Cheetah's battle log: Eating and Moving and Thinking, oh My!

[Cheetah]

I'm new here, but I think I'll like the battle log even more than the challenges.  I love the idea of being able to share my nuttiness with other people who get it, too.

 

What's really motivating me lately is that my grandparents are getting really old, and I don't mean in years.  They're all immobile because of a lifetime of poor health and fitness habits.  I really, really don't want that to be me.  So, my driving motivation is that I want to build lifetime habits that will get me fit now, and keep me fit into as many years as I can wring out of this life.  I really like the NF approach.  It jives with what I already know about healthy diet and exercise, plus I've already gained a lot of new insights from reading the articles here and in other places around the internet.  So, I'm pretty stoked to be here, closing the book on my old life and opening a new book, full of blank pages just waiting to be filled with awesomeness!

 

So here's the basic strategy:  Eat Smart and Lift Heavy.  Sound familiar?  I'm a dirty thief.

 

In order to eat smart, I'm tracking calories.  I'm currently using MyFitnessPal.  I'm a 6' tall male person, currently at about 225 lbs, and I want to get to 180, and MFP says I can do it in 22 weeks if I stay at 1750 cals a day, plus extra cals for the workouts that I log.  I'm taking that part with a grain of salt, and my plan is to leave a few calories on the table every day.  Along with calories, I'm trying to watch my macros.  I want to stay under 20% carbs, and I'm avoiding simple refined carbs like the plague that they are.  I'm trying to eat mostly whole foods that I cook myself.  I'm the primary grocery-getter and chef for my family, so I have a lot of control over what we eat.  Overall, we eat pretty good anyway, so there aren't any big changes really, just better monitoring and less junk food and fast-food. 

My big food struggle right now is making sense out of macros.  I'll probably post a specific question or two elsewhere in the forum.

 

This post is getting long and my fingers are tired.  To Be Continued!

[Cheetah]

Okay, so the other thing I wanted to throw out here at the beginning of the Log is my plan for physical exertion.  Basically, I'm taking a two-pronged approach, sort of like running around the sides of an enemy who's infantry lines are poorly formed and spread too thin.  I'm out-flanking flab.

 

So, The first thing is lifting.  I've worked up a program based on what I know and what I'm continuing to learn.  For the first little while, I'm going to just do it, because I struggle with analysis paralysis, and I need to just get busy.  I'll adjust as I continue to learn, and as I see what kind of results I get.  Basically, I'm doing a 3-day split routine, based on powerlifts, with some isolation thrown in for fun and profit.  The plan right now looks like this:

 

Tuesday - Deadlift Day

  -Dumbbell Deadlifts

  -Dumbbell Rows

  -Inclined Pull-ups (while I work up to being able to do actual pull-ups)

  -Dumbbell Curls - a mix of hammer, zottman, and concentration

  -Shrugs, with dumbbells

 

Thursday - Benchpress Day

  -Dumbbell benchpress

  -Arnold Press

  -Dumbbell flys

  -Tricep extensions and kickbacks

  -Reverse flys

  -Side raise

 

Saturday - Leg Day!  (I love leg day!!)

  -Dumbbell Squats

  -Calf Raise

  -Walking Lunges

  -Good Mornings

  -Planks

  -Side Planks

 

Did you notice all the dumbbells?  Guess what equipment I have available.  That's right, just dumbbells.  I'm working on buying a benchpress bench from a friend of a friend, which will come with the bar but no weights.  So once I can save up for plates, I'll have a bar for benchpress and deadlift, but that still doesn't get me a squat rack.  That will be another round of saving and searching for used gear.  The up side is, right now the weight I'm lifting is pretty small, because I'm pretty weak due to years of sedentary living.  So I can rock the 'bells for a while before I outgrow them.  Also, I haven't got any choice, so I'm making the best of it.

 

Oh, and before anyone says "gym membership" I've thought about that and it's totally out of the question.  I can't afford it, and even if I could my schedule is absolutely incompatible with going anywhere to work out.  For now.  I think.  Maybe.  Who knows?

