Back to blogging

This is going to be a vaguely random blog post.

About a month ago, I'd transitioned off Medifast. I was eating more food, and more types of food, exercising a lot more, and I even started playing tennis again. I was bouncing around between 259-265 pounds, which I felt was pretty good considering I doubled my calorie intake and started eating carbs again.

Well, last week I was playing tennis, and while running for a shot, I felt a snapping in my right heel, and i hit the ground hard. Lying on the court, looking up at the lights, my foot hurt pretty bad, and I was sure I'd just ruptured my Achilles tendon. I got helped up by the class and went to the bench and iced it.

A while later, my wife came to get me, and brought crutches. I was able to go to my podiatrist the next day and he took a look at it. He confirmed it wasn't good, and sent me to get an MRI.

Now, Id been seeing this podiatrist because I have a vicious bone spur on the back of my right heel. I had an even worse one on my left heel, that I had surgically removed about 5 years ago. This surgery sucked, and I wasn't really interested in repeating it. However, my right heel was getting worse and worse, and I had finally decided to get surgery in January and just get it dealt with.

However, before doing that, we decided to try a less invasive response. I took oral steroids for a week, and then strong NSAIDs twice a day. the steroids kicked in while I was at GenCon and it was pretty magical, all the pain went away, and stayed away. When I saw the doctor again later, he suggested I try to stop taking the NSAIDs and see what happened. Well, the pain came back in 2 days, so I went back on them.

However with NSAIDs on board, I was feeling great so I started back up with tennis. I took a couple of intense 1-on-1 lessons and loved it, and signed up for a couple of group classes. It was at one of those that my tendon snapped.

The MRI confirmed that I'd severed the tendon, pretty much at the point where the bone spur impinged on it. So now the surgery time frame is moved up a lot. On October 14th, or sooner if there is a cancellation, I'm going to be cut on and have the bone spur planed off, then the tendon will be extracted from my calf where it's all bunched up, and extended, and reattached to the bottom part of the tendon. There's a severed messy bit that will have to be excised.

I get 8-12 weeks of immobilization and then I start rehabbing it.

I'm not looking forward to all this, but at least it will be done, and there's a good chance of regaining 100% strength in it. I know on my left foot, it feels better than it had in years, so I'm hopeful about that.

I just want to get it over with.

So now that I can't hit the gym and the courts 4-5 times a week, I've got to come up with an upper body workout routine and watch what I'm eating more. I don't want to lose too much ground to this.

Brief weekly update (Week 18!)

It's been a hectic week and I haven't had as much time to blog as I'd like. I'll try to get a full weekly update post up soon, but here's a quick one!

Progress: I lost over 4 lbs the week before Geekway, but this week I ended up 1lb over last week. I know exactly why: working out last night, not drinking enough water at the convention, and not staying on plan. I had rice, potatoes, bread, etc while at Geekway, and all those carbs reloaded my glycogen stores, so it's back to the Medifast Plan at a fairly strict level for the next few days to get back on track.

Here's my weekly progress chart:

My weekly average has dropped to 3.8 lbs/week, which is still pretty awesome. I expect to have  a big loss this week as well, if I'm right about holding onto glycogen.

Since I don't have any scale victories this week, I'll add a couple non-scale: I had to add ANOTHER (this is #3) hole to my belt. It's really ridiculous at this point for me to still keep it, it's so long.

Also, last night at workout class, I got about 75% of a pull-up done. This is the first time I've actually gotten most of the way there, and I think I'll be able to knock one out in a couple of weeks.

General Tuesday - Hogwarts! Hearthstone! Exercise! Geekway!

I thought this would be a good time to catch up on a number of topics, just to touch on a variety of things.

Hogwart's Challenge

First off, the Hogwarts Challenge on MFP is going swimmingly. the Slytherin House is representing itself very well, we're by far the most active! We've got a great lead on our competitors:


Current House Cup Standings:

Gryffindor: 60 

Hufflepuff: 103 

Ravenclaw: 103 

Slytherin: 133

We've done introductions, initial weigh-in, an exercise challenge, and a trivia challenge. So far the entire challenge is running very well and I have to give huge props to the person running this, she's really stepped up and is making this a fun thing to do!

Exercise

My 'Goalbusters' Class is still going strong. We're up to do ing 2 sets of 70 squats at the start of class, and each station is up to one minute. Last night we did lots of partner work... waves on the rope while our partner anchored, isometric holds with resistance bands interlocked, and doing side lunges simultaneously with out partner, planking face to face with our partner and alternating claps, kettlebell squats handing off each time to our partner, and medicine ball bounces across the room from wall squats to each other. In addition to two circuits of that, we did biceps and triceps work, crunches, and stretching.

Geekway to the West

The game convention (http://geekway2west.com) I help run is in full swing. I just loaded another 10 boxes of board games to give away into my car to take to the storage unit. I still need to pack all the games that I have for the game library, get the Play and Win games packed and ready to go to the Punch and Play Day at Jay's house, cheer on my wife as she folds and organizes another 100 convention T-shirts, and finish my board game for the Game Design competition while keeping up with last minute registrations. Fun times! 

