Burn baby, burn!
Oh yeah. It’s finally coming together. Cardio + weights = one tired, but pumped, Mike! My workouts have gotten better over the last few days so I decided to add weight training into my routine faster than anticipated. It was a last minute decision. It just felt good.
While flexing my man-flab for all the hotties in the gym, I was feeling really good about myself and the progress I have made in a short time. Yeah, I said progress. 30 minutes into my elliptical session I wasn’t as winded and my heart rate was getting more under control. I had energy. I started to think rather than the 50-60 minutes of cardio, I could cut it short to 35 minutes and get in 25-30 minutes of weight training. I know weight training helps burn fat during muscle recovery, which is my goal. I’m sold.
35 Minutes on Elliptical – 668 calories burned (edit: 568 calories burned, bad typo!)
My favorite lift of all is dumbbell curls. I started with a small circuit plan.
3 x 12-15 dumbbell curls, 20lbs
3 x 12-15 tricep extension (behind the head, both hands on dumbbell), 40lbs
3 x 15 Extended leg bench crunches
I rotated from one to the other, then rested for a minute after each cycle. I didn’t start with a lot of weight as I wanted to be able to function the next day. No craziness or over-exertion for my first day of lifts. It felt good to pump my muscles again.
My diet was spot on as well. I ate more, a lot more. At least it felt like a lot.
Meal 1: 3 egg omelet with spinach, feta and green onions. cottage cheese & fresh pineapple. Coffee
Meal 2: grilled chicken breast, 1 slice whole wheat toast
Meal 3: Stuffed Green Pepper (leftovers from night before)
Meal 4: Blue Diamond Almonds, smoked. 20 pieces
Meal 5: Stuffed Green Pepper (Hey, they were REALLY good!)
Meal 6: 2 tbsp Naturally More Peanut Butter
Estimated Calories: ~2250 – 2500
I had to force myself to eat. I drank plenty of water as well. I think I’m going to start counting my calories in a little more detail. I need to know the amount of protein, fat and carbs I am consuming. Does anyone have recommendations for the best online tracking program?
Ladies, let’s not get too excited, but I will be posting another topless progress photo later today. Please direct your fan mail to the comments section!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
How do you measure your calories burned during cardio? The only semi-accurate way I have found is with a Polar heart rate monitor that does VO2 estimation. That way you can really measure calorie expenditure in aerobic mode by knowing how much oxygen your body can utilize per your heart rate. It is more accurate, and sadly a lot less, than any other method. Unless you were in a high cardio state on the elliptical I doubt you burned 668 calories on that thing, even at your weight. A Polar heart rate monitor is a pretty cheap investment, I really love mine.
Good job on incorporating strength training into your weight loss program. It will definitely help you retain lean body mass and lose the fat!
For calorie calculation you might want to sign up with an on-line service like fitday.com (free) or myfooddiary.com (pay). It makes it a lot more accurate than eyeballing it. It also hepls to keep track of the macronutrients better. Estimating caloric intake to ~250 calorie accuracy is not good enough. If you underestimate your caloric intake by 250 calories and overestimate your cardio by another 250 calories you just made a 500 calorie mistake. That’s 1 lbs per week. Big difference!
The best of luck to you!
The calories I am reporting are the ones reported on the Elliptical machine. You are correct I didn’t burn 668 calories in 35 minutes, that was a typo and should have been 568. I corrected it now. I do have a heart rate monitor that I wear around my chest and a watch that reports it. I have to replace the batteries though. I will put that on to test it against the machines reading.
I was thinking of buying the Bodybugg ( http://www.bodybugg.com). Do you have any experience with that?
I also realize I need to more accurately count my calories. I signed up to the free service on livestrong.com, but it tries to upsell me a lot. I will look at the other sites you recommend and perhaps try them out. I know Shapefit has a good one as well. I’ve used it before. You make a very good point about my estimations. They need to be more accurate.
Thanks for the luck and much continued success to you as well. We should trade links. I’ll get your link up shortly.