The Weekly Wrap: Return To Normal

This past week has been fairly hit or miss for both fitness activity and for diet. My wife this week said “When someone is visiting on vacation, your diet is also on vacation.” So it was when my sister came to see us. Instead of spaghetti squash with a red sauce, we ended up with a freezer of ice cream and a pantry of Oreos. Oi vey. Also, as we were being visited, our schedule was a bit shot and made it difficult to find time for extended workouts.

Even without a lot of time to dedicate, we still made it to the beach as a family, though I did not swim or romp or play much at all. I squeezed in some heavy squats on Monday as well as a push up workout. It was quite similar to one I have been doing recently where I do pushes Every Minute On the Minute to push close to failure consistently, only this time I increased both reps and time frame. I focused on 40 pushups every third minute, completing 6 sets. It was definitely challenging, and felt harder than doing 20-25 reps each minute, even though the former ended up in more pushups total. Tuesday I did pullups a few times during the day, hitting 20 or more reps three times. Then my family went for a nearly 2 hour walk which included a stop at a playground where I found some good monkey bars for completing additional pullups. 

When we got home, I did a bodyweight Tabata workout I have used before. With 20 seconds workout, 10 seconds rest, cycling through pullups, pushups, squats, then sit-ups. The circuit is completed 8 times. I set a new best for this workout in pullups (78), pushups (200), squats (200), and tied in sit-ups (128).  I don’t think I can get much better on anything but pullups, and I really would love to get to 100 in that. Everything else, I am doing it about as fast as I reasonably can without really sacrificing good form and tempo. This workout really does a good job of testing strength endurance while also benefiting from a long and drawn out challenge to aerobic functions in the body. I was winded early on, and it kept me winded throughout. By the end, I was gasping for breath. Overall, I find it to be a workout which allows scaling it to fit current fitness levels making it challenging no matter how in shape you are. Thursday, I mimicked the pushup workout from Monday, but I increased the reps by 5 each set to 45 reps x 6 sets. However, by the end of the second set I was already feeling a lot more fatigued, and ended up breaking up the pushups to mini sets: 45, 45, 30/15, 25/20, 25/20, 15/15/15. I could not tell if it was the slight increase in reps each set or a more determined focus on full Range of Motion in the pushup which made this feel so much more strenuous. 

Today, I decided I should run again. I have been far too lax on my cardio this summer. I have completely abandoned what had been the training and focus on my mile time I began in April. So, today I ran a 5k. It is basically an out and back, but the out is down the road into a park, two laps of the park, then back home. Easy course. I went a little hard, but it did not yet feel like an all-out race pace, but I completed it in 20:29. Another couple seconds dropped per kilometer and I will finally be back under 20 minutes, which I am VERY excited for.

Diet wise, I ate way to many snacks Sunday night. As I stated, my sister visited, and while we did eat a rather healthy meal of baked sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and kielbasa sausage, we also ate a lot or chocolate covered almonds, trail mix, and Oreos. Monday, I ate quite a bit better and only snacked on the chocolate almonds and a few Oreos. Tuesday was just a few Oreos. Wednesday, I ate no desserts! But Thursday we had friends over for dinner and I indulged in a bowl of ice cream, but it was only 2 scoops… and lots of manicotti! Really, our meals this week have been quite healthy (not SUPER healthy, but good). We made teriyaki chicken with pineapple, ate leftovers from the sweet potato sheet bake, and made the manicotti.

Oh, wait. We went to Red Robin Wednesday night…

Maybe my diet aggregated to normal person diet instead of healthy normal person diet this week.

The Weekly Wrap: Back from my Travails! I mean, Travels

With our major vacation behind us, it is time to get back into the swing of things. Never before have I spent nearly 3 weeks on the road visiting and travelling, but this trip built up memories for us in South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, and then through Iowa before lastly helping someone move in our home state of Wisconsin to wrap up my long drives, hopefully for a while. While we were not completely butt-bound, most of our hikes were either cancelled or truncated. Storms and cold weather cancelled our hikes to the tallest peak east of the Rockies as well as our intended first 14,000+ foot summit. A rock slide blocked our progress to the top of Timpanogas as well. We still remained at least moderately active with a few hikes and a few more exploring walks. But we ate too much junk and I did not do enough of my intend push ups, pull ups, squats, or runs. So when I got home, I felt woefully out of shape.

Upon returning home, I wanted to evaluate my push up and pull up endurance. I was still able to manage 17 strict pullups, which is quite good, though less than I hoped. But I surprised myself with 60 pushups, and not to complete failure. Intrigued, I tried pushups again a few hours later and completed 70. Thinking I had counted wrong, I attempted again a few hours after that to get 70 again. I have test max pushups a few times since, and completed 85 this past weekend, a post-Dad best.

I also returned to a HIIT based lifting approach where I complete 10 reps of a lift, rest 1 minute, then lift again for a total of 10 sets. I did squat at first at 195 lbs, and I could not effectively walk for a few days. Everything below the belly button hurt. But once the soreness was gone, I did it again, but this time at 200lbs and 12 total sets. While I need to focus on completing the squat an inch or so deeper, I am quite pleased with the progress there as I was challenged by 185 before leaving Out West.

Lastly on the fitness front, I have run a few times outside and a few treadmill based workouts. I did two 5k shakeout runs, and 2 Tabata runs on the treadmill. The Tabata runs consist of turning up the incline, then running 20 seconds, resting 10, and repeating for about 10 minutes. I can currently do 8 mph at 8 incline for 8 minutes. Hopefully I will get to the goal of 10/10/10 before the end of September. The Tabata treadmill workout has a focused outcome of replicating the benefits of running 6-10 miles, but doing so in only 10 minutes. For someone who is having a harder time getting up early, shaving 30-50 minutes off my workout is a fantastic trade. Now, this does not mean I will not go on long runs; I intend to still get in one long run each week. But instead of running 5-15 miles on 5 day a week running, I can substitute the Tabata treadmill work for 3 days and run 3 days.

I only today really settled on what I intend on following for a diet. Previously, I found great success committed to a diet with nearly no carbs, high proteins, and a weekly cheat meal. Of course, I was 21, so that likely influenced it. By mixing this past plan with continued wide-spread healthy lifestyle diet choices, I intend on limiting carb intake by focusing on whole grains. I will continue to shoot for a high protein diet, and intend on proteins outpacing carbs and fats for calories. I also plan to fast once every week or two, and have a cheat meal every one to two weeks.

Based on that, diet wise, I have been… okay. Some cereals and ice cream a few times/ We had pizza twice (one homemade and one take and bake). A morning of homemade pancakes. Otherwise, a lot of chicken, some tuna melts, tacos a plenty. Leading into this new plan for consumption, I am not too far off where I want to be. Obviously the ice cream won’t be a regular thing. It should be quite rare. Also, having taco bowls instead of utilizing tortillas is a fantastic way to cut some calories, specifically carbs. And there has been a huge lack of eggs (which I normally each about 7 meals a week). Very strange for me. I think moving forward, there will be more green smoothies as well, sourcing me with high vitamin veggies about half a dozen times a week.

I have two main goals with this new diet. First is quite obvious; create a caloric deficit which will still allow me ample energy and vitamins/minerals/macros/etc to workout and get stronger while losing weight slowly. But secondly, I want things to be as “normal” as possible when it comes to meal times with my family. I have 3 kids at home, and I don’t want to have a different meal or meal time than them. I know a hyper focus on diet and workouts can cause situations where children become more picky about food, and I don’t want that for my kids. They are fantastic eaters for the most part, and I want to encourage that.