Down a pound..Arms are dead :)

Saturday is my personal weigh-in day. I'm down a pound from last week. Hopefully that's all fat, and maybe there's even a little added muscle. Regardless, this morning I did my normal Saturday workout: Body Beast "Tempo Chest + Tris". It's about an hour focused on the pecs and triceps, and doing a lot of s-l-o-w movements - push a weight up and slowly let it down. Those negative reps are killer!

To amp things up a bit, a little while ago I splurged and bought the Lebert Equalizer. I'd been doing chair dips, and that definitely hits the triceps. But doing real dips with the Lebert bars (which allows me to use full body weight for resistance) hits those poor tris so much harder! At present I find that after only 5 reps I have to put the toe of a foot from one of my bent legs onto the ground to lighten the resistence. Many years ago (meaning decades) I used to do dips with a 45-pound weight hanging from my waist. Oh well ...all things with time :)

The real evidence to me that this was a good workout was that on the final set (plank twists) it was a struggle for the arms to just hold the plank, let alone doing the twists. Ah, yes, I do believe by tomorrow the memory of this workout will be quite apparent (if the soreness hasn't begun to arrive by this evening). Bring it!

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 :)