Greg's Running Blog

I just completed week 11 of my transformation. I have been hanging in there for close to 2.5 months now and the difference is amazing. Today I did a run in the neighborhood and my neighbor was coming up from behind me and they didn’t recognize me from behind. My body shape has changed so much that they didn’t know who I was until they passed me and saw my face and I waved at them. I’m sure it has helped that due to the cold weather we haven’t really seen each other in the past 2+ months but our kids play together if the weather is nice so they see us on a daily basis during the warmer seasons. My neighbor’s comments have made me feel pretty good about my change. I’m also getting more and more compliments and comments at work now. I guess once you drop 35+ lbs people start to notice.

This week was another solid week in terms of numbers. Nutrition was spot on, I ate over 140 grams of protein 6 out of the 7 days and I kept my caloric intake under 1,500 calories every day with the exception of Wednesday when I was forced to eat a piece of home made raspberry dessert by my wife. It was worth it though but I can’t make a habit of it for sure.

Strength exercises went great given that this was my first week back at the gym after an 11 day break. I had to skip the gym on Thursday due to icy weather but I made up for it on Friday by working two areas. My lifts have felt good and I’m ready to go back Monday and work some more.

Cardio was not perfect but not too bad. I have skipped evening cardio for a movie on Monday. On Wednesday I didn’t get any evening cardio either and Thursday I did zero cardio. But on Saturday I ran for the very first time in 10+ years and I clocked a 9:13 mile while running 2.24 miles. It was an awesome experience and I want to run more. On Sunday I ran again and it felt even better. I’ll have to find rime for running in my schedule from now on for sure.

As for the weight and fat numbers my weight went from 203.5 lbs (92.3 kg) to 201.1 lbs (91.2 kg) this week and my BF went from 29% to 28.5%. I did go below 200 lbs on Saturday morning but I think it was partial dehydration from Friday night’s cardio session as I have gone above the magic 200 lbs line on Sunday morning again. I’m sure by next weekend I’ll be below 200 lbs for good.

As great as all the days this week has been with my nutrition today was a semi-failure. I wouldn’t call it a complete failure just not as good as the rest of the days. I still managed to stay solid on my calories but my protein intake has suffered. Why? Because of red meat. I had a 6oz filet mignon for dinner and it meant lots of fat. Lots of fat meant less room for protein. So I had to give up on trying a protein shake and it made me eat only 109 grams of protein today. That’s a bit off from my target of 145 grams but it’s not the end of the world. Since I skipped the evening cardio I think I’ll be OK with the muscle maintenance on 109 grams of protein. The rest of the meals were salmon for lunch and a repeat of eggs with prosciutto for breakfast.

As much as I love the filet mignon it is very hard to fit it into 1,400 calories and still have decent numbers for macronutrients. I might have to eat red meat even more seldom, not that I’ve been eating all that much of it lately to begin with. Once I get to my target weight and I can finally up my calories to maintenance I can be a bit more lenient about food choices. But not until then.

Yup, I went running again. I did the same 2.24 mile 3 lap run I did yesterday. The only addition was the extra lap afterward that I walked as a cool down lap. My time has improved from 20:40 to 20:13 which actually puts me right at the 9 minute mile mark. It will need to improve if I want to be any kind of serious about running but until then it will suffice. I felt good about running and the new shoes felt great as well. It was a good exercise and burned some pretty good calories in a short period of time. My average heart rate is lower than yesterday’s due to the extra lap that I walked.

My legs were pretty sore in the morning and they’re even more sore now after this second running session. I lack muscles in my legs, no doubt. I will have to build them up and bear the pain in the meantime. I thought my legs were still pretty strong but I was sorely (no pun) mistaken.

Run/Walk

• 31 minutes
• 151 avg heart rate
• 413 calories
• 3 miles

Since I went running for the first time on Saturday I felt I needed some better shoes than the worn out running shoes that I bought for everyday wear a year ago and they have long been decommissioned to lawn mowing duty. So I went to the local sporting goods store and started looking for some running shoes. I didn’t really put a lot of thought into it and I probably should have but based on my history with running and the wear patterns of my shoes I have a natural running/walking gait meaning I neither pronate nor supinate. This means I can get away with a wide variety of shoes and most shoes in the store today will probably provide me with more support than I’d ever need. So the only drawback of getting too much support is a heavier shoe with a bit less cushioning.

