Bombadil's "daily" (yeah right) ramblings

[Bombadil]

Ok, so this is the first "daily log/rambling.  Last night was a "light" day on the lifting schedule.  I am still liking the Madcow program and do think these "light" days help in my recovery for Friday's volume day, but I have a little bit of an issue with calling a day consisting of squat sets followed by heavy deadlifts (ok, there are OHP sets in between them) as "light".  Deadlifts beat me up.  I am not complaining - I do really think they work well in building strength, and a lot of it has to do with my body having become accustomed to squats rather than deadlifts, but they still leave me sore for the next day or two every time...

 

On a related subject, I am having issues on my deadlifts with my grip...  I am good for the first 2-3 reps, but I am really having difficulties hanging on to the bard for that 4th and 5th rep.  I am sure a lot of it has to do with my grip strength catching up to my leg strength and the fact that I am still a noob, but I definitely think it is time to look into some straps.  I friend suggested looking into the "hook grip" first, so I will give that a try and see if that helps at all. 

 

I did keep my calories in check at 1978 for the day, but I am really starting to question whether I should keep it at this level while strength training on work out days.  I don't know - more research is needed, so for now I will continue on this path in hopes I am not eating too little and sabotaging my metabolism.

 

On a different note, spent an hour at the range and was able to get some really good groupings from 10 yards out on Tuesday!  I have only been shooting for about a month now, but I am REALLY enjoying going out to the range for some target practice.  I find it very zen-like to have a hobby where you clear your mind, focus on form, draw, aim and release.    

 

 

I think tomorrow I might ramble a bit about Nutrition.... I think it is a good start today just to get my log started, so won't overdo it on day 1!

[SevenofSeven]

Checking this out because you know.......Bombadil!

How are you liking the madcow? I'm still on 5x5 SL, but have been seriously considering switching programs.

[Bombadil]

Checking this out because you know.......Bombadil!

How are you liking the madcow? I'm still on 5x5 SL, but have been seriously considering switching programs.

 

I am really enjoying Madcow right now.  I did 12 weeks of stronglifts, and it was great for getting a foundation.  I liked how stronglifts started out with low weight and let me focus on form, but I felt the increasing weight every workout with squats three times a week did not allow my older/out of shape body to recover adequately once I got ~225 lbs on squat (especially since I am no longer as young as I think I am).  The heavy (Monday), light (Tuesday), volume (Friday) weekly rotation in Madcow really seems to work better for me (though make no mistake, you are still working hard and building strength). 

 

Of course, I am still a noob, and there is a part of me that thinks I may be leaving some easy "noob" gains behind by not sticking with stronglifts for another 12 week cycle, but my body feels better and I do not seem to spend as manyof my off days dreading the thought of walking because I am so sore

[SevenofSeven]

I have been using 5x5 for 12 months, with a few hiccups here and there, PR'd everything but OHP, which is the suckiest lift ever! Now I've backed it off again so was seriously thinking the same as you, stop adding the weight every lift day and yes be able to move without the soreness the next day or two or three.

[Bombadil]

Fridays are great days! Not only because it is the end of the work week (or at least when you have to physically go into the office), but more importantly because after the "light" day of lifting on Wednesday, a lot of stretching on Thursday and at least a decent nights sleep, I feel great on Fridays!  All of that being said, the one issue on Fridays is thinking about eating (this is a subtle steering toward the topic of nutrition)... 

 

I have googled the topic for months now and there does not seem to be any consensus on how many calories you should eat if you are overweight and strength training.  I understand it is dependant on what your goal is - lose weight, gain muscle, or lose fat while gaining muscle, but with all the technology and advances we have made in human history, you would think there would be some clear answers on what the nutritional make up of your diet should be for these goals.  Personally, my goal right now is to lose fat while gaining muscle.  It makes sense to me from an energy balance perspective that if you eat a slight deficit while lifting heavy and you have a good chunk of fat reserves to pull from, that your body can utilize fat energy to build muscle.  However, there seems to be a huge debate on whther it is even possible to lose weight while building muscle... Some swear it is possible if you have excess (~>20-25% BF) body fat, while most sweat it is impossible to build muscle while losing fat and you have to go on a "bulk" to truly gain muscle.  I am not a doctor and I do not want to spend my life researching the nutrition sciences, so I have compacted what I have read into what I will call the "Bombadil" experiment (which is by no means unique, copyrighted or original!) and I will post my results here in hopes that maybe somewhere down the road it might help someone else if I am able to do it...

 

So here is my approach. First, I am an Engineer at heart and as much as I like data, analysis, etc , I am also aware of analysis paralysis and am a big believer in the K.I.S.S. philosohy, so please keep that in mind if this seems overly simple:

 

Calories: 1956/day base.  Using my fitbit and myfitnesspal, I eat additional calories for exercise.  I count a lifting workout as 200 calories.  Some days, this could add up to 2500+ calories...

