jc228's endless ab search logs

[jc228]

Originally posted by OldGuy:
Don't know if the protein shakes are going to help stop the loss of muscle. I think when you're up over 20% you will lose some while cutting fat. And remember, the protein shakes will add some calories to your daily diet, which may hinder fat loss some more.

Yeah, I expect to lose some muscle, but I didn't expect to see a 1:1 split between fat loss and muscle loss. I'm hoping that it's just a matter of my starting out, and that it'll work out better as I continue, and the measurements continue to change.

I think I'll wait another week and see how those measurements work out. If I'm down another 2 pounds, I may start adding a shake or two to slow down the weight loss down a bit while saving some muscle. Isn't 1 pound per week supposed to be the best?

Originally posted by OldGuy:
If your legs bother you today, wait until tomorrow. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah, exactly. You know this is your fault, right?

~jc228

[OldGuy]

If it makes you feel better my legs are killing me from a deadlifting bout the other night. And it's not getting better aes time goes on.

[jc228]

It's Monday again, and I'm back at it after a weekend of, well, not so good eating habits. I didn't completely jump off the train, but I certainly dangled my foot off the side more than once. But it's okay now - back on the train, door's closed, and I'm buckled in for another week of TTFL!

This morning's workout was productive, I think. 8x175, 8x175 on the bench, and 8x50, 8x50 forward lunges, among everything else I did. For HIIT, 5 minutes warmup, 5 intervals, then 10 minute cooldown. Total distance on the treadmill - 1.65 miles.

I feel like I can do more on the treadmill. Should I increase the number of intervals? Or should I increase my speed during the sprint portion? Or should I just keep doing what I'm doing? I don't think I need to go 'balls to the wall' in order to lose the most fat, but I can't pretend to understand the science behind fat loss (that's why I bought Craig's program, see ). So if someone wants to answer any of the above questions, I'll gladly listen to your advice.

I'm still on the fence about the protein supplements. I'm going to wait and see how the next week or two pans out, and go from there. If I continue to lose a lot of muscle, then I'll start supplementing. We'll see.

My legs felt better doing the lunges today. I don't think I'll be quite as sore as I was last week. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

OldGuy, how are your legs feeling? Have you recovered from your deadlifting marathon?

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I enjoyed my weekend, but it was all ruined when the Steelers forgot to show up Sunday night. Now the airwaves will be full of idiots complaining that "we should've played Maddox instead of Ben", or "we should've run Duce more", or "Cowher sucks" or some other such nonsense. I think I'll leave the radio off this week.

~jc228

[OldGuy]

My legs are feeling fine. I'll be ready again on Wednesday for some more deads.

Ben will get better with more experience. Tough situation for a rookie to be in. As long as the Steelers continue to build a team around him they'll do fine.

[cappuccino]

Okay. Guess I should take my skirt off, too then. I aspire to one day be like Cap, and use 35 lb DB in each hand to do lunges. That might be a while, though - she could easily kick my ass.

Whatcha talking about Willis??

I wouldn't do such a thing. I could, but I wouldn't

I wouldn't pay much attention to the mybodycomp.com. Good for tracking your measurements, but give yourself a few weeks and don't worry about the itty bitty in betweens.

[jc228]

Originally posted by OldGuy:
Ben will get better with more experience. Tough situation for a rookie to be in. As long as the Steelers continue to build a team around him they'll do fine.

I know. You're right. It just gets more and more frustrating as the Steelers continue to lose AFC Championship games. They're 1-4 now under Cowher (the one time they won, 1995, they lost to Dallas in the Super Bowl). I'm not blaming the coach (well, he gets part of the blame, but certainly not all of it), but it makes me wonder if they'll ever get the monkey off their back.

~jc228

[jc228]

Originally posted by cappuccino:
Whatcha talking about Willis??

I wonder how many people on this forum "get" that reference. I really liked that show when it was on.

Originally posted by cappuccino:
I wouldn't pay much attention to the mybodycomp.com. Good for tracking your measurements, but give yourself a few weeks and don't worry about the itty bitty in betweens.

Yeah, I'm not totally concerned about it, and I'm going to give it more time before I push the panic button. [img]smile.gif[/img] I'm hoping that, by the beginning of summer, I can say that I lost 16 pounds of fat and 4 pounds of muscle. That seems to be a ratio I can live with, I think.

I am also going to watch my weight loss closer, too. I think that, if I continue to drop 2 pounds each week, that I may be starving myself, so my body is burning muscle to compensate. If that's the case, then I'll supplement a shake or two throughout the day to make up for it. It may slow down my total weight loss, but if I can retain more muscle, then it's worth it.

~jc228

[jc228]

*sigh* My workout this morning was great, and appears to be the best part of my day today. Things at work blew up this morning, and I've been running around like an idiot since I got to work.

Anyway, doing squats 15x175, 15x175 certainly provides a nice burn by the end of the second set. I almost lost my balance after the 12th rep, but I recovered and was able to complete the rest of the set with good form.

I thought I would try to change up the HIIT a little bit, and I liked it alot. Same speeds as before, but I went 30 seconds on, then 60 seconds off. I did 8 intervals that way, then finished up with a 9 minute cooldown (to keep it @ 25 minutes). 1.69 miles. I'm slowly getting more distance, which I suppose is good. When should I start increasing my speeds, though? At least my sprint speed.

Again this week, the weight continues to drop. Official weigh-in on Friday, so stay tuned! [img]smile.gif[/img]

~jc228

[jc228]

It appears that I may have been getting ahead of myself in my panic about the muscle loss (sounds like you were right, Cap [img]smile.gif[/img] ). Today, for the official weigh-in, I came in at 230 even, which means that I have achieved my goal for January, and did it 3 days early! mybodycomp.com also says that I've lost 2 pounds of fat, and only 1 pound of muscle. So it looks like I'm still headed in the right direction.

