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WBAHN's BFL Log
Well, I'm one of the April Foolers and started on 01 April 2002. I'm also officially entered in the BFL 12-Week Challenge. Of course, it has yet to be seen whether I make enough progress to actually submit the final packet (which arrived yesterday).
It's certainly going to take some time to get into the swing of things and I'm trying not to get overly into planning every minute detail. Instead, I am trying to firmly establish the guidelines in my mind and then learn to live as close to them as I can. It will take time, but will be infinitely more sustainable over the long haul. |
C1W1D1 - UBWO #1
(Reps/ Planned Weight / Actual Weight / Intensity Reached)
Overall, I'm pretty pleased. I definitely have some tweaking to do and I really need to keep in mind that the first set is for starting the muscles moving and blood flowing and should be at virtually no effort level. |
C1W1D2 - Cardio #1
I'm using an Aerobic Rider that I've had for a number of years and it works out the quads and the biceps as well as the cardio aspect of it. Presently there is a distinct mismatch and my legs get rubbery before my carbio starts peaking. But that is something that will correct itself over time. In the mean time, this is the approach I am taking:
Try to stay on profile as best I can until me legs and arms start giving out - the get off, rest 30 seconds to a minute and get back on and work for another minute to two minutes trying to build intensity if possible. Repeat this pattern as long as I can for the duration of the 20 minutes. Today I did so-so. I had to get off after about 7 minutes and then was able to work the pattern for only a total of 17 minutes. My muscles probably reached a 9 but my cardio probably only reached a 7. Again, this will work itself out over the course of a few weeks so I'm going to just keep going like this. |
Bill, just skimmed over your first two days - love the format and thoroughness of the weight routine, of course I'd expect nothing less from you ;)
Only one thing jumped out at me - for shoulders, unless theres a physical reason for it, you'd be better using the shoulder press as your main exercise and the side raise as the second. It has to do with the type of exercise each is - the press is a mid-range exercise and works more 'helper' muscles. The same goes for the chest exercises - (just FYI) never do flyes as your main exercise, they are more a stretching move and not a mid range exercise. Looking forward to reading more! Nat |
Way to go Wbahn,
Sounds to me like you're off to a great start! You know, I have one of those aerobic riders too, (I think it's the same) and I just love it...mine's called the "Iron Horse" II, by DP. Nat's even seen me demonstrate it's use in a restaurant, (no, they didn't kick us out, LOL). I found it at a church yard sale for 15$ and it's one of my favorite machines. I hadn't thought about using it in the way you are for BFL, but I think you've got the routine down pat. Great idea, may just try it myself! I enjoy your posts and look forward to seeing how you progress with your challenge, ...you just may one day have your pictures on the next BFL book! Way to go! :wave: Muse |
C1W1D3 - LBWO #1
(Reps/ Planned Weight / Actual Weight / Intensity Reached)
I need a lot more tweaking on this one than the UBWO, but I learned a lot. I also learned that it will probably take a few weeks for this one to come together. |
C1W1D4 - Cardio #2
Had to really improvise. My quads (and others) are screaming pretty good from yesterday's workout and I couldn't handle the aerobic rider for more than a couple of minutes. So I went for a walk. It was a hilly route so I hit a solid 8 near the peak about 9 minutes into the walk. Total walk took right at 20 minutes. Not a particularly good HIIT, but could have been worse. The important thing was that I found a way to get in some type of 20 minute aerobic (okay, that may be stretching it a bit) workout. I'm comfortable with the idea that it may take a month before I have good workouts in place. I have plenty of time.
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Way to go Bill! :thup: No pain no gain :)
If you haven't, you might want try powdered L-Glutamine, it's great for helping muscles recover. Wa'il |
good job, bill!
lunges are danged hard, balance-wise. Are you holding dumbells in your hands at hip level?---that's the only way I can do them. I started with body weight and putting just a finger onto something stable for balance--funny how just a touch of balancing like that helps so much. There's a female BB'er that lifts the same time I do...she puts a 50 pound bar on her shoulders and goes at it. If I tried that, I'd careen off the weight rack, stumble across the room, slam the weights into the mirror and break it...lol. |
lunges
Ouches it what they should be called ;) I just started using them as a main exercise and boy do I know why I waited.
Try a few variations, Bill. A standing lunge - no step out (you start and end with legs extended) and use something for balance, as Raz suggested. You will get a good workout w/o using any weights - your body as resistance is more than enough. Lunges w/o any weights have left me unable to climb stairs. Nat |
Thanks for the suggestions - I'll try some of them on Monday (my next LBWO).
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C1W1D6 - UBWO #2
(Reps/ Planned Weight / Actual Weight / Intensity Reached)
Good workout. Felt very good. |
Well?
Well, Bill....tell me, how was your Week #1!?
I'm going to ease into it starting Monday (as TrainerDan advises) so that I don't over do it right off the bat and get used to the routine. I am SO proud of you for jumping in this way!! How do you feel? |
I still have to do my cardio tomorrow since I ended up using my Free Day yesterday.
