Day 81 - A bit more energy

Just a quick post. I'll get pics up later. Just wanted to say that I did manage to get to the gym today for my workout. My energy level was still a little lower though, so I didn't manage to get in my cardio session after my weights, but I really think I just needed the rest. I'm looking forward to my rest day tomorrow and sleeping in after some long hours of work this week.

P.S. Today's Pics:

Day 81

Day 80 - First Real Low Day

Well, today was certainly different. It was the first day since I started my task that I had a real low day. I mean, I was totally wiped, had no energy and really had to drag myself to the gym. Every day before, I had been bursting with energy and anxiously awaited for my partner in crime to get home so we could go both shred away. Today was the first day that she was all pumped to go before me. It took me an extra half hour of lying on the couch before I was ready to go.

When I got to the gym, I really felt like the tanks were empty. I had almost no gas to do my warmup, but I did manage to get through my weights. I took a bit extra in between sets toward the end, and had to lower my weights on my last chest exercise. In the past couple weeks, I've usually gone for a bit more cardio after my weights, but this time, I had to pass.

I'm now at day 80 and nearing the end of 12 weeks of pretty much exercising 6 days a week. I know in BFFM they recommended to take a break every 12 weeks or so. I'm kind of still committed to seeing things through until the Christmas break. I have my scheduled rest day on Saturday. I'm still going to try and get my workout in tomorrow, but if I'm really low energy again, I may have to re-evaluate and maybe take a week off. Or maybe it was just an off day and I just need to get some better sleep tonight and eat a little better tomorrow (my meals were a little off today).

Here's today's pics:

Day 80

Day 79 - Another change up

Hey, I like doing things a bit different, so starting today I'm going to make my daily post before my workout. That way I might have some more interesting things to talk about other than my workout, and I won't waste away the wee hours of the morning finishing up my posts.

Today I thought I would share a little bit of data that I've collected.
For the budget conscious shredder, eating healthy may not come cheap. Some healthy food is cheaper, but others not so much. I think the biggest change that I noticed was that I was actually eating more food than before, and a lot more meat, since I tried having a source of lean protein at every meal.

Sources of lean protein are probably the largest part of my grocery bill, so I've kept a few tabs on the following staples, the stuff that I pretty much always have on hand, and end up buying even when it isn't on sale.

For some reason there's a lot of blank space here:

Food	Unit Size	#Servings	Protein/ Serving	Cost/ Unit	Cost/ 25g protein	Cost/ serving
Whole Eggs	dozen	12	6.3	2.25	0.74	0.19
Extra Lean Ground Beef	1 lb	4	21.1	2.99	0.89	0.75
Top Sirloin	1 lb	4	34.4	5.99	1.09	1.50
Chicken Breast (can)	1 tin	2	15	1.33	1.11	0.67
Egg Whites	dozen	2	21	2.25	1.34	1.13
Liquid Egg White	500 g	10	5	2.69	1.35	0.27
Protein Powder	1 kg	32	21	36.48	1.36	1.14
Cottage Cheese	500 g	4	15	3.29	1.37	0.82
Canned Tuna	1 tin	2	15	1.99	1.66	1.00
Chicken Breast	1 bag	10	22	19.99	2.27	2.00
Canned Salmon	1 tin	2	19	3.79	2.49	1.90
Salmon	1 portion	1	28.8	2.99	2.60	2.99

All prices are in Canadian Dollars and are listed as the lowest price I've paid for them that I could find or knew of off the top of my head. If was a real nut, I'd keep running tallies and use an average price, but that's probably a little extreme. I use the cost/25g of protein metric because that is about what I aim for in my protein intake per meal. For others, this might be higher or lower, depending on your needs.

Some notes:
The cheapest on this list, whole eggs, doesn't really count as a lean protein since it includes the fatty yolk. I eat mostly whites, so the average price for my egg protein intake is somewhere in between the price for whites and whole eggs. The next lowest, extra lean ground beef, isn't as clean as the other lean proteins since it still has a higher fat content than the others, most of which is saturated. Surprisingly, protein powder, even with all the marketing jazz and supplement company markup, comes in fairly reasonable. But if you use it too much, you're missing out on the other good stuff that comes from eating real food as well as the thermic effect since you're usually taking it in liquid form.