 

"macros": the ONE clear, consistent message I am getting is that to gain/maintain muscle is that you need to get enough protein in your diet.  I put in my quest that 190 g of protein is my goal, but when using myfitnesspal and planning out my meals, I actually plan on 230 g of protien/day.  This is ~1 g/lb body weight or about 1.35 g/lbm with current measurement metric.  The protein goal would put me at 920 calories/day.  Outside of that, I try to limit carbs to ~100 g (~400 calories) and the rest in fat.  What carbs I do have mostly consists of fruit and the sonoma chicken salad wrap from Whole Foods I eat for lunch every day.

 

So, that is the goal I have right now.  As I go along, maybe I can tune it a bit as I learn and track how my body is behaving, but for now, I think this is a good start...

 

Tomorrow (or sometime this weekend), I will ramble on about my views and approach on metrics, but for now it is time to go to an endless stream of meetings (that + office politics = why it is so difficult to get things done) 

[Bombadil]

Ok - longer update tomorrow, but here is a life tip I have just learned: if you are feeling good and take that first step into something new (yoga) and go to what is labeled a "beginners" yoga class as your first EVER exposure to yoga and everyone in the class looks at you and asks "they had this listed as a beginners class?", you should really just turn around and leave and come back for another class!

[Bombadil]

So... Busy weekend of "recovery"! Had a good volume day on Friday, though energy was pretty low.  I know this is due to the calorie deficit, and I have been fighting through it, but it is getting tougher each week.  I have found that protein powder in water 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after with a banana helps a fair amount, but this will be something I have to deal with if I continue to eat a deficit while heavy lifting.  That being said, I FINALLY broke the 238.4 lb plateau I had been sitting at for about 3 weeks! I think a lot of that has to do with eating at maintenance on Saturday and then having a very busy Sunday.  Speaking of Sunday...

 

So, I was feeling pretty good and did yard work for about 2.5 hrs on Sunday (by itself added >10k steps according to fitbit) in the hot and humid weather we are having.  Having spent many years in Alabama, I know the need to hydrate in these conditions, so I consumed ~2.5 liters of water during this time.  After coming back in and farming a couple of rifts in D3, I felt really good and decided "I am going to start Yoga".  Me being me, I have researched this previously and knew that there was a very good studio close by that had classes on Sunday and one at 4:30 that was listed as "beginner appropriate".  Never having stepped inside a Yoga studio, I had no idea what that meant or what the differences are in the different classes...

 

So I sign up for an inexpensive beginners special for unlimited classes for a month and head to the studio.  The person at the desk is not really sure what the class is like (i believe it was titled "empowered yoga" and was "unheated"), but the teacher was there and said she does think it is a good thing to just start somewhere and into the class I go.  I am there about 15 minutes before the other students come in and I am relaxing and feeling good about actually starting to do something to improve my flexibility and mobility.  The first thing I notice is that the studio we are in is the studio that just had a "heated" vinyasa class and although the heat was not still on, it was still QUITE warm in there!  As students started coming in (total of 6 of us) and they learned I was a COMPLETE yoga noob, they all had a look on their face and asked "this class was on the beginner appropriate list?".  A normal person would probably have left at that point, but being stubborn and in a mind set to start working on this, I laughed and decided to stay the course. 

 

Well, I won't go into the details, but I did in fact do it (very, very far from correctly, but at least you could tell I was trying) and truly believe I sweat out ~2 L of sweat.  Everyone was very encouraging and (at least they said) stated they were impressed I made it through!  I could not do a couple of the hand stand poses (but most of the others had a lot of trouble as well and several of them had been doing this for years), but overall I felt pretty good with myself.  On my way home I drank a liter of water and then we made dinner.  The rest of the night, I consumed my huge taco salad (lol - I will have to post a pic sometime of my taco salads) as well as 3 L of water, but sometime around dinner, I got very "stiff" and energy levels just plummeted.  I went to bed early (~9:30) and slept like a rock.  

 

Upon waking up this morning, I have to say I actually feel pretty good! Still a little sore, but not too bad and definitely a different kind of sore than lifting weights.  Hoping to continue this (at maybe a more appropriate speed), I signed up for their Vinyasha Yoga 101 class for Tuesday.  My hope is to do Yoga as a supplemental on off days (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday/Sunday).

 

Well, off to meetings, but I realize I have left out my rambling about metrics.... I will try to add another post this afternoon or tomorrow on that subject!

 

Hope everyone is doing well out there!

[SevenofSeven]

When I read posts about Yoga, it makes me appreciate the fact that there are so many options to Yoga than I first realised. Which means when I finally get around to signing up I may actually have a wee idea about what I might be looking for. I thank you for treading before me so that I may learn!

[Bombadil]

So last nights workout went well except I go a little twinge in the area between (possibly connecting?) my left glute and hamstring.  Since I have the great fortune of being married to a massage therapist, I am going to take her advice and take the rest of the week off from working the legs in weightlifting (but still doing everything else).  Me being me, I ask if that included Yoga if I went back for a beginners class, and she gave me the all-clear for that.  So I will be doing at least two (possibly three if I go after Archery on Saturday) Yoga classes this week to supplement weight lifting (minus legs).  Overall though, I am still making good gains in strength and am happy to my progress to 255 Squat. Funny enough, I still feel like I have a lot in the tank on bench at 195.  It will be interesting to see how much I can get up to there before it starts getting tough.

