Althanas Fitness Thread, Redux Edition

Sunday, slow day. I felt a little burned out after doing an hour and a half of yoga yesterday, so today I just did a thirty minute practice and went for a few walks. I checked my weight after 20 hours of fasting and came in at 170 lbs again, which means I probably actually gained a bit of weight since the last time I checked. This gives me a good baseline to start working toward my goal. My plans for this week are:

-fast 18 hours per day
-cut out sugar entirely
-do at least 30 minutes of yoga a day
-do at least 60 minutes of walking a day
-Do 1-3 high intensity upper body workouts throughout the week

I think as long as I cut out the sugar, it'll be easy to stay at a slight caloric deficit and lose weight at a measurable rate. I'm doing some research on a different, more time-sensitive kind of time-restricted feeding, but I want to try my current method for awhile first. Fasting 16-18 hours a day (or 20 hours, like today) actually feels great to me. I don't really get hungry and I find it easier to stay focused on the task at hand. I think I'm going to devise a fitness test I can do to track my muscular endurance. It'll probably look something like this:

15min warmup

20 cocorinha squats
2min rest
95% Max set cocorinha squats (record result)

20 pushups
2min rest
95% Max set pushups (record result)

30s plank
2min rest
95% Max set situps (record result)

30s wall sit
2min rest
Max time wall sit (record result)

I may do this tomorrow in the middle of my "feeding window", and try to do it once a week to monitor changes in my strength and endurance.

5 Miles and a walk to pick up my kid from school today makes for a perfectly average workout day. Feeling great, diet is in control.

Tomorrow I leave for 8 days for work travel and then a quick family vacation. See you fifteen pounds! #fuck

Thirty minutes of yoga today, and about an hour and a half of walking. The fasting still feels good, although I did have some hunger pangs early this morning. I had two really great meals during my eating window (including a venison sauce!) and feel fully satiated. No sugar so far, and no plans of having any. I ended up having a friend visit for the evening so my fitness test got moved to tomorrow night.

First travel test this morning in my LGA connection. For my obnoxiously expensive breakfast, got an omelette served with golden brown potatoes. Proud to report I returned all (but one) of the potato squares! My $4 coffee is absolutely putrid; LGA really is just the worst.

Probably no run today. I land in Orlando at noon, and running in Orlando at noon in May is suicide.

Judgment day is here!

Today marks the start of a six week journey to lose 28 lbs (or as close to it as possible) and to get fit for football before my ultimate goal of reaching 182lbs. My friend is standing by as my personal trainer, and now all I have to do is stick to what he tells me to do!

I won't be doing daily weigh ins on here because that'll be ridiculous, but I will be checking in weekly to ensure I'm keeping tabs on myself between staff work and writing!

So, here goes.

Week 1 weigh in: 251.6 lbs

My starting weight is a depressing figure but I know I'll have that down soon enough. Today I've eaten porridge, a three egg mushroom omelette and I plan to have lightly spiced chicken breast with peppers, rice and mushrooms for dinner. I'm trying to significantly cut down my dairy intake, so drinking green tea instead of normal tea / coffee. I abhor bananas, but one an hour before my PT will give me energy I need.

I know that Jack is going to have me on the back foot tonight doing all sorts of mad shit, and having attended one of his sessions before I can guess that it'll be high-intensity excercises and that I'll resemble Gomer Pyle by 9pm.

Remember, pain is just weakness leaving the body.

Update:

I am dying.

Tonight's session consisted of:

3 minutes rowing
10 lateral stretches with rubber band
10 rotator stretches with rubber band

Then three sets of:

45 second shuttle runs, straight into 20 seconds of kettlebell swings and then 20 seconds of ball slams.

2 minute break.

2 sets of 20 seconds of battle rope, 15 seconds of kettle thrusts (right arm) and 15 seconds again (left arm).


Top with 3 sets of lateral flies and bicep curls.

I am so unfit but the burn feels amazing. You should see the diet plan I've been given......

