A little history first: over the last few years I have overhauled my lifestyle, going from a workaholic 100lb overweight sedentary person to a very active 55lb overweight person with a serious health and fitness hobby. Most of the weightloss happened in the first six months, from a combination of calorie counting/whole food diet and moderate exercise—lots of walking, two easy strength sessions a week (with a ball and hand weights), spinning once per week.
Eventually that became boring and I wanted faster results so I got some advice from a trainer: more cardio, at greater intensity was the answer, she said. So I upped spinning to 4x per week minimum, did some cycling endurance classes (5 hours on the bike at a time), started running, stopped strength training and stopped losing weight. This went on for a long time.
Eventually I just couldn’t take the intensity, got injured, stopped counting calories and worked out less, doing yoga once or twice a week and spinning usually just once, maintaining my weight for several months like this.
When I finally got motivated to return to the workouts and the calorie counting, I chose a program with prescribed meals 1600-1800 calories daily of whole foods, started my cardio focused program up again and steadily gained L. 10lbs later, I found NROL4W. In the first 6 weeks I’ve been feeling fantastic, sleeping great (an issue for me in the past) and getting visibly firmer and tighter while maintaining my weight.
I’m considering OPT as a framework for my food intake, but I’m not sure how it needs to be adapted for the workouts I’m proposing. I'll post my workout plan and some sample menus and see what you think.
I finally have a workout plan that feels great and I don’t really want to mess with it. My week goes like this:
Monday am: NROL4W
Tuesday pm: 45 minutes walking (to class and back)
45 minutes pilates (very moderate stretching)
Wed am: NROL4W
Thursday pm: 90 minutes vinyasa yoga
(about 2/3 cardio/stretching sun salutations,
1/3 balance postures and inversions (backbends, headstands, etc.)
Friday am: NROL4W
Saturday am: 90 minute spin
(about ¾ of the time is steady state cycling, with more intense drills sprinkled in for about ¼ of the time—I would describe this as interval training, but not HIIT.)
Sunday am: 90 minutes vinyasa yoga
(about 2/3 cardio/stretching sun salutations,
1/3 balance postures and inversions (backbends, headstands, etc.)
I’m also part of a backpacking/hiking group, so sometimes I do that, but I consider it more of a social outlet than anything else. It beats happy hour.
I'm looking at your program and all I can think is "where is your rest day?" You should have at least one day in your program where you do nothing more than simple stretching/foam rolling for a 20-30 minutes. Your body needs adequate rest to recover or you'll end up injuring yourself again.
One thing you might do with dropping your calories is change NROL4W so you're doing 1 less set per exercise. There's a number of us here who love Alwyn's programs but when combined with the lower calories of dieting, we get stressed to the point where we can't recover properly without eating more. Alwyn's programs are hard and very metabolically taxing.
__________________ It all starts with the mind, but the thoughts, the intention aren't enough. Action needs to come next. Dream it, believe it, plan it, execute it, celebrate it. - Wendy
Thanks for the support! I should say that my schedule assumes one of those workouts won't happen for one reason or another--my default rest day--but I'm thinking about dropping the pilates class in any case.
As for the diet, I'll follow Leigh's advice and not follow OPT with the NR workouts...just do some testing to see how low I can go while doing them, then eat at maintenance on my weeks off.
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i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
I'm walking 60 miles for a breast cancer cure, September 11-13, 2009! Please support my walk and help me raise funds for cancer research by donating to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/...nal&fr_id=1300
I think you've got a great plan in place. I think you're making excellent food choices, too. It depends on the pilates or yoga class, of course, but when I was doing yoga sometimes that class was better than just a do-nothing rest day. I always felt better physically and mentally after those classes. So, your body does need rest, but restful movement is most acceptable.
