Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A change in routine

No weigh in today

Sorry for the long gap in posting. I've been pretty busy with work and home stuff, but that's not really an excuse. I just haven't had much to say in regards to fitness or diet lately. I guess my mind's just been elsewhere. That's not to say I've been phoning in my diet; quite the contrary, actually. I've been eating a lot more whole foods and increasing my fresh vegetable intake. I've been preparing almost all of my meals at home with less cheats (I think I've had 2 cheat meals in the past week and a half). So far, so good.

Exercise has been an issue, though. I've basically been gym-free since I finished moving. But that's changing. My girlfriend got a gym membership, and we'll now working out together 3-4 times a week. She was a competitive swimmer in high school, so she has been athletic in the past, but she's never done any form of weight training. She is eager to learn, though, so I'm teaching her all the fundamental movements: barbell squats, deadlift, bench and shoulder press. We did squats on Sunday, and she really enjoyed the experience, so I'm hopeful that we can make some good progress. Having a partner and an actual workout schedule should help me to be consistent with my workouts, as that is my weakest area. Our routine for now is solely strength based, with skill work added before and after. After a few weeks I will start introducing high-intensity workouts (Crossfit style, of course) when I feel that we are both ready to do so. Then we will split our gym sessions into 2 strength, 2 metcon per week. I'm hoping that by the time summer comes we will both be leaner, stronger, and fitter than ever.

I weighed in at 204 yesterday, so I've kept of the 3 pounds that I lost 2 weeks ago. I'm hoping to be back under 200 by the end of April, and as long as I'm consistent in the gym and in the kitchen I know I can get there.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Moving is not fun

No weigh in today

My scale is still packed away and I haven't weighed myself since Thursday, so no useful information there. This weekend was killer. We spent 12 straight hours moving on Saturday, then another 6 hours cleaning the old apartment, returning the moving truck, etc, on Sunday. I'm incredibly sore today, mainly in my calves, biceps, and forearms (from carrying heavy stuff up and down stairs). It was a lot of hard work, and a bit of frustration.

Diet this weekend was terrible. Pizza, tacos, McDonald's breakfast. Just awful. I'll be unpacking all my pots, pans, and spices tonight so I can get back to cooking again. I can't handle any more fast food.

Other than that everything is great. I'm really enjoying the new place. It's a good deal bigger than my old apartment, and we're about 2 miles from the beach now. And the kitchen has more counter space, which makes cooking a lot easier for me. Now I've gotta get back into a good routine after shaking things up so much.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Mid-week update

Today's Weigh-In: 203.4 lbs.
3-Day average: 205.3 lbs.

Well I've dropped 4 pounds since Monday somehow. I guess I must have been pretty bloated from my recent over-consumption of processed carbs. The last few days have been excellent diet-wise. I've been consistently keeping my calories under 2200, and have mostly been eating unprocessed foods. I did eat some leftover lasagna last night, but since we're moving my fridge is looking pretty bare, and it still fit in with my calorie goal.

No workout on Tuesday due to packing, but I did manage to get a pretty intense workout at home last night. I went out on my balcony, grabbed the kettlebell, and did this:

3 rounds of:
30 KB swings (1 pood KB, 35 pounds)
15 push-ups
25 squats

I didn't time myself since I left my stopwatch in my truck, but I went as fast as I could. Kettlebell swings get my heart rate up so fast it's unbelievable. After I was done I ended up laying on my floor for 15 minutes just trying to slow my heart down and catch my breath. It was really good.

So that's where I'm at. I probably won't get another real workout in this week because of the move, but I'll be getting plenty of exercise actually doing the move, so I don't feel too bad about that. My eating is going to be more of an issue, since we don't have a lot of food left in the house, and we'll be packing up the cookware tonight. If I have to eat fast food I'll make sure to stick with high protein/low carb items such as El Pollo Loco chicken. I should be okay.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Good start

Today's Weigh-In: 207.2 lbs.

I wanted to thank you all for the comments on yesterday's post. I've always known that many of us have had issues with maintaining or regaining weight, and I just never thought it would happen to me, especially so quickly. All I can do is keep moving forward and build up some momentum.

I did get to the gym yesterday, which is good. I did squats and deadlifts, and then did some sprint intervals on the track. I'm finally getting some use out of my interval stopwatch that I bought a year ago :)

Food choices yesterday were really good, no cheating at all. I had eggs and bacon for breakfast (my standard morning meal), some taco meat and veggies for lunch, and salmon and spinach for dinner. Overall my calorie intake was around 2300, which is right where it needs to be. I had forgotten that small pang of hunger that comes with calorie restriction, and it kind of sucks, but not enough to give in to eating garbage.

One day on the books, now to make it a streak.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Disheartened

I'm back. Has it really been 2 weeks since I last posted? For shame.

I'm not going to lie and say that I've been doing well, either. I've been doing pretty crap as far as weight-loss and fitness go. My manager changed my work schedule so that I can't make any of the classes at the Crossfit gym, so I haven't been there in almost 2 weeks. Unfortunately I haven't been to the globo-gym either, so there's been a dearth of exercise in my world. I haven't been tracking my calories either, and we all know what happens when we forget to do that. All in all, it's caused a net gain of a few pounds. I'm fully over 200 again (probably around 206-208) and that's bad times. I'm having to use the 2nd notch on my belt instead of the 3rd as a result, and that just feels bad.

This is very disheartening for me, because I always felt that once I got my crap together that it would just flow for me easily the rest of my life. But now I find how easy it is to start back down that slippery slope of laziness and fast food.

I've got to get back under 200. Have to. There's no real excuse for going over. I just haven't made myself do the work that I need to do.

I've started counting my calories again today. I'm aiming for 2200-2400, which is what I was eating when I was losing weight before. Getting into the gym is going to be a bigger challenge, because this weekend I am moving to a new apartment, and I have to take care of all the crap that comes along with that, including packing, which limits my free time quite a bit. I'm hoping to get out of work early enough to get to the gym tonight and just do something. I don't have a good plan right now, which is making it hard to get motivated, but I know that if I just get in there I'll come up with something that'll get my heart racing, and I'll feel better when I'm done. I need to learn to make better use of the things I have at home as well (such as a kettlebell and pull-up bar) instead of making excuses. I'll try to keep a consistent posting schedule to at least keep myself accountable. No better time to start than today.