The Chairman's Fitness Challenge Blog

Today was day 1 in another 52 Day Challenge, and I am psyched!  I did a warm-up on our beautiful holiday Monday with a great cardio class ("Bodyattack", one of the Les Mills classes offed at my gym).  I rounded that off by riding my bike to the gym and back (taking the trails on the way home) and jumping in the pool afterwards.

The official weigh-in today was 206.8lbs, a little higher than my best weight during the last challenge, but still within reason given the slacking off that has taken place over the past couple of weeks.  I'm shooting for a 10.5lb weight loss, and that will be my main focus.  I am starting a 12-session circuit training class tonight - that will be the core of my resistance training plan for the next few weeks.  I've done the class before and it is a great challenge! 

Posting blog updates has slipped down the list of priorities this challenge, but a few thoughts now that the challenge half-way-point has passed would be appropriate.  I'm feeling pretty good about my progress, even if the numbers are a little behind.  The Hard-Body plan seems to hit all the right muscles, and I am being diligent about upping the weights whenever I hit ten reps on an exercise.  As a result, I've seen some good gains in strength on things like my bench press and hack squat.  I am considering changing to an "A-B-A" routine three times a week, using the same exercises split over two days instead of three (this is an option in the book).

On the CT front, I'm definitely seeing some cardio gains as well.  I feel like my cadence is up during cycling classes, and my blood pressure and heartrate seem a little bit improved even over the past few weeks.  Today I did a 2.5 mile run on the dreadmill non-stop, hitting that distance for maybe the first time in my life.  I took the pace down about 10% from my usual, keeping it slow-and-steady at about 5.6 or 5.7 mph (0.5 degree incline) until cranking it up faster for the last half-mile or so.  My plan is to get to where I can pound out 3.1 miles (5km) or more comfortably non-stop at that speed as a baseline, then start speeding it up and doing some intervals to improve my pace.   


 

I am starting to think about the goals for the summer challenge, which starts next week.  I am probably going to add a bit to each of my core goals, maybe 24 CT's, 22 RT's and 90 CE's.  These are stretch goals, but if I focus I think they are achievable.

The main personal goal is one I am undecided on though.  The 5% weigh tloss challenge is a good goal, although I have only achieved it once (thanks to a wicked bout of the flu that kept me from eating for a few days.  Great for weight loss!)  The other one I am considering is a running foal - maybe 52 miles (1 mile per day average) over the course of the challenge.  It does not sound like much, but I intend to keep doing the cycling on weekends, so realistically I'll only be running once or twice a week.  With a good run for me topping out at about 3 miles, the 52 mile objective suddenly looks pretty challenging!  I have a little time, but one of these two goals will no doubt be my major personal goal this time around. 

We are into the last few hours of the 52-day challenge, and I can report that I have achieved 5 out of my six goals.  I failed to reach my weight loss objective, but other than that I met or exceeded everything else!  This isn't the end - it is just a mile marker on this journey, and I will be joining the next 52 day challenge starting in about eighteen days!

I will update the final numbers on Saturday after doing a final weigh-in.  In the meantime, this is an opportunity to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses exposed in this challenge, and come up with a new set of objectives to make myself stronger in the next one.

The title of this post is something a certain trainer/instructor has told me often - how you finish one session sets the tone for how you start the next. If you coast at the end of one class, you will have a hard time getting off to a good start at the next one.  That thought is a good one as this 52 day challenge winds down.

Here in the home stretch of this 52 Day Challenge, I've had a chance to learn a bit about the goals I had set and how relevant they are to my fitness goals.  Obviously, the core workout and eating goals are important.  I think the objective of 21 cardio sessions this time around may have been a little light, as I am hitting between three and four workouts a week on average.  Next challenge, I may bump that up to 25 to ensure a good stretch goal.  The RT number is pretty close, as I am targeting three sessions a week (in line with the Hard Body plan I am following).

I am right on the edge with my goal of 88 clean eats.  I was really hoping for 94 this time, giving me a shot at platinum, but I find that eating clean is the toughest part of the challenge for me.   Not coincidentally, it is also the goal that seems to have the greatest effect on my weight loss.  I am ready to bump this number up a bit next time, maybe to ninety.  Slow and steady.

