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: 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++!
Weight: 209
The bod’s telling me it needs time to recover, time for a day or two off… Gotta eat more, too.
Weight: 209, 4pm
Warmup: 10m elliptical
FM pulldown front: 70×14, 100×8/8/8/8
CG low cable row: 80×8/8, 70×8/8/8
FM chin: 70×8/8/8/10
FM flush row: 50×10
Soak: 5m
Steam: 5m
Quick and easy day
Weight: 209, 7:15pm
Soak: 15m
Steam: 15m
Soak: 10m
The nice thing about SSS days is they don’t feel like workouts. But HR is elevated to the LI aerobic zone whether in the hot tub, steam room or sauna. And it sure feels good on achy muscles!
Life intervened this week, didn’t get to ride or the gym for four days. No energy at all today, but couldn’t let five days pass without doing something, so I just alternated the steam room and hot-tub for a half hour tonight.
Ride scheduled for tomorrow: an easy cruise downtown and back…
Weight: 208.2
11:00 am
Don’t want to overcook the bod this early into training, so today I rotated sessions in the steam room and hot tub with cool off dips in the pool for about 30 minutes, then got a much-needed massage.
Total calories: -600ish
Weight: 206.8
9:00am
60 minute recovery ride
Total calories: -664
Mellow recovery ride to base of Chatfield dam and back. Still some intermittent numbness in left hand, but improving overall.
Calories Burned, Last Two Weeks’ Exercise: 6249
Equivalent Fat Calories: 1.74 pounds
Estimated Fat Loss: 2 pounds / 1% of body weight
Two weeks in – feeling bigger, better and stronger every day. My sleep patterns have returned to normal; I’m going to bed around 11:30, falling right asleep, and generally sleeping about eight hours a night. After particularly hard training days, I’ve even slept 10+ hours. (Haven’t slept that much in years!)
The nice thing about my Polar heart rate monitor is that I can download my workout info to my computer and can view it in calendar format. It’s more useful for analyzing my cycling workouts since the bike computer tracks mileage, elevation change, etc. but in the gym it’s good to get an accurate measurement of total caloric expenditure.
Gained 5-7 pounds and put on some nice muscular size during the first weeks of training (approx. 1″ on arms, chest and legs.) Weight has stabilized during week two at 204 pounds, +/- 2 depending on hydration levels. I estimate my bodyfat percentage to be around 16%… looking forward to getting calipers or tested regularly for more accurate data there.
My moods have continued to be more positive and upbeat overall. The body likes to be active! (duh) I had a few beers when out with friends earlier in the week and definitely noticed the effects the next day – not only was my motivation weaker, my body felt more fatigued and I just felt more “blah” overall. Duly noted.
Now that my bod is feeling pretty good, it’s time to start incorporating deadlifts into my workouts once a week. “Deads” are a great exercise that hit the quads, hams, glutes, lower back, shoulders, biceps and forearms in one lift! Strict form is MANDATORY so I’ll start out pretty light; probably do ‘em on back day.
Other than a few days when I didn’t eat enough, I’ve been sticking to my eating plan well. I need to remember to up my carbohydrate intake a bit to keep energy levels high. And I am starting to see the changes in my physique – especially when lifting. A bit more vascularity, a bit more definition, a bit more progress. Good stuff!
WIth the holidays nearing, I have a bunch of family obligations this week. While they shouldn’t interfere with my schedule, if I have to miss an extra day or two this week I’m sure my body will like the extra recovery time. It’s easy to overtrain, especially when beginning a new program. Better to rest and recover than slow progress by training too much.