Man Vs. Fat

Day Two!

Woke up feeling much better than the last two weeks - and stayed pretty consistent today.

Food:

• Banana
• Cliff Bar
• Lentil Soup (bowl)
• Side Caesar salad - no croutons, light cheese
• Cliff Bar
• Another big piece of pork, sweet potato, and peas

I know I need to change a few things here. Primarily eating a largest breakfast with more protein - and then having that allow me to drop the Cliff Bars.

Right now the cliff bars are really glue that help me get through the day. I’ve tried being extreme before and have had trouble making it stick - however this type of day could really last long-term. I’ll give it a go for a while and slowly sharpen it up a bit.

Exercise:

Went back to Crossfit again - and it felt good.

Started with a 400m run which sadly - is about my limit right now. I find running outside to be next to impossible. Within about half a block my back starts twitching, my knees start hurting from the pavement, and the soles of my feet cramp up. Nothing too serious - but it’s just every part of my body resists running specifically (especially outside).

After warmup - did strength. Deadlifts. We did 3 reps On The Minute Every Minute for 6 minutes straight. So 18 reps total. We shot for 70% of our max (which I don’t have a max), but I tested it out before and 165 felt about right.

After the 6 minutes I felt like I had a bit more in me - but I did feel slightly sick to my stomach from all the lifting - so I knew if was probably a safe weight for that many reps. (side note - I had a bit more weight than a couple other people - so at least I’m not always brining up the rear).

Cardio was:

2 Rounds of: 2 minute rowing for calories, 1 minute rest, 1 minute AMRAP pushups (Hand release at bottom), 1 minute toes to bar. Repeat twice (aka 2 rounds).

Rowing just kills me after the first 60 seconds. Absolutely gassed. I thought I was pacing, but I wasn’t really - got 41 calories.

After minute of rest, did 10 pushups in one minutes - catching breath from rowing still.

Then came toes to bar - which i can’t do. Like yesterday it was more like just hanging and bringing my knees up as much as I could. Got 15 in the minute.

Next round of rowing was een worse. Just dead - only 31 calories.

Next set of pushups was 12 - I actually felt more loose and couldn’t push hard on rowing so had more energy.

Fell down to 10 knee crunches (suppose to be toe to bar) for the second round.

Overall, I did feel good. Was far easier than yesterday - but I killed myself in the first rowing for the entire exercise.

It’s frustrating to not be able to do many pushups - and even more frustrating not to be able to lift my knees to elbows while hanging from the bar (let alone go toes to bar).

It’ll be cool when I can do these exercises as prescribed - actually how they are designed.

*****

Not other big comments - just chugging along - feel great to be back after two weeks gone and focusing.

Day One: Let’s do this…

I’ve just gotten back to Portland, my home, from two weeks gone. Over those two weeks, fitness and eating got out of hand.

There was no exercise whatsoever and a whole lot of eating. The first part was vacation - and the second part was a death in my family that took us back to Indiana.

Both vacation and death were used as excuses to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. And drink lattes again.

However, I’m back now and more ready than ever to start attacking things.

Here’s where we stand:

268.0 pounds. The second heaviest I’ve ever been in my life - and heaviest I’ve been in a long, long time.

Which puts me right around 37% bodyfat as of my last BodPod measurements. That could be off a .5% or so, but is pretty close.

Obviously, those numbers are staggering - and may surprise people who don’t know me that well. I’ve always been overweight, but can sometimes hide JUST how overweight I am better than other body types.

That’s just a nice way of saying many people don’t know just how bad things are from a numbers perspective.

I’ll share more of the baseline stats and measurements in future posts - and I’ll remeasure some things tonight to confirm where I’ve begun.

What I ate:

• Banana
• Cliff Bar
• Banana
• Breakfast Burrito (no cheese, no sauce - just egg, sausage, green peppers, red onion, and a wrap)
• Dinner = Large piece of thick pork and a huge sweet potato (Courtney made it and it was excellent.

Overall, I didn’t cut out carbs or dairy completely - which may eventually be a goal - but I did do fairly well with choices - especially when compared to the two weeks I came off of.

I also only drank black coffee (two cups) and water - a dramatic improvement in liquid calories.

Workout:

I’ve joined - and gone through the 6 week training for a local CrossFit gym.  It’s an incredibly humbling experience. I’ll talk more about this as we go too - but for now - let’s just list out what we did yesterday:

Power Cleans - 10 x 1 - Working up to you max on the 10th rep.

I didn’t have a maximum weight - since I had never done them before outside of training. So the first few reps I started light and moved up.

About 6 reps in I was at 135 (extremely low - lowest of any guy in class) and was able to complete it. However, the instructor had me go down to 115 and finish my reps just working on form.

I didn’t mind - as the top part of the power clean is hard for me due to the flexibility required in the shoulders and wrists. Essentially, the bar comes out of my hands and catches on my shoulders - which is ok - but I need more practice.

I guess my new personal best is Power Clean 135. ;)

We then did…

7 minute AMRAP (as many reps as you can go)

• 5 Hand Release Burpees
• 10 Situps
• 15 double under (30 jump ropes)

4 minutes of rest

Another 7 minutes AMRAP

• 10 Knees 2 Elbows (hang on bar and bring your knees up to touch your elbows)
• 5/10/15 Gasser Shuttle Run.

Sadly, I was able to show off just how out of shape I was completely only 3 full rotations and 5 situps in the first 7 minutes.

For those new, thats 20 burpees, 35 situps, and 90 jump ropes in 7 minutes. It’s not a fast pace when you count the time I spent catching me breathe exhausted. :(

After 4 minutes we had to do the second AMRAP insid eof 7 minutes.

I got 3 and a half rotations through again - that’s 40 Knees to elbows and 3 shuttle runs. To be fair, my knees can’t reach my elbows. I just kinf of get a TINY crunch in - my kneews lift maybe to a squat (less than half way) and that’s it. That’s all I can do.

Heck, I can barely hang on the bar for more than 10-15 seconds. It rips my hands to shreds - I need to build up some strength and callouses to hang on longer.

But - the important part was I finished. No part of it was pretty. I’m by FAR the most out of shape person in the class - I’ve never seen anyone even close to where I’m starting walk in the door (comparing only to other males at least).

Good news is as competitive as I am - I don’t feel any anger at being behind other by so far - I just feel anger or sadness at how pathetic I must look to everyone - and how little I can do and go.

I’m still excited though - wanting to do more - and go more - and hopefully this log will help me track and show the progress.

For now, I’ll share a log of daily diet and exercise - and occasional ramblings on how I did inside those logs.

Wish me luck!

-Baker

 

And so it begins (again)…

For those of you that know me, I’m going to start another attempt to focus on my health through this little personal blog.

For those of you that don’t know me, you’re welcome to follow along too.

Now, let’s get a few things straight - unlike much of what I do on the internet - this isn’t going to be a YOU focused site. I mean that in the nicest way possible. ;)

It’s going to be a ME focused site. A journal if you will. A log.

Many of you will get bored with that - and that’s cool! For those of you that want to stick around, follow along, and support my journey - that’s cool as well!

Mostly, it’s just a place for me to be publicly accountable - as much as possible. Most posts will be links to resources I read - or short logs of my food or exercise. 

I’ll also share experiences about what’s working or not - and my motivation as it comes and goes.

Again, I appreciate your support - those of you that want to follow along as I attempt what has always been the hardest journey for me.

Here we go!

-Baker