The rest of the day was quiet. Had my swim, did some watering, and then fired up the BBQ for dinner. I do have a list of chores for my rest day tomorrow but they’re all outside ones. From the look of the forecast I may have to look for other things.

Food for the day:

Total: 2391 (28% fat, 35% carbs, 35% protein)

Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, pecan raisin bread, jam, grapefruit (398)
AM Snack: protein shake (135)
Lunch: whole wheat tortillas with smoked turkey, mustard, cheese, grapes (532)
PM Snack: apples, cherries, soy nuts, protein shake (424)
Dinner: grilled lamb, chicken & turkey sausage, snow peas, butter, salad w/dressing (572)
Late Snack: two cherry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (330)

I started with 10-mins walking outside and then did:

A: One-armed Dumbbell Snatch - 30e/6, 30e/6, 32e/6
B1: Dumbbell Single-leg Romanian Deadlift - 25e/6, 25e/6, 25e/6
B2: Barbell Bent-over Row - 85t/6, 85t/6, 90t/6
C1: Dumbbell Single-arm Overhead Squat - 15&7.5/6, 15&7.5/6, 20&10/6
C2: Dumbbell Incline Bench Press - 25e/6, 25e/6, 27.5e/6
D1: Plank - 90sec (45-degree), 45+45sec (on floor), 30+30+30 (on floor)
D2: Reverse Wood Chop (on floor) - 30t/6, 30t/6, 32t/6
Bodyweight Matrix (modified): 96 squats, 48 lunges (each leg)

HRM: 90mins, 732 cals, Max: 157 (88%), Avg: 128 (72%)

It was a good workout, felt very strong. However, it’s hot out today. With the power being out I did my warm-up outside. Ten minutes of walking had sweat running down the back on my neck a bit. I came inside and finished the rest of the workout in the nice cool basement. Although I don’t think I appreciated the nice cool room until I was done. I sweat so much with the A workout that I take my glasses off before I start. It was weird working out with tunes today. Nice, but just a little odd. I think I might try it on Friday as well. Of course I should cull some of the songs out that weren’t quite workout worthy.  

So I think I’ll change into my swimsuit and finish off the book I started this morning, then perhaps a nice swim.

Nothing much else happened here today. Finished off the day with a nice swim. Tomorrow the hydro company is going to do some work down the street so we’ll be without power from 9am - 1pm. Not sure how well I’ll do with that, but it will be fun.

Must have breakfast before 9am. That and I should load some music into the iPod so I’ll have some noise when doing my lifting in the afternoon. I can easily warm-up outside with walking, but I kind of like the distraction of the television when I’m working out for some reason. I don’t really even watch it much, just like it on.

Food for the day:

Total: 2402 (27% fat, 38% carbs, 33% protein)

Breakfast: cracked wheat oatmeal bread, jam, grapefruit (404)
AM Snack: almonds, protein shake (299)
Lunch: sausage sauce with pasta, apple (454)
PM Snack: cherries, soy nuts, protein shake (303)
Dinner: crockpot chicken with corn, salsa, and white beans, salad w/dressing (677)
Late Snack: grapes, protein shake (265)

I feel so much better this morning.  I hate the not feeling well because I never quite know how to deal with it. There’s a fine line between letting yourself get talked out of doing things and not listening to your body. I’ve been so bad in the past (ie. not listening) that I sometimes now think that I over-react to things a bit. The catch is that I’m eating at a deficit level. There are going to be days I’m tired and not quite 100% because… well, I’m eating at a deficit.

I’m probably one of the few that didn’t really start strength training to build muscle. I just knew that I wasn’t doing much with the light weights I was using and wanted to build a little strength. I have no illusions that I won’t lose muscle along the way. I mean, I better lose a little as the bio-impedance scale tells me I have well over 130-lbs of lean mass. I would like to keep as much strength as possible, while improving endurance (hence the cardio).

I pretty much spent the morning outside working in the garden (and getting my cardio in). It’s a beautiful day so now that lunch is done I’m thinking of changing into my swimsuit and going back outside for a little bit. I’ll see what else might need doing in the backyard and then have a swim.

From the HR monitor:

Well, for the first time in a long time I woke up feeling like crap. The first issue was not sleeping any more than 5 hours, and interrupted hours at that. Even with wake/sleep issues I’ve been getting usually 7 hours. As well I’m a little (TMI) constipated, and my period started. I figured some fresh air would do me good so I went outside to do some light trimming. I just stopped a minute ago because I almost fell over when standing up and thought breakfast wasn’t going to stay down (it did).

Waaaa… I just want to go back to bed. 

I actually think the dizziness is a combination sinus / hydration issue so I’ve come in to get some water. I do feel a little like just crawling back into bed until tomorrow though.

(later)

I’m not actually that tired (kind of punchy from the lack of sleep). I’m really more nauseous than anything. Breakfast didn’t sit right, and I made myself some soup for lunch, but it’s not sitting any better. My truly ‘off’ sign is that I’m not hungry, not even a little. I mean, for me, that’s unusual. I can always eat.

I did try and nap this afternoon. Since I’m sitting here on the computer I guess you can say that it didn’t go well.