On the discretionary goals, I think the 5% challenge is a good stretch target.  I am going to miss this one, but it is definitely achievable and I will keep that one on the list.  The 1500 crunches has been a tough one- I bumped this up from 1000 my last challenge, and it takes a certain amount of discipline to throw in one or two sets of crunches after every workout to keep the numbers moving in the right direction.  However, I'm not sure that doing crunches forever is really the best use of my time, and is not having the effect of significantly strengthening my core.  I will probably replace this one with something more holistic - maybe pushups, planks, or some other full-body exercise.  

The posting goal was really a one-time thing - although I intend to keep up the blog, I won't be setting a minimum number of posts next time. 

New goals?  The 3600 challenge is something I find intimidating, so I might take that one on as a personal challenge.  The 40-4-40 objective is a great one - I think I would have been close on that one this time around if I was tracking it.  That's another possibility.  And there are any number of other goals - running miles, strength gains on basic exercises like bench press, etc.  I have a lot of thinking to do before picking the five or six goals that will be my focus next time around.  These final days of the challenge are a good opportunity to try stuff out and maybe identify the right goals for me next time around.

I am a procrastinator.  It is one of my biggest flaws - I will never do today that which can be completed tomorrow.  That really came back to bite me in my last 52DC, when I had to do three workouts the final day to hit my numbers, and ended up getting locked out of the gym that final night and came up one short on the RT's.

you'd think I would learn - but yesterday, I put off my RT due to some muscle soreness.  It shouldn't be critical, but it puts me two RT's away from hitting twenty-one by the end of the challenge.  A little tighter than I'd like to be.

And did I mention the two blown CE's on Friday, leaving me with just one more cheat if I'm to reach my eating goal?  Again, making this way harder than it needs to be.

I'm still determined to hit all three major goals, though - it will take a strong focus this week but it will happen.

I want to get my 26 blog posts in too, so the blogosphere better be ready for a bunch of posts (five more after this one!) this week!

As of mid-day Sunday, here's how my progress is shaping up...

The results that people are achieving through the 52 Day challenge can be pretty impressive - body fat loss, muscle and strength gains, and improved performance in any number of different exercises or activities.  How does such a simple, unstructured program work to help participants achieve their personal goals?
One word - ACCOUNTABILITY. The discipline to, first, set the goals, then sit down every day and assess performance, also serves as motivation to work harder towards them. Although this seems obvious to me, a new study from UNC and the University of Kentucky, looking at eating habits, confirms it scientifically.  (The study was reported in the National Post today - LINK).

An interesting finding of the study is that the self-monitoring (writing things down) is a more effective motivator than peer motivation (ie reporting to a group, working with a trainer, or posting in a forum). That actually makes sense to me as well - I know from experience that I can post all I want, but if without wanting the end result enough, I won't make progress towards it. Posting my progress for all the world to see can be motivating, but it is taking the time to plan, log and track progress that sets the table for results, whether I just track it in a personal logbook or post it up for public consumption.

I think the main value of the 52DC forum is it does provide a framework for that sort of self-monitoring - it establishes start dates, end dates, and some suggested categories of goals; the rest of the process is left up to the participants. It is an ideal way to ensure that each participants owns their own goals and is accountable to themselves to ensure the targets are challenging and well-suited to their own fitness/wellness objectives.

My workout numbers are hiding a worrisome fact for this challenge - I've hit that rut that makes the commitment a lot tougher to achieve.  Although I'm on track on both the resistance and cardio portions, I've had a heck of a time dragging my but in for a lower-body workout this week.  I've been avoiding the weights, jumping into cardio classes or running on the treadmill to put off the inevitable.

Well, THAT STOPPED TONIGHT.  I got in a good lower-body RT, with big-weight (for me) front squats, leg extensions & curls, and my first sets of Bulgarian split squats of the challenge.  That whole thing about "muscle memory" seems to be a farce, by the way... a few times I almost toppled over during those sets, even at relatively low weights.