Hearthstone

I finished up an arena run last night with a Mage deck I expected to go to 5+ wins and only got 2 wins. I lost TWO games to disconnects/crashes (stupid Windows 8 tablet)  where I was crushing my opponent. Then I went from 0-2 to 2-2 playing exactly the way I expected the deck to work. My final game though, was against a Warlock. Despite over half my deck costing 0-3 crystals, my initial hand was Coin and 4 4+ cost spells. I threw everything back... and got 3 4+ cost spells and a single 3-cost spell (Arcane intellect). My opponent opened with a Flame Imp and it never got better. I didn't have a minion on the board until I was at 18 life, but I fought back and got them to 11 with enough damage on the board to kill them next turn, and two secrets in play, a Vaporize and an Ice Barrier. I had 5 life. If my opponent had just attacked, then between the Vaporize and the Ice Barrier, I'd have lived through the turn and swung in for the win. Instead he Hellfired and then Soulfired me, my Barrier never went off, and I died. Ah well. I did get a nice card out of my pack rewards, though.

Oooh.. Golden Holy Wrath! Shiny!

In this post I talk about Hearthstone (and last night's workout!)

I went to last night's Goalbusters class despite being a little sore after doing yardwork most of the day Sunday, and I'm glad I did. Class was good and I think it helped work out some of the soreness I picked up from crawling around under the deck pulling weeds and killing ivy.

Class was a little different than normal, and we're getting into the middle of the run where the warmup is getting tougher. We opened with our normal medicine ball, jumping jacks, split squats, wall pushups and then got into 3 sets of 50 squats. Ouch. the circuit itself alternated between strength training exercises and cardio, 1 minute each as we went back and forth between the equipment and mat stacks... at the mat stacks we partnered up and did waves against each other with the heavy ropes... wow that was a workout. By the 6th time around, I was ready to set those ropes on fire.

Instead of filling up all this space talking about specific exercises and weights and reps though, I'm going to talk about Hearthstone. This is a new CCG that Blizzard has put out, and it just came out for iPad. I played in the closed Beta and wasn't a big fan off the game, to be honest.

Now, though? I really, really enjoy it. They've balanced a lot of cards, the 9 different heroes all feel very different, and with it no longer being a beta release, the player base is much larger... which means it's easier to find people around your skill level.

Thrall vs Uther, early in the match

There are four basic ways to play, first off, you should play against the computer itself. You'll start out playing Mage decks in a tutorial, and it teaches you the game really well. After you finish playing the Mage tutorial, you should play 'Practice Mode'. Here, you can beat all of the 9 heroes and unlock their decks. My suggestion is to unlock all the heroes, and then use their basic decks to play against the basic and expert AI... get every class up to level 10, playing against a variety of Expert AI heroes. As you do this you'll earn free packs, gold, and cards. Don't spend any of that though.

Once you've gotten all 10 classes up to level 10, you can then check out the Arena (card drafting, you'll get to play with awesome rares, epics, and legendaries... but it costs you gold to play, and you can't keep your deck). It costs 150 gold to play Arena, but you always get at least 100 gold back in the form of a pack. Unless you hate drafting, I would never spend gold on packs in the store, I'd always play Arena, as if you get 3 or more wins, it should pay for itself, and even with 0-2 wins, it's a good deal and gives you great experience.

Finally, there's Play mode. Here you play a constructed deck from your collection. You'll need to make decks from the cards and packs you've won, and you can play against other people. Hearthstone removes 99% of all player communication, so you won't have to deal with jerks calling you names when you play.

One final word of note: play Ranked, not Casual. This sounds crazy, but you'll start at Rank 25 and play against others that are newbies in Ranked, and you'll have good games. If you play Casual, you're going to face people with massive collections of rare and gold cards that have insane decks that will destroy you. Don't do it!

The game is fun, free (unless you want to spend real money), and has amazing graphics, sound, and feels very 'tactile'. I highly recommend it.

If you're playing, feel free to friend me on Battle.net! I'm Arsh#1939

Yard work!

I got outside yesterday and did yard and lawn work for about 4 hours... cleaned up weeds and ivy, pruned trees, get all that bagged in lawn bags, trimmed and edged around the house, mowed the back lawn, cleaned some gutters.

It was exhausting work, and nowhere near done (still have to do a lot of cleanup and landscaping). Today, I'm sore and starving. But I feel pretty good about it.

I promise to have a better blog post tomorrow!

Monday night workout and post-PAX gain

Yesterday was my first day back from PAX. The day started auspiciously, with a weigh-in well lower than my previous low weight. However, I also knew that I was very dehydrated. I wasn't sure how being that dehydrated for three days was going to play out at the time, especially combined with flying and lack of sleep.

However, I got back into my groove. I drank my water and went to class. I'm not going to post the workout details tonight.. it was a standard Goalbusters class with a Warm-up, partner circuit, and the only real difference was that we closed out with Tabata wall squats, which is something new.

