Swimming in Jello

So I'll get right to it. I taped myself on Saturday January 7th, 2012. Good news, I was down 3/4's of an inch from last week. I went from a 51" waist to a 50.25" waist. So here's roughly what I did to accomplish that.

1.) I chose to eat mostly clean, no refined sugars, sodas, you know crap. I should say not much crap. There were some cookies left over from our Christmas party. It's actually an abundance of garbage sitting in our 5th grade work room, that we are "saving" for next months Valentines party. And I did eat a double whataburger with cheese, fries, and a rather large coke yesterday afternoon. I also stopped by Tilted Kilt in Lewisville last night, quickly becoming one of my favorite places. I had some grilled wings, potato skins washed down with a ridiculous number of Arnold Palmers, (lemonade and sweet tea mixed). The latter of which would contribute to my not being able to sleep well. Still it was kind of worth it, food was good, waitresses are really good looking, and the Saints won. Oh almost forgot about dessert, a partially baked chocolate chip cookie, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. I usually don't order dessert in a place like that, especially if I'm at the bar, or close to it, but I had to give pause because this is the Kilts signature dessert. So with assurance from my waitress that I wouldn't have to turn in my man card, supported by the fact the three guys at the far end of the table ordered dessert I went for it.

So yes Saturday was a "cheat" day for me.

2.) I made it to the gym "six" times last week. I say six because to of the days were twofers, meaning I went once in the morning and once at night. The routine for both those days was swimming in the a.m., and weights at night, with the second twofer reversing that schedule. The other day was more swimming, and the another day was the stairmaster.

I have a routine for lifting that works the entire body. It's a circuit from the ABS Diet by Mens Health that I do three times. The first circuit for nearly all of the exercises is a lighter weight done at higher reps, right now 12. The exceptions are Squats using one dumbell, and calf raises using no weight. The 2nd and 3rd sets are done with heavier weights at 10 reps. Also on Mondays and Fridays I'll do the abs portion of the workout by sprinkling the abs exercises between exercises in the warm-up circuit. And last but not least there is about 30 seconds of rest between individual exercise. The heart rate is elevated.

I am also doing swimming. I do nine full laps, (up and back) about a 1/4 mile, of breast stroke in the Olympic sized pool. I kind of do two lap sets where the first lap is sort of a warm-up, then the second lap I'm going all out, as much I can significantly raising my heart rate. The swimming is essentially an interval workout which my research indicates is really good for burning fat. I enjoy the swimming for a few reasons:

a.) easy on my joints, my knees and ankles never being anything to write home about

b.) it feels like it works my whole body, especially the upper body

c.) I sort of envision the water steadily wearing away the fat, and naturally sculpting my body, though I'm not sure I really like the word sculpting, seems somewhat cliche

d.) when I step out of the pool I feel like Daniel Craig walking onto the beach, out of the surf from Casino Royale. I know I don't look anything like him presently, but the thought of reaching that level of fitness is motivating.

e.) I feel like I have accomplished something significant when I'm done

So my whole plan is to reduce the size of my waist while keeping my muscles toned. You can't realistically add muscle AND lose fat at the same time. It really is one or the other. You couldn't eat enough calories to build muscle and lose fat, at least my body type which is likely endo/meso, which means I can gain weight easily if I don't watch what I eat and do lot's of cardio, on the flip side I can probably add muscle a little easier than most. I'll go into somatotypes later.

So overall not bad for this past week. My goal for this week is to get in a 3rd twofer, as well as a third weightlifting day. It would be nice to keep that 3/4" lost from around my waist each week as a standard. I'd love to have my suit re tailored smaller in time for the 5th grade "graduation" on June 1st.

So next week I'll post, talking about my successes and set backs, as well as mentioning my sister Stacey a great deal, as she to started a similar journey as me. That's about it for now.

Thanks for reading.