With the long weekend coming up, I'm hoping to get in at least two RT's and 2-3 CT's, and keep the diet clean.  I need to ramp up the water intake as well; I stopped drinking water, for the most part, and I'm actually seeing a negative impact from that on my weight.  Less than 2-3 litres of water in a day, and I think the body retains what little does come in.

Two days into the 52DC and I'm off to a good start, I think.  My daughter is visiting the grandparents for a few days so this is a good opportunity to get a jump on things.  I've booked two RT's and a CT already - a semi-spontaneous spin class on day one, along with an upper body workout, and then a lower body/core workout tonight for day two.  Might shift my hours ahead at work tomorrow to get in the evening spin class for another CT.

Tonight's clean eating was my first real hurdle - we went out to a great pub with a huge collection of micro-brews (including their house beer, which is AWESOME.  If anyone is in the area, I highly recommend the Golden Kiwi in Cambridge for good, fresh food, a unique menu, and a nice atmosphere.)  I behaved, skipped the fries with dinner and limited myself to a glass and a half of wine instead of two pints of beer.  Overall, my afternoon passed muster for a CE  so I'm 4 for 4.  Cool.

I've been missing form the 52DC community for a while but I haven't given up the fitness routine.  I have been hitting the gym fairly regularly 3-4 times a week, sometimes more, with my usual mix of spin classes and weight training.  As part of this challenge, I'm focusing on heavier free weights rather than some of the lower-weight, higher-rep stuff I was doing as part of a circuit training routine.

The three keys to succeeding in this challenge, for me, will be:

1)  hitting the weights.  As mentioned above, strength training is a priority - I want to get back to 3-4 times a week, split upper/lower body, and a focus on the "big" exercises like squats and bench press.

2)  higher protein, lower carbs.  No white bread, limited beer (1-2/week), and raw veggies instead of simple sugars/starches will all be part of my clean eating agenda.  I've found a local source for small all-natural corn tortillas, only 55 calories each along with protein and fibre - they have replaced bread in a lot of my meals already.

3)  high-intensity cardio, primarily on the bike, though I might start hitting the dreadmill and local outdoor running paths again.  My new running shoes have been festering in my trunk all winter, and it's time to break them out.

The prize at the end of this will be finally throwing out the ten-year-old Nikes I've been wearing for cycling and weight training, replaced with a good pair of lifting shoes and a pair of cycling shoes.  My hatred for those old shoes has become quite personal, they symbolize a whole lot of sloth that will finally be vanquished when I finally reach my 52DC weight goal of 199 lbs.

I had great cardio sessions on Saturday and Sunday, both spin classes with instructors who seemed to have something to prove.  I managed to keep up, and feel that my leg speed is definitely increasing (one of my objectives) even with a pretty healthy level of resistance.  I had one of those awkward moments yesterday, I'm out of the saddle and "climbing" with heavy resistance, and cranking it up every time the instructor exhorted us to give him more.  Then he had us sit down and hold resistance - without the leverage of standing, my legs ground to a complete halt and I could not for the life of me get the pedals moving again!  Needless to say, I lightened the load as discretely as possible.  It was amazing how hard I was pushing with the adrenalin pumping up to that point though...  I'd put each cardio session at about a 9 out of 10 in terms of hitting my objectives.

My RT's were a little weaker - I did an upper body on Saturday and a lower body on Sunday.  Both days, I was a bit rushed trying to get them in.  I did heavier loading but fewer sets of each exercise, managing to hit all the major body groups but with less than the three sets I usually do.  Felt like reasonably good workouts, but probably only 6 or 7 out of ten on the overall scale of achieving everything possible out of them.  Might try to hit upper body again on Monday.

I'm going through a serious motivational trough.  I pulled a couple of late nights this week working on a report, and between being squeezed for time, feeling tired, and trying to stay ahead of some family obligations, the gym has been a foreign place to me this week.  Waking up in the dark, driving home in the dark, and having to walk through freezing rain hasn't helped.  I can't seem to get fired up about the fitness thing right now.  I haven't even posted this week sine I've got nothing to really report.

