January Review

Our first monthly review! How exciting. If only the news was better. Well, it's not all bad actually.

First, I basically met my (unwritten) goal of two workouts per week in January. I missed one workout total in the month (week 3), which is actually pretty good for me. If I could add Saturday night hockey to this, I'd be at my 3 workouts per week optimum. That'll be the goal for February - to just get out to hockey on Saturday night one time. Just. One. Time.

Weight is another story. I started the month at spot weight of 196.6, trend 194.9. I finished the month with spot weight 194.6, trend 193.8. That's not what I was hoping for to say the least. My version of the slow carb diet obviously doesn't work. I'm getting killed by:

- eating at night
- beer
- drinking beer, then eating at night

Something has to give here.

So, the weight's not coming off, but I do feel a little stronger and I don't feel all that bloated anymore, which is good. Still not sure what was up with that. Interestingly, I feel pretty gross after "cheat days" on weekends. Yesterday, I had pizza for lunch, a Big Mac for dinner, a beer and a glass of wine and had such brutal heartburn that I was waking up in the middle of the night. I guess my body is getting used to relatively good food during the week, so it rebels a bit on the weekends.

Stay tuned for goal setting for February!

Workout

Well now we know why I could do 250lbs on the leg press: the seat was too far away! I sat down on the machine today and the seat was further forward then I'm used too, but not bad...or so I thought. Tried 250. Couldn't even move it. Tried 230. No go. Tried 190. Nope. Moved the seat back. Tried 190 again. Yup, but it was tough. Then I realized that each rep was taking a lot longer and I could really extend my leg. Barely got through 8. So, now I know my true leg press weight...and I can barely walk. What a loser! Hahahaha...

Leg press – 190lbs x 8
Chest press – 50lbs x 10
Close grip pull down – 100lbs x 10
Shoulder press – 50lbs x 8
Arm curl – 80lbs x 10
Tricep push down – 40 lbs x 10

A few situps and crunches (not much time for this) and a mere 16 mins of cardio (walking mostly) for a whopping 1.6km. Running after lunch = bad times.

Workout

25 mins cardio run/walk (3.5-5.5mph) = 2.83 kms. That's a 45 min 5K folks. Ouch. My goal here is a 35 min 5K by September 2011.

Leg Press 250lbs x 10
Chest Press 40lbs x 10
Close grip pulldown 100lbs x 10
Shoulder press 50lbs x 8
Bicep curl 80lbs x 5 (just trying this to determine weight)

Not a bad workout all in all.

Weekend Update & Homemade Protein Bars

Wasn't able to get a workout in at the end of last week due to some drama at work. To make matters worse, I went out for dinner with a buddy I haven't seen in a while on Friday night, which meant steaks, fries and many, many beers. The result: almost no weight loss week over week. Gotta ramp it up next week.

In other news, after spending 5 bucks a day on protein bars for the past three weeks, I figured there must be a homemade solution out there. Hello Google! After a little research, I decided to make these:

Cereal Protein Bars

1/2-3/4c. honey
1/2 c. natty peanut butter
1/2 cup water
2 c. Rice Krispies, corn flakes, ect.
1-2c Oats (rolled)
1 tsp. vanilla
*6 scoops chocolate protein (100% ON, to be exact)
1/2 cup of splenda

Brought the water, honey, splenda to a boil. Added the PB, and lowered to a simmer. Threw the oats and cereal in a bowl. Take the liquid off of the stove when the PB is melted into the mixture, and add vanilla. Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients, put in a baking tray and put under broiler for 1 minute.

I've currently got 'em chilling in the fridge. They actually taste pretty good. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when I take them out, cut them into bars and take them to work.

Also, PAGG supplements haven't arrived yet.

Workout

In the spirt of not sticking with anything too long, I changed my Occam's workout program before I even started it! I decided to not just do 2 exercises on each day. Rather, I'm doing all 4 exercises, 1 set to failure on each workout day. Hey, why not? So today, using guesses at the starting weights I figured out last week (I forgot my cheat sheet), looked like this:

Chest press: 10 x 33 lbs
Close grip pulldown: 10 x 85 lbs
Leg press: 10 x 250 lbs
Shoulder press: 8 x 40 lbs

Actually, with the exception of the leg press, all the weights were pretty close to the intended starting weight.