I guess it doesn't really change my grocery shopping or eating habits too much, except I'm going to try and make more use of egg (whites) and not to completely avoid the ground beef. Top Sirloin actually looks like a decent source as well, it's just a matter of limiting the size of the steaks that is the trouble. It's easy to take a nice big piece of meat which is probably closer to two servings. I think my salmon consumption will go down a bit as well and just make sure I keep up with my flax oil. I could get cheaper tuna as well, but for some reason I trust the little bit more expensive stuff more.

Well, there you have it, a short, but not too scientific insight on my grocery shopping habits. If anyone else has some tips on getting cheap sources of quality lean protein, let me know!

...and now for today's pics:

Day 79

Day 78 - Change of plans

If you've been following me the last couple days, I was starting to incorporate carb cycling into my program to shed those last few pounds of fat. Today, I made a decision to alter those plans and add a new goal to my current milestone. In addition I'll be extending my milestone deadline to correspond with the date of the event for my new goal.

I've talked a bit about hockey in my past posts, and it was a very important part of my life when I was younger, especially back in high school. The ultimate goal of my quest is to get in the best shape of my life. This should also mean that I should be playing hockey. I haven't hit the ice for over 3 years now, but I am now making it part of my mission to get back on the ice and strap those pads on again.

Today, I got an invitation to play in an organized pick-up game (yeah, organized pickup sounds like an oxymoron) on Boxing day with all my old high school teammates and others from town, who will all be home for the holidays. For most people, I think this will be just some time to fool around and just have some fun. But for me, it symbolizes a lot more. I mean, if any of them knew it was my goal to train for this one single pick up game, they'd think I was crazy. But I've had a lot of setbacks since high school (my speedbumps!) and this game is going to mean a lot to me.

So, what does this mean? Well, today I weighed in at 133.8 lbs, and 20.4% BF (I post my PhysicsDiet numbers in my weekly stats, which are running averages, so they lag my daily numbers) on my scale. Before I made this blog, my goal was to get under 22% BF on my scale by Dec 15th. On my charts, I had only set the axis for my weight loss to go from 155 down to 135 (I made it fixed so I had something to shoot for). I since had to adjust the axis, and I also set 21% BF as a goal when I started blogging. To be honest, I never thought I was going to get below 135 lbs. Ever. So, I've essentially hit my BF% and total fat loss goals already. But, for me to play hockey, strength and stamina will be bigger factors now that I've lost most of the excess fat that was slowing me down.

Right now, losing fat won't really help me, as there's the possibility that I'll lose a bit of strength in the process and it probably won't make me that much faster. So, there's really only one way for me to go, and that's to now try and put on some lean muscle (especially back and legs), and at the same time also get my cardiovascular fitness up. Both of those new goals means I'm going to need a lot more calories, so carb cycling is now out the window. I'll return to that after the New Year to shed any bit of fat that I put on during this short muscle gain phase (and the holiday meals!).

My plan now is to shoot for maintenance calories all this week (2700), and then next week go into an approximately 10% calorie surplus (an even 3000). During this time, I'm not so much changing my workout schedule, but I am going to push myself even harder. Since I'll be eating more calories, I plan on having more energy so I can lift even more weight, and go even faster and longer on my cardio sessions. I'm not going to worry too much about whether the energy for my workouts is coming from the food I just ate or the fat stores in my body. I just want to give my heart the best workout it can get.

I'm not quite sure what kind of muscle gains I can make in this short time, but I'll take anything I can get.

Wish me luck!

Here's today's pics:

Day 78

Day 77 - Something doesn't add up! It's not Day 76!

Well, I realized today that I'm one off on my day count. I missed counting a day somewhere back around day 35 when I was taking pictures. You'd think with my obsession with numbers that I would have caught onto this earlier. I should have realized my weekly stat posts weren't a multiple of 7. I guess I just thought it was an off by one error, which happens in computer programming, especially when your index starts with 0. Anyway, enough geek talk.

Today was my first high carb day, and I was aiming for eating maintenance calories, which according to my own calculations I have worked out to be around 2700, since I've been mostly aiming for 2200 a day and losing an average of 1 lb a week lately. To be honest, it seemed like a lot of food for me today, but hopefully I'll have a nice store of glycogen in my muscles now. I gave my legs a good workout, and they felt much better since I didn't do my HIIT on the bike like last week. I did however hit the bike for some post weight steady state cardio.

