Re-Evaluation

Since my time away from working out, I've had that little extra time to think, and I've come to a perhaps obvious conclusion to those with the time to read.

My diet sucks, and that's why I haven't lost any weight. The workouts are great, no issues there, but those don't cause fat loss unless you're swimming 2 hours 6 days a week totaling 1.7 miles in the water per day. Back then, I was scarfing down 5 dollar bags of cheetos and losing weight. I don't work out anything close to that though.

Since I seem to be glucose intolerant in my old age, I'm going to try something I've never done before, and that's Atkin's diet. I expect it will be grueling, especially considering the weekend job at the bakery. Once I get sorted out on that for a few weeks, I'll resume working out. I expect to lose weight rather quickly, as my dad has lost alot of weight quickly anytime he did Atkin's diet and stuck with it for two weeks.

So, let's see how it works out. Posts will be short and pretty much related only to diet since I won't be exercising much (not alot of time for it lately anyways).


Wish me luck!

The Thing I hate about Sleep Deprivation

This week has not been awesome for the diet, but it hasn't been horrible until today. Essentially, every day this week at school I would buy and eat one large Scone. They're pretty much straight carbs, but I was on break and everything, and kept not bringing enough food. I felt it would be better than Panda Express for sure. Overall, it wasn't too bad though given that I ate them when I'd be eating something else, just it was double the calories and way more carbs.

Then this weekend I went to work on 4 hours of sleep Saturday. Ate 2 donuts. Pretty sure that's 1000 unnecessary calories. Sunday I went in on 5 hours sleep, and ate 3 cookies (500 calories), followed by lunch at noon of an entire thing of Chicken Alfredo. Pretty sure that the day was 2000 unnecessary calories.

Problem though was sleep deprivation. When I'm like this, and it really CANNOT be avoided for me that I get sleep deprived, the chemicals that govern hunger go out of whack. Even after eating the cookies and alfredo, I was still hungry. I should have been stuffed or full at least.

Usually I have better self control and manage to only eat a cookie if anything. This weekend was pretty stressful though, and self control only works if your emotions are under control. Mine weren't. I was stressed, upset, and tired.

I'll be better Monday after some sleep, but I screwed up the diet this week, and I'm pretty sure any benefits of my dieting will not show until the end of the week at best. Way to go Mark.


Thankfully there is a saving grace. When you eat too much, it doesn't all go to fat. Most of it goes to waste. So this mess up won't cripple me, won't hamper me ALOT, but it's still progress lost, even if only a little.

34 Break

Just a quickie post explaining the title.

I had a few extra minutes today, so I tried on some old size 34's I had instead of 36's that I typically wear. They came up and on easily. I didn't have to fight, hell, didn't have to apply pressure, to button and zip up the pants.

So, my weight isn't down, but my girth most definitely is. My 36's were feeling a little tight when I started 5 weeks ago, now the 34's fit just right. That's down 3 inches. Huzzah!

As for the "Break", this week has left me very little time for anything aside from classes and classwork. Because of that, I'm going to take a workout break until Saturday, repeat the bodyweight 350 (which incidentally made me ache all over for 3 days), and then start week 6 next week. Aside from the test next wednesday, there's nothing real major that will suck out my time.

That's unlike this week. I had to crank out a 2 week project in 2 days, then another 2 week project in 3 days, study for a test (which was absurdly brutal), and complete a homework for the class I have a test in Wednesday, and write 1/4 of a paper for a project for Engineering Capstone, ie a project that is slated to run across 9 months. If you mess this class up, you don't graduate.

So, summary: down 3 inches, weight is approximately the same, and I'm on exercise break until Saturday. Probably no posts until then.

End of Week 5, Week 6 Workout 1

Things have been a bit busy for me lately. I'll admit that exercise isn't the highest priority on my list, but if I have time for it, I'll do when I'm supposed to. That said, I didn't find the time Sunday to do the end of week workout.

I ended up replacing workout 1 of week 6 with the end of week workout for week 5: the bodyweight 350.
The workout was pretty intense for me at my current fitness level. Here's what I can recall of the workout: 40 squats, 40 pushups, 80 step ups, 80 lunges, 40 close grip pushups, another 40 squats, 10 chinups replaced by wall-pushoffs, 20 jumps, 15 chinup replaced by more wall-push-offs.

I was pretty beat at the end of it. Heck, I was beat halfway through. I had to take short breaks between exercises as I getting so tired that I literally the break. I managed to finish the whole workout in 33 minutes, and I think that the workout would have taken me 27 minutes had I not needed any breaks.

My current diet hasn't allowed to me lose weight, as previously stated. 6 weeks in, still no weight loss. After getting some extremely appreciated advice, I'm pretty much changing my diet. Peas and corn are out, beans and green beans are in. Bread is pretty much done altogether. Given the amount of salt I sweated out yesterday, I'm going to need bananas...but otherwise it's Atkins for me as much as I can manage.

That means all protein. Since the diet isn't actually Atkins it goes by some other name, but essentially it's carb starvation, right?

With 3 weeks left of the plan, we'll see what kind of progress we make at this point.

