This past weekend wasn’t super great, but it wasn’t horrible either? I stayed over at my partner’s friday night. I manually weighed myself that morning and I was at ~206. Then there was a birthday party that afternoon and I had more carbs than normal. A couple burgers, some chips/popcorn, and cake stuff. I also didn’t workout that day. I went up about 2 lbs the next morning. I did do a full body strength training session (sumo deadlifts, DB bench presses with alternating rows, then skullcrushers/incline curls). I ended up faltering towards the later afternoon when I went couch shopping with the wife and we stopped at mod pizza. I did try to be reasonable as I could and thought I could get away with a “jasper pizza” at mod pizza with a little extra grilled chicken for ~800 cal according to fitbit. It’s hard to trust anything online though. I ended up pushing 211 the next day.

I kept up with my workouts. I’m also changing my remote work schedule to have 3 days at home. I’m going to use this to add in those wind sprints again. Nothing gets more effective than that for a sustained elevated heart rate. Fitbit is way too generous on the calorie value of steps. I’m consistently burning around 3000-3500 calories and taking in around 1600-1900. Going strictly by that you’d think I’d be dropping like a stone…but months of data shows that is not the case. Strength training has been good for overall functionality and pain management (or rather prevention). Bootcamps have been good for similar reasons and get some cardio benefits…but they can be inconsistent in intensity depending on the trainer. My average heart rate BPM ranges from ~120 to ~140 depending on who is running a class and the workouts we do. From what I’ve seen, there is a much tighter correlation between BPM and calorie burn than anything else. Wind sprints get the best bang for buck. I started a set yesterday during my lunch hour. With my new schedule next week, I plan to do that Wednesday/Friday/Sunday on my str training days. Just today alone showed some interesting stats.

I don’t normally do a post workout weight in but I had a strange fluctuation this morning. My carbs were on the low side yesterday (I had ~175g of beans total that day, then some spinach and tomatoes, netting to around 53g of carbs). Then a lot of chicken thighs (boneless, skinless). I was surprised to see my weight go up; however, my bodyfat (According to aria) went down signficantly. Then I remembered the spices I used had a lot of salt. I added some more salt via that MD blend [the name escapes me, but you marylanders know what I’m talking about]. Then I remembered the research I did a few days ago in regard to how much water weight you hold on to per g of carbs. In that research I also found approximation for salt as well. I had quite a bit of salt (I remember the taste). I also remembered back to that inbody weighin I did for the SF challenge and how high my Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM) was, and how that dropped at the end (and yet somehow fat went up). I noticed the ECW/TBW (ExtraCellular Water over Total Body Water) had gone down. I might play with this idea to see if I can exploit the inbody machine to read the higher SMM again. Mainly out of curiosity.

In any case, my overall body fat has gone down. I’m going to keep with the run schedule as best I can. At least for this cutting portion. When I get back to the 180s (or even 170s) I’m going to need to figure out another strategy for long term maintenance. I’m obviously working out a lot. I do like working out but I worry that as I get older, something in my body will start to give. I also plan to start dedicating more time to actually writing books. Keeping a lower weight will definitely help (and I like my leaner look).

On to the stats: