Today I went out for lunch so I didn’t have time to do the weights then. Then I had to leave work early to meet someone at the house so I had to do it real quick right before I left the place but I got it in nevertheless. I have also played with the weights a bit.
Lat Pull
Seated Low Row
Chest Supported Row – Outer Grips
Today I finally had some vanilla yogurt. I’ve had a bit too much of the plain stuff and it’s nice to have a change in flavor. Lunch was a re-run of yesterday’s dinner with brown rice and burger patty while dinner was fantastic. My wife made roasted potatoes. It’s so easy to make and tastes so great and beats the hell out of french fries.
You take the potatoes, dice them up and cook them for about 20 minutes from the time you put the cold water with potatoes on the fire. Then you use cooking spray on the bottom of a sheet and put the half cooked potatoes on it, add some seasoning salt and bake it on 425 degrees F for an hour or until they look golden brown and are crispy. It’s a slow process but so worth it. They’re not too calorie dense and they taste better than soggy french fries. I absolutely love them but due to the time it takes to make them my wife doesn’t cook them all that often.
The protein of choice for dinner was stewed diced turkey breast cutlets which were great as my wife only added 3 tablespoons of oil to the whole 1.5 lbs of meat so it was pretty lean in the end and you could really taste the herbs and spices she added to them.
Today I was a bit smarter about my running than yesterday. I tried to keep my heart rate in the 144-161 bmp region for the runs and under 125 for the walks. I walked 0.3 miles then ran 1 mile and I repeated this 3 times. My running pace was at 10:10 which is a good bit slower than the sub 9 minute I have managed yesterday. But I have felt a lot better about it and I think this is the right zone for me to be in. The only way my speed is going to improve is through vigorous training. I’ll just have to keep on running to get my times better without killing my ticker. My total distance was 4.4 miles 3 of it was running the 1.4 was walking. All in all I think it was a good exercise. In light of these heavy duty lunch time runs I’m skipping evening cardio sessions. And due to having to run errands right after work I also skipped my strength training which was going to be legs and abs. Oh well, I’ll do them next week, my legs are plenty sore from all the running.
Interval Running
I’m really cutting these calories down. Maybe a bit too much. Today I ate the last of my plain yogurt and wasabi almonds. That wasabi stuff is good. It’s so flavorful and packs a good kick. And that tingly bite helps with portion control as well. I didn’t feel like packing my own lunch today so I ate out. I went to Taco Bell and got their Soft Chicken Taco. I also got a side salad and asked for no dressing. Apparently you just can’t get a salad to go with no dressing because they slapped a whole package of ranch in there for me. But just because they gave it to me it didn’t mean I had to eat it. It landed in the trash. I hate to throw food out but it’s still better in the trash than on my ass.
Since I had such a weak protein source for lunch I had an extra scoop of whey for snack on top of my usual two. I was also planning on eating some grilled chicken breast for dinner but since it was in the freezer and I got home late I just gripped up some lean burger patties instead. It wasn’t as good as lean chicken but it cooked a lot faster. Since I had my whey around 4:30 in the afternoon I wasn’t all that hungry at dinner time so I had a hard time eating the cup of brown rice and the patty as well as the cup of veggies I measured out. I ate them all but it was a true struggle. It is really weird how my appetite has shrunken in the past 3 months. Under 1,400 calories and I still don’t feel like I’m starving.
Today I got my latest gadget and I had to take it for a spin. There is a track near work that is 1/3 mile long so I went for a run on it. I ran two miles, then walked one mile and ran another mile afterward. I think next time I’ll do one mile run 1/3 mile walk and repeat it 3 times. Same result but hopefully less painful. The first two miles I did in 17:52 with an average heart rate of 169 bpm. It is a bit too high for exercising. I’ll have to take it back a bit but it’s so hard for me to slow down as 9 minute miles aren’t that fast to begin with. The last mile took me 10:22 which was a lot more bearable pace at least that is what the heart rate monitor thought about my pulse as it went from 168 bpm average to 159 bpm average.
Running
Walking
The interesting part is that I have actually burned more calories per mile while walking than while running. The reason is that the elevated heart rate that caused the high calories while walking was due to the prior running not because of the walking. Since I have burned so many calories with the running I have skipped my evening elliptical cardio.
Today was chest day. I usually do my strength training over lunch but today I spent most of my time at lunch with cardio so I had to do it after work. My weights were solid I did feel a bit weak but the weights got lifted as planned. I even upped the weight on the last set of my fly and I probably should have upped it earlier.
Bench Press
Butterfly
Today was good in terms of food again. I’m back to my yogurt/nuts breakfast I just don’t have enough time to make eggs on the weekdays. For lunch I had grilled shrimp again, it’s a pain in the rear when you buy shrimp that is not peeled and deveined. I hate to have to cut them on their back, then get them all peeled and pull out their poop sack. Make it look disgusting. Once it’s done though it’s really good. I prefer the peeled stuff but this was on special at the market so I got some of this instead. I grilled them up last night so they were ready to go this morning. I didn’t feel like making rice so I just took some of the leftover jasmine rice from yesterday’s dinner too.
For dinner I had tuna and bread. I was going to eat a bunch of steamed veggies with it but I ended up only eating some bell peppers instead, for some reason I didn’t care for the steamed veggies tonight. Oh and had my protein shake in the afternoon as usual to bump my protein intake to my target level. I have no idea what I’m going to eat tomorrow though, I’ll probably have to bake up some rice tonight and figure out some meat to go with it…
Today’s cardio was pretty much back to the grind, usual boring elliptical training twice a day. I did my 30 minutes at work and my 60 minutes at home at night. The home one was pretty tough and I kept thinking throughout the session that I’ll only do 30 minutes, 40, 45 minutes, ah the hell with it, I’ll do the whole 60. But as my heart rate shows I wasn’t all that into it. It was still a cardio session so it counts for something.
Elliptical
Elliptical
Today was back day. I did my three sets of three exercises and called it a day. It was an OK day in terms of weights and I felt fine. Not a whole lot to report on today’s exercise.
Lat Pull
Seated Low Row
Chest Supported Row – Inner Grips
Here is my current state. I’m still not pretty but I’m getting there 
. From the last time I didn’t change too much but I think my triceps are coming in better with less fat around them, my flexed bicep measurement is about to drop a quarter of an inch, just not quite there yet. My calf got bigger by 0.25″ and my chest got smaller by the same amount. My hips went back to 41″, a 0.5″ drop from last time and same as it was 8 days ago. Other than that not much has changed. I can also see a bit more definition in my back. Now if I could just lose those love handles soon that’d be awesome. I guess those will take some more time.
01/10/2010 Transformation Picture