench Press, DB 1 Arm Row, Pullups, Stdg. Mil. Press + ~30 min. of SS Cardio [goal = 1,000 cal]

Day 3: SS Cardio [goal = 1,000 cal]

Day 4: Light walking [goal = 300 cal]

Day 5: Interval/HIIT Routine, 65 min. [goal = 1,000 cal]

Day 6: Weights - BB Squat, Incl. DB Bench Press, Deadlift, BB Row, Pullup + ~30 min. of SS Cardio [goal = 1,000 cal]

Day 7: SS Cardio [goal = 1,000 cal]

Day 8: Rest

Repeat

We'll see how this works!
 
now that'a s church i could be a part of - do they encourage drinking and wantonness? not wontons -though those would be ok too :)
 
Yes, the 8th day is a day of pure binging -- basically, you lie around all day, drink whatever you want, eat wontons wantonly, top it off with mounds of chocolate cake and ice cream. Dalwhinnie is on tap. And, if you've been properly baptized, not a single calorie of all that sticks to you!
 
Let me know how it works out Tom. And keep consistent track of those measurements. You are zig zagging your cals, right?
 
The type of weight training you are doing is very energy intensive, so you need to supply that energy if you want it to be most effective. How much of a surplus have you been running on these high days?
 
On my "off" days, I've typically been running a surplus of around 500 calories.

So now I'll run a surplus like that on weight days, and try to run a deficit on off days. Ugh!!
 
Next step, and I don't think you need to do this yet, but next step is to reduce that surplus on training days to half.
 
Workout Log - 3/13/2007

Total: 84 minutes, 1,040 calories

Part 1: Weight Training, 54 min., 542 calories
a) BB Squat, 1 x 5 @ 95 lbs. / 5 x 5 @ 155 lbs. Difficulty = 2-
b) Incline DB Bench Press, 5 x 5 @ 120 Diff = 3
c) Deadlift, 1 x 5 @ 95 lbs. / 5 x 5 @ 155 lbs. Diff = 2
d) BB Row, 5 x 5 @ 85 lbs. Diff = 2+
e) Chinup, 5 x 5 @ level 17, Diff = 2+

Notes
a) form felt better today. think the warmup set helped. no improvement in weight.
b) had to drop weight from last time - left arm just couldn't hold the dumbbell, so I dropped to 60 ea.. Still failed on the last rep of last set.
c) added 20 lbs. from last time
d) same weight as last time
e) same level as last time

Part 2: SS Cardio, Elliptical, 30 min.

Didn't really feel like doing it, but I needed the calories!
 
Tom,
great diary, and WOW on your stat tracking. Stats tend to depress me so i'm going to try to go the first two or three months focusing on running and working out consistently, at some point I will really dig into counting calories and I can tell this will one of the places I come!

Keep up the good work, since we are currently about the same size (240's) it will be fun to keep pace with someone on the way down (hopefully)!
 
Weight: 242.8 - Plateau #2, Day #27???

I put the question marks, because this is the first real sign in 3 weeks that I may actually be breaking out of this damned plateau. It's the lowest I've weighed since Feb. 20, and who knows -- maybe that was just a fluke.

So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Steve advised me to make my weights day a surplus day (instead of my off day), but I just couldn't do it. The problem was, I didn't eat any junk food yesterday at all. I just didn't have an urge for it. I felt like a grazing cow all day, but the most I could manage to get down was 2,600 calories, which left me with an 800 calorie deficit for the day. I even ate 3/4 of a pound of salmon last night to try to get the calories up there.

When your RMR is around 2400 calories, and you use 1000 calories on exercise, it's hard to end up with a deficit -- unless you resort to junk food.

I'm finding that junk food of all kinds is less and less tempting. I used to have a "ritual" every Friday afternoon. I'd buy a big bag of Cheetos, pour myself a double scotch, and contemplate my week. (That's my only hard liquor drink of the week, though I do drink wine with most meals). The last couple of weeks, I look at that big bag of Cheetos, and all I see is 850 calories of junk, almost an entire workout. Somehow, it just takes the urge away.

Same thing happened a few days ago when Marlene convinced me we should be able to cheat on ice cream just once a month. So we went to Cold Stone, but this time I got the smallest serving, and it was just as satisfying as my medium servings were before.

I think that's one of the healthiest changes we can make -- we start looking at our food not just as gratification, but as fuel. You can't just say that to make it happen; you have to live it, day in and day out. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, your mind starts to evaluate everything you put into your body, and it has a definite effect on the pleasure centers of your brain. The junk food that used to be so satisfying before now does so much less for you.

That, by the way, is why I don't believe anymore in diets like Atkins. I've tried Atkins - twice. Both times, I lost 35 pounds. But then the idea of pasta and bread just overcame me, and the dam broke. Your brain on Atkins concentrates not on the overall quality of the fuel, but rather on its carbohydrate makeup. Since your body absolutely needs carbs, you are always at war with yourself on Atkins.

Energy balance is harder, that's for sure. You have to take your life into your own hands. There are no easy shortcuts. But the payoff is much bigger in the end, of that I'm utterly convinced.
 
Morning! Thanks for stoppin by! I subscribed!

God how aweful to be stuck on a plateau for so long--looks like it's over, eh?

I heard somewhere that it's bad to think of food as a reward--but I guess it's obvious that food isn't ever JUST fuel. Hmmm, it's hard to say.

Good luck, and keep up your hard work--and feel lucky you're a man and get to eat more and still lose weight--it's such a pain to eat under 2000 calories for me...I really can't wait to be at my goal, because I used a couple of websites and maintenance weight for a 25 year old woman (well I WILL be) at 130lbs 5'7" for my activity level is around 2100-2300 calories. Thank God! Looking forward to it....
 
Curvie Girlie said:
I really can't wait to be at my goal, because I used a couple of websites and maintenance weight for a 25 year old woman (well I WILL be) at 130lbs 5'7" for my activity level is around 2100-2300 calories. Thank God! Looking forward to it....
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Thanks for dropping by, CG. Yes, that will be nice! You're going to reach yours WAY before I do. You can taunt me regularly then. :)
 
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