Tonight for supper I had a new food. My girlfriend and I tried making quinoa for the first time. In my healthy food searching I stumbled upon it and thought I'd give it a try. I picked up just a sampling from our local bulk food store and made it in my rice cooker. It's supposedly a real super food as it's a seed that is used like a grain, with a higher protein content than wheat or rice, with a well-rounded amino acid profile. It tasted pretty pretty good and was a nice change from rice or potatoes. It's a bit expensive though for a starchy staple, coming in at about $10/kg, especially compared to my big bags of rice. It's worth a try though. I think I'll get some more and try it in some mixed dishes instead of just eating it on its own.

Without further adieu, here's my weekly stats:

Week 11: 2007-11-19 to 2007-11-26
Weight: 136.36 (-1.23)
BF: 21.43 (-0.50)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/16/14 (10.96%)

and my daily pics:

Day 77

Speedbump 3: A life changing discovery

This is a continuation of my story documenting the parts of my life that have brought me to Day 0, when I decided to change my daily habits for life, and for the better, to ultimately achieve my goals of reaching the best shape of my life, being fit and healthy, and full of energy. For other posts, see the rest of my story.

I first starting really following a regular workout program after hockey season had finished up in my Grade 12 (final year) of high school. I had done a little bit of lifting here and there, and knew the basics regarding reps, technique, breathing, rest periods, and progression, but I didn't make it a regular thing until then. Mostly because I was young, still growing, didn't have the time, and didn't feel like I needed them. That all changed with the onset of my back problems. It was now necessary for me to make a commitment to strengthening my back muscles, and the rest of my body to support everything.

This however, wasn't my life changing discovery.

This is perhaps the hardest thing for me to write about and I still think that there's a part of me inside that is still suffering from denial. I don't know if I've ever fully accepted this, but I've been slowly learning to live with it. At the time though, I was riding an emotional roller coaster. I was finishing up my senior year at high school, enjoying the last bit of time I had together with my class before we all went our separate ways.

About a week before our grad class was to go on our class trip canoing down a river for a few days, after I had spent some time getting tests done at what seemed like unnecessary hospital visits, I was told that I had ulcerative colitis. I had never heard of it up to that point, but hearing the phrase "chronic disease" didn't do much for me. I was prescribed medication and rest. Rest, as in, you really should skip this class trip of yours that involves 3 days of paddling and sleeping on the ground. I was crushed. I refused to give up on the class trip and without really understanding what was going on with my body, I demanded to go anyway. The doctor's of course didn't recommend it, but said they couldn't stop me, but warned me that it would set back my recovery time.

I went on the trip, and had one of the best times of my life spending the days paddling down the river in a canoe with all my friends that I had grown up with since pre-school. It was only after this, and all the graduation ceremonies, that I would have to focus on my newly discovered affliction.

If you don't like to read about poop and bottoms and such, skip the next paragraph.

Ulcerative colitis is an auto-immuno disease affecting the gastrointestinal system, in that it is the body's response to rid itself of some foreign body or toxin, that isn't really there or really a threat (much like allergies). This causes inflammation of the bowels that is triggered often during times that the body is put under stress. Usually, the first sign that is recognized is blood in the stool. This inflammation can be put into remission and the symptoms will subside with medication and rest (and removal of the stress). It is similar and related to Crohn's disease. Both are classified as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which is not to be confused with Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is only symptomatic. The only difference between Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis, is the part of the GI system that is affected. Crohn's is found in the stomach itself, while Ulcerative Colitis is found in the large and small intestine. The biggest problem with these diseases, is that when the tissues are inflamed, then they are unable to absorb all the nutrients that the body needs that it gets from normal digestion. For this reason, when the first flare up is exhibited, weight (not specifically fat) loss is usually one of the signs. The other side of that, is that since the body isn't getting all the nutrients it needs, one usually also suffers from chronic fatigue.

By the end of the summer, through rest, some strength training for my back (I had also started massage therapy), and medication, I had my condition somewhat under control, but I still didn't fully understand what it was doing to my body. I wasn't doing everything that I was supposed to such as avoiding alcohol and fatty fried foods, eating small meals, taking all my medication, getting plenty of sleep, and avoiding stressful situations. I was starting University in the fall, so I had that adventure to look forward to, but my life had to shift focus from sports, to taking care of my health. This wasn't something that was going to happen overnight, especially for the athlete that was most known for his reckless abandon, sacrificing his body to stop that puck or baseball, diving in the air to keep that ball from going out of bounds, and slide tackling guys twice his size.