Today feels pretty good when it comes to my fitness challenge.  It started off with a small, CE-friendly breakfast (Kashi Go Lean), then off of the gym with a plan to hit the 8:30am spin class.  Turns out the class was full, so I hit the weights instead.  My triceps and delts are still sore from my last upper body split, so I focused on lower body.  Front squats, split squats, lunges to start (only two sets each though) then hit the machines for leg extensions and leg curls.  I topped it off with some core stuff - back extensions and hanging leg raises (with twists).  Feeling pretty good, I grabbed a bike in the 9:30 spin class and got my cardio in too.

It has been quite a while since I did a full-blown double RT/CT session like that, and I can't remember the last time I did front squats.  They seem to help me keep proper form - I have a tendency to lean forward during squats and I seem to keep back better with the weight in the front.  This was probably my first time in six months on that evil haning leg raise contraption too - but it felt pretty good!  All in all, a good day so far!

It's been kind of a good news/bad news weekend when it comes to the challenge.  I've booked three CT sessions, all spin classes, because the timing just worked out well for them and it's been a bit of a challenge synching up the schedules to get those classes in.  And honestly, I think it is a better workout in terms of cardio and weight loss than my fat-ass self huffing on a treadmill for 20 minutes or so.

That said, I do have two reasons I should be getting the running in - my 100km objective, and finishing the C25K program that I'm well into.  In order to hit the 100km, I need to do about 21 runs in the remaining 47 days.  That math is getting kind of tight, unless I can start running outside in the cold evenings, or making some other change.

Today, I did a couple of km after my spin class, and I don't see that as a viable solution at all unless I want to be scraped off the treadmill and dumped in a heap outside the gym by their cleaning staff.  And that is not my goal.

Right now, the running thing is a secondary goal, and the focus will remain on the major goals of CT's, RT's, and clean eating.  The 5% weight loss is also a priority.

Since today is a day off from exercise (Tuesday and Thursday are typically off) I figured a mention of my eating habits might be warranted.  A few principles I'm following include ALWAYS eating breakfast (usually Kashi Go Lean Crunch w/milk, or a protein shake), eating small snacks mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and keeping portion size down.  I've really noticed a difference in how much I eat when I'm not going even hours between lunch and dinner!

Today I lucked into a chick pea salad as a side dish at lunch.  I had no idea how healthy chick peas (aka garbanzo beans) really are!  Lots of protein, some fiber, and a very reasonable amount of calories for an adult-sized serving.  Some onion, bell pepper, and vinaigrette, and I was good to go!!!  I'm going to try out this recipe next time - the humble garbanzo bean may become a staple during this challenge!

Wednesday marked the first day of the challenge and I marked it by eating clean and getting in another midnight run on the treadmill.  The stamina, once again, pretty much sucked during the running - I'm not sure that the late-night stuff is working all that well for me.  However, it's better than the alternative of going all week without darkening the door of the gym.  I think it's about time to move on to week eight on the C25K sched, although the 25 minutes is a real struggle without a minute or two of walking in the middle.  Maybe I'll do another week at the week 7 level before ratcheting it up to 28 minutes.  I really want to get to the 5k/3.1 mile mark over the next few runs - I've hit 2.9 miles and Wednesday was a 2.6 mile day before I bailed.  45 crunches on the swiss ball before hitting the showers was my punishment for wimping out...

I got in my run today - probably week six day three although with my wimpy performance lately it's tough to tell.  I did 2.9 miles (including warm-up and cool-down), and ran for about 25 minutes (actual run time) plus a 90-second break at about 16 minutes.  It actually is feeling good now to run for that duration - I've found a pace that I can keep up and my heart rate settles in right around 150bpm and stays there in steady-state.  Today, I did a few minutes faster, including a 30-second sprint at the end, and it all seemed to go well.  

The next 52-day challenge starts Wednesday, so I need to figure out what my resistance training schedule is going to look like (along with my clean eating menu).  I'm looking forward to it - my weight has kind of plateaued (although I's seeing continued progress in the way clothes are fitting) and I really want to jump-start some weight loss with the goal of losing about 13 lbs by the end of the year (a little more than 6% of by BW).  My last challenge, I dropped that much, so I know it's possible, as long as I stay away from beer and fast food.

