May Recap (or "Too Many Cheat Days Does Not A Winner Make")

So, here's what May looked like. Warning: it's not pretty.

	2011-05-27	195.20	192.84
	2011-05-25	192.00	192.68
	2011-05-24	193.80	192.94
	2011-05-23	195.80	192.86
	2011-05-22	194.80	192.18
	2011-05-21	193.00	191.72
	2011-05-20	191.60	191.38
	2011-05-19	190.80	191.40
	2011-05-18	190.00	191.72
	2011-05-17	191.40	192.22
	2011-05-16	193.60	192.38
	2011-05-15	194.60	192.08
	2011-05-14	193.00	191.64
	2011-05-13	189.00	191.46
	2011-05-12	190.20	191.78
	2011-05-11	189.60	192.22
	2011-05-10	191.80	192.62
	2011-05-09	194.00	192.78
	2011-05-08	195.00	192.44
	2011-05-07	193.00	192.02
	2011-05-06	190.60	191.82
	2011-05-05	190.20	192.02
	2011-05-04	191.20	192.40
	2011-05-03	192.20	192.64
	2011-05-02	194.60	192.56

So, in short, I didn't move the needle much in May. I did get down to sub-190 a few times, but killed that with cheat days. I definitely finished weak; in the last few days, due to work commitments, birthday parties and just plain weakness, I cheated considerably and it shows in the results.

So, goal review. I don't even want to do this, because it's just going to hurt too much. But, here goes:

1. Target spot weight on May 27th was 185 lbs. Actual: 195.2 lbs. FAIL
2. Continue slow carb diet. Cheats on weekends only. Partial FAIL
3. Run 4 km in 30 mins. Didn't even try. FAIL
4. Hockey. Take a guess. FAIL.

I'm too bummed to set June goals now.

Workout

Managed to get motivated enough to get to the gym this morning, after a long weekend of ridiculously bad food and many, many beers. Realized my iPod was out of juice when I got there, so used that as an excuse not to run (sad). Instead, I did weights. The usual circuit routine. Felt pretty good and validated some of my starting weights. So, our baseline is:

Bench press: 105 lbs
Shoulder press: 60-70 lbs
Bicep curl: 70 lbs
Tricep pushdown: 45 lbs
Leg press: 195 lbs
Row: 90 lbs

Added the row thanks to a post I say on Body Re-composition about rows being a key exercise (among others) when working with obese people (!)

Workout and May Update

Just couldn't get excited to run this morning, even though I haven't been able to get out to the gym all week. I almost skipped it altogether, but in the end I *was* able to get excited enough about weights to at least go and lift for an hour. Haven't done that in a while - a full hour of just lifting. My arms are shaking as I type this; going to be very sore tomorrow I bet.

Tried to note weights a bit, but again, I have to find a way to record weights and reps. I guess I could just go old school and use a piece of paper. There was a guy who was actually lugging an iPad around the gym with him. No thanks.

Bench press: 105 lbs.
Shoulder press: 70 lbs.
Bicep curl: 70 lbs.
Leg press: 195 lbs.
Lat pulldown: 90 lbs.
Tricep pushdown: 45 lbs.

1st set at full weight for 8 reps. Later sets 8 reps, but weight usually 5-10% down.

Also, weight was around 191.5 this morning. Going to be difficult to hit the spot target of 185 by next week. The issue is bad nutrition days (read: cheat days). I've been a little more liberal than April and that's really having an effect. I can get down to sub-190, cheat up to 195 and then it takes 3 days to get back to 191 again. I am still moving downward on a trend basis, but even that will stop very soon. The good news is that there is at least directional indication that I've lost about 1-2% body fat since starting all this in April. I'm getting pretty consistent readings of 24% now.

June may be a very austere month for food and drink (sob).

Target Operating Model

Jason Statham. Born: September 12, 1972
Me. Born: December 12, 1972

He looks like this:

Credit: Men's Health

Me, not exactly like that. I started looking for a visual representation of what a stretch target over 18 months would look like. In other words, something to shoot for by the time I hit 40 years old. And, lo and behold, it turns out that Statham is only 3 months older than me. So, you know, that's something. Look at this guy. Holy hell.

Workout

The rare weekend workout today: P90X Kenpo. What can I say? I like punching and kicking.

Not much more to say. My heart rate was up nicely, my back kick needs a lot of work and my overall flexibility is a joke. But good way to start the carb burnoff from the weekend cheat days and get into ketosis as fast as possible

Crossfit Quote

Photo by: gadgetgirl

From the Crossfit website:

The world's most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way deer hunters rely on the accordion.

 That should be on a shirt.

Workout

Still a little sore in the legs from the run on Monday, so I decided to do weights today and some sprints for cardio. Have to figure out a better way to track weights and reps, but it was something like this:

Bench press: 105 lbs (I remember this one)
Shoulder press: 60 or 70 lbs
Bicep curl: 60 or 70 lbs
Leg Press: 195 lbs
Lat Pulldown 90 lbs?
Tricep pushdown 45 or 60 lbs?

For cardio, I ended up doing about 15 mins, of which 4 mins were 6.5/7 mph "sprints" and the rest was walking at 3.5 mph.

And the news of the day: spot weight this morning was 189.6 lbs. Ha!

May Update - Week 1

Bit of a rough week to start the May adventure. First, absolutely no workouts in the first week. Ridiculous, but I kept getting meetings booked early in the morning, so that was killing my normal gym time.

Second, I had a decent food week for 4 days, then the wheels fell off on Thursday. "Team building" night at work (many beers + late night fast food), Friday night cheat + beers, Saturday full day cheat + beers, Sunday full day cheat (!) I should weight 200 lbs right now.

But, miraculously, I don't. I did get up to 195 lbs on Sunday morning. Down to 194 lbs today. Now, it's time to kill it this week.

Started off with my best run in a looooong time. 3 km in 24:30. It appears that my "steady" cardio pace is about 5.0 mph - in other words, I can run at 5 mph for a long time with a high steady heart rate. 5.5 is also good for long stretches (I ran about 1.5 km at 5.5 to start this run). I really need to bring my heart rate monitor to the gym and test that out.

Onward and downward! I also decided today that the day my weight hits 185 trend, I will switch from cardio workouts to weight training and some HIIT.

May Goal Setting

So, after a fairly successful April, it's time to set some goals for May. Here we go:

1. Weight: After losing 7 lbs in April, I think I'll try to continue that run. Target spot weight on May 27 morning will be 185 lbs. Considering I weighed in at 192.2 lbs this morning, that's 7.2 lbs, or right on my current weight loss curve.
2. Diet: Continue the Ferriss slow-carb diet. Cheat days from Friday nights to Sunday mornings.
3. Exercise: Back on the cardio treadmill (haha). Got up to 3km in about 25 minutes at the end of April. Gotta ramp that up to 4km in 30 mins in May.
4. Supplements: Coming off PAG for a while, and trying CQ. Started with 800mg for two days to see if any weird stomach effects and nothing so far. Next stop, 1600mg. Suggested dose is 3200mg/day. 
5. Hockey: Just get out to hockey. Once. How hard is that?

Let's do this!