Lots to update...2 workouts plus week 8's tale of the tape!

I've been incredibly busy - too busy to update this blog!


Occam A from 3/24/2011

Occam B from 3/28/2011

Tale of the tape week 8 results. Take notice of total body inches now - all the way to the right - and the total body inches at the start. It's quite impressive! 

Occam B workout results

Made some changes again.  Why? Because I am getting stronger and want to move over to free weights.  I added the leg press and it was much easier to do with some actual leg strength! I could really feel all my muscles working.  I got off the machine for incline bench and moved to dumbbell press for that.  Bring it. 


I will be going to the free weight preacher curl next week.

Tale of the tape - week 7 results

Below are today's tape measurements.  It's pretty clear that I am all over the map with how to accurately measure bodyfat, and am ok with assuming I still have A LOT of it.  I weighed in at 210 today, which is just .5 lb down from last week.  I would like to note that I had "spring break" last week from school and treated myself to a few non-diet meals to some unforeseen circumstances and just plain fun. I will be having a mid week "binge" day next week to celebrate Kim's defense, so that's another piece coming up. 


In all,  am pretty psyched to be down around 210 considering the week I just had.  Here I come sub 200!

Rockin and rollin on the Occam protocol

Added upright rows into the mix. My workouts should be pretty static for the next four weeks. 

I will do a week 1 - week X comparison soon.

Vacation is an SOB

I've had the week off of school, and while that seems like a small added bonus, its pretty sweet. So, considering I hit below 210, I decided to give myself a small break from the diet grind and had a few non-diet sanctioned meals. I will be back on this Friday 3/18/2011.  For those wondering, I had more pizza on Wednesday (some friends ordered food and I had to be gracious and accept) and today I had an all day shopping situation with the fiancée and I said what the heck, it's vacation. 


So, I may weigh in on Tuesday the same, but, no more binge-esque days for me this week. Next "binge" day/meal will be  3/26/2011. 


Tomorrow (Friday 3/18/2011) is Occam A and I will be adding upright rows into the mix and lowering the weight on my two back exercises. It's not that I do not have the strength to do them, is that at a lighter weight the form and failure is more consistent. I seem to be working my hands more than anything. 


Also, interesting article about the impact 7 M&Ms a day can have on you.
http://hypothermics.com/2011/03/seven-mms/

Tale of the tape - week 6 results

Well... I think it's time to officially change my April 1 weigh in goal from 210 to 205 because I weighed in at 210.5 today! WOOT!  Results below....

Strong like bull

Here are my Occam B results. I decided to switch up to the leg press today. The squat rack with the guides just isnt doing it for me. Notice the nice gains in bench and preacher curl. I also added french press into the mix.  I think I have enough of a base where I can start adding. 

Stay tuned.. tomorrow is the tale of the tape!

Binge Meal

I cheated today and stepped on the scale.... I weighed in at 212lbs! WOOT!  Still keeping the strategy at one binge meal, not 2, and not anything I can shovel in.  It was really tough today because I went to a birthday party (3rd in 4 weeks) and had NO pizza, NO cake, NO ice cream and NO philipino food (which looked delicious!).  I had my fillet and broccoli. 

My binge meal was 3 pieces of pepperoni pizza with extra cheese + 1 snack bag of cool ranch doritos + 3 girl scout cookies.  

I am headed over to a friends house tomorrow and someone there will be making gourmet pizza. Might be too tough to pass up. I guess one extra meal wont kill me eh? 

Book Sale Results!

Went to the local library's book sale today and got some gems for a grand total of $13.50.
Here they are with Amazon links

Ugly Americans - Ben Mezrich
Who's Looking Out for You? - Bill O'Reilly
The New Realities - Peter Drucker
Ronald Reagan In Private - Jim Kuhn
Getting to Yes - Roger Fisher and William Ury
Real Money - Jim Kramer
The Age of Turbulence - Alan Greenspan
Rigged - Ben Mezrich - I already own this, got it so I could give it out as a gift
The Way Things Ought to Be - Rush Limbaugh
Next Man Up - John Feinstein - I listen to "The Tony Kornheiser" show and he's a constant guest. Figured I'd give him a shot. Possible gift for my step-brother
Leadership - Rudy Giuliani
7 Habits - Steve Covey - for my dad. He cant find his copy
A Good Walk Spoiled - John Feinstein - for my dad as a gift
The Majors - John Feinstein - for my dad as a gift

Occam A workout results from 3/10/2011

I had an extra day of rest this week because I was too busy with project work to get out to the gym for even the 20 minute workout. Here are my results from this week.  This is an exported report from the iFitness program I use on my ipod. I dont do them in this order - no idea why it does that.