I woke up this morning and was up nearly 4 pounds! I was pretty impressed by that number. Now, I know where it came from, I am retaining water like crazy, I drank tons and barely peed at all. Combined with a short nights of sleep, plane rides, and the fact that I was drinking so little and walking so much, I am not *that* surprised. Water is the key here, drinking it, retaining it... I need to drink more and retain less and everything will work itself out.

Drink me.

But still, now I'm curious as to what my actual gains/losses were over the weekend. I guess it's enough of an anomaly that it doesn't really matter, I'm not going to PAX every weekend. But now I just need to drink  my water, do my cardio and strength training, and stick to my diet (which has been tough, of course... I ate more carbs and now I'm hungry again!). But as of now, worst case scenario is that I went to PAX and came home at an equilibrium point, which is pretty darn good. Not as good as being down a few pounds, but even so, I'll take it!

Monday Night Workout, and working out at PAX

Last night was our second week of the new session of Goalbusters, and we had a pretty awesome workout.

Warm-up:

• 60 seconds Passing medicine balls in a circle
• 30 seconds Jumping Jacks
• 30 seconds ankle mobility
• 30 seconds split squats, left leg
• 30 seconds split squats, right leg
• 30 seconds wall push-ups
• 30 seconds mountain climbers

Partner warm up (repeat 3x)

• 30 squats
• Wall squat while partner does 30 squats

Circuit (45 seconds each station)

• In-and-out waves on the double heavy rope
• Mountain climbers on glides
• TRX Pushups
• Bosu wall squats
• TRX reverse lunges
• 35 lb kettlebell goblet squats
• Blue resistance band bicep curls
• In-and-out waves on the double heavy rope
• Freestyle on the heavy bag
• Blue resistance band triceps extensions
• Lunges with a 22lb body bar
• 35 lb kettlebell goblet squats
• 60 lbs standing rows on the cable machine

Mat work

• 45 second plank (repeat 3x)
• stretching

It was a really good workout! 

ZOMG PAX!

This weekend I'm going to PAX East, and I hope to be able to workout in the mornings at the hotel. I know I'll be doing a lot of walking, but I really want to keep my exercise regimen going as much as possible, and I know my lean and green meals will be iffy since I'll be reliant on convention food. Getting in a couple of good workouts makes a lot of sense. 

The hotel should have a workout room, and if nothing else I expect there will be an EFX, treadmill, and dumbbells. That will be enough to get in 30 minutes of cardio and a brief weight routine each morning. Now let's just make sure I actually have the drive and make that happen!

Workout night

Blogging is getting pushed later in the day as my days are getting busier! Tonight, I had my Monday night Goalbusters class.

I got to class about 15 minutes early and spent that time warming up on the heavy bag and stretching. Then, the 11 of us started our circuit!

Warm-up

• Pass medicine balls in a circle, clockwise, one minute
• Pass medicine balls in a circle, clockwise, one minute
• Jumping Jacks, 30 seconds 
• Ankle mobility, 30 seconds
• Split squats, right leg front, 30 seconds
• Split squats, left leg front, 30 seconds
• Push-ups, 30 seconds
• Mountain Climbers against the wall, 30 seconds

Partner Warm-up (repeat 3x)

• 20 body weight squats
• Hold a wall squat while partner does 20 squats

Circuit 

For this circuit we had one half of the room with weight exercises, and the other half for cardio. After each of the exercises below, we then ran for 40 seconds and then went to the next station, so we ended up with 7 weight stations and 7 cardio runs.

• Lunges with an 18 lb body bar, 40 seconds
• Alternating Waves on the heavy rope, 40 seconds
• Squats against a body ball, with a 25 lb kettlebell, 40 seconds
• Dumbbell clean and press, 15 lbs each hand, 40 seconds
• Monster walks, blue band, 40 seconds
• Standing cable rows, 80 lbs, 40 seconds
• Heavy Bag, freestyle, 40 seconds

Mat work

• Jackknifes, 40 seconds
• 6-inch leg raises, 40 seconds
• Jackknifes, 40 seconds
• Scissor kicks, 40 seconds
• Stretching

And that was it! Class again on Wednesday. Tomorrow I've got a dentist appointment and meetings all day so I can't workout at work, but I might try to get a workout in tomorrow night.

Now lets just hope I've had enough water today to be down some tomorrow!

Short workout today

I put in a brief but intense workout this morning:

• 12 minutes EFX at level 17, 5 mph pace
• 5 sets of 5 cable rows, 180 lbs
• 5 sets of 5 barbell squats, 205 lbs
• 1 set of 5 bench presses, 165 lbs

I knew I had a short workout, so I killed it on the weights. and managed to get that all in in just under 40 minutes and was still able to get home in time to get Lauren to art class.

In other news, I hit a new personal low this morning, and am nearly 53 lbs down! I'd had a spotty week last week and so I'm happy to see I'm back to a new low after being up from my previous low for several days in a row.

Weekends are tough days to blog, so that's it for today!

Goalbusters class and Fitbit weekly update

Last night started the Spring Session of our Goalbusters fitness class. Whenever we start a new session, the intensity is ratcheted down a bit for the newbie, which means I try to increase my effort on the exercises.