I think that I would've been even lower on the scale, but I blew my diet big-time yesterday. See, we have this tradition around the office, that whenever it's someone's birthday, we get an ice cream cake. Well, let me tell you, that was the best ice cream cake I've had in a really long time (probably because I've been trying to eat alot cleaner lately, which makes the falling off taste that much better). To be honest, I really don't feel guilty about it. Maybe I should. But boy, did it taste good. Mmmmm. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Great workout today, too. I substituted chin-ups for the pulldowns, since I have been thinking about moving up to the next workout, and there's chin-ups in the next workout. I did two sets - I was able to get 4 on the first set (the rest were eccentric), and 2 on the second set. Not bad. Hopefully I can improve on that - weight loss combined with strength gain should equal more full chin-ups and less eccentric ones.

Then I repeated my HIIT from Wednesday, which felt pretty good, too. Not that I'm going to start liking cardio again, but as long as it works, I'll keep doing it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, that's it for today. I'm not usually online much during the weekend, but I'll check in with everyone if I get a chance. So until next time....

~jc228

[Craig]

Keep up the great work.

Craig

[jc228]

See what happens when I get a nice word of encouragement from Craig - it takes me almost an entire week before I can post anything!

Anyway, my week has just been nuts. I had a project due for work today (well, yesterday I guess, since today is technically Thursday), so I've been burning the candle at both ends for a week now. Late at work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last week. Put in 3 or 4 hours on Saturday, then 6 hours or so on Sunday. Not that I'm making excuses or anything. [img]smile.gif[/img]

So anyway, Monday morning comes, and I'm too damn lazy to crawl out of bed to work out. I felt guilty about it all day, until that evening when I went to play hockey (game started at 10:30, so I had plenty of time to work late on my project, too). We play 3 23 minutes periods, and we didn't have many skaters, so I ended up being on the ice for probably 50 - 55 minutes. Boy, was I tired after that game! I didn't feel very guilty about skipping my workout after that.

Anyway, I ended up doing Monday's workout this morning (Wednesday). Squats. Two sets, 15x175. Reverse dumbbell lunges after that. Fun day. I am looking forward to only having to do sets of 8 squats in the next workout. For some reason my mind thinks that will be less work. I'm delusional, I know.

I also upped the sprint speed to 6.5 on my HIIT intervals. 5 minutes @ 3.5mph, 8 intervals - 30 seconds @ 6.5 mph, 60 seconds @ 3.5 mph, then 8 minutes @ 4.0 mph. 1.73 miles total. Eventually I'd like to get to where my sprints are at an actual sprint speed, and my recovery is a nice slow jog. But I'm not there yet. Nowhere near.

So why am I posting so late? Hockey game again tonight. We lost again (0-3 to start the season). This was a really fun game, though. Lost 3-2. We had plenty of skaters tonight, so I only logged probably 35-40 minutes of ice time.

My intention, hopefully, is to work out every other day from now until the end of next week. That way I can make up for Monday's workout that I missed. Once that is done, I'll be finished with the Beginner program, and it'll be time to move up!

Craig, did I see somewhere that you have a new version of TTFL out? Any chance of an existing owner discount? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

That's all for now. Time to jump in the shower, then go to bed. Goodnight all!

~jc228

[Craig]

J.

All previous owners of TT get the new version free. Just drop me an email. I sent out a mass email to all purchasers, but it appears it did not get through to everyone.

Craig

[jc228]

Thanks, Craig. I'll send the email out shortly.

I am soooo tired this morning. I was not at all interested in getting out of bed this morning. Two late-night hockey games in three days will do that, I think. It's a helluva lot of fun, though. It'll be nice when we win one. [img]smile.gif[/img]

~jc228

[jc228]

It's Friday again, and it's weigh-in time. My diet this week was not at all where it needed to be, so I ended up going up 1 pound this week. However, by some strange twist of fate, my body fat was reduced even further. In three weeks time, my stats have changed as so:

Weight:
Before: 232.5 lbs.
After: 231.0 lbs.
Net: (1.5)lbs.

LBM:
Before: 180.3 lbs.
After: 182.2 lbs.
Net: 1.9 lbs.

Fat Mass (Eewww!)
Before: 52.2 lbs.
After: 48.8 lbs.
Net: (3.4)lbs.

BF %:
Before: 22.46%
After: 21.11%
Net: (1.35)%

Again, this is using mybodycomp.com's calculations, based on my measurements. No idea how accurate they are, but I'm beginning to like what I see. My wife says that I've lost the "bloaty look" (isn't that attractive? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ), so I'm happy to hear that other's are noticing.

I did the lifting portion of my workout today, but didn't get up early enough to get in the HIIT. 8x180, 8x180 on the bench, and 2 sets of chin-ups (4 decent ones on the first set, 2.75 decent ones on the second).

I have a question for anyone who feels like answering. From a strictly fat loss perspective, is it better to do HIIT immediately after resistance training (on the same day), or is it better to alternate days - list Monday, HIIT Tuesday, etc? I'll be doing my HIIT tomorrow, since I ran out of time this morning. So I'm curious to hear any responses from the audience (assuming there is one [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

~jc228

[Craig]

> I have a question for anyone who feels like answering. From a strictly fat loss perspective, is it better to do HIIT immediately after resistance training (on the same day), or is it better to alternate days - list Monday, HIIT Tuesday, etc? I'll be doing my HIIT tomorrow, since I ran out of time this morning. So I'm curious to hear any responses from the audience (assuming there is one ).

***I don't think anyone can say for sure. It might help even more, or it might just be the same. Doing it on the same day does save you some time though.

Craig

[Craig]

JC, how was the weekend and today's workout.