Tag Archives: cheap weight loss

Cheap Workout Sunday Report 10

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Okay, this past week was weird in every sense.  First my triceps were feeling really odd.  The best phrase I could use to describe the feeling was a guitar string being twang every 5 minutes.  That was Wednesday and Thursday of last week…

While my body didn’t hurt like the past weeks, my chest muscles (pecs) were pretty tender (especially the right side), and my right tri actually hurt a little when I touched it (this was very weird!).  So I approached this workout session with some trepidation about hurting myself because I’m moving too quickly in fairly quick strength gains.  But it’s so hard not to keep the progress rolling, so I pushed it a bit today too!

  • Bench (seems like I’m consistently gaining):
    • 45 lbs –   8 reps – I still like to do a quick set with the bar just to get loose.
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps, I use this set to gauge how my arms and chest feel.  The felt tender a bit, but strong enough.
    • 185 lbs –  6 reps (This level has been defeated and now I reduced the number to 6 reps instead of 8).
    • 205 lbs –  10 reps (I’ve met this goal and now I’ll back it back to 8 reps and then eventually 6 once I’m stronger)
    • 225 lbs –  4 rep (reps weren’t bad today, if I pushed it, I possible could have handle 1 more rep, but why go to the point of injury.)
    • 165 lbs – warm down set (6 reps, surprisingly not easy, and I definitely felt it in my right pec.)
  • Curls (felt better today)

    • 25 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 35 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 50 lbs – for 4 reps. (my left arm is weaker than my right arm, but heavy for both arms.)
  • Rows (wimped out here, again.  These really zap my remaining strength)

    • 135 lbs – 1 set of 8 reps,
    • 155 lbs – 1 set of 6 reps.
  • “No weights” squats
    • Skipped the 2 set of “no weight” squats for 10 reps each this week.  Left knee hurt a bit this week.
  • Goals
    • I still continue to grow stronger, I don’t know if I’ll try to bench 250 this year or not.  As I said before, I probably can do it now, but why risk injury…  I’m starting to think I should wait until I can press 225 for at least 8 reps.
    • My weight loss has stopped since I’m concentrating on strength and muscle gain.  I haven’t gain any extra weight either and I’m keeping my weight to a 5 pound range of variance.

It was a good week for gaining strength, but I really need to slow down my gains.  After all, there is no rush for it…

Bests,

Don

 

Losing Weight The Frugal Way Update 1

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It’s been 1 week and 2 days since I started my frugal weight loss diet, but since half the battle of such programs is the start, it’s time for a quick update!  I’ve been able to keep my meal expenses under $10 easily enough, so this part of my weight loss plan is working quite well.  I’ve also started cooking dinner for my family once a week, but I’m only partially successful with this new plan.

Diet Start

I’ve decided to go with a low-carb diet and since protein is more expensive that other food sources, having a $10 daily limit for the total cost for food has worked out well.  I still spend less than previously because I take advantage of my employer’s company resources such as their free coffee and filtered water.  While the diet isn’t a paradise for your taste buds, it’s a highly effective diet for the first 2 weeks to 1 month.  After 1 month, I plan on shifting to more of a south beach kind of diet.  I will be on the more healthy south beach diet for 6 months or longer.  After the south beach diet I plan on starting to adopt a new life style kind of diet mixed in with exercise and healthy eating.  For now though I’m just going to focus on the weight and putting one proverbial foot in front of the other.

So how much weight have I lost?

Eight pounds so far!  Low carb diets are highly effective, and that’s why I decided to use this diet for the initial start.  I do plan on shifting the diet from well know diets to more of a personal lifestyle diet that fits me better, but for now this is good.

 

Cooking Start

In a previous article, I mentions that I plan on cooking dinner for my family once a week.  Instead of jumping in and start by cooking something too complex, I decided to start just by grilling some hamburger patties.  I’ve cooked similar patties and this would be a good refresher for cooking on the grill since this will be my first time this year.  My downfall in this process was that I didn’t prepare any side dishes such as beans or another vegetable, so I grabbed some potato chips, and some “chips and salsa” for my family.  While the side dishes weren’t horrible, I should have microwaved some broccoli, corn or beans.

I’m going to cook steak (rib eye) for my next cooking experiment.  I’ve never cooked steak before so it will be interesting.  For the side dishes, I’m going to use the tried and true broccoli veggie!

 

Assessment of My Start

While I had a few issues with the cooking start, overall I’ve very please with the results.  The eight pounds that I lost so far on the diet is great, I feel smaller and lighter all ready.

Cheers,

MR