I partnered with Bob last night and we had a good circuit. I'm up about a pound today, I expect that's part of the reason I saw such big losses recently... no gym workouts this weekend (we were too busy), so my muscles aren't holding onto as much water.

Warm-up

• Pass medicine balls in a circle, clockwise, one minute
• Pass medicine balls in a circle, clockwise, one minute
• Jumping Jacks, 30 seconds (I did 42 jumping jacks!)
• Ankle mobility, 30 seconds
• Split squats, right leg front, 30 seconds
• Split squats, left leg front, 30 seconds
• Push-ups, 30 seconds
• Mountain Climbers against the wall, 30 seconds

Partner Warm-up (repeat 4x)

• 15 body weight squats
• Hold a wall squat while partner does 15 squats

Circuit
Station 1 (repeat 2x)

• Kettlebell Squats, 35lbs, 30 seconds
• Triceps Extensions, Blue band, 30 seconds

Station 2

• Cable machine 'woodchoppers', 27lbs, right arm, 30 seconds
• Dumbbell clean and press, 12 lbs each hand, 30 seconds
• Cable machine 'woodchoppers', 27lbs, left arm, 30 seconds
• Dumbbell clean and press, 15 lbs each hand, 30 seconds

Station 3 (repeat 2x)

• Double waves on the heavy rope, 30 seconds
• Bicep curls, blue band, 30 seconds

Station 4 (repeat 2x)

• Bosu Balance, 30 seconds
• Lunges with a body bar shoulder press, 22 lbs, 30 seconds

Station 5 (repeat 2x)

• TRX Pull-ups, 30 seconds
• Medicine Ball bounce passes, 15 lbs, 30 seconds

Ab Work (on mats)

• Bridges, 30 seconds
• Hip thrust, right leg up, 30 seconds
• Hip thrust, left leg up, 30 seconds
• Bridges, 30 seconds

Cooldown and Stretching

As I was writing this, my Fitbit weekly report came in. I should probably save it for tomorrow's blog post, but it's here now... so I'll at least post it. I may go into detail on it tomorrow though, so maybe this is just a teaser!

Click to embiggen!

Week 9 defeated!

This week wasn't looking great for the first half... I wasn't staying hydrated and combined that with a couple heavy workouts and I had gains early. But then, I focused on my water, made sure I was eating reasonably, and the last three days saw me ditch all that water I'd latched on to.

Here's my stats!

Click to embiggen!

Saturday was a crazy day, I know I already posted about it, but a giant workout, cleaning house, a couple of long walks... I made the continually sub-par choice of turkey jerky as a snack, as well.

That said, I recovered well and saw the water weight melt off. My average is still trending down towards 4 pounds a week, as well.

How are we doing on our goals, though?

Click to embiggen

284 pounds! This weigh in was when it clicked that I was no longer 'Over 300 lbs'. I haven't been for a few weeks, but this was the week when I realized that if I quit Medifast right now and just followed a reasonable diet and exercise plan, I'd stabilize under 300 instead of over 300.

Obviously, that's not good enough. But it's nice to see! I'm three weeks ahead of the 4 pound/week schedule, and nearly 2 months ahead of the 3 pounds/week schedule. 

I've got a couple of mini-goals ahead. First, I'm going to PAX East in 3 weeks. I really want to be 275 pounds for this. That will have me in better shape than I've been in for a decade if not more. Flying should be a lot more comfortable at this weight, as well... the last time I was on a plane I was likely between 315-330 lbs.

Second is Geekway to the West in two  months. I'd like to be 260 for this. Last year at Geekway I weighed around 325 or so (I wasn't keeping good records, so this is an assumption). Getting down to 260 is doable and would have me in better shape than I've been in for about 15 years. (Actually, more than that... the last time I was at 260, I was doing no weight training at all, it was all cardio and martial arts... I was in decent shape, but I'll be in better shape this time when I get back there).

Oh, and before I forget, I had a workout last night! Only 5 of us showed up so I partnered with the instructor and here's what we did! (it was the last night of the session, so we got hammered. Next week we start fresh and it will be easy again!)

Warm-up

• Passing medicine Balls in a circle (5 people, three balls... 10, 12, and 15 lbs) 2 minutes
• Jumping Jacks, 30 seconds (I got 37 in this time)
• Ankle mobility, 30 seconds
• Split squats, 30 seconds each side
• Push-ups, 30 seconds
• Mountain climbers against the wall, 30 seconds

Partner Warm-up (repeat 2x)

• Hold a wall squat while partner does squats
• 100 body-weight squats

Partner Circuit (repeat 3x)

• Seated double waves with the heavy rope (simultaneous with partner, on a mat), 1 minute
• Kettlebell squats, 35 lbs (alternate squats, handing off kettlebell each time), 1 minute
• Isometric Holds, blue bands, 1 minute each side
• Wall squat with a medicine ball bounce pass across the gym, 15 lbs, 1 minute

Cooldown

• Stretching

That ended the session. Next week Christy and I are back to Monday and Wednesday nights for the new Goalbusters session. 

