Fat Loss II - A1

If there was ever a day I felt like ditching a workout, this was it. We had company for lunch, but they were gone just before 4pm so I really didn’t have an excuse. The work goes this way when entertaining - Anne cooks and serves, mother cleans up. Okay, I helped a little, but let her finish up while I went and worked out.

I started with a 5-min warm-up outside, followed by the usual warm-ups. Then I did:

A1: Front Squat - 65t/12, 65t/12, 65t/12
A2: Bent-over Row - 65t/12, 65t/12, 65t/12
B1: Supine Hip Extension with Leg Curl - 12, 12, 12
B2: Barbell Push Press - 65t/12, 65t/12, 65t/8
C1: Dynamic Lunge - 30e/12, 30e/12, 30e/12
C2: Upper Body Russian Twist - 12, 12, 12

Then I went outside and did 4 sets of intervals (thought I was going to die at set 3, and then remembered that this week it went to 4). I may have in fact cut a couple of minutes off the cool-down, but I decided that 60 mins was enough for the day.

60 mins, 452 cals, Max HR: 172 (97%), Avg HR: 130 (73%)

Today was kind of an off day. I was tired before I started, and felt out of breath a lot. And not during the high HR at the end stuff, but early on while doing stuff that shouldn’t have been a problem. I couldn’t get the 3rd set of 12 reps done on the push press. Just wasn’t going to happen. I had originally planned on using the barbell for the lunges, but switched over to the dumbbells set to 30lbs each. I don’t think it was the weight. I just didn’t think I could get the bar up again on my shoulders (not for three sets at least).

Oh, and when I was finishing off outside the little cat (Shadow) tried to show me a mouse he’d caught. Of course it squiggled away and raw full tilt into the neighbour’s yard, with the cat in hot pursuit. The big cat (Gus) at that moment was sitting up on top of the patio table. I’m sure he wasn’t up there because of the mouse, but you never know….

Something weird happened this morning. I forgot to weigh myself. I’ve been trying to get away from the daily weigh-ins, since they really don’t show me how I’m doing (they often bounce around too much to really help). I got so out of the habit in only one week that I’d finished my breakfast and the morning liter of water before I thought about it. So I weighed myself at that point and decided to subtract 3lbs from the total (wasn’t entirely disposed to getting naked, 2.2lbs for the water, and the rest for the breakfast).

So, this morning’s guess at a weigh-in was 242.6, which is 1.4 pounds down from last week. The 9-week gain, however, is 1.8lbs (.20/week) which is usually the ‘number’ I look at to see how things are going overall. The other little compulsive number I look at is how many days I’ve been ‘on plan’ primarily with food. I still consider a maintenance week ‘on plan’ since I accomplished what I wanted to. So this is day 40 on plan with food.

Assuming that things go well next week I should definitely be in a loss over the 9-week period, although still a ways away from the lowest weight seen. I did briefly see 233.6 at the end of March, so seriously, no congratulations until then!

Next week’s plan is:

Start Fat Loss II phase of New Rules of Lifting, 3 days a week. 30-45 min walks 5 days a week (with my mother), aiming for 45 mins on non-lifting days. For June I’ll likely continue at the same food levels - 2000 on non-workout days and 2250-2300 on lifting days and see how that goes.

And the 9-week graph…