Today’s regimen was more of a recovery set as my leg has not felt well for the past few days. It felt like I had dislocated my leg and it made the one essential maneuver for driving a painful experience. This session was brisk but powering to boot. Though the good bit of progress is that my body fat percentage is going down, meaning that there is muscle growth happening. I imagine that the majority of my muscular growth is from my legs due to how cardio centric my workout is. My heart rate is averaging at 160 beats per minute after the warm up phase of my running. That’s a good sign as the workouts are putting me at my ideal heart rate to strengthen the heart muscle tissue.
So my hard session of cardio was great! I just didn’t feel the repercussions until now… My leg muscles are in a bit of uncomfortable pain. Tasks like doing pedal work to throw gears in my car or simply walking just felt a bit agonizing. I haven’t pin-pointed the pain, but my money is on probably my quads or hamstrings. I just need to let my body heal with proper nutrition that’s high in protein and also more sleep. I may just take a break and resume on Monday for the sake of taking care of my body.
UPDATE @ 9:47am: So sleep really revealed that I am actually a little banged up. My legs feel like they did a marathon run and would like not to do any more walking for the next few days. I can say I’ll definitely be taking a break until Monday to facilitate recovery and healing procedures. I haven’t felt this sort of “burn” for a while, it almost takes me back to my old marching band days when my director would say “Feel the burn and love the burn!!!” during our training. I am thankful for the support you all have given me, because it keeps me smiling even if I am a tad banged up.
Sunday, Monday, and today I am unable to go to the gym due to the holiday and my holiday shifts. It works out, because I tore a lot of leg muscle from Saturday with my cross step session. Family has been cheering me on for my progress and many of my clients from the office have taken notice about me “rapidly” losing weight. This has kept my spirits high and I am glad to see the fruits of my progress. I have been grateful for the whey protein that I have supplemented into my diet as a booster to my body’s healing needs, as my downtime for muscle recovery has gotten shorter from it. I am looking forward to returning to my routine by Wednesday and pushing forward with my training.
I have been a little more calorie conscious as far as food goes and I have been watching my intake. I do enjoy eating, but I don’t eat until I pass out… I have learned better portion control and the work outs have seems to make me want smaller meals at more often intervals. I don’t hunger as badly as I did before but I have been learning to eat before I am totally famished. My “caloric burn” calculation has kept me on par or with me going a wee bit over… hopefully I can get it to 80% of my daily requirements. Here are rough approximations of my “requirements” for calories:
Base calories: 2000 (for basic body functions)
200 calories for bodily healing
200 calories during work
100 calories for driving (add an extra 50 – 75 depending on duration of drive time)
350 average work-out calories
Total: 2850 calories required daily
Dietary changes have been at work so my intake has consisted of more grains and clean proteins. I am trying to increase dairy into my diet, because I have a feeling that it does help from memories of when I was working out and eating yogurt. I have minimized takeout to a last resort issue when possible. If I have a desire for take out, I try to stick to sandwich shop with minimal meat and dressing to keep clean. I have learned that “cheat days” are not bad, because they keep my morale up… I am happy with losing 5 lbs so far and hopefully I can be down in 140 to really make things count.
Today’s session was rather impressive on the cardio end. The caloric burn off today was amazing and that was a pure hour of feeling and loving the burn. It was great to accomplish that much work from just 1 hour. On weigh-in before starting my session, I was at 150 lbs. That was exciting to see me lose 3 lbs from proper diet and exercise. Who’d have thought that adding something as simple as yogurt, more grains, and eating more often with smaller portions could achieve that end… I took it easy on the weights as I was just beat after that hard session of cardio.
Tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday I am out of action due to work and the gym’s holiday hours. Expect me to resume on Wednesday and carry onwards! Happy holidays to those who are fans of my progress!
Work has scheduled me early and doing the closer, so I lost out on 2 days: today and tomorrow. This works out great though, ’cause I am low on petrol until 12am Friday. Boo to random bills.
This, in turn, has become a mixed blessing. At the office, I have been watching the number of clients increase, but this in turn has caused an increase of my exposure to the illnesses of others. From some Chinese medicine enthusiasts, to exert excess energy while the risk of illness is high is not a good thing as it weakens the immunity. I have taken my 1,000mg of Vitamin C and a shot of Airborne in addition to my daily vitamin regimen. I hope that things will be well and I don’t catch anything from my clients.
Today, I decided to take it easy on myself and just do a brisk workout with the total body cross step machine as I finally recovered from the food poisoning. The machine’s perks are that it works the arms, shoulders, and legs as well as being a cardiovascular workout. I weighed in at 153 lbs today, so from this weekend’s antics of food and fun, I only gained a pound. That to me is surprising, considering I really had fun and thought I may have destroyed my entire workout in a span of 2 days. It is almost startling that from just a week of working out, my metabolism has kicked into high gear. It’s almost like a rebirth of my teenage years, but except I look much more mature and less like a boy.
My back muscles are healing rather rapidly and I have noticed a positive change in my posture as well. My arm muscles have finally had time to heal properly and I can feel a slight increase in my dexterity from it. My leg muscles are quickly going back to how they were in my younger days. The increase in progress is amazing and startling at the same time. I hope that for the rest of the week to push my all and continue this great progress! It is great knowing that every little bit does really help. Oh yes! My redline is now raised as of today… Hit a new record of a maximum heart rate of 222 beats a second. That was amazing on its own!
I don’t know if it was something I ate last night for dinner at the work party, but I have felt like throwing up and in miserable pain all day. Last night I couldn’t sleep from how irritated my stomach was. It was the same gut wrenching boiling pain all over again. I am not about to make a spectacle of myself and embarrass myself at the gym. Today, I will concentrate efforts to just take in plenty of fluids and try to palette something down because I don’t know how much I can eat in solids, if I can even hold down solids.
I hope by tomorrow I am back in better spirits and ready to take on the day.