Tale of the tape

Needless to say, it's been a busy week. I wanted to do a video update, but I just dont have the time for the back end processing.  So here you go. I decided to do a screen cap instead so you could see the changes for yourself. Now - the body fat data is still suspect because Kim and I are new to using the calipers.  Let's see what happens next week.  That should give a better picture of what's going on. 

Click the image to see the data better

Occam B workout and my new binge day strategy results

Occam B
Did the Occam B workout today. Still couldnt get to 10 on the squat, but I can definately tell my legs are getting stronger.  I am upping the weight on the bench next time around as I hit 9 reps this time around at 120.  Preacher curl was good at 7 but I will probably increase that as well.

Incline bench - 120lbs 9 reps
Squat - 185lbs 7reps
Preacher Curl - 50lbs 7 reps

My weight Saturday morning was 216.

New Binge Day Strategy
Instead of having an entire day (12ish hours) to eat whatever I want, I decided to make it just one meal.  I had a normal no carb  breakfast/lunch and then had mexican food for dinner and a piece of birthday cake.  This morning I weighed in at 215 Sunday morning so it was all good.  Still sticking to the AG (ALA + Green Tea) regimen and it seems to be working great.

My new weight in tactic just to drive home the point of not looking at the scale is to not look for an entire week. So, after my weigh in on Tuesday for measure day, I will stay away from the scale until the next one.
Stay tuned!

Occam A workout today and a change in cold plans

Occam A
I had a headache walking into the gym today. Added to that I had a 2pm phone appointment and it was 1:30 when I walked in.  The headache really prevented me from getting a good workout in.  Just not a good mindset to have when wanting a good workout.  The pressure built up bigtime as the workout began and you can tell how it affected my results.

Pull Down - 130lb 7 reps - this is too heavy. I increased the weight either too much or too early. Going back down to the 120 next time.  While I did do 7 reps, they were not a good solid 7. Maybe more like 5.5 or 6. Headache maybe.

Shoulder Press - 80 lb for 6 reps. I still am hitting a wall here. This is by far my weakest muscle set, but I can say with certainty my headache really affected this exercise.  

Lat Pull down - 120 for 5 reps. Again the headache here was in full force and the weight was too heavy.  When adding the new exercises I am wiling to give them 1-3 workouts to find a good weight to use. I should have stopped due to my exploding head, but I wanted to keep going for the sake of the experiment.

Bosu crunch - 18 reps - these I did until failure. Hoping for 22 next time.

Change in cold plans
My school schedule is beginning to get pretty hectic.  This means less time for other things, like a 15 minute shower in the morning.  I have 24 days of data with a 10 minute cold shower and 3 showers at a minimum of 5 minutes. Some of those 10 minuters were 11 or 12 minutes too, so it could average out ok.  Needless to say, I have a decent data set to work with.

I have decided for the month of March to do the cold pack every other night for 20 minutes and compare the results.  I just got a new replacement pack from Kaz Incorporated - the one we bought had a leak from day one - and its about 16 inches long and 5 inches wide. It goes all across my back, so I know coverage is ample.

My first day of the cold pack was 3/2/2011.

New books

Just purchased a number of new books over the past 30 days and will be critiquing these as I finish them. Obviously, this may take some time.


Chaos:Making a New Science
Drive: The Surprising Truth About what Motivates Us
Leading Change
Selling the Wheel
The Personal MBA
Rigged - Started 3/1/2011
The Big Short - yea I know I am late to the party
Blink
Outliers
Linchpin
The Paradox of Choice
One Up On Wall Street

27 days of cold showers...

Body fat measure video


Body fat measure site

Another body fat measure site


Here are my results for Week 4 in case you dont want to watch the video.
Measurements - Week 3 ** Week 4
Chest - 43.00 ** 44.00
Right Bicep - 14.5 ** 15.00
Left Bicep - 15.00 ** 15.00
2" above navel - 41.00 ** 41.00
Navel - 45.00 ** 44.00
2" below navel - 43.00 ** 43.00
Hips - 45.00 ** 45.00
Right Thigh - 26.00 ** 27.00
Left Thigh - 26.00 ** 27.00
Total Inches - 301.00
Inches Lost - (2.5)
Skin Fold - 00 ** 30
Ab - 40mm
Sup - 30mm
Tri - 20mm
Thigh - 30mm
Body Fat % - 27.25 @ 5'10" 215lbs
Total Fat - 000.00 ** 58.7lbs
Total Lean mass - 000.00 ** 156.8