Fit by 60! - TomO's Pledge

those are some intense looking workouts, good luck tom, though i dont think youll need it honestly. youve got what it takes, im sure of it.

The strength and conditioning coaches at my college used to put me through some routines similar to that, but i was never in truly great cardiovascular health, so those giant sets would friggin kill me at the end. it was punishment for not losing weight, lol.
 
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Weight: 231.4 - Round 4, Day 19.

OK, this Plateau is down for the count. Two more days at 232.0 or less, and he's history!

Food yesterday came in at 2,229 calories:
Fat 122 gm, 49%; 18 gm saturated, 7%
Carbs: 186 gm, 30%; 41 gm fiber
Protein: 74 gm, 13%
Alcohol: 10 gm, 3%

Way too low on the protein side, I know. I ate way too many nuts yesterday. Although the fat they have is mostly good, they're not that high in protein, and they filled me up, so I didn't have room for the meat I should have eaten instead.

With my NARM of 2,329 calories, plus 435 calories from my weight training, I ended up the day with a deficit of 535 calories, and a month to date deficit of 13,080 calories.

I suffered my first real setback at the gym yesterday. I have been feeling pretty worn out the last few days, and yesterday especially so. It was time for my Weights "B" workout, the toughest one. I struggled through my 5 x 5 sets of squats at 220 lb., and then barely finished the incline db press at 130 lb. Next was the deadlift. Here I forgot to listen to my inner voice. Or let's put it this way -- one inner voice told me, "You can't just do your whole workout with the same weights. You've got to improve something. Jack up the deadlift by 5 lbs., and you'll be happy with your progress." The other inner voice told me, "Watch out! You're tired, and this is a good one to screw your back up on if you don't pay attention!"

I should have listened more to the second inner voice. I did my warmup deads, and they were fine. Then I loaded up the bar to 220 lbs. I struggled on the first rep, but thought I would get in the groove. On the 5th rep, I got sloppy, forgot my form, rounded my back, and OUCH! As soon as I was upright, I knew I was done for the day. I didn't totally screw up my back, but it's at the point where moving it the wrong way is not a pleasant experience.

Steve concurred that this would be a good time for me to take my week off -- in fact he said I should be taking 10 days off. I've been pushing myself really hard, and I think my body needs to recuperate a bit. After all, I'm no spring chicken anymore!

So I'm going to spend the next 7 to 10 days doing nothing more strenuous than walking my dog.

I'll have to be really careful with the diet, since I have a low metabolism, and 2,350 calories is my maintenance point. But I intend to come out of this in good shape and ready for my new workout schedule, which is a doozie.
 
Good to know you are smart enough to know when enough is enough (and from a youth's standpoint, you are certainly out-doing me)

Enjoy your "rest week"...I find it the hardest part of my life style change (I hate using diet :D).
 
DeepGreen said:
Enjoy your "rest week"...I find it the hardest part of my life style change (I hate using diet :D).
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Thanks, Adam. Yeah, rest weeks are difficult. The 600 to 1,000 calories a day on the exercise side makes up for a lot of sins on the nutrition side.
 
I hear those same two voices in my head at times. It's difficult because a lot of the time it's the first one that needs to be listened to - and clearly it's the one that got you so far. Then there are the times we hear the second voice as well and find out a little late that it was the right one... bummer. I hope your back is normal again soonest.

I don't know what seems more daunting - your week off - or your return! :eek: Your comment about the nuts interested me. I hadn't thought about them as being less valuable protein sources, though I remember now that I have seen it before. I need to keep that in mind in my own diet.
 
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well done

Hi TomO

Good going on your weight loss so far

Thats a good training program you have there, did you hire a pro or did you just know what to do

bodyfitcoach
 
Tom, I'm so sorry to hear about your back! What a bummer. Rest makes good sense, but a health-imposed rest isn't fun. Back pain is a funny phantom..... Here's hoping yours is fully gone as soon as possible.

What you may find is that this does you a lot of good. Really changing up your routine could be interesting. Write up and tell us what you do while letting your body fully recover. To a quick and full recovery.
 
felici said:
I hear those same two voices in my head at times. It's difficult because a lot of the time it's the first one that needs to be listened to - and clearly it's the one that got you so far. Then there are the times we hear the second voice as well and find out a little late that it was the right one... bummer. I hope your back is normal again soonest.

I don't know what seems more daunting - your week off - or your return! Your comment about the nuts interested me. I hadn't thought about them as being less valuable protein sources, though I remember now that I have seen it before. I need to keep that in mind in my own diet.
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Thanks, Felici. Yeah, sometimes it's hard distinguishing between a feeling of caution and just downright laziness. I tend to write off most of the cautious voices as just wanting to take it easy, but this time i was wrong.

The routine i'm starting on when I return looks pretty tough to me, so I plan to get really rested.

