Today's Workout: Day 47 - 4/3/2010:

Today I went to the gym relatively early, and spent a good bit of time there. I did all my cardio at the gym.


Cardio 1: treadmill, 3.0 mph, elevation 5 degrees, 30 minutes.

Stability Ball:

• Crunches: [supine 25, right side 25, left side 25] x 5
• Squats with 40 lb weight in each hand: 20 x 5
• Plank holds: 60 seconds x 5, each set alternating L/R leg up every 15 secs.
• Balance Pushups: 20 x 5
• Bridge Hamstring Curl: 20 x 5
• Knee Tuck: 20 x 5
• Push Ups (using inverted stability dome): 20 x 5

Bench work, until exhaustion:

• DB Chest press (supine): 30, 50, 70
• DB Chest flies (supine): 35, 40, 45
• DB Biceps Curl: 35, 40, 50
• DB Triceps Extension: 50, 60, 70
• DB Military Press: 30, 35, 40

I added two reps on the chest press and chest flies, and one rep on the military press. The latter is another one of those exercises which causes a bit of pain in my chest due to muscle tightness secondary to my surgery, so I'm really trying hard to stretch things out.

Superset 1:

• Overhead Pulldown: 80, 90, 100, 110
• Rope Pulldown: 60, 60, 70, 80
• Cable Cross: 60, 60, 70, 70
• Lat Pulldown: 90, 100, 110, 120

Superset 2:

• Chest Press (plates, unlinked): 160, 160, 180, 200
• Overhead Press (plates, unlinked): 120, 130, 140, 150
• Incline Chest Press (plates, unlinked): 160, 160, 170, 180

I went a bit nuts on the Chest Press, and beat my personal best by upping the weight to 200 (45 x 2 + 10 on each side) and was able to do 6 reps. The 7th rep petered out midway and I couldn't push it further.

Cardio 2: Octane Running Elliptical: 5/5/10 interval training x 15 minutes.

- Dan

Oh yeah, I forgot all about my lunges, because I don't do them at the gym. I've been doing 4 sets of 20 every AM as part of a "wake up" stretching routine for awhile now. I probably should add some weight to them, but I don't have any DBs at home. Actually what I really want to get first for home (especially since they aren't expensive) is a stability ball. That way I can do that part of my routine (more or less) at home in the AM, which will free up some time in the gym for other stuff.

- Dan

At the gym I was thinking about my upcoming milestones.

First, I started thinking about how this cutting cycle has gone so far, and after "running the numbers" in my head it became clear to me why my cutting is proceeding at the rate it is. As a rough estimate (based upon formulas) my basal metabolic demand is approximately 2400-2600 kcal/day, depending on which formula you use. Now that's actually just for sedentary work, so you have to add to that the energy expended during daily activities and workouts. While I don't really know what that would be for weight training, I do have estimates from the cardio equipment, and that comes out to a minimum of 500 kcal/day. Then there's walking around, climbing stairs, etc., over the period of a day, which also requires calories. So, let's say conservatively that my caloric requirements are 3000 kcal/day.

This past week I did an inventory of what I ate, and it turns out that at most I'm consuming 1500 kcal/day. Quite honestly, I don't think I could force myself to eat any more, because my appetite in general is lousy. So, per day, I have a minimum of a 1500 kcal deficit, or 10,500 kcal/week. A pound of fat is approximately 3500 kcal, so 10,500 / 3500 = 3 lbs/week, which is close to my actual amount of slightly more than 3.5 lbs/week... probably the discrepancy is due to the fact that my caloric demand is actually higher than 3000 kcal/day and my caloric intake is, on average, less than 1500 kcal/day. Of course, weight loss is a bit more complex than that, but as a crude estimate, the model sort-of fits what actually occurred.

