Day 3

Exercise:

Ran 2 miles without stopping - 22 minutes. Than, ran/walked another 10 minutes, so I ended up doing nearly 3 miles total.

I was hurting and breathing hard after that hard 30 minutes, when my heart rate was at 160 for most of it. I almost gave up, but I didn't. I lifted weights for another 30 minutes - doing arms, deadlifts, and shoulders. It felt good and I gained some mojo by the end. I ended with 10 minutes of easy cardio on the elliptical.

Here's what I ate:

Breakfast: 2 servings of Honey Flax Seed Crunch Cereal

Lunch: Salmon Burger, Fake Bacon, Big Iceburg Lettuce salad

Dinner and snacks after: (Euchre night at my house) 3 pieces of mushroom pizza, 4 pierogi, several servings of Crystal Lemonade and "the big V".

The latter half of the day, eating wise, wasn't so hot. But I didn't eat much beforehand, and stayed away from beer on my party night. That's not too bad, I hope.

Day 2 of Health Regime

Waking up, the body part most sore was the space between my shoulders, my upper back. I think it's because I have terrible posture, and running forces me to have good posture, or at least better posture. My legs were plenty sore, too. Not my arms or shoulders, though, which makes me think my weightlifting must have been a little weak.

Today, I didn't want to pound my joints with my 249-lb frame two days in a row, so I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical, then lifted weights. My weights workouts are shorter these days, because I just feel like my main concentration at this point should be aerobic fitness and getting some of this weight off me, but I still did a good half-hour of a back and chest workout. I'm planning on doing a legs workout in the basement in a few minutes.

After the 30 minutes of weightlifting, I went back to the elliptical and did 40 additional minutes. I'm really into Steinbeck's East of Eden right now, and was reading away the minutes. If you can read while you're working out, you're not going as hard as you should - and this is true for me, as my heart rate was only around 133. I'm not 100% positive what heart rate I should be shooting for, but know that when I'm running hard, it gets to around 165, and when I'm briskly walking or elliptical-ing, it's around 130-135 (140-145 if I'm pushing it on there, but then it's too fast to read).

So, all told, I did 110 minutes of low/medium cardio, and 30 minutes of medium weightlifting. I'm going to exercise some more in a little bit, but just legs, abs, and a little cardio.

Here's what I ate today:

Honey Flax Cereal (1.5 servings) + milk for breakfast

1/2 protein shake from yesterday

Piece of Cold-smoked salmon and raw broccoli for lunch

Salad with iceberg lettuce and garbanzo beans and spritzer dressing

Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich

Also plenty of water, coffee, and crystal light.

I'm going to try to add calorie values.

Day 1 of Health Regime

Today, I was planning on running or walking my way through 60 minutes on the treadmill. I just feel like my times of the greatest health, I was running a lot - at least two good hour runs a week. I'd love to get back into that. I had an issue last summer with a stress fracture in my foot, and hope that doesn't come back, but today felt fine. I tore my calf muscle about 6 weeks ago, but it was a minor tear - maybe even a strain - but that has been feeling fine lately.

Anyhow, I wanted to see if I could finish 60 minutes on the treadmill with a combination of running and walking. I'm in pretty bad shape,s o I knew it would be challenging. I started off by running for 2 miles without stopping, at a slow pace of 11 minutes / mile (1 degree incline). I was proud of myself for doing that without stopping. Then, I walked for 2 minutes, and ran for 3 minutes at 6 mph (12 min miles). Then, I had to go to the bathroom. When I returned, I toggled at 2 minutes of walking (3.8 mph) and 2 minutes of running (6.1 mph) for 20 minutes, so I had 45 minutes total. For the 2nd segment of my workout, I increased the incline to 3.5 degrees. All told, this was about 650 calories burned and my heart rate was around 160 when I was jogging, and 130 when I was walking. I was drenched in sweat.

My body felt a little too pounded, so I finished up with 30 minutes on the elliptical, which is a lot easier on a big man's joints. All told, I did 75 minutes of cardio - much of it hard - and went home. Then, I mowed the lawn, did a bunch of yard work, had a horrible experience involving my dog, and went to a softball game, which we lost 9-8. After a brief jaunt to the bar, I came back home, and lifted weights for 45 minutes (arms, abs, and shoulders).

Here's what I ate:

Breakfast: Fiber-One bar

Lunch: Salmon Burger with fake bacon

Afternoon: Protein shake with banana and blueberries and peanut butter

Dinner: Quizno's Tuna Sub - one of those new torpedo ones for $4

Bar: One 8-oz lite beer

Night: Rest of protein shake

Looking over that, I didn't eat a whole lot, nor did I have any vegetables. Need to change that for tomorrow. Probably have something between breakfast and lunch, too.

The Summer of Health

I began the summer yesterday weighing in a 249.2 lbs. A rather ridiculous stop on my weight roller coaster (310 lbs in 2000, down to 192 in 2002, and a steady gaining of roughly 8-10 lbs a year since then). I have never quit exercising, but my consistency has waned, partly because of a couple of major surgeries on my eyes, and, despite eating fairly healthily (vegetarian since 1996), I still manage to pack on the pounds very easily.

I'm not blogging much these days (Facebook updates have replaced it), but think I'm going to try to monitor my exercise and eating here this summer. This year has been a good year - a Master's Degree, a significant raise, and purchasing my first home. Now I have to get my health back.

Yesterday, I returned to the gym for the first time in a while. Did 30 minutes on the elliptical and lifted weights for 30 minutes. Not very much, but I'm fairly sore today. I'm heading off to Pittsburgh today for the Tigers/Pirates games, but will be back on it tomorrow. That's my job this summer - getting myself back into shape and getting my health back.