I have been buying nothing but New Balance for the past 5 years and I have been very pleased with them whether I bought walking or running shoes. Granted that I mostly used them for everyday wear and casual walking nothing hard core. The store had an amazing variety of shoes and prices. I knew I wanted something more than the basic $40 shoes but I knew  that I didn’t want to spend $100 on my first set of running shoes. Then I found one that was selling for $69.99 and it said it was reduced from $119. Sounded like a pretty good deal, I liked the way the shoe looked so I tried it on. It has certainly fit great so I jogged around the store for a good bit and I was amazed just how much cushioning there was in these shoes. I haven’t felt anything like it in a long long time. So I bought them.

Then I went home and did my research post purchase to dismiss any cognitive dissonance (buyer’s remorse) I might have had about the shoes. Amazon’s Review of the New Balance MR1124 was great. It was close to 5 stars. So I figured if that many people like them they can’t be bad. Especially that some of the folks were willing to pay double of what I paid and were still happy about it. Sounded like a bargain to me.

The shoes fit great and they do feel great when I’m out there running. I’m thinking about buying a second pair so I’ll have one ready when this one wears out. They only last 350-500 miles.

It is almost unimaginable but I have managed to eat 140 grams of protein while only eating 1,253 calories. And I did it with whole foods and without supplements. I just can’t believe it. How did I do it?

I started out with a late but solid breakfast that included two eggs, 2 oz of prosciutto and a slice of wheat bread. This puppy packed in 33 grams of protein which is just fantastic. The bad part was the 1,500+ mg of sodium that I also took in with the meal.

For lunch I made shrimp on the grill, a half a pound of it. I ate it with some brown rice and a healthy does of steamed veggies. As I have written before, shrimp is a fantastic source of protein and my meal packed 52 grams of it thanks to the brown rice that went with it. My kids also like shrimp as it turns out. My daughter of 20 months has been eating it before but today even my son has warmed up to it and he devoured two of the 21/25 count ones. I went and bought some more for tomorrow’s dinner for the kids while I’ll have salmon and my wife will eat tilapia from the grill.

I was going to eat the aforementioned salmon for dinner but we ended up going out running errands and we ended up at our usual favorite, Red Hot and Blue for barbecue. I just love smoked meat. I don’t have a smoker at home and I have no idea nor the time to figure it out how they make it but it’s awesome so we love to go out and get some. And the other good part of Red Hot and Blue is the fact that there is no country music! I just can’t stand that stuff. I have had the pulled pork sandwich the last three or four times but today I wanted something different. I went for the smoked turkey breast. I have asked the waitress how much meat was on the plate and she said 8 oz. I only ate half the meat and took the rest home but the part I took home only weighed 90 grams which is barely over 3oz. So the meat was only 6 oz on the plate which was nowhere the advertised 8 oz I was promised. My wife also had a bit of a leftover meat so I ate that as well making it true 8 oz. I have also sent a letter to Red Hot and Blue as they pissed me off. We really love the place and we’re regulars there but I just hate to feel cheated.

We’re regulars at this place and we absolutely love the food and the service. I have started a new lifestyle about 3 months ago which includes counting my calories and knowing what I eat. I have been very disappointed with your nutrition guide for several reasons. It shows no protein or sugar values for your items let alone vitamins and it does not list several items that I like such as the smoked turkey, the fantastic biscuit or the green beans. I’d also like to see the sides and the meats listed separately as well as the potatoes with and without toppings as they can make a world of difference.

But this is not the real reason why I wrote today. I have asked our server how much meat was on a turkey platter and she said it was 8 oz of meat. I only ate half of the turkey (I cut all the slices in half) and took the rest home along with half of the sweet potato with no cinnamon or sugar. At home I have weighed the leftover turkey and I was disappointed to find that it weighed only 90 grams which is only 3.17 oz. So I either got cheated for 2 oz of turkey or your turkey platters only contain 6 oz of turkey. That is a 60 calorie and 13 gram protein difference. For someone on 1,400 calories and 140 grams of daily protein that is a huge difference.