 

So anyway, the other thing I'm doing is High Intensity Interval Training on Monday and Wednesday.  I've got an old Schwinn Varsity set up in a trainer stand and I pedal my butt off for about 25 minutes.  As I get stronger, I want to add more intervals until I've got it up to 30 minutes.  I was doing long road rides, but then I read that high intensity is more effective, and since it takes less time, that's the one for me.  I have (almost) no desire to ride my bike long long distances, so I'm not training for it.  For now.  Never say never.  ;-)

 

Why not HIIT on Friday, you ask?  Because Saturday is Leg Day, and I don't think it would be good to do those back-to-back.  If I'm wrong about that, gimmie a shout.  So, I'm not sure yet what to do with my Fridays.  I'm thinking about doing a round or two of light calisthenics, just to get everything warmed up and loose and get my heart rate up for a little while.  But I don't know.  I'm totally open to suggestions!

 

So basically, that's the plan.  I'll try to update daily-ish.  I really need the accountability, even though I'm not really comfortable with all this sharing.  But I do love to type!  I wonder how many calories I can count for that........

[Cheetah]

LEG DAY!!

 

Dumbbell squats - worked up to a pair of 25lb 'bells, which is the heaviest I got.  5 sets of 10.  I need more weight.

Calf Raises - 20lbs 5 sets of 20

Lunges - tried one set and knees said nope!  

Good mornings - holding 20lbs against my chest, 5 sets of 15 - I might need to get a form check on this

Plank - 40s, 35s, 30s, 20s

Side plank - 20s, 25s, 20s, 20s

 

Legs are a wee bit shaky now.  Time for eggs!

[Cheetah]

Yesterday went fine.  I got in 25 minutes of HIIT on the bike, even though I kind of didn't want to mess with it, and was right on target with calories.  Good times!

 

I got my lifting in today.  Deadlift, back, and bicep work.  Felt pretty good about it.

 

This is probably the time/place to vent the crazy.  Feel free to skip this bit.

 

My unsuccessful fitness cycle is this:  I find a new plan, I get all enthusiastic about the plan and start on the plan, then I get obsessed with the plan and start micro-analyzing the minutia of the plan, then I drive myself insane trying to figure out how to do the plan perfectly, then I get discouraged when I can't figure out the perfected version of the plan, then I get mentally exhausted and fed up with the whole mess and just quit.

 

I'm doing it again.  Now, today.  I've probably spent three hours today reading articles about macro-nutrients and trying to figure out my perfect ratios.  I feel like my head is going to explode.  I have to stop the cycle before I get to the exhausted-giving-up part, because I really really need to be healthier than I am.

 

I have to stop thinking about macros.  I have to stop reading about paleo and primal.  I have to back up and go back to just counting calories - and I'm not even sure I can keep doing that and stay sane, but it seems at least more manageable.  I know plenty of people say they don't count calories at all and still loose weight and gain strength.  I don't think I can do that, even eating just whole foods, because my food estimating sucks, and my hunger feelings are totally disjointed from reality most of the time.  I think I have to keep an eye on calories - even if I'm only using it as a rough gauge to make sure I don't accidentally eat an entire extra meal every day.

 

I have to find a way to take a deep breath and calm the hell down about all this, before I tip over my canoe trying to find the fish.

[Cheetah]

Rest day today.  I walked for about an hour at an easy pace.

 

Nutrition is on point today.  I forced myself to refrain from reading any fitness information online, and I feel a lot saner.  So I've been thinking it over, and I have to take a saner approach to food.  Here's how I'm breaking it down.

 

I have to count calories, because I'll over-eat if I don't.

 

I'm not counting macros, because I'll go insane if I do.  What I'm going to do instead is make sure I'm getting my protein, which is simple to do since I'm weighing most of my food anyway.  Beyond that, I'm trying to stay away from refined grains and sugar, and beyond that I'm not going to worry about it.  As long as I'm mostly living on meat and veg, and staying on my calorie target, I have to lose weight, because that's a whole lot better diet than I had, and I was maintaining my weight for over a year of poor-ish eating.

 

So there.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Your food plan sounds very sensible.

[godjira1]

hoosier, that's exactly how a long term sustainable diet looks like - lots of high quality food. bonne chance. 

 

ps. I am glad you have stopped collecting the underpants (i.e. reading too much info about macros and blah blah blah) and just gotten down to doing it!