Final Monday morning workout

Today was my last Monday morning workout, and next week we go back to Monday nights. Only three of us showed up so it was another interesting circuit.

Warm-up (repeat 2x)

• 1 minute medicine ball wall bounces (15 lbs)
• 1 minute alternating dumbbell bicep curls (15 lbs each hand)
• 1 minute TRX squats

Second phase warm-up (repeat 2x)

• 1 minute wall squats
• 1 minute monster walks (blue band)
• 45 seconds TRX push-ups
• 45 seconds TRX triceps extensions

Circuit - 2 minutes each station, repeat each pair of exercises twice

Station 1:

• 30 seconds alternating waves on the heavy rope
• 30 seconds isometric bicep hold, blue band
• Repeat

Station 2:

• 30 seconds farmer walk, 35 lbs each hand
• 30 second step-ups, single leg, 35 lbs each hand
• Repeat, switching legs on the step-ups

Station 3:

• 30 seconds 'woodchoppers' on the cable machine while holding a balance ball, 33 lbs
• 30 seconds, switch sides
• Repeat

Partner work:
Partners sit opposite each other on mat stacks with the heavy rope doubled up between them, do double waves simultaneously

• 1 minute waves
• 30 seconds rest
• Repeat

Stretching on our feet

It was a nice workout overall. I was up another .4 lbs this morning, and my arms are still sore from Saturday's workout. My plan for the rest of the day is to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and get back on track. I've got to do a better job of drinking water on the weekends.

Rest day

After yesterday I didn't really feel up to a ton of exercise.  So today we did some house cleaning and grocery shopping.

Other than that we played D&D tonight. We brought Medifast food to Jay's house and ate that after doing an early lean and green.

Workout class tomorrow morning!

Super Active Day!

We've got one more day of faux Spring before winter smashes us again tomorrow, so we made the best of it.

The day started with a trip to the gym, where I did a ton of lifting...

• 4 minutes EFX, 9 minute mile pace, level 13
• T-Bar Rows, 3 sets of 5 at 125 lbs
• Cable Rows, 3 sets of 5 at 180 lbs
• Barbell Bench Press, 3 sets of 5 at 135 lbs
• Barbell Squats, 3 sets of 8 at 155 lbs
• Barbell Deadlifts, 2 sets of 5 at 185 lbs
• Dumbbell Bicep Curls, 3 sets of 5 each arm, 35 lbs
• Dumbbell Triceps extension, 3 sets of 13, 35 lbs
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press, 3 sets of 5, 70 lbs
• Barbell Military Press, 3 sets of 5, 75 lbs
• Cable Lat Pulldown, 2 sets of 5, 120 lbs
• Machine Leg Press, 3 sets of 10, 345 lbs

After the gym I came home and played some Hearthstone, where I won three matches and earned my Hearthsteed in WoW (woo!)

It's not too gaudy, is it?

After that we took our daughter to her art lesson, and then my wife and I walked for 20 minutes or so around the pond at Vlassis Park. After we picked her up from art, we took her to her next appointment, and my wife ran her 5k training at Longview, and then Lauren and I went to Queeny Park and hiked for a couple miles taking pictures.

After we got home from the park, we all went out together and watched the Lego Movie, which was adorable.

All in all, a great day, and makes it easy to not think about the fact that we're getting more snow and ice tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a non-event and not cancel our D&D game.

Week 8 Complete! Lots of details and stats on this one.

After last week's disappointing gain, my body dumped tons of water and fat this week and I had another 6 pound loss. A pattern is starting to emerge in my numbers (patterns are good! They give some justification for all of this spreadsheeting!)

I'm gonna share a lot of spreadsheet images this week, so let's jump in. First, the Week 8 Detail:

Click to embiggen!

Showing off the tail end of Week 7 as well as all of week 8 here. Now, week 7 was an anomalous week. Visiting family, using a 'foreign' scale multiple days, lots of travel, TONS of stress (driving for hours on snow-covered highways at 15-20 miles an hour, eek!). At the time, last Thursday, I was pretty bummed, but looking back it is clear that with everything going on, it makes a lot of sense. I was worried about over eating and getting off plan, but I think it was all pretty much just stress related from travel.

Week 8, though, has been solid. I had one minor gain after a crazy intense workout day, but outside of that saw drops every day. Also, I baked a chocolate-orange zebra cake for my daughter with homemade dark chocolate buttercream frosting and didn't eat a slice of it. I got to the gym every day, as well, and my diet stayed on track with just the normal extra proteins I eat.

Now lets take a look at weekly progress!

Click to embiggen, not that you really need to on this one.

Here we can see that static week from 6 to 7, and then the 6 pound drop to week 8. I'm still three weeks ahead of my '4 pounds a week' aggressive target, 7 ahead of my desired 3 pound a week goal, and the 1 and 2 pound a week goals are becoming irrelevant quickly as I push them off the chart. This diet is a huge success for me right now, and in fact I'm now weighing less than I ever did when I was on Weight Watchers (Weight Watchers was fairly successful for me briefly, but then plan changes happened and it stopped working for me, and I never bothered to go back to the old way.)