Best Regards,
Greg

We’ll see if they respond at all. For sides I usually get the green beans but the platter came with two sides unlike the sandwich which comes with one side. So I had to pick another one. The choices were bad and terrible. Fries or fried okra. Potato salad or hush puppies. But then I remembered that I have seen sweet potato as a staple on many weight loss diets so I figured I’d go with that and hope for the best. I naturally gave up on the sugar and cinamon but that potato was sweet just by itself, there was no need to add more sugar to it. Just as a precaution I only ate half of the potato and measured the other half at home so I could figure out the nutrition. It tirns out my worries were unfounded. It’s not the potato that’s the problem, it’s the toppings we smother them with. The whole potato had a mere 180 calories so the half I ate was only 90 calories. Very light. I could have asily eaten the whole dinner and still felt great about it. The only bad part was the high sodium content of the turkey although I’m not even sure this turkey was all that high. I think the barbecue joint whose turkey nutrition information I use to estimate brine theirs more so than Red Hot & Blue.

So there you have it. This is the trick to eat a whole bunch of protein, eat out at a restaurant and still eat within your caloric limits. I was pretty stoked about today’s diet for sure!

Today I did something I didn’t think I would do for a while. I ran. My most avid commenter Andrew from Andrew Is Getting Fit is probably going to love this. I was a runner when I was 13. Then I quit and things went downhill for me and the weight piled on. I have always felt that running is for skinny and fit people and someone who weighs 200 lbs should not be running as it’s a recipe for disaster and it’s only a matter of time before permanent knee damage will occur. But the closer I get to my target weight the more I’m itching to finally start running. So today I went for a test run.

It wasn’t long and I didn’t go far. I only ran up and down the street where I live. We got some slopes in the terrain so it wasn’t all flat. I used to walk the same loop as my cardio exercise before we got the elliptical machine for the bedroom so I knew the distance and I knew the time and calories it took to walk it. One lap is 1,200 meter. I used to walk 6 laps, 4.47 miles in 66 minutes and I’d burn 660 calories. That was back in October when I weighed 230+ lbs.

Today I ran 3 laps, 2.24 miles in 20 minutes 40 seconds. That is a 9:12 pace mile on slopes. My average heart rate was the highest I have managed during any cardio I have done so far at 161 bpm. I have burned 310 calories which is surprisingly little. It means I burned the same amount of calories now running with 200 lbs as I did walking with 230+ lbs. I guess it makes sense but I was expecting a bit more calories, although 310 calories in under 21 minutes is not something I can achieve on the elliptical.

The only problem was that I was running in some crappy worn out shoes and it was a bit chilly around 36 Fahrenheit, 2 Celsius. I hope I can remedy both of these things soon. I quit the run at the 3 lap mark because we needed to leave the house and run errands and my knee started to hurt a bit towards the last 200 yards. It might be letting me know that running might be a bit too early for me. But the whole running experience was exhilarating and I’m really looking forward doing it again soon.

I also did my usual cardio on the elliptical in front of the TV watching ‘Taken’ by Liam Neeson. I was a pretty good movie, I enjoyed it.

Run

• 20 minutes 40 seconds
• 161 avg heart rate
• 310 calories
• 2.24 miles

Elliptical

• 60 minutes
• 131 avg heart rate
• 623 calories

It’s not really the strength exercise that I wanted to write about, it’s more about my father and my concerns. He has a bad back.He has had a bad back for as long as I remember. He built our house with his own two hands and lifted way too much building material for way too long. He has also worked underground in pressure environment (caisson) which I’m sure wasn’t good for his health. He has spent the last 4 days in hospital where they have ran some experiments, tests and MRIs on his back. The consensus is that one of his lumbar discs is severely degenerated and his cervical vertebrae have all kinds of bone growth on them that are going to impinge on nerves eventually. They said surgery is not advised at the moment but they will keep an eye on it.

I had a video chat with my dad today and we were talking about my weight loss and how he could stand to lose 30 lbs himself. Then I tried to tell him about how he should eat healthier, and probably do some basic strength exercise. I’m supposed to put together a simple non-boring nutritional plan for him that he and his wife can follow that would help him lose weight. Simple yet non-boring is going to be a challenge in itself. I also told him that he should probably do some strength training to keep and build muscle. I told him push-ups would probably work for him pretty good. And I told him that he’s probably pretty wimpy right now and start easy with the push-ups. Then he told me that he’s probably good for 20 push-ups. At this point I told him that there is no way he can do more than 15 good form real push-ups. I also told him that even I, who has been training for the past 3 months can only do about 28 of them and I have started at 12 push-ups when I first gave it a shot 2 months ago.