[Cheetah]

Today I'm on point for nutrition.  I hit my calorie goal and my protein target.  Pretty cool.  But the big news today was my workout.

 

I had a lot going on today, so at the beginning I was feeling like I wasn't going to have time to do all the lifting I had planned.  Old Me would have given up at that point, because he suffers from perfectionism, and if he couldn't get the whole workout in, he wouldn't bother.  New Me is conquering perfectionism, so I said let's just see how many sets I can get in, and instead of worrying about it I just got busy.  I didn't get as many sets as I wanted , but I ended up with 3 or 4 sets of most of the lifts, and I got 5 sets of bench press.  Mission accomplished!

[godjira1]

4 hours ago, Hoosiercheetah said:

Today I'm on point for nutrition.  I hit my calorie goal and my protein target.  Pretty cool.  But the big news today was my workout.

 

I had a lot going on today, so at the beginning I was feeling like I wasn't going to have time to do all the lifting I had planned.  Old Me would have given up at that point, because he suffers from perfectionism, and if he couldn't get the whole workout in, he wouldn't bother.  New Me is conquering perfectionism, so I said let's just see how many sets I can get in, and instead of worrying about it I just got busy.  I didn't get as many sets as I wanted , but I ended up with 3 or 4 sets of most of the lifts, and I got 5 sets of bench press.  Mission accomplished!

 

you have discovered the secret! for years I had the same issues about "well if i can't get a perfect workout, I shall have a beer (or 5) instead". 

[Sloth the Enduring]

12 hours ago, godjira1 said:

 

you have discovered the secret! for years I had the same issues about "well if i can't get a perfect workout, I shall have a beer (or 5) instead". 

 

Why not both?

[Cheetah]

Today I'm on point for nutrition.  I did the grocery shopping yesterday, and there was a TON of meat on really good sale.  I'm talking bone-in pork chops for a buck a pound.  So I'm all stocked up!  Having plenty of meat in the freezer will make meeting my food goals a lot easier, so I'm stoked about that.

 

Today was rest day.  I thought about doing some light cycling, but I mowed the yard instead.  I'm a little sleep deprived, and by the time I was done with the lawn I was wiped out.  I have a 1/2 acre lot and I use a push mower, so it's pretty good cardio - I mow aggressively.  ;-)

 

I'm a little concerned about how lack of sleep might affect my weight loss efforts - I've heard that it does.  But, there' s nothing I can do about it, so I'm not going to worry.

[Cheetah]

Spot on for calories today, and even made my protein target.

 

Leg day today, which just means dumbbell squats and calf raises and a few other things.  Oh, and stupid bloody planks.  But I did them, all 5 sets.

[Cheetah]

Sunday is rest day.  I rested!

 

I stayed good on food today, on point for nutrition and protein.  My protein target is 160 to 220 grams, which is a pretty wide range, but that's what it is and I don't want to think about it anymore.  I got 206 today.  Go me!

 

I'm changing the days of the week that I do my workouts.  I'm going to lift on Mon  - Wed - Fri, and cycling on Tue - Thur - Sat.  

 

I'm on the fence about whether my cycling should be HIIT sessions or just light cardio.  One the one hand, I like the thought of burning more calories with HIIT, but on the other hand, I want to make sure I'm giving my legs plenty of recovery after the lifting days.  So I'm not sure what to do about that.  I guess I need to read up on it more.  Or post the question in the cross-training place here.  Or both!

[Sloth the Enduring]

Here's my take, if lifting is your main goal, I'd use the biking as an active recovery and go easy. As Dan John says, keep the goal the goal.

 

Biking tends to burn about the same calories per mile regardless of speed, I doubt HIIT makes much of a difference, although it may have more of an after-burn.

 

200 gms of protein is a lot. Nice job.

[Cheetah]

Got a good lift in this morning.  Dumbbell deadlifts, dumbbell rows, curls and shrugs.  Took about an hour to get through 5 sets.  I hate being so limited by my equipment.  My heaviest 'bells are 25 lbs, and I can DL more than that, so I did 5 sets of 15 and tried to really focus on nailing the form.  I'm new to the lift, so it's probably where I need to be.  I just can't wait to get a bar and some plates.  I'm waiting to hear from my brother-in-law who's supposed to be hooking me up with a discount, but I'm starting to feel impatient.

