Greg's Running Blog

Today was another really decent day in terms of food. I might not be 100% accurate on my numbers as we went out for lunch and I had to reconstruct the sandwich from the ingredients but I think it’s close enough for all practical purposes. We didn’t really go out, we went for a train ride with the family and we had to eat while we were there. I packed a Clif bar for myself but completely forgot about it by the time we sat down in the restaurant and I went ahead and ordered a ham and Swiss sandwich. It was heavy on the ham and light on the Swiss which was a good combo. I also ordered my now staple side of green beans instead of the fries. Another couple hundred empty calories saved.

Since I had such a great source of protein for lunch I had another great source for dinner, chicken breast. It doesn’t get much better than chicken breast when it comes to protein. It’s lean, hardly anything else in it besides pure protein, it grills up nice and is rather filling with great volume. I paired with some green beans and broccoli and I was set for the day. I also ate my Clif bar in the afternoon as it fit into my calories just fine.

There is one thing I did not add to my list which was the two sips of champagne I had at midnight. I’m not a fan of alcohol at all but peer pressure from my father-in-law has gotten the best of me and I had to do the midnight champagne. It won’t happen again for a long long time.

Wow! I have almost forgotten that this category even exists, that’s how long ago it’s been since I have written an entry for it. As much dedication and determination I have started my holiday break with things didn’t exactly work out as planned. I have skipped four consecutive cardio days in a row.

For two of them I kind of have an excuse. Me and my wife went to the movies. Sicne we don’t have family in town it’s very seldom that we get to leave the house without the kids. Since my father-in-law is spending Christmas with us this year we managed to sneak out after the kids went down for sleep two nights in a row. Right at the same time when I usually get comfortable in front of the TV on my elliptical machine. So I skipped the cardio on these two nights as well as two other nights to which I don’t even have a good excuse. I actually kind of do. I was putting together a toy for my son and I was up until 2AM tinkering with it instead of doing cardio. Not a solid excuse but an excuse nevertheless. I’ll post more about the toy once I take some pictures of it.

As to what we watched at the movies the first night we saw “It’s Complicated” which was a pretty decent movie for the time and the next night we watched “Avatar 3D” which was excellent. I’m usually not into these kind of movies but this one was done so well it was mind blowing. The 3D was fantastic and the visual effects were awesome. My friend has called it a ‘visual feast’ and he was absolutely right. I could certainly see how the movie ended up costing so much but it was so worth it. One of the nicest most amazing visual effect movie you could see for sure. I highly recommend it.Star Wars can’t even hold a candle to it. And watch it in 3D if you can, it’s great.

As for the cardio session I had it was rather uneventful, I could feel that I haven’t done any cardio in 4 days, my heart rate stayed pretty low the entire time and my calories burned matched it.

Today was good in terms of calories and not so good in terms of protein. The reason why it was good on the calories is that I ate no snacks and decent meals. The reason why it was bad in terms of protein is because I ate no snacks and decent meals. Since 40 grams of my daily protein come from the whey shake I drink in the afternoons if I don’t have that shake I just cut out 40 grams of pure protein for the day. I also cut out 187 calories though. Since we had friends over for dinner we had cooked dinner for them. And I just can’t serve up grilled chicken with two cups of steamed vegetables. That would not impress.

When I do my cardio at work during lunch I watch TV. And I watch the Food Network. I vicariously live through the cooking shows as I can hardly eat anything they make there as they all start with half a cup of olive oil and 3 tablespoons of butter usually. But sometimes I just see a meal that I think might just work. And I might even ignore the calorie contents and just want to make it for a nice meal. The show I usually watch is hosted by Giada de Laurentiis, an Italian cooking show. She made cranberry turkey raviolis and a cornbread salad for Thanksgiving. I have made the meal for Thanksgiving myself and since it was a really nice dish I made it again this time. It was a hit. Our guests loved it and ate pretty much all of it. Granted I made a serving of 4 for 5 adults and 3 kids so it was no surprise that none if it was left. All in all it was a great dinner. But since it was a pasta dish with cream sauce and a bread salad with olive oil it was high in fats and carbs and low in protein. So this is what did me in in terms of protein intake for the day. But it was worth it. I will make this meal again time permitting.

Looks like the size gain on my bicep and calf was just temporarily. They are back to where they were a week ago. Chest and thigh has shrunk another 0.25 inch. I had an equipment malfunction during the last set of photos so their lighting was not perfect but this time I had it all sorted out. The side shot shows my gut to be a bit bigger this time than last time but the tape says that it’s smaller. My back is looking better for sure. Other than this, not much else has changed. Considering just how little I have been exercising lately I think I did OK.

12/29/2009 Transformation Picture

What a perfect day! At least on the eating front. I managed to eat 1,400 calories and still eat almost 140 g of protein. Let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds. 140 grams of protein contains 560 calories. So that leaves me with only 840 calories for carbs and fats. And that’s to be spread over 3 meals. Not easy. But today I managed it somehow. And I even had dessert! 1 oz of chocolate. Not a whole lot but that’s all I could squeeze into my diet. I used to eat chocolate by the bar and I mean 4-5 oz bars. I’d inhale it in frnt of the TV without even enjoying it. Now I had the two small pieces in the kitchen while doing nothing else but enjoying the chocolate. It was great. I think I got more enjoyment out of the two tiny pieces than I used to get out of the whole bars.

