Been away longer than expected, but got back in today to hit upper bod – back on track!
Weight: 214, 10am
Warmup: 10m elliptical
PS WG bench: 90×15, 180×6, 200×4/2, 90×12 slow
FM Pulldown + twist: 90×15, 180×2, 160×3, 140×5, 100×10
DB shrug: 45×10, 65×8/8/8
(SS with)
DB uprow: 20×10/8/8/8
8# medball twist: 25/25
Stretch
Soak: 10m
Weight: 213, 4pm
60m walk
Weight: 210
30m walk
Weight: 213, 4pm
Warmup: 10m elliptical
Intro to Pilates: 60m
Misc chest/shoulder work + stretching
Soak: 10m
Steam: 10m
Pilates rock. Great for conditioning core, aligning bod, getting straight.
Didn’t eat most of the day, challenging work day, fatigued. Gotta stay positive!
Weight: 215, 7am
Warmup: 80m spin
Spin Class: 60m
Cooldown: ~20m spin
Soak: 7m
Steam: 7m
Bit of a Forrest Gump day today. Meant to lift legs, but got into the riding zone early. Felt good, so I kept going. Took a break at 1:20m to take a Clif Shot & refill my water bottle. Felt good, kept going through class. Then cooled down.
~2.5hrs total ride time, mostly in LI or MI aerobic zones.
Weight: 215, 6am
Walk: 30m
Weight: 216, 4:30pm
Warmup: 10m elliptical
PS WG Bench: 90×14, 180×6/5/2, 140×6
PS WG Pulldown: 90×14, 180×8/6/6/6
LF Flye: 20×11/10/10/8
Bent T Row: 90×6/6/5/5
Incline Press: 50×15/12/9 (:30s rest)
Cooldown: 10m elliptical
Stretches
Soak: 5m
Steam: 5m
Sauna: 5m
Back on track after skipping yesterday. Decreased training loads, increased poundage. Felt pretty strong – rest days work!!
Weight: 219
I’ve gained ten pounds in a week! If only it were all muscle…
At 200 pounds, a one percent change in hydration levels/water weight equates to two pounds. Activity, respiration and altitude all affect hydration levels. In my case, eating carbs after about 8pm usually results in a temporary spike in weight the next morning. It’s not unusual for me to have five pound fluctuations in weight, day to day.
The scale is just one of many tools available to gauge progress – use it as a reference, not an absolute.
Weight: 216, 12pm
36m walk
After two days off the bod still needs to recover. Ah, the joys of aging. Fortunately, experience has shown that recovery times will improve as training becomes more regular. Active recovery day.
Food intake is up, weight is up and slept ten hours last night. 
Blood work scheduled in a few days, started backing off of supplements to help ensure an accurate baseline test.
Weight: 212
Pigged out on carbs last night and saw the expected weight jump on the scale this morning. Busy day today, energy levels almost back to normal. Went to the club for a body composition assessment at 5pm, came in at 19%* body fat. Not great, but already improving. Wish I had comp assessed Jan 1 so I could put this number in a more positive perspective. Regardless, I have a starting point. My target is to get to 10% by July 31.
Historically, I can drop .5 to 1 percent a week – more when I’m doing a lot of outdoor cycling. So let’s say 20 weeks to transform 20 pounds of fat to 20 pounds of muscle and energy. Throw in an extra week or so and that’s five months, ergo my cutting phase must begin on March 1.
Until then, I am primarily working on building strength with the weights and low intensity (LI) zone cardio to prepare the body for the training loads that will be thrust upon it come March. With two weeks’ training under my belt, hopefully the bod’s adapted and recovered enough to start moving more serious iron this week.
I sleep 8-9 hours a night now and struggle to stay awake until 11pm, not used to hitting the bed before 2am. Nice.
Feeling good about the first two weeks’ training – a great start to 2012, let’s keep it going!
*3-fold pinch + estimated weight + late in the day + food = inaccurate test, take results with a large grain of salt, and use number as a guideline rather than absolute. Pinch tests generally have a 3-5% margin of error to begin with. The results stated 20%, 209 was input for weight when I was actually 214. That 2% difference in weight input changes the calculations to a lesser result, so I’m going with 19% math++!