I've also added a graph in my spreadsheet, just because I can. This was more of a joke to myself that came to talking to my friend Sarah about my spreadsheet. It's very basic and not as sexy as some of the other graphs I've made, though.

It's actually rather boring, isn't it?

So that's the story of this week, but I haven't shared a big progress report in a while I thought about typing it out like I did a few weeks back, but instead I'm just going to dump my entire spreadsheet here for you to look at!

This one you really will need to click to embiggen, unless you have Magic Eyes.

Since the last time you've seen this, I've made a few improvements. BMI now color-codes itself based on the number. BMI is a bogus number for me, since I'm male, tall, big-boned, muscular AND fat, and even when I'm not fat I'll still be 4 of those 5 things, but I still like to track it. I'm keeping track of my macros and calories, the super-high sodium days aren't really that much of an outlier insomuch as they are just days I bothered to track condiments in MFP.

Now, that's enough details. Let's talk about last night's Goalbusters class briefly. Christy skipped class to go run in preparation for the 5K she is running for charity (please donate! It's for HavenHouse, a great cause!), and so I went by myself. We had a medium turnout, 10 of us and I ended up being the only guy so I partnered with Mary Jane, as Bob didn't show up either. We got started and here was the circuit:

Warm-up

• Pass a medicine ball (6, 8, 10, and 15 lbs) for 2 minutes
• Jumping Jacks, 30 seconds
• Staggered Squats, 30 seconds each leg
• Ankle Mobility, 30 seconds
• Push-ups, 30 seconds
• Mountain Climbers against the wall, 30 seconds

Partner Warm-up (repeat 2x)

• Hold a wall squat while partner does 80 body-weight squats
• Do 80 body-weight squats

Circuit

4 minutes of single-arm kettlebell work, no stopping, just keep going through this cycle until the 4 minutes is up:

• 5 right arm kettlebell swings (30 lb kettlebell)
• 5 left arm kettlebell swings (30 lb kettlebell)
• 5 left arm imbalanced kettlebell squats (30 lb kettlebell)
• 5 right arm imbalanced kettlebell squats (30 lb kettlebell)
• 5 right arm kettlebell shoulder presses (30 lb kettlebell)
• 5 left arm kettlebell shoulder presses (30 lb kettlebell)

Then, 4 minutes of partner work

• 2 minutes alternating push-ups against a mat-stack (hold a push-up position, partner does a push-up, when they come up, you go down)
• 1 minute isometric holds (right hand primary), blue band
• 1 minute isometric holds (left hand primary), blue band

Then back to the kettlebells for double-arm work for 4 minutes non-stop.

• 5 kettlebell squats (35 lb kettlebell)
• 5 kettlebell squats into a high row (35 lb kettlebell)
• 5 kettlebell shoulder presses (35 lb kettlebell)

And finally back to the mats for 3 more minutes

• 1 minute alternating push-ups against a mat-stack (hold a push-up position, partner does a push-up, when they come up, you go down)
• 1 minute isometric holds (right hand primary), blue band
• 1 minute isometric holds (left hand primary), blue band

Cooldown

Stretching and then done.

Exercise class and 'eating extra'

I have an advantage when it comes to Medifast, and that is that I'm big, and muscular. I burn a ton more calories than a 'normal' person, and a lot more calories than most overweight people.

This means that while I'm on Medifast, I should probably be losing 6 pounds a week, or more, based on calorie deficits from diet and exercise if I was perfectly on plan.

However, there's another side to this, and that's that I am exercising a lot. If I don't eat extra protein, at a minimum, on heavy workout days, I feel awful. So... I get to cheat a little. Low sodium turkey jerky, cans of tuna, extra protein with my lean and green, a cheese stick, that sort of thing.

I think as long as I'm still losing at a solid rate, I'll keep doing what has worked so far.

Anyway, I've kicked my exercising up a notch, and this seems a good time to talk about exercising in general, since I've not been talking about it recently!

Friday

I worked out twice this day, once at work and once after. The strength training was relatively heavy for me, and I ate a couple of leftover chicken nuggets after I got back (after stripping off the breading) as my post-workout protein.

Cardio:

• 32 minutes EFX at lunchtime, set on level 13
• 3 minutes EFX prior to weight training as a warm up at level 10

Strength:

• Bench Press, Barbell, 3 sets of 5, 115 lbs each rep
• Seated Row, cable machine, 3 sets of 8, 165 lbs each rep
• T-bar row, 2 sets of 8, 70 lbs each rep
• Squat, Barbell, 3 sets of 5, 145 lbs each rep
• Reverse Incline pull ups, 3 sets of 5
• Leg Press, machine, 3 sets of 15, 315 lbs each rep

'Extra' food

• 1 oz Ground Turkey and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+60 calories)
• 3.5 ozTrader Joes Tempura chicken, breading removed (+245 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Saturday

Saturday was a weird day. We had Lauren's party, so I was running around all morning, baking, cleaning, shopping. I got a ton of extra calories off my FitBit. I had an early L&G of tilapia but it was not filling at all, and I ended up eating some egg beaters later in the day.