My five-hour adventure putting the pool cover on for the winter kind of took over my day Monday, preventing me from getting in my run that day. Between the five hours on my knees on hard concrete (did I mention it took FIVE FREAKIN' HOURS?), two hours freezing at the Oktoberfest/Thanksgiving Parade, and shortened holiday hours at the gym, the 25-minute run wasn't going to happen.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be the midnight run after my M&A class - maybe with the full-body machine circuit as well.  (1 set per machine, as heavy as I can move for 8-10 reps, and you can get an approximation of a full-body workout in about a half hour!)

On a happier note, I did a "proper" upper-body workout using free weights and cables on Saturday.  My strength is increasing noticeably on the seated row and presses (chest and shoulder/military), and holy smokes, I think I see definition starting in my shoulders and pecs!  I felt that great, honest burn in the back and chest on Sunday, and I could feel it in my neck during my Sunday AM spin class (which was a little disconcerting - I could imagine my arms giving out, me falling off the bike and starting a thirty-bike chain reaction similar to dominoes falling!)

Well, this challenge was a success for me. I met all my goals, including achieving a weight loss of thirteen pounds (versus a 5% challenge goal of 11 pounds!) It feels great, and now I am getting right into a new position with a new company on Monday, just as the challenge ends.

I do have a few thoughts on each goal:

Clean eating - 80/104 goal, 83/104 actual - I definitely made some changes to my diet and chose cleaner options at several meals, and this contributed greatly to achieving some of the other goals. I think that, with a little effort, I could have achieved 90 or more, but it is tough with social expectations (barbeques and dinner parties) and a family that is not really bought into the same type of clean eating that I try to accomplish. I picked up a lot of knowledge I'll take with me as the challenge ends.

Resistance training - 20 goal, 20 actual - having taken a week off due to sickness, this needed a big push at the end to complete. I am fairly happy with my progress in this area, but it's probably time for me to commit to a full program (such as the Hard-Body Plan) with a little more structure.

Cardio training - 25 goal, 26 actual - I am REALLY happy with the results here. I have seen an increase in my cardio capacity, and even a drop in blood pressure over the course of this challenge. I've noticed that a good cardio workout is pretty much an average half-pound drop for me as long as I eat reasonably in the day or two around it.

5% challenge - dropped from 221lbs to 208lbs. Very noticeable drop in stomach size as well - pretty close to three inches.

Spin classes - 20 goal, 21 actual - This has proven to be the best workout for me at my current level of fitness. I've gone from not being able to do standing climbs on the bike, to feeling like I am keeping up with the class and increasing my leg speed with every session. Having the encouragement (in all its forms) from the instructor has really let me get more from my cardio workouts than I otherwise might.

Crunches - 800 goal, 857 actual - This was a good goal to have because it encouraged me to do some ab exercises at times I might have not planned to. Looking back, I think the goal was a little low - I should have tried for 1000. I exceeded the target even with some lack of diligence during the middle part of the challenge.

I haven't posted in a few days, since I've finally had some activity on the job search front and it's crunch time with the classes I'm taking. A few quick thoughts...

1) Thanks to strepthroat, I've achieved my 5% weight loss challenge goal! My weight's been holding steady for a week or so, here's hoping that this weight loss is "real" and won't come back now that I'm eating more than arrowroot cookies and soup.

2) Timing issues (spin class schedule) is really jeopardizing my new-and-improved, bumped-up goal of 20 spin classes! I might need to find clubs elsewhere within driving distance who offer mid-day or Tues/Thurs classes to get up to 20 for the challenge.

3) I'm not sure if it's part of my pec or my anterior shoulder, but there is some weird muscle that is really developing on both sides. Never knew it was there until this challenge!

I'm down to the wire on all the exercise goals, so I need to really prioritize them to get them done. The way the numbers are, I'm in real danger of missing all of them by one or two, and getting a big "0-fer" at the end of the challenge. Can't let that happen!