Treadmill Intervals
3 min 3mph
2 min 4mph
1 min 6mph
2 min 2mph
1 min 6mph
2 min 2mph
1 min 6mph
2 min 2mph
NOTES:
-prone cobra seemed pointless, so subbed a couple more advanced yoga moves, shalabasana is probably the better substitution (just like prone cobra, but with legs/feet lifted, regardless 60sec didn’t feel very long, so consider adding time.
-tried the intervals using treadmill presets, 2mph felt REALLY SLOW, but 6mph is a good clip for me, even for just a minute at a time, so maybe this is ok for now.
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i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
Strawberries 152 / 49
Almonds 14 / 81
Pure Maple Syrup 10 / 33
Steel Cut Oats 88 / 340
Iced Caffe Americano - Grande-sized 453 / 17
Milk, Nonfat, Fluid - With Added Vitamin 123 / 42 Lunch
Broccoli - Raw 88 / 30
Rice, Brown, Medium-grain, Cooked 100 / 112
Scallions 15 / 5
Coriander Leaves - Raw 2 / 1
Feta Cheese 28 / 74
Olives, Ripe 10 / 12
Organic Roasted Turkey - Organic Deli Meats 112 / 100 Dinner
Shrimp Primavera - Lunch Entrees 540 / 483
Wine, Table, White 103 / 85 Total Calories Consumed 1,461
NOTES:
Usually this menu represents foods that are already prepared/measured/packed for the day, tonight’s dinner is a plan, wishing and hoping that Olive Garden (Dad’s choice) is willing to serve me a lunch portion, subbing whole wheat linguini for the regular pasta, and that I will not succumb to the bread basket. I might share a dessert with the table, though…for the sake of family harmony.
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i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
Last edited by Librarygirl : 07-31-2008 at 09:37 AM.
Reason: formatting obsessed!
Wow first we get Deadlift Girl, and now we have Librarygirl - superheroines are coming up all over.
Looks like you've got yourself dialed in - just thought I'd say (in response to what your trainer told you) that lifting 3x a week and cardio (spinning class) 2x a week has done me some good. Keep up the good work.
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Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
Hi, welcome to the board. It looks like you've got a great plan here.
I felt the same way about the cobras. I did them most of the time anyway.
Good luck with the bread basket! Are you stearing clear of the salad that they have too? That's my downfall at the Olive Garden. Their dressing is so good!
Front Squat Push/Press 45/10, 50/10
Step-up 25e/10, 25e/10
Dumbell One-point Row 20e/10, 20e/10
Static Lunge, rear foot elevated 25e/10, 18e/10
Push-up 'T'w/5lbs/10, 'T'w/5lbs/10
Plank 60sec x 2 (second time I did one leg 30/other leg 30)
Cable Horizontal Woodchop 45*/10, 45*/10
*may or may not be 45lbs (freemotion machine).
**dude was doing triceps kickbacks w/20lb dumbbell almost the entire time I was at the gym. Stole em for the one-point row, but otherwise sort of managed with 18s and 25s.
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i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
So, I thought I would post this in here in case anybody reads the log and would be willing to chime in...I know I don't want to go low carb. I am generally quite happy with my food choices and diet BUT protein is low. How can I increase protein without increasing calories or giving up veggies and good fats? impossible, right? but maybe there are smaller tweaks I can make?
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i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
Well, you can't increase protein calorie-free! So, something has to give. Increase your protein portions a bit and decrease your carb portions a bit to sway things in the direction of more protein, maybe?
Of course you're right Jane, I've just got to get used to bigger portions of protein. I was vegetarian for 15 years, it takes work for me to eat as much meat, etc. as I do even now. Hmm, maybe if I decide on the protein portions first, log them, then see how much of the carbs I can afford to have?
ok yes. I have decided I will set 125 grams (1 gram per pound of goal bodyweight) as my benchmark and see how it goes for a while. Once I get used to that maybe I can add some more...
__________________
i do like the library, but i also like the gym my new log!
Out of the Library and into the Gym
Linear Mode