 

So, metrics (like that subtle switch in topics?)...  As stated before, I am trying to lose fat while building muscle.  I am being VERY strict in counting/weighing everything I eat in myfitnesspal for tracking.  I previously went over my thoughts on Nutrition, but as far as metrics go, I am keeping it fairly simple: Lose 1lb of fat a week and build 0.5 lb of muscle (LBM) per week.  This is a net loss of 0.5 lb/week.  To track this I am using my scale (same one every measurement) and weighing myself once a week (first thing Monday morning).  To track BF%, I am using the Omron handheld BF analyzer.  I know this isnt perfect, but it is what I have.  One thing I have noticed is that It is VERY dependent on water intake and (believe it or not) bowel movement (aka pooping)...  Since my body seems to be on a schedule of late afternoon "movements" (LOL - I don't believe I am actually putting this here), I have found that Monday afternoon about an hour before dinner gives me consistent, in the right range, measurements.  So, the BF% metric will be done weekly at that time.  

 

I have made a handy dandy little worksheet that I am using to track the goal versus actual. I will try to make a google doc from it to link here.  So far, at least for the first week, it seems to be tracking well. We will see at the end of the 6 weeks what my progress was and put some more data behind the big mystery of losing fat while building muscle...

 

Hope everyone is healthy and well!

[Bombadil]

So last nights workout went well except I go a little twinge in the area between (possibly connecting?) my left glute and hamstring.  Since I have the great fortune of being married to a massage therapist, I am going to take her advice and take the rest of the week off from working the legs in weightlifting (but still doing everything else).  Me being me, I ask if that included Yoga if I went back for a beginners class, and she gave me the all-clear for that.  So I will be doing at least two (possibly three if I go after Archery on Saturday) Yoga classes this week to supplement weight lifting (minus legs).  Overall though, I am still making good gains in strength and am happy to my progress to 255 Squat. Funny enough, I still feel like I have a lot in the tank on bench at 195.  It will be interesting to see how much I can get up to there before it starts getting tough.

 

So, metrics (like that subtle switch in topics?)...  As stated before, I am trying to lose fat while building muscle.  I am being VERY strict in counting/weighing everything I eat in myfitnesspal for tracking.  I previously went over my thoughts on Nutrition, but as far as metrics go, I am keeping it fairly simple: Lose 1lb of fat a week and build 0.5 lb of muscle (LBM) per week.  This is a net loss of 0.5 lb/week.  To track this I am using my scale (same one every measurement) and weighing myself once a week (first thing Monday morning).  To track BF%, I am using the Omron handheld BF analyzer.  I know this isnt perfect, but it is what I have.  One thing I have noticed is that It is VERY dependent on water intake and (believe it or not) bowel movement (aka pooping)...  Since my body seems to be on a schedule of late afternoon "movements" (LOL - I don't believe I am actually putting this here), I have found that Monday afternoon about an hour before dinner gives me consistent, in the right range, measurements.  So, the BF% metric will be done weekly at that time.  

 

I have made a handy dandy little worksheet that I am using to track the goal versus actual. I will try to make a google doc from it to link here.  So far, at least for the first week, it seems to be tracking well. We will see at the end of the 6 weeks what my progress was and put some more data behind the big mystery of losing fat while building muscle...

 

Hope everyone is healthy and well!

Ok - I have put up a google doc for tracking BF% / Weight and will probably add lifting tracker at some point as well!

Here is the link (also in my signature): NF Tracker

[Bombadil]

Well, I said from the beginning that there was no way this would be a "daily" battle log  At any rate, had a "good" week last week in the fact that I ate my calories (actually am getting quite good at being +/- 10 calories from what myfitnesspal says I should eat.  Did three sessions of Yoga, two of which kicked my butt and the other was quite relaxing and gave a good stretch.  I am finding in Yoga that there are types that are good for flexibility and stretching, but there are a lot of them out there right now that treat it more as an aerobics exercise....  I think I want to stay away from the latter and try to get 2 sessions a week that focus on stretching and mobility (and relaxing) than the more strenuous "exercise" Yoga classes.  

 

I have update the tracker spreadsheet and so far things look like they are lining up ok.  Weight/bf is at 237.2 / 28%, which is slightly behind in the lbm that I was expecting.  That being said, weight and a handheld bf analyzer are not the best tools out there, so I am more interested in seeing what the trend is rather that week to week results.

 

Still a bit tight today from last nights workout, but maybe Yoga tonight will help (though I think it is one of the "exercise" Yoga classes).  

 

I am not sure why, but I have felt VERY low on energy the past few days (since ~last Friday).  I think it may be from overdoing it a bit with Yoga and weightlifting.  I am not sure, but it is a constant mental battle to go do something.  The good news about that is that I have had no problems going to sleep!!!

 

That's it for today.  I hope everyone is doing well out there!

[SevenofSeven]

I just read " married to massage therapist " , how awesome is that! LOL

Great job on the tracking, your very own accountability tool. I like it.

Hope you have a great week.