We’re now two-thirds of the way through the Rampant Discourse Fitness Dare. How are our participants feeling? Are they noticing any improvements yet? Let’s check in and see:
Paul
Going into this fitness challenge, there was an event in late February which I was dreading: My birthday. It’s not because I hate getting old (although it does suck), but it’s because I knew it was going to be next to impossible to strictly stick to my diet with the onslaught of well-wishing family and friends pushing cakes and delicious dinners at me. My wife, bless her, ultimately ended up planning three different birthday dinners that ended up having three different cakes to go with it:
- A sushi dinner with a homemade Oreo cake
- Another sushi dinner
- A Brazilian steakhouse dinner (ie, all-you-can-eat meat) with a slice of cheesecake AND a store bought Wegman’s cake
And of course there was cake at work to celebrate February birthdays as well. All things considered, I think I did a fairly decent job of eating in moderation (except for the Brazilian steakhouse), but there’s little doubt to me that this check-in is going to be during the period which saw the worst adherence to my diet.
It’s not all birthday cake and birthday dinner, though. I’ve been more lax about “special occasions” for drinking an alcoholic beverage or two. It has also been hard keeping up with preparing food for lunch every day. My second batch of chicken thighs turned out horrible and I’m starting to get tired of having the same salad 4 times a week. I’ve mostly managed to avoid fast food, but I have fallen back on my default Soylent drinks for more lunches than I would like. I’m hoping to shake things up a bit by preparing some different meals that I haven’t prepared in awhile and trying to find another way to work veggies into my diet instead of relentless salad.
Luckily, my exercising has been able to rebound somewhat from an inconsistent and injury-riddled first month. I escaped February unscathed (knocking furiously on wood) and while I did have some weeks where I fell short on my minimum number of workouts, I also started sprinkling in some days where I did multiple workouts (often a light one in the morning and heavier one in the evening). I’ve also started to notice some improvements in my physical conditioning. I seem to be able to last longer into workouts before having to take a break. My max bench-press numbers have improved and I’m able to do more pull-ups in a row than I was a month ago. I also think that I might be starting to see the barest hints of muscle peaking out from underneath my layers of blubber.
The scale very strongly disagrees, however. I’ve started to take my measurements a little more often to make sure I’m not getting thrown off by outliers, and across the board my numbers have gotten a little worse since last check-in:
- Weight – 186.2 lbs (up 2 pounds)
- Body Fat – 19.3 (up 0.5)
- Muscle Mass – 37.1 (down 0.1)
- Max Bench Press – 200 lbs (even)
As you can see, a disturbing number of my metrics have returned to where they were at the initial check-in. This has been the story of my life, when it comes to my previous attempts to get in shape: I start seeing some tiny results before either immediately plateauing, or worse, seeing those results roll back. I’m disappointed, but am not giving up and even more motivated to move those numbers before the final check-in.
Travis
The DDP Yoga Fat Burner routine has replaced the old Energy routine as the go-to in the schedule. It’s definitely a better workout for me. I also started sprinkling in Red Hot Core, a shorter routine focused on the abs. Some of the moves are similar to what I do on ab day in the Bruce Lee exercises. That’s good, since I feel my core is my weakest area despite my great sense of balance.
There must be something about the first week of each block. I woke up that Tuesday not feeling great, but I still got through my abs workout, even doing an extra set of leg raises, oblique twists, and frog kicks. But my stomach felt worse and worse as the day progressed. I skipped lunch and dinner entirely. I fell asleep on the couch around 5:30pm and effectively slept the next 36 hours. Suffice to say I didn’t work out Wednesday and skipped Thursday morning as well. Not a great start.
My fourth and final week of this block wasn’t as bad as the first but definitely suffered from straining my right shoulder over the previous weekend. I spent long periods of time on Saturday and Sunday throwing a football and a baseball with my son. His arm never seems to tire, but my shoulder and neck were sore all week. I went through my normal back workout that Tuesday but I think the rows exacerbated my shoulder. I had to do a light leg workout Wednesday and replaced the scheduled DDP Yoga workout with the Red Hot Core routine which only requires laying on your back. By the final Friday I was able to do the Fat Burner routine again. I didn’t feel great about toning down my exercise but after a couple setbacks already I didn’t want to totally blow it.
I’m pretty sure a contributing factor to my first setback this block was pure exhaustion. Given my schedule, I wake up at 5:30am so I can work out, shower, eat breakfast, and get to work by 7:00am, although that often turns into 7:30am. Exercising after work doesn’t really mesh with my life, since I jump right into activities with the kids, preparing and eating dinner, and getting the kids to bed. Oh, and sometimes actually getting to spend time with my wife! Getting up that early means I have to go to sleep relatively early, especially relative to my fellow Discourser night owls. When I let that schedule slip and stay up late, even just one night, it starts a chain reaction of bad sleep.
So, speaking of finding time to do exercises, I just read a 2017 Outside article, The Minimalist’s Strength Workout, that really hits my philosophy on exercise. It also jives with the minimum effective dose philosophy popularized by Tim Ferriss. I’d rather do the smallest set of highly effective exercises than waste my time simply expending energy.
I still weigh myself once a week, on Monday morning before I work out, but it still feels like noise. After the first week of this block, the scale claimed I lost over 5 pounds. Now at the end I’m basically back to where I was. Just goes to show the vagaries of using weight on a scale as your metric. Using the eye test I definitely feel like I am making progress on my upper body. I see more definition in my shoulders and chest, and I might even be able to see some definition forming in my abs.
Andrew
Andrew was apparently too lazy to fill out his check-in this time around, so in his honor, here is an artist’s rendition of what he has been doing since the last check-in:
Update (3/5/2020): We have received updated information on what Andrew was doing recently other than updating his check-in for this month:
In my defense, I was also busy working the election. But ribbing well-deserved and well-received.