Week 5 Workout 3

I took Friday off of everything but fun. I needed the break pretty badly, between work, classes, homework, work, and working out. As a consequence, I didn't eat much, but I didn't work out either. I did have a Lucky Wishbone Mom Shrimp Friday night, and it was pretty delicious.

By and large, I've got my diet figured out. some kinda protein in the morning, oranges throughout the day with a sandwich for lunch, and then a dinner which is usually protein and veggies. Pretty simple, although I'll usually cook dinner and lunch for the next day at the same time.

So, things in the eating area are good. Not eating too much, too little, or too much at any one time.

*****

The workout was surprisingly easy today, even with the weight vest.  I need to find more weight, or find a way to make the exercises harder. Simply adding reps isn't doing enough as my endurance is going up.

Today was workout A by the way. Tomorrow will the Week 5 end workout.

Normally, by this point in the workout, I would have dropped to about my current weight, maybe slightly less, since I would normally start this 8 week routine at 200 pounds. So, I'm looking at the final 3 weeks of the program to see how low I can actually get.

There's a professional version of the program that is supposed to follow this, but it costs money, and I'm not going to pay for a workout routine. People have been able to lose weight and get fit since before recorded history, and I'm sure most of them were able to do it without having to pay a routine. Granted, different times and circumstances, but the concept is the same: why pay for what you can think up on your own? If it's free, well, why not take advantage then?

So, I blazed through Workout A, weight vest and all, then blazed through the cardio interval training, surprisingly. B's cardio interval kills me, but A's doesn't. I think B might become my new A and double the hard pace will be my B.

Interesting how easy today was. That can't be allowed to stay that way.

Week 5 Workout 2

Since I've apparently been in starvation, I've been eating more, even though I might not necessarily feel hungry. I'm spacing snacks and such closer together, although I'm not eating more "calorie-dense" meals as it were. Breakfast remains at 300 calories approximately, dinner the same 400 or so, lunch was and remain at 300. Snacks are still oranges as well. The change is that I'm adding a second lunch of sorts, with an additional snack. In total that bumps calorie intake from about 1000 to 1400.

Admittedly, I haven't done the best job of it the last two days though. I've been a little short on that third snack, so I'd buy a scone, or yesterday I bought an ice cream cookie, valued at a cringing but delicious 500 calories (THAT was a bad move haha).

My weight machine lies. I went and weighed myself yesterday morning, and it said 183, where the day before I was 191. A quick look showed that indeed I had not dropped 10 pounds overnight, so I reweighed and came at 190.5, and reweighed again, another 190.5.

On the plus side, I seem to be losing a good deal of body fat. My stomach is trimming in a little more now, and rolls I used to have are either not as thick or gone completely. Love handles seem to be hardening up a bit as well, trimming also.

Weight loss is the just easiest measuring stick, but not the only one. At the end of the 8 weeks, if I can fit into my 34's just fine (I'm in a 36 with a belt on the last notch), then I'll know the workout did me right, whether I'm 200 pounds or 180.

*****

The workout kicked my ass yesterday. I blew through the B workout with the weight vest on, taking less rest than provided by the workout, and then went for the cardio part.

I was sucking eggs after the first 1 minute run. Ooo boy. Somehow I crunched through all 6 rounds, neglecting the cool down at the end. I was panting pretty hard with some rib-aches for a good ten minutes after the workout.

All in all, I'd say it was a good workout. I haven't yet started increasing reps on the daily workouts, but I'm going to soon. For now, the lack of rest combined with the weight vest has been working well as I do my best to keep proper form.

Catching up

Friday I did my 3rd workout of the week, but seeing as I was incredibly tired, I skipped the running part.

Sunday I did the end of week workout, the bodyweight 200 2x. I was supposed to do it Saturday, but I was tired, and working out 3 days in a row isn't particularly good. So, Sunday I did the bodyweight 200 2x, 5 minutes between sets just as it says. Including that break, it took me about 20 minutes to complete the workout.

Yesterday, Monday, I did the regular A workout. With that and the cardio that follows, it took about 45 minutes.

*****

Last week I sorta screwed the pooch on weight loss. There was that one lunch of Panda Express, then that one dinner of a small amount of Lucky Wishbone, and a few single servings of burritos of sorts (meat instead of beans). I only ever had one at a time, but I did have several spread out over a few days.

So, instead of losing weight, I've regained to 191.
My dad thinks it might be starvation mode. I eat alot, but I'm not eating calories dense meals. Breakfast is 340 tops, snacks are typically oranges these days, lunches are typically sandwiches, and dinners are usually chicken and veggies. As it turns out my total caloric intake lately per day has been roughly 1000. This is pretty much half of what I should be consuming, or at worst 2/3 of what I need minimum to lose weight, I think.

The strange thing is, I don't feel hungry beyond this. I exercise, I get along all day just fine.

As mentioned before, it could also be some serious gluten intolerance. Last week I screwed up, and probably consumed alot more sugar than my body can handle while losing weight. I find myself wondering if, if I go gluten-free, will I lose the weight again.

I think we're about to find about how gluten intolerant I am.