250 The New 300?

As I approach my short term goal weight, I have realized that I have to start thinking about my next short term goal.  I’ve been obsessed with the number 300 for a few years now.  It has consumed my thoughts, yet now I have to change my focus.  If I don’t, and revel too much in the short term achievement I will forget about the bigger picture. 

In sports you aren’t supposed to look past the team that you are presently playing.  You have to take each event, game by game.  Now that I’m near 300 lbs, I can’t help but tell myself it’s time to look forward to my new goal.  I can’t allow this mental freight train to stop.  I have to keep pushing. 

My new short term goal, is 250 lbs.  In fact I think the 250 mark will get me to a pant size which is below 40.  I also think I will be on the outside of an XL shirt size. 

The top 5 things I want to do when I get to 250 lbs.

1-      Buy shorts or a pair of pants under the size 40.

2-      Run the distance of a 5k.

3-      Get off Diabetic Medication

4-      Try on an XL Shirt.

5-      Taking a flight to a 3 day trip to Key West.

My officially weight won’t posted until Monday yet I know I am close to my present goal.  Let’s hope the number is the same “officially”. 

Daily Recap

My morning started with a personal training session with Ali.  Most of my week I did quite a bit of work to develop the legs, chest, and shoulder.  In wanting to finish the week out in a well rounded manner, I asked him to concentrate today’s work on the back, and arms. 

I started the session with 3 minutes of Kettlebell swings.  Kettlebell swings served as a nice warm-up.  Right after the swings he had me move to the lat pull down machine, where he had me do 4 consecutive sets of lat pull-downs, the first one was done from my knees, the second set on my left knee, the third set on my right knee, and the final set in a seated position.  Each set I had to 15 reps. 

The next part of the workout was spent using dumbbells, I had to do a bent over row using a 60 lbs dumbbell from a standing position.  The upright rows were supersetted with a variation on the upright row, using an incline bench press I had to lay chest down on the bench, allowing my arms to swing freely towards the ground.  From this position I had to first row two dumbbells straight back similar to the upright row.  I then had to do reps with my hands turned palms down, and continue in a similar motion.

We alternated between dumbbells, and the cable machine.  Most of my workout including the bicep, and triceps work was done in these two areas.  The only other area of the body we worked was a few minutes on the TRX focusing on leg movements, such as jump lunges, and shuffling left to right, then right to left.

When we finished I felt good about my Friday morning workout.  Initially I wasn’t sure if I was going to do cardio, but I wanted to try a shorter more intense cardio session in order to test what I’ve learned this week about anaerobic training, and the metabolic pathways.  

 As it was Friday I thought I should keep with tradition and do a Treading Session, this time I would keep with the textbook version starting with a 5 minute intense cycle, instead of my normal 6 minute.  I warmed up for 5 minutes on the Arc Trainer, and then increased both the incline and resistance levels to the highest points for my first five minute cycle of intense work. 

I didn’t think about the time or the remaining work, I was only focused on pushing the machine as hard as I possibly could push.  When the first 5 came to a close, I was winded; it took the first minute of the recovery period for me to catch my breath.  After the five minute recovery period was over, I continued down my progression of 4 on, 4 off, 3 on, 3 off, 2 on, and 2 off, 1 on, and 1 off.  By the end of the last cycle I had finished 40 minutes.

From this point I did a few sprints, and eventually completed 50 total minutes, which included a brief cool down period.  The goal for the entire session was to keep the intensity as high.  The only premium was to push my body to the point of exhaustion during each cycle of intensity.  The 50 minutes I spent on the Arc Trainer, were the hardest I’ve spent on a machine since my first week in California. 

How I felt after the Cardio session is an indicator to me that on Monday, I’m going to attempt the same level of intensity doing Mountain.  It will be another attempt to keep my cardio work short but highly intense, trying to maintain an anaerobic threshold.

My eating today was good; I was able to have another complete day of sticking to foods that I prepared.  For dinner this evening I ate a grass-fed Delmonico steak, with a salad of iceberg lettuce, radicchio, and broccoli. 

In the past two weeks I’ve eaten quite a bit of beef, I’ve had it at least 3 or 4 days either for lunch or dinner.  I used to stay away from beef because I’d always thought from the media, and the beliefs of others that beef was not as healthy for you, than fish or chicken, which is funny because most of the people telling me that red meat was bad weren’t the healthiest themselves. 

Everything that I’ve been reading about the benefits of grass fed red meat contradicts the notions I used to believe which I’m sure are a result of the problems of grain fed beef.   Steaks from grass fed cows tend to have a total fat content of about 2% as opposed to the 5%-7% found in lean ground beef from corn fed cows.  The pasture fed cows also were found to be higher in Omega-3 fats, which resembled levels similar to wild salmon.  In fact a recent University of Iowa study found that grass fed beef has a 16:1 ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats, which is higher ratio than that of wild salmon. 

I can’t believe how differently my eating habits have become, as I no longer crave crap.  I do have a few cheat meals in my future, perhaps those meals will create cravings that I haven’t had yet, but I don’t think they can, in fact I know they won’t because I am control of my appetite.