A pound a week … not bad!
In a previous post I mentioned that I had bumped the diet up a couple hundred calories by beefing up the protein content [literally – there is more BEEF consumed]. It is working. I have been gaining about a pound a week. I am at 200 lbs right now – started at 195 – and my pants continue to fit the same as they did previously, so it appears that the weight I am adding is the right kind – very cool. I’ll keep this going.
There have been a few changes this week: I have swapped out workout partners for a time. The new guy is not really new. I have worked out when I first started the transformation over a year ago. We unplugged before due to some intense work commitments and travel that he had that made the flow of out getting together difficult, but that appears to have changed. So we chatted about doing a bit of a “Challenge” where we set a workout and commit to a certain number of weeks [6 at this point] of working out together. We got started on Wednesday and the coming workouts are dialed. Jess is his name and he is a guy with frame that could hold quite a bit of muscle. He has dove into the 5 x 5 workout I have been doing and has been orienting him self and it is going well. One thing that I appear to be successful at getting his attention about is slowing down the speed of repetitions way down – a couple of seconds for the lift and a couple of seconds for the negative. Being 30 and 40 something guys, rocking on joints and “throwing” weight is a really bad idea. “It is weight lifting not weight throwing …” is a comment that I have lobbed in his direction a few times. Slowing the reps down engages a great deal more muscle fiber to do the work and is a hell of a lot less stressful on connective tissues too. Workouts do not generally last more than hour. I have got Mike Mentzer and Markus Reinhardt to thank for those tips.
The previous workout partner may hop back in later in the summer. David is in the middle of a rather serious female relationship that appears to be moving in the direction of marriage. The prospective spousal unit started coming into the gym during the time that he and I had been working out that was my queue to make some other arrangements. It’s cool … she is prettier than I am. I’ll give him that, eh?
I started running on Sunday mornings a couple of weeks back and it is getting easier and easier. It is about 3 miles from the gym down to the High School here in town and back. It initially took me about 35 minutes, but every week I appear to have shaved a minute or two off the time. This morning it was about 23 minutes.
Continue to be relentless …
June 26, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Does Prospective Spousal Unit (PSU from now on) actually lift with you/him? Or does PSU suck him into the cardio bunny area? If that’s the case, she’s SO not worth it! LMAO I kid! I kid! Maybe…..