Personal Best

This week has been a great week for fitness and at the same time, it's been hard to get motivated.

After the last update, Andrew and I had both bought and started working on our own new "Green" diet programs. Every morning, before work, I take 1 tablespoon of this organic green powder (just a concoction of veggie stuff) and mix it with a 250mL glass of orange juice. It's filling; doesn't taste great but I don't find that it tastes bad either (Andy begs to differ). I'm supposed to work up to 3 tablespoons per 250mL glass; I'll get there eventually.

As Andy puts it, "it's tastes awful but I know it's healthy and just want to keep going that way for the rest of the day". I agree with that; I want to keep eating healthy during the day as I've already started off well (ie. no muffins or other garbage during the morning or rest of the day).

Anyway, Andy has been sick all week; his hike up in Pemberton last weekend gave him a bad bug and pretty much laid him out. I was mentioning to him today that this week has been hard for getting motivated to go the gym. I still go but that little voice in my head starts to complain about driving over to the North Shore; it even complains the whole time I'm on the treadmill. I need to get that voice to change and be more positive!

One of the good motivators that I have had and now want to keep maintaining is my new personal best on the treadmill. Here's what my routine has been so far for a 30min. stint on the treadmill:
1. 2.5min - warmup walk (almost speedwalking)
2. 20min - run (without stopping)
3. 5min - fast walk to bring the heart rate down (almost speedwalking)
4. 2.5min - cooldown walk (just a brisk walk)

Why this routine? To control my heartrate.

1. The speedwalking warm-up is to get my heartrate up to about 120-130bpm (this is a fat burn zone; at least for my age).
2. The 20min run keeps my heartrate between 175-180bpm (cardio zone).
3. The 5min walk is to bring my heartrate down slowly to 120-130bpm (again, fat burn zone). This also helps me to manage bad things for the body such as blood pooling and stress on the heart.
4. The final 2.5min cooldown is to help me bring my heartrate down below 120bpm (so it's not so far from my resting heartrate).

In the past, my fast walk for 1 and 4 above would be at a level 3 setting on the treadmills at my gym. This has since progressed to 3.5, then 4, and now to a 4.5 setting on the treadmill; it's a very fast walk, almost speedwalking).
My run has also increased from a level 5 setting, to 6, to 6.5, and now to a level 7 setting. Level 7 is a very good setting for me right now and it's keeping me challenged to keep running at this pace for a full 20mins (and the best part is that I'm doing it!!). As my fitness level keeps getting better, I'm hoping to keep increasing the pace and hit my goal of leaning out and in increasing my running time and distance.

Christine, Ronnies wife, mentioned that she goes to yoga now and then. A few folks at work mentioned they have been going and have been loving it. I might tag along with Christine sometime to see how it is; if it helps me with doing proper stretching and toning, it can only be a good thing. Maybe next weekend or something; I'll see if Emmo wants to go if Christine is busy.

Harvey

Tweaking the "EDGE"...

This week has been pretty good!! The overall workout plan that Andrew and I have been following is probably leading to overtraining. For me personally (I don't want to speak for Andrew) I went 4 days straight of moderate to heavy fitness, and felt knackered by the end of Wednesday night. In fact, I've been noticing that I feel a little de-energized if we do go 6 straight days of total fitness (which is what we were doing prior to the New Year).

On Wednesday night, Andrew and I came up with an adjustment to our plan.

"Well what's the current plan??", you may be asking. Here's a breakdown of what we've essentially been doing (broken down into two parts - exercise and diet):

Exercise
For exercise, we've been following a loose version of Roger Applewhite's plan (he's a fitness guy who had some exercise routines listed some years back on the EAS.COM/BodyforLife.COM site...I still have his workout plans). The overall plan is essentially based on a "muscle overload" routine (pyramiding); the way it's done is as follows (this applies for any weight training exercise that we may do):

Perfrom 5 sets of an exercise; increasing in weight as we go
1st set - Perform 12 reps of an exercise at a pre-determined weight
2nd set - Increase in weight (by 5 or 10LBS); perform 10 reps of an exercise
3rd set - Increase in weight (by 5 or 10LBS); perform 8 reps of an exercise
4th set - Increase in weight (by 5 or 10LBS); perform 6 reps of an exercise
5th set - Drop down in weight (ideally to the weight used in the 4th); perform 24 reps of an exercise as this is the burn set

By the end of this routine, we end up doing 60 reps of the given exercise. What is important to remember here is that we are not going to total heavy weight. The point that we keep coaching each other is on doing the exercise right; keeping good form. If form suffers due to too much weight, then we feel that we won't be getting as much out of the exercise as we should be.