Oof, I would not have made it through such a workout. Nice job Shin.

Today I did a half hour of yoga and I walked hard in the sun for three hours. Not quite in a row, but close enough. My stomach is sore the way it got when I went to cross country events as a kid. I weighed in about halfway through the walking and came in at 167 lbs. I think most of that was water because I was a little dehydrated at the time, but it still feels like a kick in the right direction. I'll weigh in again in the next day or so to see what's up.

I had breakfast at 4pm; some grape tomatoes and a couple small bowls of rice pasta with venison sauce. Just before that, at the end of my fast, I did my little fitness test. I wouldn't really recommend resistance training while fasting to anyone, but I wanted to find out what I was capable of in that state. Here was my result:

Warmup: 10min shadow boxing, 5 min band exercsies
Coco squats: 20, 30
Pushups: 20, 25
Plank: 30s, 45s
Wall sit: 30s, 45s

I haven't really improved since the last time I did this workout, but I haven't been training for strength, so the important thing is I didn't go backwards. I will make it a goal to improve my results in all four exercises, however. I wasn't feeling satisfied by this, so I threw in twenty situps at the end.

Now I'm enjoying some scotch and perrier picked up on my journey and figuring out what to eat for dinner. I'm actually not that hungry... but I'm sure it will come.

Day 2... my legs (quads in particular) are still whining at me over yesterday's workout. I'm doing the 21 day fix exercise program from Beachbody. Day 1 was a total body cardio, today was upper fix (so much shoulder work, I expect my shoulder's to be crying tomorrow as hard as my legs were today)

Starting weight: 166.6lbs
Goal: 125-130lbs (a much healthier weight for my height and age of 61" and 34yrs)

The plan to cut back on excess carbs is doing well thus far. With tomorrow and Friday being paydays, I should be able to stock up on veggies. Yum!

Also: working out around a toddler is just hard mode. Little Man thought it was great that Mommy was on the floor and proceeded to pile his stacking rings on me while I was doing crunches and plop on my back while doing a plank (1 min) /pushups (think i got 14 in a minute, which is great for being the first time in forever!)!

Good work, both of you! Chelly, I know how difficult it is having a little one running round scuppering everything but could be onto something there by involving them in the routine ;)

I'm aching a little after last night but not as much as I'd expected. The way my schedule is laid out puts me (almost completely accidentally) on a one day on, one day off routine with training. I have another PT session tomorrow (happy fucking birthday to me :rolleyes:), 45 minutes of bootcamp on Saturday morning, an hour of football on Monday evening and then back on the PT on tuesday. Rinse and repeat for six weeks.

Weight this morning was 249.8 lbs. I expected that I'd lose a little, so i'm happy with that. The hard bit is to come when I hit the 200 lbs mark and things start slowing down, but I'll get there.

In Florida. Ate much better than I typically do on travel, avoiding carbs still and having one michelob ultra (gross) and a few whiskeys. Great 5 mile run in mild temperatures with very high humidity this morning. Wrung my shirt over the railing in my hotel - sorry for the rain below!

Beh. I ate sugar last night (only because I ran out of healthy calories) and today I feel pretty gross. I must make sure to have good foods in the fridge at all times so this doesn't happen again.

Everything else is on track - yoga, walking, overall diet, intermittent fasting all good.

Still traveling. Have been eating very, very little because there simply aren't many options for carb-free food. Also went out with the team last night and got WASTED on whiskey.

I was in a bad, dark, painful place with no glucose to metabolize the alcohol. Felt like I got kicked by a mule.

Didn't run this morning, but plan to tonight when it cools down a little. Pray for me.

Just done the most painful but physically rewarding PT session I've ever done tonight.

On tuesday I jarred my back slightly but it made every movement painful. My PT helped me with a little physio before the session and tailored it to my injury, but god damn it was difficult.

Session consisted of:

2000m rowing with 20s full power, 10s rest interval training on a hard setting.