I was pleasantly surprised that I can push all the starting weights 8 reps or more. This means that after 2 days off, we ratchet up to:

40, 100, 250 (leaving this one, should have been 175 to start), 45...respectively.

Also, cardio (snore). Run walk (3.5/5.5mph) for 25 mins = 2.66km

Starting Another Week + Protein Bar Review #2

So, I guess I'm a little disappointed so far. The weight is definitely coming off, but it's at a slow, measured pace (around 1 lb of fat/week). I guess I thought I'd see an avalanche, but it's just not happening. Interestingly, I am off the pace of 2010, where my trend weight was 192 at this point and this year it's still 195. This could be because it's a Monday and I'm always a bit heavier after a beer/cheat day on Saturday.

I also ordered the PAGG stack outlined in The 4HB. I'll try that and see if additional supplements make any difference. For the record I use iHerb for supplements. Good prices and reasonable shipping to Canada. Got my vitamin D from them last year and it was a smooth, cheap and fast process.

Finally, I know I never really got around to reviewing the other protein bars from that earlier post, so today I'm kicking it off again with this bad boy:

The Supreme Protein Peanut Butter Pretzel Twist is the best protein bar I've had so far. Why? One word: crunch. Every single bar I've had has been a solid lump of goo formed into a bar. This bar, on the other hand, actually has some texture and crunch. The taste was okay; not great, but peanut buttery and not too metallic or medicine-y. Probably an 8/10, but that could go up.

Workout

Started off today by doing leg press and chest press to determine my starting weights for Workout B of Occam's in 4HB. Here's how I did:

Leg Press 250 lbs x 5 reps (to failure)

Chest Press 40 lbs x 5 reps (to failure) - how sad. My chest has always been the hardest place for me to develop strength and mass.

So, my starting weights are:

Leg Press 175 lbs
Chest Press 28 lbs

Finished with 25 mins run/walk (5.5/3.5 avg), 2.62 km. And just for fun, finishing with Atkins protein bar right now.

Protein = Shorter Recovery Time?

One thing I've noticed is that since starting this high-protein diet, my recover time after working out seems to be significantly reduced. Previously, I almost always had some stiffness on the following day and flat out soreness 2 days later.

Now, honestly, I am not sore at all. I literally almost feel like I did nothing.

Or, maybe I'm getting a little stronger and I just don't know it yet. Hrm.

Workout

I settled on a workout plan. I decided I'll try the Occam's Protocol stuff from 4HB for the rest of January and see how it goes. Because this means significantly less time spent lifting, it leaves me time for a full 25 minute cardio session.

Today I did the 25 mins of run/walk and covered 2.68km (3.5-5.5 mph).

I also did the exercises to determine my starting weights for Occam's. Workout A is two exercises only:

1. Close grip pulldowns - 115 lbs x 4 reps (to failure)
2. Shoulder press - 65 lbs x 4 reps (to failure)

According to Tim's formula this means that my starting points are 85 lbs for the pulldowns and 40 lbs for the shoulder press. You do only 1 set to failure with this weight, at 7 or more repetitions. Then you bump the weight by 10%.

Workout B on Thursday!

Workout

No cardio today. All weights, plus tried some new stuff at the gym. Good times. Here's how it went down:

Dumbbell flys - 2 x 8 @ 20lbs
Dumbbell curls - 2 x 8 @ 20 lbs.
Alt. Shoulder Press - 3 x 8 @ 15 lbs.
Tricep flys - 2 x 8 @ 10bs
Lat Pulldowns - 2 x 8 @ 70 lbs

New:

Leg press - 3 x 8 @ 110 lbs
Bar curl - 1 x 8 @ 40 lbs
Chest press - 1 x 8 @ 40lbs
Tricep pushdown - 1 x 8 @ 25 lbs

Stomach/Core:
Sit up
Crunch
Twisting Situp
Plank
Steve Nash medicine ball thing

Obviously I'm still auditioning exercises. Next week, the plan is to start to settle on a routine or 2 and start tracking weight.