I love nuts! But 1/3 cup has around 200 calories and only 6 grams of protein. Pistachios have more protein than many kinds, but I tend to lose control with them.

bodyfitcoach said:
Hi TomO

Good going on your weight loss so far

Thats a good training program you have there, did you hire a pro or did you just know what to do

bodyfitcoach
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Thanks, bodyfit. Yes, I have a pro who designed my program, but he is right on this board, and helps many of us for free! His name is Steve, and his journal is called "A Journey, Not a Destination."

I don't know why he is so generous with his time -- he's just one of those remarkable people who enjoys helping others -- though he does make it clear that he will only help those who are willing to help themselves.


jlynne said:
Tom, I'm so sorry to hear about your back! What a bummer. Rest makes good sense, but a health-imposed rest isn't fun. Back pain is a funny phantom..... Here's hoping yours is fully gone as soon as possible.

What you may find is that this does you a lot of good. Really changing up your routine could be interesting. Write up and tell us what you do while letting your body fully recover. To a quick and full recovery.
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Hi JLynne. I totally hate back problems. I don't have them very often, thank God. I plan to really watch my calorie intake carefully the next ten days, and to do some leisurely walking with my dog.
 
Just popping in to say "morning"..sorry about the back problems, it does sound like your body was giving you some good advice though (why is that the hardest kind to take from ourselves?). Enjoy your rest week. I think I must just be lazier than the average bear, 'cause everyone always says how hard it is for them...while I just happily laze around for the week, reading trashy novels, eating the healthy equiv. of Doritos and think "Ahhhh, this is nice".
 
Cym, I think the everyone feels about the same way you do, secretly or openly. What makes it so hard is the temptation to make the rest week the normal state of affairs. :)
 
Tom, I used to have the same reservations about my breaks..."what if it turns into forever???" I think I was lifting and running six days a week, week after week (plus yoga) for months and starting to get seriously burned out before I was encouraged to take a week off. And that first week was soo hard. But I went back at it feeling so good I started scheduling a week off every six weeks and haven't looked back since.

It's like if you have a job that you love and work hard at, but it's vacation time, and you don't think about your job on vacation, you just have fun doing what you do, when you go back to work you're all mentally/physically refreshed and charge, and it's like you see solutions to problems that you were'nt seeing before and you drive everyone crazy (cause they're still all burned out) with a sudden outpouring of new ideas and energy.....unless you hate your job and don't want to go back - then you know it's time to change jobs (or exercise to keep the analogy going)....make sense?
 
Wow what a day yesterday! Sorry you tweaked your back--I think a week or more off would be quite refreshing and rejuvenating.

Um, what do you mean you have a "low metabolism?" are you talking about when you're taking a week off?
 
Curvie Girlie said:
Wow what a day yesterday! Sorry you tweaked your back--I think a week or more off would be quite refreshing and rejuvenating.

Um, what do you mean you have a "low metabolism?" are you talking about when you're taking a week off?
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Hi, Valerie. Most people set their resting metabolism at around 12 to 14 calories per pound of body weight. Mine is set to 10 calories per pound. That may be a tiny bit low, but I doubt it's much more than 11. A real bummer, as i love to eat!
 
A lot more goes into metabolic rate than muscle mass. Actually muscle mass is a small contributor, relative to what most believe.

I've seen people throw numbers out there like, "Every pound of muscle burns 50 calories per day."

I am 195 lbs and 10% body fat right now. That means I have a lean body mass of approximately 175 lbs. Certainly that is not ALL muscle. But for simplicity's sake, let's suppose it is.

That would mean my muscle, alone, burns 8,750 calories per day. That is stupid. If I ate that much I'd be a whale.

Even if it were only 100 lbs of muscle, it is still silly.

The most recent numbers I've seen is something like 6 calories per pound.

And at Tom's age (no offense Tom!) metabolic output tends to fall for various reasons.
 
Curvie Girlie said:
How did you come up with 10? What about your insane muscle mass???
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:rotflmao:You crack me up!

You know, I have this giant spreadsheet where I keep track of all the calories, in and out. So I have an accurate record of what I actually have lost, vs. what I think I should have lost.

Here's how the stats come out so far:
Since January 10th (the first day I really started keeping accurate track of things), I've lost 18.6 pounds, or the equivalent of 65,100 calories. My accumulated deficit since that time, which incorporates my Normal Activity Rate of Metabolism (NARM), comes to 50,963 calories, or a difference of 14,137 calories. This seems like a lot, but it only comes to 101 calories a day.

In other words, I've been underestimating my NARM to the tune of 101 calories. If I make the proper adjustment, instead of a NARM of 10.0 calories per pound (mu current setting), I would change that to 10.4 calories per pound. That would make the accumulated deficit over the past 5 months exactly equal to my weight loss over that period of time.

As for "insane muscle mass" LOLOLOL, the graph below shows that there's plenty of insane flab to go along with that:

View attachment 3599

One thing I'm VERY happy about, though, is that my lean body mass is not decreasing at all. The only thing that's been going down is my fat mass, which is exactly what I've wanted.
 

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