Shuttle runs in a boxing ring from corner to corner in a Z pattern, 30s on, 10s rest. 5 sets, then a further 3 after a 2 minute break.The floor (being cushioned) helped the injury as it was low impact but still felt it.

Stretches on the pullup bar to help stretch out the affected muscles.

It was a well managed session but I'm feeling it. Resting tonight and tomorrow before going back to bootcamp on Saturday morning for high intensity cardio.

Weight this morning was 248.3 lbs, so lost 3 lbs since Tuesday and I suspect after tonight there will be a result at tomorrow's weigh in.

Happy days.

Great job Shin, keep it up!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Storm Veritas

Great job Shin, keep it up!

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Thanks man. How did the run go?

Great job to both of you!

I had a pretty typical day. About an hour of walking, about twenty minutes of yoga. I weighed in today at 165.5 lbs, so despite my continued issues with sugar the trend is going in the right direction. I haven't had any sugar today though, and I'm not going to. I'm actually stuffed.

For breakfast at 4pm I had a banana, an avocado, and a serving of jasmine rice with a massive salmon portion. Between meals I had some chia seeds with water, and then for dinner, my recent dietary staple; venison tomato sauce over rice pasta. Right now I'm sipping scotch and soda, and when that's done I'll have some vega one and then call it a night. I've been working on getting as much sleep as possible.

Weighed in this morning at 246.8, which brings my total weight loss since I started on Tuesday to 5lbs. Five days, five pounds. I'm reasonably happy with a pound a day off the body as that will put me at a half stone off at the end of the week. Assuming that kind of steady rate, I can predict perhaps 35 lbs off by June 19th, which is 7 more than target.

I didn't make it to bootcamp this morning but did manage to just finish a makeshift PT session off my own back at the gym. Whilst I'm sure I burned a few calories, it wasn't as intense as my PT with Jack and I feel I went too easy on myself. It's hard to be motivated to push that extra mile or do that extra set when you don't have a six foot monster screaming encouragement at you, but at least I got out and did something.

Consisting of:

6 sets of 20s on, 10s off high intensity rowing
10x 15kg Kettlebell "shotput" lift on each arm
20 ball slams
20 situps
3 sets of 30kg bench press at 5 reps per set
10 leg curls at 15kg
10 mins cooldown on bike

It looks a lot but it isn't, especially as I wasn't putting the same level of intensity in as I would with Jack. However, I at least did something and my next hour of exercise is an hour of football on Monday night before I hit PT again on Tuesday.

Food wise, I have been sticking to an extremely strict diet. An example is today's catering: Breakfast is greek yoghurt with oats (protein and carbs), with mushrooms. Lunch tends to be 185g of rice (carbs), a seasoned chicken breast (protein) and mixed peppers and mushrooms. Dinner is cod (protein), green beans and 60g of mixed almonds and pistaccios for the fat I need. No carbs at all after 1pm and I genuinely feel amazing for it, although I do suffer sugar withdrawal like a heroin addict. Last night at 9pm I was shaking like a fucking leaf!

For the first twenty one days, showing up is really all that matters. And you more than showed up! Nice work mate.

I didn't weigh in today, but I've been wearing my cloth belt (no notches) for a few days, and when I put my leather belt on today it naturally went almost a full notch tighter. That's the kind of progress I'm really looking for, the weight is just a number.

Today while fasting I walked for ninety minutes and then did a half hour of yoga.

For breakfast I had a banana and my good ol' venison sauce on rice pasta. About three hours later I did a ten minute warmup and then a few sets of pushups and situps, just to keep my upper body working. For dinner I had another banana and a MASSIVE bowl of salad with tuna and avocado. Now... you guessed it... scotch time. Vega one later on.

Runs have been slow and lumbering, since I've been getting 15,000-20,000 steps/day while on vacation. Managed to stay on a keto-based diet even with all this. Body is very sore; hard to stay hydrated when water is $4/bottle and I'm buying water for four. Running at hotel #2 sucks (different one for family vacation; it's more of a resort) because there is no sidewalk so I'm running more or less on a highway.

