My monthly fatloss report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 11-17-2014

This month’s report is a mixed review with some positive and some negative.

I both gained some leverage and lost some. 

That status seems like where I’ve been stuck for some time!

My hope of course, is that I’ll gradually make progress by relentlessly continuing the things that have lost and kept off the fat I no longer have;

having the things I’ve added get traction and gradually help lose some more fat;

-- AND find things with more leverage that work well when I try them -- and then keep doing them also!

1.  Here’s my immediate progress section first:

I gained another 2 pounds on the scale.  Not too bad and close to the same and close to the lower end of the range I’ve been in over the last year --- about 7 pounds over my goal weight.

NOT good either when I want to lose more fat than that 7 pounds!!

BUT my waist measured exactly the same; and so did  my chest & hips! 

Apparently, the progress in my new PACE or high intensity cardio session of 5 sets I added of abdominal exercises -- both toned my muscles and tightened them up or maybe added some of those two pounds as muscle.

I’m about half way done getting to the number of reps I plan for each of the 5 sets.  If doing it gradually burns more calories and removes more belly fat too when I get to that level, I could lose at least another inch on my waist. 

And, though it is again a bit glacial in speed I’m doing a bit better on my strength training.

So between the two I really might have gained the two pounds as muscle. 

But it’s not quite what I wanted either.  I’d hoped for a net effect of three or four pounds less fat too.  

2.  But some things are still OK including my plan to drink less wine:

The last 4 weeks I drank 29 glasses of wine, two 7 glass weeks and two 7 & a half glass weeks.

That was 7 glasses less than the 36 the previous 4 weeks!  So that part was a success.

3. I have kept up the added vegetables.  I’m actually doing well with maintaining it each week!

Losing that much more fat will mean adding even more vegetables than I eat now as Vitamix drinks.

I just got a book that suggests that both adding even more vegetables AND taking one week in four where I also eat less of many other foods, may produce net and sustainable fat losses

I’m still limited in what I can do now.  BUT, I am on the right track and will do what I can get to now and plan for much more when I can.

4.  As I mentioned above, one of the continuing good news stories is my strength training.  The progress is still VERY slow but if I continue getting stronger every week or two AS I HAVE BEEN for the past several months and continue for another few years and am able to add back more safe to do leg exercises and make that progress with them, I will keep adding muscle when most people 15 years younger than I lose that much muscle or even more in the same time period!

I now do two sessions a week for upper body strength training.  At one, I am doing more reps at the slightly faster slow speed and fewer reps with a heavier weight than I was using. The progress is a bit slow; but it IS happening.  At the second session two days later, I use a couple of notches less weight BUT I do more reps and at the slower slow speed.  In that session, I just did 20 reps with each hand in an exercise that was MUCH harder for just 9 reps not long ago.  I’m at the point I can jump the weight for those sets! 

And, in that second session, I’m now doing an instant second part of each set with a lighter weight to help force the muscle to grow more.  It’s too early to tell about those hoped for results..  But I am already doing a bit more repetitions in those second parts of each set.

At my last session, I made progress on all five sets of those exercises.

THAT is encouraging!

My leg strength training is mostly better.  My ONE substitute for the leg press on the machine is gradually doing better. 

I dropped the one that was both too hard and tweaking my knee tendons.  The other is one at a time lunges several times with each leg while holding dumbbells to add to the effort.  I was adding five pounds twice a week.  Now I’m at 89 pounds, the equivalent of adding 178 pounds or more with two legs, I’ll have to add the weight more slowly after that.  But I can begin to do more and slower repetitions.

(I was at 80 pounds last month.)

But it IS working.  I believe I’ve added some muscle in my thighs and butt and definitely feel the pumped and exercised effect the next day.

I’m now at the point I can add weights to my hands while I do the lunge style one legged squats.  If increasing the weight is as easy as I expect it to be and I get no recurrence of my left leg injury limitation, that will be great! That’s because I’ll be working my legs harder with a heavier weight one leg a time than when I was doing both sides at once.

Once I can do 7 complete reps at a superslow speed all the way down and up with each leg while holding 89 pounds – like over 178 pounds with two legs., I think I’ll add enough muscle in my legs, lower back, and butt to cut my belly fat a bit.

My one leg at a time calf exercises are still making excellent progress on my right leg. 

I had to scale all the way back to zero and more on my injured left Achilles tendon.

I had to drop from holding a 35 or 37 pound dumbbell for 12 superslow reps to doing ONE with no dumbbell at all for my left leg.  BUT now that I do five with my right leg with 37 and do a warm up set of 14 where I use both legs to go up and go down slow after reading that was a successful treatment.  So, I can now exercise my left leg without it hurting right then OR after the workout!

Once I get to 12 full and slow reps with my left leg which is finally looking possible, I can try to repeat the process with 3 pounds instead of zero and hope to gradually build back to 37 as I do now with my right leg.

So, I just keep my right leg exercises the same until I can gradually build back my left leg to do that weight again -- 35 to 37 pounds plus all my bodyweight for 12 superslow reps.

By doing the similar style with the lighter weight with my injured leg and doing the same weight with my right leg, the studies show that by doing those two things,  once the injury heals, the strength will build back just fine relatively quickly.  So even though it’s irritating to have to wait a few weeks for that to happen, my confidence in the method is as good as it was before.

Then if all keeps going well, I’ll need to buy a new 40 pound dumbbell as the 35 pound with the 2 pound wrist weight will not be enough to be challenging if this keeps up.

(I also have made enough gains in my arm exercises to go to the 40 pound dumbbell for one exercise!)

Overall, my muscles LOOK a bit bigger, particularly my arms and shoulders; and though my middle is still fat, my thighs have definition and are clearly hard and toned.

So even though I’ve not gained enough muscles in size or weight to increase how much they weigh and the calories they burn as I’d like to do ---  After another year or so, I may gain a pound or two of muscle at an age when most people lose 5 pounds of muscle instead!

4.  My progressive short sets of high intensity, interval cardio have been a mixed review. 

But the overall news is still better since last month!

(I kept my two weekly sessions of 4 sets of back to back abdominal exercises and my weekly 10 minute session of intense variable cardio on my Nordic track where I was already at a high level I’d worked up to gradually.)

My new cardio 5 sets that had gone to 50 last time on the way to 98 each that I plan, I had gone to 60 and expected now to be at 74; but at 60 I developed two minor injuries in each of two sets and am now almost to 62 in all 5 sets. Once that happens, I’ll be back on my way to 98 each.

5.  It’s just a matter of time too to the day I can get and use the Vitamix to boost my vegetable intake enough to lose some fat that way.   

And, I did just find out that removing a few things for a week once a month may enable me to lose fat that week every month.

And, by maintaining the extra vegetables all month, that plus the continuing improvements in my exercises may really get me there.

So the conclusion is that despite being hammered more than usual by outside negative influences, I’m still maintaining most of my efforts that lost fat for me to begin with.  AND, I’m still adding promising new things that are working already or might work.

AND, I plan to both continue doing that and have even more in the pipeline for as soon as I can manage to add them.