Anyway, the first milestone which is fast approaching is 100 kg (220 lbs.), which I should reach in several weeks. Following this is the second milestone, which is cutting down to 200 lbs; hopefully I should be able to do that by mid-June. The question then becomes whether I continue to cut through the summer or begin recomp. With the former, I should be able to cut down to 180 or less by my birthday in September, with the goal to decrease BF percentage further. I am concerned that I won't be able to recomp successfully at 200 lbs, and if I try, I'll be left with too much body fat, rather than lean muscle growth. To be honest, part of me wants to cut even below 180 lbs and just keep going for awhile to see what happens.

Thoughts?

- Dan

Ive heard of "set points" and "reset points". Basically it means that once you get your body to where you want it, you will eventually go back to where you were. Its pretty a pretty damn scary thought, not being able to hold onto your condition. The struggle is holding onto the condition for as long as possible.

If you can hold on to your ideal condition for as long as 6 months to a year, your body will start to recognize this as the normal state of health. If you cannot hold onto this, with the needed maintanance, your body will want to reset back to what it thinks is normal.

If your comfortable with holding 200lbs for at least half a year, waiting for the next round, I think you'll have a higher rate of success ( long term ). The CNS will normalize, so will metabolism, and you'll get to that point where you can slack a little more and be in that -5lb/+5lb catogory ( like everyone else not dieting ).

Then when you go back into cutting mode again, 180lbs will be a lot easier to attain. I hope I kind of explained it the best I could.

Think turtle vs. the Hare Doc! Your body will resist you like no other.

Training log day 47 (4/3/10) (Chest, Triceps, Shoulders)

I bought a pair of 70# and 80# DB's earlier this week, and incorporated them into my workout.
I find it much easier to get the DBs in position with 80# for prone DB benches compared to the incline DB press with 70#, so need to continue to work on form a bit, also being careful not to mess up my elbows.

I will be adding 90# DBs at some point relatively soon, but still shopping around for the best price on those.

I did not receive my replacement 510# upgrade for my Bowflex yet, so dealing directly with Ebay on that one now.

Earlier in the day, I did the exercise bike for 40 minutes.

Overhead cable extension Warmup 1 set of 24 with 100# (bowflex)
Incline DB Press (45') 3 sets using 70# DBs 24, 20, 18 (+20# total, - reps)
DB Bench Press 3 sets using 80# DBs 16, 15, 16 (+40# total, - reps)
Bench Press 2 sets using 410# (bowflex) (36, 34) (+4 reps)
Decline Press 2 sets using 410# (bowflex) (34, 34)
Incline Press 2 sets of 34 using 410# (bowflex)
Chest Fly 4 sets with 340# (bowflex) 24, 20, 18, 18 (+2 reps)
Triceps Extension (French Press) 3 sets with 390# (bowflex) 26, 24, 24
Hammer Triceps Extension 1 set of 24 with 390# (bowflex) (+2 reps)
Rope pushdown 250# (bowflex) (22, 22) (+2 reps/set)
Lying Tricep Ext. (skullcrusher) 2 sets of (22, 22) with 65# (+1 rep)
Bench Dip 1 set of 38 using body weight (+1 rep)
Dumbbell shoulder press 3 sets with 60# DBs 19, 14, 14 (+2 reps)
Arnold Press 3 sets with 50# DBs 14, 13, 13 (+1 rep)
Front Shoulder Raise 2 sets using 140# (bowflex) 24, 24
Lateral Shoulder Raise 2 sets using 140# (bowflex) 24, 24
Shoulder Extension 2 sets of (26, 26) using 210# (bowflex) (+10#, +1 rep)
Shoulder Shrug 3 sets of 35 using 410# (bowflex) (+1 rep/set)
DB Lying Rear Lateral Raise 1 set of 20 using 40# DBs
Seated Bent Over Lat Raise 1 set of 23 using 40# DBs
Triceps Pushdown (Lat Bar) (Superset with Hammer Curl) 2 sets of 21 with 230#
Hammer Curl (Superset with Triceps Pushdown) sets of 20 and 20 using 45# Dumbbells

Keith, how many chocolate bunnies is your wife going to kill and eat today? LOL.