 

I've got my food all lined up for today, no problem.

 

I got a new saddle for my bike!  I bought a Brooks Flyer.  I'll get it on the bike tomorrow.  I might even snap a pic.

 

I've decided that for now, I'm going to take it easy on the cycling.  After two weeks of HIIT, it's starting to feel like a chore I want to avoid, and I don't have a solid enough habit to power through that.  Plus I read some more articles on it... and obviously it depends on who you ask, and every "expert" has a different opinion, but I've read just as much saying that there isn't much difference between HIIT and steady-state as I've read saying there is.  So I think the fall-back position is, I'm going to do the one I'll actually do.  Easy active recovery sounds better to me.  I enjoy it more.  I also might sub or supplement that with long walks with my kids some days, depending on what we're getting up to.  Just something to get the bod moving on the non-lifting days.

[Sloth the Enduring]

That sounds like a good plan.

 

I had a Brooks once. After about a million miles it was the most comfortable saddle I've owned. I shouldn't have sold it.

[Cheetah]

Today was rest day, so I did 30 min of moderate pedaling on my trainer stand bike with my awesome new saddle.  So far my butt likes it!

 

I'm tired.  This whole week is going to be bad for the sleeping.  I'll try to get a nap in tomorrow, but I'm taking my kids to a movie, so we'll see how it goes.

[Cheetah]

I had to cut my lifting a little bit short today, but I got most of it in.  5 sets of bench presses and Arnold presses, and 4 sets of everything else.  Not too bad.

 

I'm experimenting with intermittent fasting.  Honestly, the appeal for me is that on weekdays, it's easier for me to eat one or two meals a day than three, because that's one less thing I have to cook.  My concern is will I get too hungry in between and end up eating something unhealthy?  So, we'll see how it goes.  I finished dinner today at 5 pm, so I should have breakfast tomorrow at about 9 am.  Then I'll have from 9 to 5 to eat my day's calories. 

 

I'm proud of myself for staying with my food plan, in spite of being extra tired this week.  Old Me would eat a lot when he got tired.  New Me  is staying on the ball.

[Cheetah]

Today was rest day, so I did 30 min of moderate pedaling.  I'm really really tired.  I can't wait for this week to be over!

 

So far the intermittent fasting is going well.  It's nice only having to cook for myself twice a day, especially since I also still have to cook normie food for the people I live with.

 

I ordered a barbell today!  Soon as I get a chance, maybe this weekend, I'm going to head down to Play It Again Sports and see if they have any used plates I can use.  The one here sells used iron for 0.54$ / lb, and I haven't found it that cheap anywhere else. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

The one by me always has plates if you don't mind rusty and crusty.

[Cheetah]

Did my lifting today, no news there.  Except that I'm reading a ton about all different kinds of programs, so as I continue to learn, my program will continue to evolve.

 

Good on food today.  Pretty cool.  I'm still in the honeymoon phase with this round of fitness nuttery, so I'm kind of riding the wave.  We'll see what happens when the shiny wears off.

 

I'm thinking I might start logging details of my lifting days... I write everything down so I can track my progress and stuff, but I can't decide if I want to post it all up here, too.  Sounds like fun, but possibly tedious at the same time.  Have to think on it.

[Cheetah]

Didn't get a chance to update over the weekend, so here it is.

 

Saturday, I got my bike out on the road in the morning.  Did about 13 miles in about 55 min.  My pace was significantly faster than before I started doing interval work.  So that's encouraging!

 

Sunday was a rest day, the wife and I took a 3-mile walk around some park trails in the evening.

 

I'm still winning the food battle, over the weekend and today.

 

Today I lifted again.  I bought the Starting Strength app, and I'm going to try that program for a while.  I won't be able to follow it exactly, because I have to use dumbbells for squats.  But my barbell came in the mail today, so now I can do deadlifts, bench, and overhead press correctly.  More or less.  I have to sit on my bench to OHP because the ceiling in my basement is too low for me to do it standing.  I also threw in a couple of accessory exercises, even though the SS people say not to.  I just can't wrap my head around a program that neglects curls.  I know, it adds chin-ups later on, but I won't be able to do them unless I do some curls and DB Rows first.  So there we are!