I think what really helped was the lean prosciutto with eggs for lunch and the lean pork I had for dinner. All in all it was a superb day. I wish I could repeat it every day.

I haven’t been to the gym in almost a week. Since I use the facility at work I only go on workdays. And since I’ve been home with the family for the past week I haven’t seen the gym in a while. But today I did go. I took my father-in-law to the sporting goods store to browse and shop and while he was there I went to the gym and worked out. I did both chest and back on the same day as I knew I wouldn’t hit them otherwise. I have received a comment on one of my posts that was asking about why my bench press numbers are so low. It made me think and wonder about my workout and I have attempted to bench press at 130 lbs instead of my usual 100 lbs. The first set of 10 went fine. Then on the second set I managed to get 3 in the air. I have asked my co-worker if he thinks my chest lifts are lacking and if they do why. He wasw surprised that I have even attempted to do two sets within such a short amount of time. He said he rests 8-10 minutes between sets and I probably have rested 30-45 seconds, if that. He was not surprised at all that my lifts were so weak on consecutive sets. And since I have been setting my weights based on weights I can manage for 3 sets I have been setting them lower.

I just don’t have 8-10 minutes to rest between sets when you’re trying to crank out cardio and strength training over lunch. But I certainly have more than 30 seconds. So I have clocked myself and rested 2 minutes between sets. I could manage 3 sets of 10 at 130 lbs which is more than ever for bench presses. I have also upped my lat pull and my fly weights and the rest made all the difference. So the lesson I have leared today was to give enough rest between sets otherwise you’re just wasting your time. Since my primary goal right now is muscle retention not gain I think I’ll be fine with the 2 minute rests. But once I’m down to my target weight and want to put a bit of muscle on my frame I will have to increase my rest periods if I want to be able to build more muscle.

I’m still trying to keep up my weight loss pace so I’m trying to cut calories. Today I managed to come in at 1,404 which included eating out for lunch. I had smoked turkey with green beans and corn on the cob. For dinner I ate my wife’s mini meatloaves that I really like. My only struggle is the protein intake. I managed to get 101 grams today which is not totally bad but it’s a far cry from the 150 that I’d like to eat. If I had a whey shake with 40 grams of protein my calories would have been around 1,600 for the day which is still not bad. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

• This morning was the first time I actually felt decent when I looked in the mirror in a long time. I guess 30 lbs is starting to show. #
• Panera Bread sucks. They claim they're healthy food when in truth it's saturated fat and sodium galore. It pissess me off! #

Another week has passed and I am struggling with my progress for several reasons.

1) I’m on vacation and I find myself super busy with the kids and things to do around the house and enjoying my time off generally. It does not help me at all with keeping my cardio sessions. I have skipped cardio on the 24th and on the 27th, twice this week.

2) Since I’m home and I hang with the kids and my father-in-law it’s a lot harder to do my own thing when it comes to eating. They want to go out so I have to go with them. they want to eat stuff that might not be as clean as I’d like it, I have to eat what they eat. Mind you, I don’t have to but I’d like to, being one family and all. So they are not helping my situation one bit.

3) Since I’ve lost 30+ lbs that means that my RMR/BMR has dropped by 300 to 400 calories a day. So in theory I’d have to either eat 300-400 calories less every day than before or I have to exercise 300-400 calories more. And there lies the other problem.

4) Since I have lost weight my cardio workouts are not as effective as before while carrying all that extra weight. So not only I have to do more of it I would actually have to do a whole lot more of it to keep up the weight loss pace from before.

Given all of the above issues that I have to deal with right now my weight loss is struggling. I still have dropped 2.2 lbs from last week but It’s not the 3.5 lbs that I have been getting comfortable with. I will need to reevaluate my nutrition and exercise in the near future if I want to stay on top of the weight loss and keep the muscle intact. I’m still so far from my goal weight that it really concerns me that I’m already hitting a wall. Some might not consider losing 2.2 lbs in a week as hitting a wall though.

I’d also like to mention that I’m finally under 30% body fat which I’m pretty happy about. It has been long coming and I felt pretty good when the scale showed 29.9% on Saturday morning. I’m sure I’ll get a lot more excited once I hit 19.9% which should not be that long unless my weight loss struggles. I think I’ll go to the gym tomorrow just to see where I’m standing even though I’m off from work.

Today was a very light day in terms of food. I only had breakfast, lunch and dinner and skipped my two snacks. I also only ate a measly 83 grams of protein. This might not be good for my muscles. I’ll have to do better. I ate out for dinner at Red Hot & Blue, had my usual pulled pork sandwich and ate some leftover filet for lunch. Had I drank my protein shake in the afternoon and ate a mid morning snack with 10g of protein I would have been up to 130 grams which would have been kind of OK.