- Dan

I'm not too concerned with slacking off on my diet (i.e. cheating), because I decided to fundamentally "change my relationship" with food. Basically, it's gotten to the point where eating disgusts me, and a consequence of this is that hardly ever get hungry now. I don't keep a lot of food in the house; in fact, I hardly have any. There are no carbs or starches at all. What I eat is very similar from day to day, so there is consistency... I'm not eating 1200 kcal one day and 3500 kcal the next. By doing all of this, I am breaking my psychological dependency on food, which is one of the reasons I gained weight in the first place.

So, if I'm in a caloric deficit and continue to do daily cardio to prevent metabolism slowdown, I should continue to lose weight. By adding additional kcals as I approach target (e.g. more protein), the weight loss should decelerate. Ultimately I realize that I need to introduce carbs back into my diet, because you can't safely sustain a pure ketogenic diet indefinitely without risking damage to the liver and kidneys. However, I was thinking that this could be accomplished by having a "carb-up" day every weekend, where I eat a bowl of whole-grain pasta or something like that. Again, there's not going to be much variability, because I think that's a major reason why I got into trouble.

I have contemplated even cutting further and then lean bulking back up, but I think the psychological impact of getting weaker would be very upsetting to me.

- Dan

How tall are you? I'm about 6'1" and still look fairly lean at 190, even though my body fat isn't all that low (still have small love handles). 200 sounds like a pretty decent weight for a recomp to me, maybe 190 if you're a bit shorter than me.

Lou

I'm a little over 5' 9", but I'm barrel-chested, so my overall body habitus tends more towards being cylindrical than "flat" in the sagittal (front-to-back) plane.

- Dan

Sunday AM weigh-in: 225 lbs / 102 kg

This AM I went to the gym and had an actual vO2/vCO2 resting metabolic rate measured. I wanted to know this because I was wondering if my RMR was lower than predicted by the Harris-Benedict formula, specifically if my metabolism had slowed down because of the restrictive diet I am on. As it turns out, it's just the opposite: my RMR is higher than predicted. My measured RMR is 2770 kcal/day, and that doesn't include any activities, either walking around, etc., cardio, or resistance training. This could partially be due to increased muscle mass, as well as the long-term effects of daily cardio.

If you include activities of daily living, my total daily caloric requirement is estimated at 3610 kcal/day. That doesn't include calories expended doing cardio or weight-training. Add that in, and I'm easily over 4000 kcal/day.

It also turns out that my calculated preferred fuel source is fat, not carbs, and the estimated ratio is approximately 70% / 30%. For weight loss, this is a good thing.

Anyway, I then did a nice, sweaty cardio workout:

Treadmill: 3.0 mph @ 5 degree incline x 45 minutes = 447 kcal
Octane: 5/5/10 interval training x 15 minutes = 157 kcal
Stair Stepper: 140 bpm x 15 minutes = 121 kcal

Total cardio = 725 kcal

I was drinking water during the cardio workout, and after I got home, I had to take a dump. So for kicks, I just weighed myself again, and I now weigh 223 lbs. I guess between all the sweat and the turd, it was two pounds worth. LOL.

Have some errands to do, then back to the gym for weight-training.

- Dan

ALL of them!

Isn't there a relationship between eating chocolate rabbits and humping like rabbits?

Day 48 training log 4/4/10

Sunday is my one off day, so just did 40 minutes on the exercise bike.

Keith

Just got home from the gym... maybe I should just sleep there.

I'll post my workout tomorrow AM because I am really exhausted, but I tried a variation of my Octane running elliptical interval program after talking with Rob (aka RobZilla) on the phone... yes, VoIP from Iraq actually works.