Cardio:

• 25 minutes EFX at level 15

'Extra' food:

• 1.5 oz chicken breast and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+82 calories)
• 2 oz tilapia (+12 calories)
• 9 tbsp egg beaters (+75 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Sunday

I did a heavy cardio day today, and had some extra chicken prior to the workout, and an oz of jerky after.

Cardio:

• 46 minutes EFX at level 13

'Extra' food:

• 3.5 oz chicken breast and 1 light swiss wedge at lunch (+134 calories)
• 1 oz Pork Jerky (+90 calories)
• 2 Tbsp PB2 (+45 calories)

Monday

Today was my workout class day, and I ate the rest of my jerky prior to workout, and had a Medidfast shake after. I plan to have some extra turkey with lunch (about 1.5 oz) and may have a can of tuna in water if I feel like I need it.

Workout

Warmup (repeat 3x)

• TRX Squat-into-pullup, 1 minute
• Kettlebell swings, 30 lbs, 45 seconds
• Walking lunge with a twist, down and back (about 45 seconds)

Circuit (repeat twice)

• Heavy rope pulls, 1 minute
• Moutain climbers on glides, 1 minute (no mats!)
• Speed walking with the chains, 1 minute
• Abs - various mat exercises, 2.5 minutes

Circuit (repeat once)

• Staggered farmer walk (35 lbs each hand, 30 lbs each hand, 25 lbs each hand), 1 minute
• Wall squat holding a medicine ball between the knees, 1 minute
• TRX Pushups, 1 minute

Cooldown

• Various foam roller stretches

'Extra' food:

• 2 oz Pork Jerky  (+180 calories)

Blogging in bed just not to miss a day...

I am surviving Daylight Savings Time and the time change so far.  It was a hectic weekend with lots of activities for my daughter,  laundry,  shopping,  and working out.

The birthday cake is nearly gone and I have not had a slice.  I've been keeping up my cardio and I'm increasing the level on the EFX to keep my heart rate up and to brash a sweat.

I'm even getting further into Breaking Bad,    as I only watch it when doing cardio.

Not much has changed with the diet for a while... I should look for some interesting recipes.

OK that is enough blogging for now.  I'll have a real post in the morning. 

Week 7 - Posted my first gain for the week

So, I weighed this morning, and after yesterday's ballooning up of retained water, I did't expect much.

Yesterday when I weighed in, it was at 297.1, but I hadn't gone to the bathroom yet. After bathroom and stripping down, it was 296.1. Still bad, but not as bad. That had me backpedaling about a week. So I drank lots of water, and closely watched my sodium, and stuck to my standard Medifast meals and a very basic L&G of fajita turkey breast and mushrooms. However, I noticed something: I really wasn't going to the bathroom enough despite the water I was drinking.

So this morning, when I woke up, I was actually a little surprised that I'd dropped all of my gain from yesterday and a bit more. I was back down to 293.4, which is .4 lbs over my low from last week. However, I still am not peeing like I should be. I've decided that for whatever reason, my body is clutching onto water and not letting go. Maybe it is being a little sick, maybe it was too much sodium, maybe it was workout, maybe it was stress from driving on ice for 60 miles... probably a combination of all four.

After last week's 6.5 lb drop, a rebound week doesn't actually seem out of place. Even with a gain this week, my average is still 5.5 lbs. And, I fully expect to see things 'revert' to normal soon. I know that my caloric intake is within 100 calories or so per day of being accurate, and it is impossible for me to gain fat with my deficit. As soon as I start peeing again, I expect to see another big drop, and then go back to a more steady pace.

click to embiggen!

In other news, the workout last night was insane. We had 11 people show up for our Goal Busters class, and Kevin set up two main stations... a circuit of 7 exercises in one half of the gym, and mats in the other half. So, we did our workout:

Warm-up:

• 2 minutes of passing the medicine balls in a circle
• 30 seconds of Jumping Jacks
• 30 seconds of staggered squats, right leg
• 30 seconds of staggered squats, left leg
• 30 seconds of ankle mobility
• 30 seconds of push-ups
• 30 seconds of mountain climbers against the wall

Partner work up (repeat 2x):

• 60 body weight squats
• Hold a wall squat during partner's squats

Circuit:

• 1 minute: Standing Rows, Alternating arms (30 lbs each) on the cable machine
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: 2 mountain climbers into a pushup against a mat stack, on glides
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: Kettlebell Swings (35 lbs)
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: Heavy Rope double-overs
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: Bosu Balance with dumbbell clean and press (15 lbs each)
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: run against an anchored heavy band
• 1 minute: plank
• 1 minute: monster walks with a blue band
• 1 minute: plank

Cool down and stretch

After class I went home and watched Survivor (Yay! Survivor is back on!) and had a Medifast smoothie. Normally I use chocolate pudding for these, but this time I screwed it up and it was actually not bad. 

Medifast Dark Chocolate Smoothie
1 Package Brownie Soft Bake
1/2 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups crushed ice
1 Tbsp PB2 powdered peanut butter
1 Tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
Put all ingredients in your blender (I use a Ninja). Blend the ever-loving heck out of it. Check consistency and add ice  if too thin, water if too thick. Pour into a glass and eat with a spoon or drink through a straw.