Day 75 - Where did the time go?

Wow, I'm not quite sure where the time went, but the blog has taken a bit of a backseat to the rest of my life. Yesterday was a rest day, but I spent it running a lot of those Saturday errands, which included some Christmas shopping. Today was a fun day doing stuff with my girlfriend. Weekends are all about spending more time with her. Managed to get my first low carb day in and a HIIT session, but not sure how low carb it was exactly. Might have just been a low calorie day. Sunday's are a bit more off the map than I plan to be during the week.

Even though I missed a post yesterday (rest day), I did take pics, but I think I'll just post today's:

Day 75

Day 73 - Looking forward to that rest day

Not much to say today, at a little loss for words right now, just going to put up the daily pics I guess.

Day 73

Day 72 - Getting Ready for Carb Cycling!

Workout today was chest and triceps. Warmed up on the bike and then cooled down on the elliptical after the weights.

I'm going to make this a short one since it's getting late for me and one of my new goals is to try and get to bed earlier and get more quality sleep. My biological clock wakes me up at the same time every day pretty much, whether I go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, or at 11pm. The difference between the two is the quality of sleep and how I feel later in the day. When I wake up I'm generally refreshed, but I feel the effects by the evening if I didn't get enough the night before.

I spent some time today planning my attack for the final 4 weeks before I hit my milestone 1 deadline. I'm pretty sure I'm going to reach my goal before that, but there's no harm in me going for exceeding it! I plan on finally incorporating some moderate carb cycling into my program for 4 weeks. I don't think I'm particularly carb sensitive and have always thrived on high carb diets before given my previous high activity levels. Anyway, my plan is as follows:

Sunday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Monday - High Carb w/ weights, ss* cardio
Tuesday - Low Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Wednesday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Thursday - High Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Friday - Low Carb w/ weights, HIIT
Saturday - Free, Rest

*Steady State

The idea is that I'll be hitting the HIIT workouts at my low points, since the HIIT workouts are the ones that burn the most fat as long as I'm not drained. This is a more moderate carb cycling, but I really do thrive on carbs (currently 55-60% of my cals), so I think it would be tough for me to go more than 2 days on low carb and I'd probably end up binging real bad on whole packages of rice cakes, triscuits, and baked tostitos.

Wow, not so short anymore...

Ok, here's today's pics:

Day 72

Day 71 - Where'd my pillow go?

I feel sorry for my girlfriend. I've taken her pillow away. When we watch tv on the couch together, sometimes she lays her head in my lap. Well, before I had a nice little cushion for her, all that extra padding I had. Lately she's been joking with me and when she lays her head down she'll ask me, "Where'd my pillow go?". I guess my stomach is getting hard now because she's started putting a real pillow in my lap and then laying her head down. I feel sorry that I've taken her pillow away, but I'm proud that I've gotten rid of my pillow.

Ok, I'm being selfish now, I'm thinking about how funny it will be when I finally carve out that six pack and my stomach is all bumpy! Speaking of which, today was an ab day, so I guess that's what inspired me to write about that little anecdote. I tried a couple different ab exercises. I think I can stick with my girlfriend's ab workout one day of the week, and my ab workout the other. They're essentially the same exercises, but doing them slightly different. One exercise each for upper abs, lower abs, and obliques.

I also had to settle for a regular elliptical today for my HIIT. My ArcTrainer was taken again! I don't know why it's so popular now. Maybe everybody sees me using it and seeing how well I've progressed over the last couple months and they think it is some magical machine. Yeah, that's gotta be it...I think I still lift the least amount of weight out of any of the other guys at the gym, but at least I have better form than most of them. What's up with all the cheater's? Almost nobody does bicep curls with proper form. It's kind of funny when you watch the real big cheaters. It ends up showing in their physique. They end up with these big solid cores, but never build up their biceps. Anyway, I'm rambling now, I'll save the form discussion for another day.

Is it just me or does an ab workout make you extra hungry? My metabolism must be super stoked because I've already ate my 6 meals today, my last one I just finished an hour ago, and I've already got the hunger pangs. This is quite unusual for me as a lot of the time I have to almost force my 6th meal on myself. Either that or my supper didn't agree with me. I might be getting mixed signals, but it sure feels like hunger to me. I guess a bedtime snack of cottage cheese wouldn't hurt :D

Anyway, here are today's pics:

Day 71