Preamble: It’s really hard to come back to daily/nightly updates after not doing this for a month! I’m kinda going to pick up where I left off, but I’ll discuss some stuff in context with the last month and last half-year of doing this.
One-Sentence Summary: A week off of weights, stuck with cardio, sleep, and food.
Food: If you’ve read (and remember) this blog over the last several months, you know that I’m generally pretty good, but I have some issues sometimes of binging a bit and then slowly counting it over the next few days, meaning there’s a deficit those days. Or bites/licks/pieces/etc. that I just don’t count – I’ve gotten a lot worse at that (as in, doing it more) over the last few months than I was in the first few. That’s why I changed my points system (see below) to add in a factor of not eating things and counting them later, and ensuring I track everything. If I cheat, I’m only cheating myself, and then I get frustrated, I quit, and, well, all this work is for nothing.
So, I’m getting better at being honest again (seriously, that sounds like a politician in rehab), and I was pretty good this week. I counted the two doughnuts, I counted eating out Sunday (first time getting Thai take-out in months!!), and I even counted the ciabatta bread I made today even though I was out of carbs in my plan. So, I’m getting better. And this evening while walking, I thought to myself that the next time I’m about to sneak a small chocolate (“oh! it’s only 53 calories!”), to remember that to burn those calories I have to walk up the steep hill once (more on that below). So maybe next time, I’ll think that before taking a piece and not counting it, and that could help.
Exercise: A lot to talk about in this one. First off, cardio. I did cardio the 5× for ≥40 minutes that is my goal each week, this week. Admittedly, I did both the elliptical and walked on Friday and counted the elliptical for Thursday for points purposes (see below). Both were ≥40 minutes. I’ve decided I really hate the elliptical, and so I keep putting it off until the last minute (like, 11:15pm) which leads me to only be angry at myself and still hate the elliptical.
So, I’ve taken to exercising during telecons. I don’t have quite as many telecons as I did at the beginning of the summer (a major project finished up, and that was ~2 telecons/week), but I still have a few each week so I plan to be down in the basement either lifting weights or doing the elliptical. I think of it as, “Work is paying me to be on this telecon even though I just sit there and listen, so now work is also kinda paying for me to exercise!” It’s also a better use of my time than getting worked up reading the news while listening to the telecon. Anyway, it’s helped the last ~2 weeks that I’ve done it, and after posting on Facebook, I was amazed at how many of my friends have already been doing it. Better late than never?
But, now that the weather is finally cooling off, and especially tomorrow a cold front moved in and the high is a mere 55°F, I’m going to try to get back to walking outside to do my cardio. I’m faster than I was at the beginning of the summer, and I live in a hilly area, so my 40-minute walk has a ≈150 m (≈500 ft) vertical elevation climb in the direction that I go. And, it starts out (after about 5 minutes) with about 60% of that climb over the space of just about ¼ mile. 25–30% grades. It’s a struggle, and it definitely gets the heart pumping, and I use my time to reach the top as a marker for whether I’m improving or not. So, today I got there 11 min 05 sec after starting, whereas back in May, my fastest was 12 min 15 sec. My VO2max is also improving, albeit slightly, but that’s better than nothing. So, back in June it was 32.3, now it’s up to 33.3! I started the year at 31.6. So, I’m now in the 10.4th percentile for my age/sex instead of 9.1st/th.
So, what about all the other exercise gaps? I was doing really well with weights, 3× per week for 12 weeks straight. I finished up another training cycle, and I decided that I was kinda constantly sore in a few places, so after 12 weeks, I’d take a week off. I don’t anticipate any issue getting back to them this coming week. As for the daily goal of core exercises? Still not happening. Sigh.
Sleep: I’ve been doing much better more consistently with sleep, probably mainly because of a lack of early telecons. So if I stay up to 1am, there’s not an 8am telecon that forces me to get up after only 7 hours in bed. I also only napped once this week (the goal is ≤4 naps per week).
Measurements: The proof is in the pudding. If you look at the data in the infographic above and compare it with Week 18, which was the last summary I posted, I’ve lost weight and fat. Good. I should really just stop there and move on, but a curse among men in my family is the extra few words that make everything worse. Like, “You look lovely today [because yesterday you looked like crap].” No reason to add those extra words, but we do it.
So, I am improving. And this is a fitness journey (with obviously there being some goals). So as a journey, I do have some goals and I had hoped to reach those goals at certain times, but as a journey, as long as I’m still headed towards those goals, it’s okay if I don’t necessarily reach them when I had hoped. My weight has been slowly decreasing by about 0.5 lbs for the last few weeks. It’s frustrating with it being so slow, and I’m 99% sure it’s because of the food issues primarily, and secondarily I’ve not been exercising as much as I should (I went several weeks only doing cardio 3 or 4 times). That’s why I’ve been struggling to get food back under control. Same thing with bodyfat percentage, it’s been pretty stagnant to within the error bars.
So, yeah, I am behind where I had hoped to be, but I am not getting worse, and I need to be proud of that – or at least recognize it as a good thing.
Points: As a refresher, I have a points system that gives me a score on the week between –100 and +100 based on meeting or not meeting certain things. Negative points come about when I don’t do something, positive points when I do. For example, I get +4.75 points if I measure my bodyfat percentage during the week and record it, but I get –4.75 points if I don’t. Weight is 1.75 points per day. Core exercises are ±2 per day, other exercises are ±2.5 per day. Even though I decided not to do weights this week, taking it off, I still got –7.5 points, it did not go to a neutral ±0. So, this week I got +48 points. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. What hurt me was the lack of core exercises, lack of weights, and a bit with food (surpassed carbs twice, didn’t hit protein once, and didn’t count everything on that day twice).
Looking Over the Week: Compared with the past month, this was a decent week. And that’s the metric I’m going to use.
Looking Ahead One Week: I hope I will continue to improve and get back to where I was a few months ago with activity and being honest about food.
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