capultra

Lifting taught me two lessons today.

My logbook said that my previous lift on the Incline Bench was 150lb (that’s 105lb on the bar), and today I decided to go for 155lb so I put a 45, a 10 and a 5 on each side.

I unracked and pushed out 3 reps, but it felt really heavy and the last rep was very slow. A little confused, I checked the weight and realised that I’d loaded 120lb on the bar for a 165lb lift.

In old-school arcade games you had no way to save your progress so if you lost all your men then you had to start from the beginning again. And again. And again. Until you improved enough to be able to conquer the monster at the end.

It was frustrating but I think that it taught me a valuable lesson.

Each endurance run “starts from the beginning” and I spend a lot of time getting back to the point where I need improvement - the last few miles. This continuous repetition helps me become proficient at the first 75% of a distance, and reminds me that the training doesn’t begin until it gets difficult.

On Friday I paid $85 for my first Bod Pod assessment at Totum in Toronto.

The Bod Pod is one of several techniques for testing body composition (lean body mass and body fat), and is considered reasonably accurate compared with the more common tests like calipers and electronic impedance.

My appointment was at 8am, so I had to skip breakfast and drank 2 glasses of water about 2 hours prior to the test, and I stripped down to a pair of Speedos for the test.

I’ve been doing a lot of interval training during my current weight loss cycle. Initially I was doing 100m sprints but that became less appealing as the weather got colder.

I watched Dr Michael Mosley’s “The Truth about Exercise” and it reminded me that sprints can also be done indoors. The High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) plan that Dr Mosley examines in the documentary comprises of 3 x 20s sprints on an exercise bike with a minute of active rest between sets, so I decided to try it out on the spin bikes at my gym.

You load up the bar, step back, and stare down at it, thinking, “I’m gonna lift you”. You take a few deep breaths, step forward and adjust your stance, then bend down and grip the bar.

You straighten your back, apply some tension and then … GO! But there’s a fraction of a second, just a moment, when nothing happens; the bar doesn’t budge; your veins are popping; and your mind is screaming, “Move, you fucker!”

This week was much tougher than last week. It was going ok until Thursday when I started to feel really run down and tired, and I actually thought I might be coming down with something. In fact, I went to bed at 8:30pm on Thursday night.

I also had some niggling muscular pain in my right hip so on Friday, considering the way I was feeling on Thursday, I decided to drive to the gym instead of running and I was feeling a bit better for most of the day, but then I was struck with a pretty serious case of The Grumpies on Saturday.

I just heard about the Whole 30 program, and love the approach that this diet recommends. I particularly love its zero-tolerance for cheating in any form.

It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard.

This is awesome. Man up and get some perspective on your diet.

Don’t even consider the possibility of a “slip”. Unless you physically tripped and your face landed in a box of doughnuts, there is no “slip”. You make a choice to eat something unhealthy. It is always a choice, so do not phrase it as if you had an accident…

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Here’s a chart tracking my current weight. My starting weight is 166lb.

To kick-off my fat loss cycle I’ll be doing a 24h fast today (Saturday), and then my plan for the next 5 weeks will be as follows:

• Mon: Upper body workout
• Tues: 24h fasting day plus sprint workout
• Wed: Lower body workout
• Thurs: 24h fasting day plus sprint workout
• Fri: Upper body workout
• Sat: Rest
• Sun: Rest

On my fasting days, I’ll eat a light dinner around 6:30pm. If I get too hungry then I’ll have some raw celery and carrots on hand to snack on. Other than that it’ll just be green tea, water and black decaf coffee.

I started a growth cycle on Oct 1st, three weeks after my epigastric hernia surgery on Sept 13. The plan was to bulk up for 7 weeks and then do a short 4 week fat-loss cycle before heading home to Australia for Christmas. I want to be beach-ready when I get there.

Most of the excess calories during the growth cycle came from steel-cut oats. I was eating about a cup (measured raw) per day, in addition to my regular meals. I was also fasting on Sundays to minimize fat gain and to reset my insulin sensitivity.

An article on The Greatist by JC Deen titled “common workout mistakes” lists combining cardio and strength training as a mistake.

This is incorrect according to this study done at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. In fact, they found that combining endurance training and strength training in the same session yielded the benefits of both.

The subjects showed improved strength similar to those that did only strength training, and improved endurance similar to those that did only cardio.