Thoughts on Stage 1

I’m 5 workouts from being done with Stage 1. I’ve already decided to skip the AMRAP workouts and go straight into Stage 2. Honestly, if I was brand new to lifting, I wouldn’t skip them, but I know how strong I am so I am just going to skip them.

Through my own bad choices over the past 8 months, I’ve pretty much managed to return to the weight where I started this journey at. My body composition is radically different from the first time around, but I still have roughly 100 lbs to lose. I took a step back this past week and looked at where I was seeing consistent progress with lifting and losing weight – it was where I was eating the same amount of calories day in and day out and lifting 3x a week. Even when I was eating 2500 calories a day doing NROL FL1 after I tanked, I still lost, albeit slower.  

From my perspective, the diet started going haywire with caloric cycling. The cycling triggers binging behavior in me. The decision is to go back to isocaloric days. I took the total calories for the week that I am supposed to be eating and divided it by 7 to get an isocaloric value for each day. Right now I’m eating 2100 calories a day. I’ll keep an eye on my energy levels and make adjustments accordingly.

With R.’s Dad passing, I have an added dimension to my workouts that I haven’t had in a long time - R as a workout partner. I’d really like to get to the point where we are doing free weight work together. Right now though we are adding more walking and cardio to the program so I burn off some of the fat that I have put on over the past few months.

HELL Day 23

Have you ever tried to demo a lunge when you legs are fried??? I tried today and I just about fell over doing it. The Wide Stance Deadlifts and the Lunges really do a number on my rear end. I’m definitely seeing improvement but I have trouble walking for a day or two after I do the previously mentioned exercises. So I swapped my cardio days… I did intervals this afternooon (6 rounds) because my legs just couldn’t handle cone hops.

And now for the confession session. After looking at my stuff from yesterday in Fitday this evening, I discovered that I went over my calories during my cheat meal. I didn’t pay close enough attention to how the pizza was supposed to be divided. I did enjoy the food though.

HELL Day 1

Calories for the day 2500  (YEAH FOR LIFTING DAYS)

I am feeling the muscle love tonight….. ought to make for interesting aerobic drills tomorrow.

DB Front Squat superset (SS) (60 seconds of rest after each superset)
1×15x20s
2×15x15s

Lat Pulldowns
3×15x5 plates (which I think are 12.5 lbs each. Need to find out from jeff or jason)

Lat Raises SS (60 seconds of rest after each superset)
1×15x5s
2×15x8s
Last reps on last set of these were really tough. My arms were trembling.

Good Mornings
3×15x45 (bar) (Jeff watched me as I did these, he said my form was very good. Plan on increasing the weight for these carefully)

Incline DB Flyes (3×15x5s) SS
Swiss Ball Crunches (1×20x20, 2×20x15s) – I’m really feeling these tonight
(45 seconds of rest after each set)

Side Planks
3×15 seconds (30 seconds of rest after the first 2, 60 seconds after the last 1)
Did these on each side
Right side 9,9,6 seconds, left side 10,11,10 seconds

Realized after looking at the sheet I might not be doing these correctly because there is a tempo of 0-2-0 written. Need to get clarification from Leigh.

15 minutes of aerobic activity at 55-65 MHR. – I made it through 8 minutes on a 6% grade and 2.9 for the treadmill speed.

Pre-HELL Post 1

So I’m about to begin another fitness journey – 90 days of H.E.L.L.  Tomorrow I will start following Leigh Peele’s Generic H.E.L.L. Program. H.E.L.L. stands for High Energy Lethal Lipolysis and is geared towards fat loss without damaging your metabolism.

I’ve been working out for the last 9 months but have spent the last month and half taking a break from the dieting. It’s time to get back on track though.  So here are the gory details.

I’ll be doing a 90 day program that incorporates diet, exercise (in the form of resistance training, mobility work, Aerobic activity, and if I need to additional exercise) and rest days. There will be nine, 10-day cycles that tie all of this together and the diet will cycle calories and protein based on the type of activity being performed on a specific day and my body weight. The only dietary “restriction”- if you can call it that – is that all my carbs will come from fruits and veggies – no grains, rice, beans or oats.