 

Edited to say:  I'm starting to get really nervous about proper form on these heavy barbell lifts.  I really hope I don't do something stupid and injure myself.  I've read all the Starting Strength info, and watched like a million videos on proper form, so really I'll probably be good.  I just wish I had someone to help me in person.  I'd feel a lot better about it then.

[QuietRiotGrrrl]

Hello!  I was worried about my form as well when I started lifting.  I still have to work on leaning forward a bit on squats and foot placement.  I got help from a fellow NF lifter living nearby, but also put up cash for a personal trainer visit - specifically to discuss and practice proper form.  Just the one visit was really helpful for me.  It's also good for me when I can get DH to lift - he never had before so helping him with form kind of reminds me what I need to pay attention to on myself.

 

Edit:  Oh! I almost forgot.  I don't know if you're on the FB groups, but I've seen many people post videos asking for form help on there.  

[Cheetah]

3 hours ago, QuietRiotGrrrl said:

Hello!  I was worried about my form as well when I started lifting.  I still have to work on leaning forward a bit on squats and foot placement.  I got help from a fellow NF lifter living nearby, but also put up cash for a personal trainer visit - specifically to discuss and practice proper form.  Just the one visit was really helpful for me.  It's also good for me when I can get DH to lift - he never had before so helping him with form kind of reminds me what I need to pay attention to on myself.

 

Edit:  Oh! I almost forgot.  I don't know if you're on the FB groups, but I've seen many people post videos asking for form help on there.  

 

Thanks for the encouragement!  I know there's a forum here where I can post videos for form checks, so I might do that some time.  I'm sure I'm worrying more than necessary.  As time goes on I'll have to think about paying for a one-shot with a trainer.

 

I'm going to ramble now.

 

So today I lifted, first workout with my new barbell.  I think instead of Starting Strength, I'm going to do Strong Lifts 5x5.  There's only small differences in the programs as far as I can tell.  I like that SL has a little more volume, and I like that it doesn't include power cleans... I'm uncoordinated enough that flinging heavy weights around will certainly be bad for me.  Also, and this was perhaps the biggest selling point, I played around with both of them, and the StrongLifts android app is more intuitive and user-friendly, IMHO.  Makes me a little sad that I paid money for the SS app.  Oh well, live-and-learn costs money sometimes.

 

Speaking of which.  I bought a standard barbell because it was less money, and my equipment fund is extremely limited.  I already had some standard-size weight plates, so it made sense to me at the time.  I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't a mistake.  No one makes bumper plates with 1-inch holes.  I'm starting to get the impression that large used plates are going to be harder to find, too.  I scored some 10s at a Play It Again Sports, but they didn't have any 25s.  They did have a set of 50s, and I'm trying to decide whether to go back and buy them, or if that would be throwing good money after bad, and maybe I should just save up for an olympic bar and plates.  I could always craigslist the standard stuff to help fund it.  Or just keep what I've got, and then I have a second bar to use for whatever.  I wish everything wasn't so expensive, but you know what they say... if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.

 

Also because I'm a perfectionist and I have a strong compulsion to do things "right" I'm having kind of a hard time getting happy about barbell training, in the face of my very real limitations - mainly having no squat rack and not being able to do proper overhead press due to my low ceiling, and that I'm going to outgrow my limited collection of weight plates faster than I'm going to be able to collect more.  Part of me wants to give up on the whole mess and go back to just working with dumbbells.  Which wouldn't be terrible, except that now my brain has latched onto barbell training as being The Best and it's going to be hard to be satisfied with anything else.  What I probably need to do is sit down, take a few deep breaths, and think about what my real, long-term goals are, and try to realize that there's more than one good way to achieve them.  That sounded adult-ish, maybe I'll try it out.

 

TL:DR

 

I lifted today.  It wasn't perfect but it was pretty good.

 

I'm hopelessly mental but I'm keep buggering on anyway.

[QuietRiotGrrrl]

When I was saving up to get my barbell and setup, I would pay the gym membership fee, then set aside that same amount in savings for my own equipment.  Since you're not gymming, maybe you could find another trigger for setting money aside and get started on that?  Otherwise, I'd say if you are using what you've got, keep using it.  Doing something, even if its not quite what you'd like, is better than doing nothing.