It was thinner and less 'creamy' than the pudding-based smoothies I make. I think I can revisit this though, and add light cream cheese to it to thicken it up and give it that dairy hit that it was missing. 

Ok, my first 'bad' week is over and done with on this plan. Time to keep working and erase this! I've got 5 weeks til PAX and 7 weeks til Geekway, and I want to be in better shape for both of them!

Vacation update! Traveling on Medifast

It's time for a detailed blog post on the past few days.

We set out from St. Louis to the Gulf Coast to visit my family for Mardi Gras. We had two parades to attend, a Ball, and a Fun Run. We needed to navigate all of this while staying on plan!

On Thursday afternoon, we packed our bags and our Medifast meals. We needed 10 meals a day for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as a couple more each for the Thursday portion of our trip. My wife picked out 30 meals for us, and then added about 10 more assorted ones, as well. The goal here was to have enough food options that we would have some variety. Also, Medifast meals aren't exactly large, so we had plenty of room in the food bag.

We decided to do Lean and Green at 3 pm, right before we left town, and to do Medifast in the car, and have a Macaroni and Cheese once we stopped in Corinth for the night and got through the day on plan!

We arrived in Corinth and checked in to the Hampton. I went to the workout room and did a brief elliptical session and then went to sleep for the night.

In the morning, I got up and did another stint on the elliptical and some weight lifting, had a couple of pieces of bacon from the buffet, and we checked out. We ate bars and pretzels in the car, and had macaroni and cheese as soon as we made it to Fairhope. Dinner that night was taco turkey, mushrooms, and salad, so we stayed on plan! I went to the grocery store and grabbed some almond milk and more mushrooms for Saturday's dinner, as well.

Friday night we went to the Maids of Jubilee parade in downtown Fairhope. NSV? Why yes! I didn't bring a light jacket and it was a chilly night, so I ended up wearing one of my Dad's sweatshirts, and it fit!

Squid hat!

The parade was hugely fun. We took the kids to Mr. Gene's Beans for hot chocolate, shopped in a couple of stores and then the parade started. We caught tons of beads, doubloons, a few stuffed animals, and lots of moon pies. My wife and I each decided we'd take one bite of a Chocolate Peanut Butter moon pie and then give the rest to Alex. That worked out well! We then went home and ate our last Medifast meal of the day.

Catching beads at the parade!

Saturday morning we woke up and went to Daphne for a 1-mile Fun Run with my sister, Amanda. We got there, got registered and got our shirts and numbers. Christy and Amanda ran the mile, while I speed-walked at my pace, and Alex and Lauren stuck together. I was in the lead with my speed walking when Amanda and Christy passed me in the first 100 yards. A little later Alex and Lauren ran past me. Eventually I caught up to them as they stopped running. At the end, Christy had a 13-minute mile, I ended up at just over 14 minutes, and Alex and Lauren came in at just over 15. Not bad! I really hope that my Achilles tendon magically repairs itself so I can actually start doing more running soon.

Just before the fun run!

We then went home and started prepping for Saturday's parade... the Krewe of Mullet Mates parade from Mullet Point to Pelican Point along the coast. We rode for 5 miles and threw thousands of beads, hundreds of stuffed animals, and 4 cases of moon pies to the people that came out. this was where the Medifast plan broke down a little, as I had a lot of cheese and meat during the day that wasn't exactly on plan. On the other hand, I was out and about and exercising more than normal, as well. We got home and did chicken, green beans, and mushrooms for dinner. Then I rested while all the girls got dressed up and went to the Shadow Barons ball. I kinda wish I had gone to the Ball too, but the rest of the guys stayed home so I did as well.

Prepping the float... zip-tying the dolphin to the front!

The 'float' for the KOMM parade!

Sunday we expected to drive straight home but an ice storm in Tennessee had other plans. We ended up staying the night in North Alabama, with my in-laws. I cooked dinner again (more chicken, green beans, and mushrooms), and we hung out with them. Monday morning I woke up and put in an hour of cardio on the EFX in their workout room and we waited around until 11:00 to get ready to go, hoping the roads would be clear.

...and they mostly were, until Dyer County, TN

We stopped for gas and I ended up eating Perky Turkey Jerky for a snack, since we were on the dregs of our Medifast meals, having had to stretch them out an extra day.

Overall, I was very happy how it went. We stayed on plan, had 'real' Lean and Green meals every night. We had an Atkins shake and an off-plan snack on Monday, but I got home after driving through crappy weather and went to the grocery store and cooked again. I think overall it was a success, with the biggest issue coming with hydration... I know I wasn't able to keep water in me as much as I'd like with all the traveling. I managed to keep up with my cardio, but didn't get a good weightlifting session in, but that's ok. Over the entire weekend, I ended up with a net gain of .6 lbs, but I'm drinking my water today to see what happens once I'm hydrated and get a full night's sleep. I think I'll be ok for the week!

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

About to run a fun run!

This may be my blog post for the day...

About to run a one mile fun run with my wife and kids!