Basically, it's a HIIT-type program with intervals of 1/1/15, i.e. a cycle of 60 seconds at the easiest level followed by 30 seconds at a fairly high resistance. At the Level 1 interval, I "coast" at about 40 steps/min, then shortly before the Level 15 interval kicks in, I accelerate to 60+ steps/min and try to maintain that speed during that interval. Then the cycle repeats and I slow down to 40 steps/min.

I watched what happens to my heart rate using this program, and after a few cycles, it was around 130-140 bpm during Level 1. But during Level 15, my heart rate increased to almost 170 bpm, and shortly after the cycle repeated back to Level 1, it slowed to 130-140 bpm again. Seems fairly HIIT-like to me.

This program also burns slightly more calories than the 5/5/10 program: 15 minutes expended 181 kcal.

My total cardio workout for today was 90 minutes and burned 906 kcal... LOL, that's probably more calories than I ate. "Easter Dinner" was a bottle of Apple-Melon flavored Isopure Zero Carb RTD with my usual PWO additives thrown in.

- Dan

Today's AM cardio - 4/5/2010:

Treadmill: 3.3 mph / 5.0 degree incline x 30 minutes: 308 kcal excluding cooldown.

- Dan

Right. Seems to me that at some point, probably in the 180-190 range, you're gonna start to "go asymptotic" on the weight loss, even with the very aggressive approach you're taking. Somewhere in there, and you may just have to try to feel it out, would be a good place to move from straight fat loss to more of a recomp to hold onto the strength.

Lou

Right, I just don't know where that point is, nor have I ever attempted a recomp, let alone to the extent that I'm planning, i.e. to really drop BF %age. I've asked a number of people, and I get answers ranging from 170-200 lbs.

Now, I should mention that when I started medical school (and I was in my early 30s at the time since it's a second career for me) I weighed around 150 lbs, so it is (or at least was) possible for me to get very thin. Of course at that weight I had no appreciable muscle mass to speak of, so I looked like a gaunt prisoner of war.

- Dan

Maybe you should pick your point based on strength rather than weight? That is, when the strength starts to wane, or the strength gains slow down considerably, that's when you switch to the recomp.

I don't think there's a huge risk in switching to recomp. You could stay with the keto and just up the calories some. It's not like you're gonna get fat and weak overnight -- you've got some time to feel your way through it, find what works for you.

Lou

Yesterday's Weight Training Workout: Day 48 - 4/4/2010:

I already detailed my mega-cardio workout for 4/4/2010; here's the weight training component...

Stability Ball:

• Crunches: [supine 25, right side 25, left side 25] x 5
• Squats with 40 lb weight in each hand: 20 x 5
• Plank holds: 60 seconds x 5, each set alternating L/R leg up every 15 secs.
• Balance Pushups: 20 x 5
• Bridge Hamstring Curl: 20 x 5
• Knee Tuck: 20 x 5
• Push Ups (using inverted stability dome): 20 x 5

Bench work, until exhaustion:

• DB Chest press (supine): 30, 50, 70
• DB Chest flies (supine): 35, 40, 45
• DB Biceps Curl: 35, 40, 50
• DB Triceps Extension: 50, 60, 70
• DB Military Press: 30, 35, 40
• EZ-BB Preacher Curl: 35, 45, 55

I added one rep on the chest press, chest flies, and biceps curl, and one rep on the military press.

Superset 1:

• Overhead Pulldown: 90, 100, 110, 120
• Rope Pulldown: 60, 60, 70, 80
• Cable Cross: 60, 60, 70, 70
• Lat Pulldown: 90, 100, 110, 120

Superset 2:

• Chest Press (plates, unlinked): 160, 160, 180, 200
• Overhead Press (plates, unlinked): 130, 150, 150, 170
• Incline Chest Press (plates, unlinked): 160, 160, 170, 180

Got to 9 reps on the chest press at 200.
Went nuts on the overhead press, upped the max weight to 170 and was able to push out 7 reps.

- Dan