Feet are fucking sore. No actual problems, just hurting. Gonna power through this.

Last night I took the bride out for a big Mother's Day Dinner at Disney World. We ate great, and even had dessert - the first conscious consumption of carbs in 2+ months. It was -incredible-, but I was swept by a wave of guilt.

Woke up to run hard in obscene Florida humidity. 20k+ steps on the tracker today. Wiped out completely. Tomorrow we walk the Magic Kingdom - taking my first day off from running in an age. Thanks be to god!

Today marks the first week since this crash course in not being a fat bastard began. Having stuck to the diet and fitness programme to the letter, I was pretty happy to learn that I have lost 6.4 lbs in a week.

Having played football last night (with interesting effects - seems this diet isn't great for late night energy levels, so I'll have to ponder that one) I'm on a well earned night off tonight, choosing instead to go and see a potential new client before I haul ass back home and post for Storm in the Gisela. Wednesday and Thursday, though, are going to be killers - PT wants me in at 8pm on BOTH days, back to back. Ouch!

Well done Shin, keep at it!

The past couple days have been pretty uneventful for me. I had a slice of cake on Sunday in honor of Mother's Day, but other than that I've kept the sugar at bay. I weighed in yesterday at 165 lbs, so things are still headed in the right direction.

Unfortunately, getting back to combat sports has been pushed to the far, far back burner. I saw my doctor today and he's concerned I may have a torn ACL because of how loose my right knee is. I don't see how this could be possible with all the walking I'm doing, but he's the doctor, so I'll be getting an ultrasound on it soon. And I'm going to get some physio to try to straighten my hips out.

I took a couple days off from yoga, but I think I'll start that back up again today or tomorrow. I really wish I could do some more dynamic stuff, but preserving my knee is paramount at this point.

Yikes. Fingers crossed on the ACL Breaker. I haven't done that myself; was lucky to "cap out" with an MCL sprain through college wrt to the knee. I know that it's pretty common to be able to walk on a tear. It's also an injury that athletes routinely recover fully from, but will take quite a bit of time.

No run this morning, enjoyed the day at Disney with my family. Still was on my feet all day, over 20k steps and 8 miles walked. Want a good, hard run tomorrow before returning to New England. Haven't been horrible on the diet this week; would be surprised if I didn't actually drop a pound or two, but could stand to sharpen things up and get more weight work in.

Hope the ACL scan goes through soon Breaker pal and that you and the family are enjoying Disney, Storm!

Meanwhile I'M DYING OVER HERE.

Tonight my PT was a total bastard to me. "Yeah, it'll be a shorter session but more intense". I ate his lies from the palm of his hand.

3 minute row to warm up
10 rotator cuff stretches with a wooden pole
10 press ups (I am shit at these)
45s on, 10s off boxing (jab, jab cross, uppercut and body shots all alternating) for five f*cking minutes straight.

A whole minute of continual, full power body shots straight after the end of five minutes of the above.

A set of Z patterned shuttle runs across the boxing ring corner to corner, 30s on, 10s off. Five minutes of that bullshit.

3 sets of:

50kg weight push (traction weight I think its called) x 4 lengths
45s on, 10s off squats with bag lifts
45s on, 10s off 9kg ball slams

5 sets of 10 reps, 20kg weights.

I am absolutely and utterly f*cked. I know its done me good but jesus christ.

Chris turn that weight into muscle bro!

Hit them weights man you got mass you just gotta refine it now.

Yesterday I did about ten-fifteen minutes of crunches. (They are leg extension with a sit-up style thing) My personal goal is to work out everyday a little while. I went out for a small walk may go out again later today as well. But yes, I work out very regularly now and I'm starting to get some definition/etc. But yeah Chris/Shin bro I believe in you you can do it!