kenckar’s BodyBlog

I have not written here in a while. Not much to report really. I had taken a 10-day break from workouts and am back on track now. My weight is steady just under 200, but slowly edging down. My lifts have been steady.

 I think it’s better to either work on cutting or work on building, but I hate to give up gains on any front, so I do a little of both. I’m sure it’s a little slower that way, but I’m feeling pretty good. I want to get down to 180 before really trying to build hard again. That should be early in 09.

Cheers,

Tony

OK. since my last post in June, I ramped up my workouts, started eating more, leveled off my weight, and now I have hardly worked out in 10 days. I know it’s good to take a break from working out periodically, so that’s ok, I just need to find the motivation to go back now.

I have continued to eat pretty clean even tough I have not worked out much. My VO2 max has declined a bit. Yesterday it tested at 39. While I was on the PSMF I backed way off on my aerobic work. I think it’s time to start up again.

We went to see the Giants lose to the Cubs last night, followed by fireworks sponsored by Chevron (my company). The evening was fun. I ate too many greasy garlic fries and got a bout of gout this morning. Damn.

OK. Back to clean eating and as soon as the gout wears off, hit the workouts a bit harder.

My weight is still dropping about 1 lb per week. I am a little concerned though. My chest exercises yesterday dropped a bit. Not a lot, but enough to concern me.

Friday was a pretty hard day in the gym, and I did all my cardio before weights, so maybe I was feeling the effects of that.

I’ll modify and see if that changes my results. I am continuing on the lower carb path.

Legs today.

Sweetness.

I was traveling to a meeting last week. Every night restaurant opportunities; every day, there were nasty snacks (cheesecake, yogurt and chocolate covered pretzels) and carb filled meals available.

I did my best to resist that stuff and while not 100% successful, ended up the week a pound lighter than I started. I also got in two decent workouts while I was there.

Good stuff.

I’m traveling this week with a group from work and that is always tough. I want to go out and have a few beers and enjoy the festivities, but discipline rules.

I worked out at the hotel gym tonight, which was not well equipped, but good enough. I’ll rest tomorrow, then work out again on Thursday. Good for me.

Weighed in at 211.8 today. After last week’s disaster it feels good. I am back to focusing on reduced carbs, plenty of protein.

I have decided that squats are god’s exercise. It does a lot of good.

This was not a good week form a workout and diet standpoint. I had four days of meetings, plus dinners, etc., plus the dog had an operation and I had to do a lot to help him.
The meals with the meetings were pretty good, but the snacks were a disaster–popcorn, candy bars, cookies, cake.  The good news is that if my glycogen was depleted, it isn’t anymore.

The bad news is that it gave me about 4 pounds of puffy water weight. It will come off quickly too,  it’s just a bit annoying.

With all this going on, I haven’t worked out since Monday. OK, time to get going again.

I did squats yesterday for the first time in years. I had been doing angled leg press, but as I went over 600 lbs on that I started to feel stress in my lower back that concerned me. So I started doing deadlifts. I normally do 3X10 at 175#.

Yesterday, i went to the gym and decided to do squats for a change. I ended up doing 2 sets at 135# and a set at 145. Not a lot of weight I know, but I want to work on form a little before working heavier. All in all it felt good and i have a little DOMS in my quads today. I think I’ll keep gogin with squats for a while and see how it feels.

I hit 50 y.o. in December 2007. Right now, I am approaching the best shape I have been in in many years.
I am trying to lose fat, increase aerobic capacity, and gain muscle all at once. I have heard that’s not possible.

Whatever, I want to get down to about 12% body fat by mid-year 2008 and weigh under 200 lbs.

I use gymamerica.com to track my workouts. It helps motivate me, and I use stickk.com to get buddies to check in on me.

I started this journey in April 2007 when I went over 235 lbs. I started getting serious in late-summer and I have been losing about 3 lbs per month.

Ab muscles are beginning to peek through the melting snow. LOL.