(later)

I do feel a little better, but I think I’ll take a sleep aid tonight since I feel like I’m almost too tired.  I know when I get this way that I simply won’t sleep tonight either.  I made a point to keep eating today, although at times I really was kind of forcing myself to.  I wasn’t even going to worry about macros, however, since twice I made myself drink protein shakes because I couldn’t face food I ended up okay.  I did a little more trimming in the garden before dinner and I’m hoping that we really do get the two days of nice weather that they are forecasting.  I can do my cardio outside tomorrow!

Food for the day:

Total: 2145 (28% fat, 38% carbs, 33% protein)

Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, cracked wheat oatmeal bread, grapefruit (456)
AM Snack: protein shake (135)
Lunch: egg drop soup, apple (287)
PM Snack: grapes, protein shake (296)
Dinner: chili with cheese, tostidos (670)
Late Snack: grapes, protein shake (301)

Well, it was a pretty quiet day overall. I made the jam in the morning and had a nice Sunday brunch egg dish for lunch. I did a few things outside but came in when the weather started to look a bit dodgy. We had a bit of a torrential downpour for about 15 minutes with a bit of hail. Oh joy. There’s a little water in the back of the crawlspace, but I just saw it now so it can wait until the morning. Since all the plants are out for the summer it’s just a small patch of wet in the middle of the floor.

And… we had barbecued steak for dinner. Only particularly special because the barbecue is finally back in one functional piece. Now I’m looking up calorie counts for corn on the cob, although it will be a while before it’s local corn.

Food for the day:

Total: 2166 (31% fat, 33% carbs, 35% protein)

Breakfast: grapefruit (53)
AM Snack: lemon ginger pecan bread, jam(+), protein shake, almonds (433)
Lunch: baked egg/egg whites with mushrooms, turkey pepperette, cheese, cracked wheat oatmeal bread, apple (523)
PM Snack: soy nuts, protein shake (269)
Dinner: sirloin steak, mushrooms, asparagus, butter, salad w/dressing (646)
Late Snack: cherry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (243)

Okay, so technically the recipe was called a marmalade, but still. The thing I’m most happy about is that it worked out to 45cals per Tb. I’ve been using the generic jam entry in FitDay (56 cals) but wasn’t sure where the homemade ones were in comparison. This ended up lower but I will check the rest when I’m making them this year. I also counted both the orange pulp and the peel when working out the recipe, since I suppose most normal people don’t usually eat the peel.

A Recipe for Weight Loss: Rhubarb Marmalade

Today’s weigh-in brings me to 295.4 which is 2.8 pounds less than last week.  I’m quite happy with that, although I still don’t get why some weeks are higher and some weeks are lower, especially now that I’ve pretty much standardized what I’m doing.  Anyway, since I started keeping track this is day 164 on plan with food.

The weather was decent enough this morning that I did my two 30-min walks in circles around the pool. I managed to get them in before the rain started, but it didn’t even last long. I’ve been talked into making rhubarb orange marmalade tomorrow. Okay, I think I may have offered. My mother used to be the jam maker in the family but I think it’s been probably decades since I took over that task. Even when we weren’t living together I would come over and do some canning (using her equipment and much bigger kitchen).

See - gadgets are a good thing. It took less than a minute to get the peel off the oranges - in one long thin shred. Very cool. I used to make a citrus bread where I would peel lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, etc. and dehydrate them first, adding them into the bread. I’m not sure why my parents ever bought it (assuming it was my father), since they weren’t much into boiled/mashed potatoes.

Anyway, really just here to add my food and HRM info for the day.

From the HR monitor:

Food for the day:

Total: 2408 (31% fat, 33% carbs, 35% protein)

Breakfast: two fried eggs, cracked wheat oatmeal bread, grapefruit (419)
AM Snack: protein shake, almonds (344)
Lunch: whole wheat tortillas, mustard, smoked turkey, cheese, apple (497)
PM Snack: soy nuts, protein shake (314)
Dinner: whole wheat pizza with olives, mushrooms, turkey pepperettes, cheese, salad w/dressing (524)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (310)

I was going to call it a rest day, but it wasn’t. The weather was nice today and my plan was to swap cardio for lifting, and do the lifting tomorrow. I did get in 20 mins of walking and was doing some tree pruning when the delivery fellow showed up with the last of my barbecue parts. I collected my tools and off I went. Since I had the HRM on I decided I’d see how much energy I expended doing this. Well 90 minutes later I stopped for lunch and found out that I had burned as many calories as my usual workout would have done. So I decided that perhaps I wouldn’t truly treat it as a rest day.

I finished putting the rest of the barbecue back together, and tested the connections, and it lit! So it’s steak on Sunday, hooray. I’ve decided to order two more parts so that the back burner / rotisserie will be back in working order. In the meantime though it’s back to a working condition.

From the HR monitor:

Food for the day:

Total: 2409 (23% fat, 44% carbs, 30% protein)

Breakfast: egg/egg white omelet with cheese, cracked wheat oatmeal bread, grapefruit (445)
AM Snack: protein shake (180)
Lunch: pasta salad with veggies, chick peas, turkey sausage, with herb dressing, grapes (544)
PM Snack: soy nuts, protein shake (269)
Dinner: turkey italian sausage with whole wheat rolls (2), salad w/dressing (751)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (265)