So We had a push-up contest over Skype. I managed to do 30 of them and I probably could have done 2-3 more if I really wanted to but the form would have gone downhill. Then he got down on all fours and managed to do 10. I felt pretty bad. There was my dad with a broken back doing push-ups for me just to prove me wrong. It was silly. He did manage 10 of them and then he called it quits. He said he could have done more but didn’t want to hurt his back. His form wasn’t pretty and I though he probably struggled with it. But he’s 56 and not in the best shape as you understand by now. I just hope I didn’t make him injure himself. But he’s talking about going skiing in 2 weeks which might be nuts with his back but I can’t stop him.

Maybe I’m overreacting and I’m overly concerned about my dad’s back and the doctors are right by telling him that it’s not that bad and he can exercise and go skiing. But he’s my only dad and I want to make sure that he will walk for a long long time.

Push-ups

• 1×30 at BW

Today I ate great again despite the sabotaging efforts of my wife. Breakfast was yogurt and almonds. For lunch I didn’t have time to prepare anything so I took a bag of 90 second brown rice with me and 6.4 oz pack of albacore tuna. Added a cup of broccoli to it and it was an awesome last minute no effort meal. I’ll definitely make it again when I’m strapped for time. Nutrition doesn’t get much better than this for a fast meal. It will cost you more than the dollar menu at McDonald’s but it sure is better for you with huge amounts of protein, carbs and very low saturated fats. Kind of the exact opposite of a double cheeseburger.

For dinner I was planning on eating shrimp with the remaining brown rice and some veggies but my wife made chicken in a paprika cream sauce. I really like the stuff and the chicken is not bad for you, only the sour cream and flour in the sauce but she uses that in moderation too so it’s not entirely bad. It’s certainly more calories than shrimp so I had to give up the brown rice and have only veggies with the chicken and sauce to stay within the calories. I have traded carbs for fats but it was OK. Kept the wife happy and it was a tasty dish.

I’m also happy to announce that my no longer obese. Based on BMI, which I don’t believe in, I’m now at 29.6 which is below the 30 threshold for obese. I’m just simply overweight. And the funny part is that I’ll stay there until I get all the way down to my target weight of 160 lbs which will be the high end of normal. Based on my current muscle mass I’ll be at 9% BF at 160lbs and I will look pretty good. Doubt anyone would call me the top of the normal range. But BMI works in such a jacked up way and this is why I don’t give too much credit for it.

You might have wondered where yesterday’s cardio entri went but the truth is that I just didn’t do any. I felt pretty bad about it but not bad enough to actually do it. And not bad enough to keep with the regime the next day. Today I did my 30 minutes at work but then I was so tired once I got home that I felt I was not going to do any cardio at night. And i went to bed. And started watching TV. The only thing missing from my old habit was the bag of Cheetos from my hands. So I went and grabbed bag. No no no! I’m just kidding! Instead I got out of bed and got on the elliptical. I only did 40 minutes instead of the scheduled 60 but it was more than I anticipated after going to bed for the first time.

Elliptical

• 30 minutes
• 133 avg heart rate
• 332 calories

Elliptical

• 40 minutes
• 125 avg heart rate
• 382 calories

Since I stayed home with my kids yesterday I had to make up for my back day along with my chest day today. For some reason I felt great doing bench presses today. I could lift the weights easier than ever and it just felt fantastic. My back wasn’t too bad either, I have upped my lat pull to 120lbs and it felt right. Since I worked both my back and chest today I have alternated the sets of back and chest so the individual muscle group would have twice  the rest time between sets and I could still do my exercises at a good pace. I waited two, two and a half minutes between sets which gave four, five minutes between sets for the same muscle group.

Lat Pull

• 3×10 @ 120 lbs

Seated Low Row

• 3×10 @ 130 lbs

Incline Press

• 3×10 @ 80lbs

Decline Press

• 2×10 @ 80lbs
• 1×19 @ 90 lbs