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Saturday
Mar162013

Solid mass added..time to lose fat

I want to dump 13 pounds of fat and reach 10% bodyfat. Reasons:

  1. I hate feeling a little back fat jiggle when I run. Hate, hate, hate :)
  2. My family has pretty bad heart health, genetically speaking. My dad had his first bypass operation when he was 40. In spite of "good" diet and exercise, he'd had a couple of bypass operations and a couple of heart attacks by the time he died. His dad had several heart attacks. My mom's dad died of a heart attack when in his 50's. Our family seems to be able to make cholesterol from bean sprouts. Each pound of fat lost has been shown to average a 10% increase in HDL (the good cholesterol), and exercise is the surest way to boost HDL (mine is now above 60, considered preventive for cardiac issues)
  3. I was a fat kid until joining the wrestling team in high school. I've kept fairly active ever since (with a couple of periods of exception when work or school schedules were ridiculous). I never want to have a poor self-image again.
  4. I admit to being middle aged and "they" say that it gets harder to lose fat / gain muscle as one ages. The time to get in my ideal condition is now. I've got years before I'm a senior citizen, and I want to ensure that I am in excellent condition in my later years to be as happy, healthy, and productive as possible.

The good news: I started working out hard very regularly, about 3 years ago. I lost fat, added some solid mass, and reached a point where I could fit into the clothes I wore at our wedding 30+ years ago. Since starting the Body Beast program 8 months ago, I've added 13 pounds of solid mass (as measured with our Omron body fat monitor)

The mildly bad news: Along with adding muscle, I added some fat. Any bodybuilder will talk about the phases of bulk and cut. Add muscle and then focus the workouts to keep the muscle and cut the fat. While I have zero desire to join the over-bulked bodybuilder corps, I do want to keep the solid mass and dump some of the fat.

The plan: 

  1. Continue to lift weights a couple of days a week
  2. Do a plyometric workout once a week
  3. Do one or two cardio workouts daily. This will often be a few miles on the treadmill. I'll also incorporate High Intensity Interval Training ("HIIT"), and some shorter Tabata routines.

The timeline: My target is to dump a pound of fat a week. That seems like a very moderate and attainable pace. I'll post progress here. BTW, I did a Chest & Triceps lifting routine today and hope to be able to move tomorrow :)

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