The Amazing Shrinking Sleeves

Another frigid week goes into the books.  Despite feeling the need to hunker down and hibernate, I made it to most of my workouts.  It wasn't easy, though.  There were days when I really had to push myself to leave the house.  Sunday was the hardest.  I wasn't able to get to the gym.  I had to hit the driveway instead.  Eighty three minutes and eight hundred fifty nine calories later, I had it cleared.  I definitely felt the effects of my snow shovel workout in Monday's Kickboxing Cardio workout.  I didn't work the kinks out until midway through the class.

The diet went okay for the week, but it was a bit of a struggle.  The cold had me craving mass quantities.  I didn't go over my calorie goals, but I ate back more of my exercise calories than I'd planned.  This week started out on the same note.  Breakfast has been the hardest meal to control.  I know that I'm consuming way too many carbs during breakfast.  So, I know what I need to do, I just have to make myself do it.

Now, about those sleeves.  I've been noticing that the sleeves on some of my dress and sports shirts seem shorter, stopping above my wrist.  I know that my arms aren't growing.  I've had these shirts for a while and they've been washed several times, so I don't think that they've shrunk.  I think that my shoulders have gotten larger, which makes the sleeves sit higher.  I have mixed feelings about this.  One the one hand, I'm glad that the resistance training appears to be showing results.  On the other hand, I'm a little annoyed that I'll need to buy more shirts!

Reps and steps!

The Gym Versus the Weather

For these last couple of weeks, my workout story has been mostly about the weather.  It's been cold and snowy.  Some days, it was not about desire or motivation.  It became about clearing a path through the snow.  Last week, I cleared my driveway three times.  As I type this post, the temperature is -4 degrees F.

Fortunately, when I've made it to the gym, I've been able to do some quality workouts.  I even reached a few personal bests:  I worked through the entire stack of plates on the pec deck, curled 110 lbs on the preacher curl bench and moved up to 40 lbs on my standing dumbbell flies.

My diet has been okay.  I made better choices and practiced portion control.  My weight seems to have plateaued again.  I'm considering doing seven to ten days of Daniel's Fast to get things moving again.  For now, I'll continue to tweak the plan and stay the course.  Full disclosure:  I did treat myself to a late dinner splurge meal on the way home from a dance, last Friday evening.  It was a decadent and delicious Po' Boy with Cajun chips.  I regret nothing! LOL!

I upgraded my phone to a Samsung Note 4.  It came with S-Health fitness apps installed.  I've turned on the pedometer to track my steps.  The goal is to reach 10,000 steps per day.  That's been pretty hard to accomplish in this weather.  I'm averaging about 4,000 steps per day, not counting the steps in my fitness classes.  The app sends a notification if I'm inactive for a long period and reminds me to move.  This has come in handy at work, where I ride a desk.  I get up and walk for a couple of minutes instead of sitting.  I've also used the heart rate monitor.

Overall, I feel good about how things are going.  It's great to feel strong and healthy.   I thought about that on trash day, oddly enough.  In the first picture, you can see some trash bins.  I'd piled up so much snow from shoveling that I couldn't reach my tree lawn from the sidewalk to place the trash bin.  I took the bin to the street side, grabbed it by the bottom and the handle that the garbage truck uses to empty it.  I then hoisted it onto the snow mound.  The shape of the bin made the lift a little awkward, but the weight was not a problem.

Well, now I need to decide whether I'm going to brave this wind chill warning of -25 to -30 degrees and hit the gym or do a more limited set at home with the weights that I have here.  To be honest, home gym is looking pretty good!

Reps and steps!

The Body is an Amazing (and Confusing) Machine

In previous posts, I've mentioned that I believe that adopting a more fit lifestyle has made me more resistant to these “bugs” that are going around.  I believe that has also boosted my body’s ability to recover.  Here a couple of very recent examples.

Last Monday, I started developing a mildly runny nose, which led to a little throat irritation.  I was feeling less than a 100%, so I decided to skip the Cardio Kickboxing class.  That night, I took some cold medicine and went to bed.  When I woke up the next morning, I felt exhausted.  I lay in bed for a while, waiting to see the feeling would pass.  It didn't, so I took the day off from work and went back to sleep.  I finally woke up again after 11:00 AM.  I felt better, but not great.  I took it easy the rest of the day.  I was feeling more like my usual self by bedtime.  When I woke up the next morning, the symptoms I was having were pretty much gone.

Around the end of November, I was at the gym, doing some bench presses.  One lift went awry and felt pain in my left elbow.  I was able complete the move and rack the bar, but the area was incredibly sore afterwards.  I soon discovered that direct pressing movements were going to be out of my workouts for a while.  So, I had to remove exercises like military presses, tricep pushdowns, pushups and flat bench presses from my routine.  Fortunately, movements like flies and angled presses were unaffected by the injury.  I was able to work around the injury and continue my workouts.

As time went on and my elbow felt better, I reintroduced some of the pressing movements, using small amounts of weight.  I gradually increased the weight, taking care to stop when I felt pain.  Last week, my bench press was approaching normal levels for the first time since the original injury.  As I locked out, I heard a kind of popping noise and I thought, “Oh crap!  I've really done it now!”  To my surprise, my arm felt great.   I’d expected pain, but I felt relief instead.   I finished the set and did a couple more, adding weight as a test.  Everything was fine.  What I think happened was what I thought to be an elbow strain was probably a dislocation, which popped back into place during the exercise movement.

In both instances, illness or injury, the discomfort was manageable and the recovery fairly quick.  I’m even more of a believer now.

Exercise and diet for the week went well.  When I couldn't eat my healthiest, I practiced portion control.  I didn't eat back most of my exercise calories this week, anticipating doing a little damage at a Super Bowl Sunday spread.

My best moment of inspiration for the week came from my four year old grandson.  He was looking at pictures on my phone and came across a recent “before and current” comparison photos.  He pointed to the image on “current” side and said, “Pop-Pop, that’s you.”  He pointed to the “before” image and looks at me with a confused look.  He asked, “Who’s this other Pop-Pop?”

Reps and steps!