NOTE: the below is what Andrew and I adopted for our workout routines, not exactly the routines as listed by Applewhite. The overloading routine I mentioned earlier is essentially what we use as a core plan.

Day 1: Chest - we try to do 3 different exercises for chest using the overloading routine above. This can be anything from dumbbell bench, cable x-overs, weight bench, pushups, etc...

Day 2: Biceps/Triceps

Day 3: Back

Day 4: Legs

Day 5: Shoulders

Granted, we try to workout at least 6 days a week so we just start our routines again with a rest day mixed in. We try to do 3 exercises per muscle group and follow the overloading routine for each exercise.

Diet
For diet, this really started back in Oct/Nov of 05. I can't speak for Andrew here, this is mostly for myself, but my diet has honestly not been very good. I've always had rich food (being Indian that's not hard to do) and portion sizes have been...well...North American sizes.

Anyway, I started to make a conscious choice about what was good. More soups and salads, less burgers and fries. Actually, it was still too much meat and protein in my diet. I say this because of my vacation time in Thailand. There, I got used to "proper" portion sizes. No meal being bigger than the size of my fist (ie. chicken and rice dish would essentially be about a "fist size" serving). That and I ate much more green and healthier foods (lots of salads, fruit, etc...). Listening to Tony Robbins also helped me with relaizing the difference between Alkaline and Acidic food content...so...now I eat much more "green" foods.

Here's a pic of how I looked in Thailand (Andrew and I had been training about 3 or 4 months prior to this pic and it was taken the first week I was in Thailand). Please note - I still need to upload a "real" before pic when I was essentially 40 pounds heavier...like really unhealthy. The great part was that I made some awesome imporvements to get to what I look like in the pic. Since then, I've leaned out even more and want to keep going to get some real definition.



The modified plan:
Now, we're thinking of introducing more rest-days into the workout plan in order to give the body time to re-coup and build muscle. Why are we doing this now? Well, I'll share with you what I want my outcome to be, the reason why I'm doing it, and finally what I'm doing to get there.

Outcome: The goal is to stay at my current body weight. I want to lean out (ie. no more tummy), build muscle mass, and become stronger. The main focus is to also improve my "heart" health. I want to have a strong cardio balance with my muscle gain.

Reason/Motivation: What's getting me charged is being able to run the length of the Stanley Park seawall this summer. I want to be ripped; as Andrew put it for himself, the best shape of my life. I want to turn heads when I come running around a corner (like people saying "Holy $^*t!!, that guy's freakin' ripped!!").
If I go to a restaurant or a pub or some social venue, I got essentially 3 seconds to make an impression. I want to come in beaming with confidence, huge smile to light up the room, and just feel awesome about being me!
Being single, I also want women to notice me right within that first few seconds and size me up; I want generate interest! I know this isn't all about being fit, what it's more about is someone seeing me and saying "that guy is lighting up the room just by being there...there's something about him (in a good way)....I want to get to know him". That would be AWESOME!!!
The final motivator is that I want to live a long and healthy life - I don't want the last years of my life having to manage sickness, disease, or some illness (that I find disturbing); I want to be healthy right to the end.

What am I doing to get there: So here's what Andrew and I are doing:
Exercise
1. We're going to get a trainer to help us with our routine. Just to get some ideas and to mix up our current workout patterns.
2. Break up our training days. 3 days on, 1 day rest. Out of the 3days we're in the gym, 2 of those days will be heavy weight. Cardio everyday (at least 20mins) but the 3rd day of each cycle will be strictly cardio - 40 to 60minutes of cardio.
3. Both of us to get back on track with using journals

Diet
1. More greens. I'm going to stick to my new routine of fruit or veggies during the mornings; protein or sandwich for lunch; light salad or protein for dinner. All of this being mixed up by 6 small meals a day. I've also got some Green drink mix - it's an organic mixture (supposed to taste like shit) but it's good for me.
2. True meal portions
3. Only one free-day to eat crappy (and in moderation)
4. Cook at home more (this should help me save money too)
5. Continue on the organic eating plan...fruits and even dairy products seem to taste better.

I'm on my way!

Harvey