Today is Friday and Fridays are always my weigh-in days. I was dreading this one because it's the last Friday of the month and it was critical that I learn whether or not I made goal. My goals for the week is about two pounds. I have a goal set for eight to ten pounds a month. Eight is good, ten is excellent. Anything beyond that is miraculous.
I've been dividing up my routine between strength and cardio, swapping out the days I do one or the other five days a week. It usually comes to three days of cardio and two days of strength throughout the week. Basically, it works out like this. Since when it comes to strength training (lifting weights) you have to give your muscles at least a day of rest before going in lifting again. My routine was originally going to be cardio every day, weights every other day. But I felt like the days that I was doing both cardio and weights, I was wiping myself out. I'd wind up too tired and sore and unable to go some days. I found myself skipping days and going only three times a week. Maybe even two. That wasn't working out for me.
So I decided to break it up where I would do just cardio one day and just strength the other day. I would look at one day as "This is cardio day" or, "this is strength day." I was still coming and working out everyday, but I was giving myself a break from both all the same.
To make sure I was on the right path, I talked to one of the staff at Planet Fitness about this suggestion and she was all for it, telling me that it sounded perfect. So that's how I've been doing it. And while I certainly like how it works out for it and it's not been failing me as far as weight loss, on the days I do strength, I always wind up leaving feeling as though I was just in and out and not feeling as though I worked hard enough, even though I lifted as much as I could without breaking form, doing my ten reps and three sets, hitting the different equipment and working all parts of my body, and though I was there for pretty much the same amount of time as during my cardio workouts, I still felt like I was in and out in no time. I've contemplated going back to daily cardio, where on the days I hit the weights I will cut my cardio in half and make up for it in strength. Besides, it'll be a new month and new months always mean getting a new routine.
I also did the math and figured that if I use the elliptical trainer for 30 minutes and the treadmill at 3.0 for 40 minutes I can burn a little over 1,000 calories a day, keeping within a 1,200 calorie diet. I don't think it'll take me much longer to reach that level as I'm currently at 20 minutes on the elliptical and already 40 minutes on the treadmill at 2.9 MPH.
I've been dividing my time on the elliptical. Since you can stop on the elliptical anytime and resume where you were without having to warm back up to your last workout level, I give myself a short break every five minutes. I stop long enough to drink some water, gather my bearings and catch a second wind rather than going for 20 straight minutes and wanting to end before I get in the full time. This has worked out for me. Plus in those five minutes I'm getting my heart rate up there on the higher end for only a short time. I read somewhere that getting your heart rate up in the high end of your maximum even for 30 seconds will do more good for you than going at a slower, steadier rate for a much longer time. And that might be true.
Also, I had talked to Seth, one of the staff members at the gym I go to and he suggested eating small meals more often instead of three big meals. On top of that suggestion, I also got a tip about going protein heavy. Not to the point of causing an imbalance on nutrition. So I added all those tips together. The workout bursts, the small meals that were protein heavy. Things like fish, nuts, chicken and turkey breast. Along those lines. And if I ate something bigger than a snack, like dinner, I would just eat until I no longer felt hungry. Another piece of advice from Seth, not to fill up my stomach. Which made sense because, as yet, I had it explained to me once that eating a lot at once was like throwing large pieces of wood on the fire. Too much and you smother out the flame. But little bits and pieces of tinder and wood will keep the flame hot and bright.
To take the metaphor further, you could even think of the food eaten as types of fuel. Like carbs would be your gasoline or lighter fluid soaked bits of charcoal which your metabolism ignites over immediately, but burns out very quickly, leaving fairly whole bits of wood left behind which might be the rest of your food which is soon stored away in your body as fat. So think of protein that you eat as the tinder that gets the flame going long enough to begin heating up and catching the body fat that begins to burn.
So the question left to answer. What sort of results did I get after applying all these different suggestions into one whole plan? Not only did I make goal for the month, I made it by 14 pounds.
In total: I've now lost 23 pounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment