Holiday Break

I'm taking a break from dieting today and tomorrow to enjoy some good holiday food!

Today's weigh-in: 168.1

A New Low!

Today I weighed in at 169.4! I've sort of seen 170 as milestone of sorts, given that I haven't weighed less than 170 since I was 18- twelve years ago! Since that time an unhealthy lifestyle of excessive drinking, over-eating and not exercising packed on almost forty pounds. Around the time my first son was born, two years ago, I was up to almost 210 lbs. Yuck!

I'm going to drop five more pounds and I think that will be it for my cutting phase. Hopefully I'll see some good abdominal definition by then. I expect to reach this goal around the first of February.

As for my new workout, Fat Loss II is definitely more of a challenge. Particularly workout B. It includes a Bulgarian split squat with overhead press which is absolutely grueling. My heart rate jumps from around 135 to almost 180 within ten seconds!! After a set it's almost impossible not to fall down on the bench, with my vision pulsing and my head swimming. It sucks but at the same time it's awesome. When your heart is pounding an adrenaline is surging you know you're alive.

Anyway, I'm bumping my calories back up to 1900 because I have actually been dropping weight a little too fast the past few weeks. I really don't want to cut fat at a rate greater than a pound a week and I've been nearing two pounds a week. At my current leanness the propensity for the body to burn muscle increases with greater caloric deficits and beyond two pounds a week it's almost certain that you're losing some muscle.

For Christmas Eve I am allowing myself one cheat meal so I am looking forward to it. My wife has some delicious food planned for the family!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

New workout begins on Sunday

This Sunday will be the first workout of Fat Loss II from the book "The New Rules of Lifting" by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove.

The workouts will span four weeks, three workouts each week, moving from supersets of 12 reps for each movement and 60 seconds rest between each movement, down to 8 reps, more weight and only 30 seconds of rest between each movement.

Given how difficult some of the movements in Fat Loss I were, I expect to get my ass kicked pretty hard.

I'll post back with thoughts later on Sunday.

Pizza Party!

They're having a pizza party in my office today.

I'm having a turkey, couscous, blueberries and plain fat-free yogurt party in my cube!! Woo hoo!

Yes, sometimes being on a diet is tough but it's all worth it in the end. Besides, being lean and healthy feels a lot better than pizza tastes.

Words To Live By

I saw this on Billy's Lean Body Quest (see the link on the right). Take a moment to think about it.

"The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now."- Zig Ziglar

I'm A Nerd

I've come up with a mathematical formula for computing how many calories I need to burn at each workout.

Since I know my body fat I can use the Katch-McCardle equation to calculate my BMR (basal metabolic rate). Then, I assume an activity level of 1.2 (sedentary, office work, etc.). This allows me to calculate my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) if all I do is get up, go to work, come home, eat, spend time with family, go to bed, etc.

I wear a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned at each workout, so given all of this information I can calculate how much work I need to do at each workout to burn a pound of fat per week for a given caloric intake.

Since I cycle calories it's a bit more complicated, but not much. And, the cool part is that MSN Search solves for X. You enter an algebraic equation and it spits out the value of x. Pretty slick!

Here's the formula I came up with for a TDEE of 2254.5 kcal, on a carb cycling plan of 1800 calories for three days followed by one 2600 calorie refeed day, and working out three times per week. This value is computed over a 4 week (28 day period). I do this because due to the carb cycling, one week every four weeks will contain only one refeed day while the other three weeks will contain two. For accuracy it's better to do the computation over four weeks.

((2254.5*7)+(x*3))*4 = 14000+((1800 * 5 + 2600 * 2)*3)+(1800 * 6 + 2600)

Punching that into MSN Search, I learn that I need to burn 573 kcal at each workout to lose a pound of fat a week.

Since I'm currently eating 1900/2700 and burning around 400 kcal per workout I see that I need to drop my calories a bit, and add some low intensity cardio to the end of each workout!

Tomorrow it begins!

Tomorrow marks my return to cutting and lifting. I'll drop my calories back down to 1900 per day for three days (150 grams of carbs), followed by one day at 2700 calories (350 grams of carbs). I'll repeat this four day cycle until I reach my fat loss goals. If all goes well I should be lean enough to start bulking by mid to late January.

Tomorrow night I return to the gym for my first workout in 2 weeks. I can't wait! I plan to take it easy on the squatting at first so I don't irritate my left hip flexor again.

I will post a photo update in the first week of January.

Have a great day!