Some Early Observations

Two things that I've noticed early on in this little experiment:

1. I feel like a whale. For some reason my stomach feels bloated as hell. Not like I'm full after eating, just big and round. This may be because my gut is big and round. I don't know; it's weird. It's just a feeling I guess.
2. I'm breaking out. Not like Jay-Z broke out, but breaking out as in blemishes/pimples. I haven't had an appreciable occurrence of either in recent memory. This morning I counted 1 full on zit and 3 blemish kinda things, that might be pimples someday. wtf?!

The weight is not exactly sliding right off, but some headway is being made. So I'll stick with it and see what happens from here.

Cardio vs. Strength Training

If I want to lose a little weight and body fat, should I run or lift weights? My Internet research seems to boil down to this:

Sayeth the weightlifters: "Are you nuts? You should lift weights. You'll build muscle, which everyone knows burns more fat than, er, fat. If you're more muscular, you'll burn fat even when you're just sitting around. If you run, you'll lose fat and muscle. Then, you'll just be a skinny fat guy. You know, all bones and concave chest, but with a big gut. Yuck."

Sayeth the runners: "Ridiculous. The only way to lose weight is to burn calories. The only way to burn enough calories to make a difference is to run, fat boy. If you lift weights, sure you'll be strong, but you'll just be a strong fat guy. Have you ever seen those Scottish guys that pull trucks and throw logs on TV? They're pretty strong, but not exactly the lean and well defined body type, if you know what I'm sayin'."

Sayeth the P90X guys: Grrrrrrrr! <make the X sign with both forearms>

Who's right?

Workout

25 mins, internal walk/run (3.3-3.5/5.5-6.0). Max HR 168. 2.5 km distance covered. Still a fraction of what I could do when I was training for the 5K. My cardio capacity has really, really suffered over the past year.

Strength training is getting better though. I need to do some baselining here, but my basic routine is:

1. Dumbell Flys - 3 of 8 @ 20 lbs
2. Pulldowns - 3 of 8 @ 70 lbs
3. Alternating Shoulder Press - 3 of 8 @ 15 lbs
4. Curls - 3 of 8 @ 20lbs
5. Tricep Pushdowns - 3 of 8 @ ?? (haven't added this yet...probably about 15 lbs to start)

Need to add legs obviously. And I have a core/stomach workout that I'm mixing in too.

The issue now is the need to start separating cardio and strength workouts. If I do 25 minutes of cardio, it leaves me time for only an abbreviated version of the above. Usually I can get through 1 or maybe 2 sets of each, with some half-assed core mixed in (crunchs, plank, leg lift).

Protein Bars

So, somewhere in the 4HB, Tim says that I should be trying to get some protein, preferably within 1/2 hour of waking up. The only way that's happening with my schedule is with nutritional supplements. I just don't have the time in the morning to cook eggs and waking up my wife and kids at 6am isn't an option. So, protein bars to the rescue!

Last week, I stopped in at GNC real quick and grabbed these four tasty treats. All are peanut butter flavoured in some way, on the premise that if you have to choke one of these down, it better taste good. For me, that means peanut butter.

Up first, the BioX Xtreme Protein 32 Peanut Crunch. BioX is a Canadian company, which is good. Google lists their website as "possibly compromised" which is bad, but probably won't affect the taste of the bar itself. Hmmmm, looks like a peanut butter cup. Tastes like a protein bar. A little metallic. Extra points though for throwing the rice crisps in it; actual crunch is a good thing. In fact, a little more would be welcome. It's a big bar and a little tough to get through in one sitting. I can only get down half of it. Saving the other half for after workout later this morning.

Next up: Atkins Advantage Chocolate Peanut Butter!

Supplement Baseline

I've been taking the following supplements every day for about 2 years or so:

Multivitamin - Centrum Forte
Omega 3 - Jamieson Omega Select - 1000mg
Vitamin D - HealthyOrigins D3 - 2400IU

So far, so good across the board, but thinking I may add to these as the experiment continues.