Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

First day of new plan. Less than perfect.

Monday, March 15th, 2010

I have a new fitness strategy that started today. How was day one? Well…

Couldn’t fall asleep last night until around 12:30am, so a 4am wake up would have played out badly. So I modified to wake at 6:30am and skipped the morning gym.

So now what. Well, it is now a question of what to do after work, since my before work plan is screwed. The plan says do the long bike ride tonight, but since I missed the gym, and muscle is more important to me right now, I opted for a gym visit.

The gym was packed of course. Time change workouters and the usual eveningers. But I navigated through them and got an awesome pump.

After an hour at the gym, it was about 6:30pm. Time for a bike ride. Long one? Sure! Great long ride ensued until 8 something.

So that means despite a messed up morning, I got it all done anyway by the end of the day. Woot.

How about tomorrow? Should I modify that as well and create a domino effect, or get back on track? I think I’ll go back to the schedule: early to bed, wake at 6:30am, easy bike ride at night.

The moral is: the next day starts at bedtime the night before.

Good night.

Fitness articles at MayoClinic.com

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Seems there are a bunch of great fitness articles there. Here are a couple I stumbled on thanks to 24 Hr Fitness.

Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity

Fitness training: 5 elements of a rounded routine

My issues, new plan of alternation

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

My current issues include, but are not limited to:

  • Low on sleep: need more.
  • Low on muscle gain: need more. Seems it could be happening faster.
  • Ongoing waistline fat: saw a little progress in the last couple weeks, but it’s mostly stagnated.

My workout routine has been a daily one. Rest on Sundays. This has limited my sleep and perhaps slowed my muscle progress.

I am still big on not being fat – at all. I want to see the muscle fibers through my skin. The best thing I’ve done lately is starting the 2 hour bike rides at night. I feel like this has the best fat attacking potential of my activities. I read a little tonight about fat burning supplements, but they sound like a bad idea for me. So cardio it is.

Diet is a major factor in fat maintenance of course. However my diet is below weight gain levels, and is very healthy (with the exception of a some greasy food last night). It should be in a place to support muscles with all the protein, but not high enough to get new fat. Even burn a little fat?

That all said, I will start alternating things instead of doing the same thing every day.

Here is what I will start doing this week:

  • Hard days – Mon/Wed/Fri. Morning weights (up at 4am), evening 2 hour rides.
  • Easy days – Tue/Thu/Sat. Morning sleep (up at 6am or 7am), evening 40 minute rides. This should let me sleep longer more often than not and give my muscle time to repair and hopefully grow.
  • Even less carbs, even more protein. Only cereal on “hard day” nights. I like cereal at night, and after a long ride it is simply awesome, but it won’t be justifiable on “easy days.” Just protein on “easy day” nights. Also, 2 slices of toast per day instead of 3, have protein drink instead. Increase carbs if lightheadedness occurs.

So my Mon/Wed/Fri are going to be attack days. The other days will be repair days. There will be ongoing daily cardio but with alternating intensity.

Mixing it up in the name of ongoing progress. Gotta keep freaking that body out to see progress.

Sound good?

Going for aesthetic or athletic?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Usually diet is an appearance thing. We’d feel better if we appeared more in line with social ideals, or maybe turn back the clock on our appearance.

But there’s another option. We could be shooting for the “my top performance” ideal.

More difficult. Perhaps preferable.

Mary retweeted a good article from the New York Times, “Slimmer Doesn’t Always Mean Fitter”, that speaks to this. I think the title misleads it as an “overweight is okay” message, but it isn’t.

If I am the best performing me I can possibly be, I think I’d be okay with, or maybe too focussed on performance to worry about, love handles.

My fitness timeline, March 2009 – March 2010

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Made a fitness timeline.

Screenshot:
My fitness timeline, 3/09-3/10

My previous post was about progress made in the last six months. That is when the weight loss progress happened, but I wanted to start with my re-awakening of physical activity. This started with biking, nearly a year ago already.

Now that I am measuring weight lifting progress, I was also curious about when I started lifting any weights. This was started with light weights in my jump rope phase, and continued with weight machines in my early gym phase.

Found some great timeline code to help out.

For the dates, I looked at the timestamps on my iPhoto events – thankfully I am always taking pictures with the phone – and my order history at Nutrisystem.

Man I biked for a long time with limited results.  Got tons of pretty sunset pics though.  That was exercise with no good diet direction; hence no loss.

The weight lifting has only begun.