I don't feel much of anything yet - which I think is good. I'm not sore at all anymore. There is a slight "difference" where I can tell that my muscles have been recently worked - but they aren't stiff or tender or sore at all. I haven't noticed any earth-shattering changes, of course. Haven't noticed any changes at all. Again, I wouldn't expect to and don't expect to for at least another three to five weeks. I've gained weight - but some of it came off today. I'm not worried about this - I figure it's water being retained for one reason or another. I am happy that I am sticking to it and still very enthusiastic about what I hope to accomplish by the end of the first challenge. |
C1W1D7 - Cardio #3
Was better today - which I expected.
Made it five minutes on the rider before having to take a one minute break. Then made three minutes before another break. After that it was rougly one to one and a half on and one off. Was able to finish with a final minute and a half. Made a total of 400 strokes over the twenty minutes. The first (and last) time I used the rider started back in the June of 1996 (has it REALLY been nearly eight years?! Sheesh) at my same current weight. I started off with three sets of 100, 60 and 70. So I'm already well above that. My first set was about 125 and my second set was 110. After a couple of weeks I was up to a single set of 500 strokes and after a month I was doing 800 strokes in three sets or 500 strokes in 12 minutes - which is a healthy pace on that thing. So I suspect that in a couple to three weeks I will be able to do a proper 20 minute HIIT routine on the thing. |
Nice job on week 1!
Your workouts look really good, Bill. I admire the approach you are taking to your cardio. I think that's the just the way it should be done. I think I'm going to step my own workout up next week!
Lunges and calf raises: These were very awkward for me at first, too. In addition to doing lunges from the already-stepped position, I read another tip that really helped: when you step, make sure that you step out laterally as well as in front of you. You might need to get your feet more than shoulder width apart before you stop feeling like you could fall over at any moment. I noticed a huge improvement when I incorporated that small change. With the one-legged raises, I found it easiest to hold the dumbbell on the side I was working (left hand, left calf) and use my opposite hand for balance. Great job and keep it up! Dani |
Hard to believe it's been a month since I stopped BFL.
I really DO intend to give it another go. My foot is still not 100%. I think the gout is gone but I also think I did have an underlying injury that is taking quite a while to heal. It's getting better and doesn't hurt most of the time, but several times a day it makes me wince. But I do need to develop another attack plan to get back to BFL. Don't give up on me yet! |
Hard to believe it's been more than 12 years since I stopped BFL. Sheesh.
Okay, so I'm starting up again. And hopefully I'll stick with it this time. My first step is to choose my exercise plan. For that I will choose my second workouts from before and use them as a starting point. Unfortunately, I only logged my first LBWO (used paper logs and never entered the rest) and so I'm using the first one and tweaking it as best I can. Reps / Planned Weight (lb) UBWO
LBWO
For the Cardio, I've got a stationary recumbent bike, but I need to find the wallwart for it (or get another one). |
My plans for BFL require some rework. At the support group meeting I discussed it with the bariatric nutritionist and she said that I need to stick to the bariatric eating plan of three two-ounce meals a day and not go to six small meals. They have this big thing about avoiding "grazing" while BFL specifically recommends adopting a grazing way of eating. The BFL argument is that you need to feed your body in a more continuous manner to promote muscle healing and growth while the bariatric concern is about the ease with which grazing or eating anything between meals can lead to overeating. I tend to think that the BFL way makes sense provided you can prevent it from becoming a means to overeat, but I also recognize that the bariatric concerns are legitimate precisely because people that have had the surgery are usually compulsive overeaters. So I'm going to stick with the bariatric way and accept that my BFL progress is going to be significantly hindered. After the first 12 weeks I can see how things are going and I can always switch to more meals if it appears that I really have gotten in the habit of exercising.
This, of course, means that my fitness goals are probably very unrealistic. Instead of trying to come up with new goals for each item, I think I will just say that my goal is, for most things, to achieve half of what the original goals were. So here are the new goals:
If I can achieve these goals (or come reasonably close), then I will have a lot more confidence to become more aggressive in the second twelve weeks and perhaps shoot for the original goals by my 50th birthday. The end of the first 12-week program will be 12 OCT 2014 while the end of the second 12-week program will be 04 JAN 2014. |
I still haven't gotten started. But, I've been getting a lot of low intensity exercise while working my way through the Greater Wall of Stuff, so I'm not too heartbroken yet.
One of the things I ran across was an old spring scale so I put that down in the exercise area. One thing it is good for is that I can get into the push-up position and get an idea of how much I need to be able to bench press before I can do push-ups. Right now it is 180 pounds. Assuming I lose weight proportionately over my body, then that would mean that I need to be able to bench about 70% of my body weight. At the end of 12 weeks I hope to be down to about 220 lb, so I would need to be able to press about 150 lb which is 75 lb with each arm using dumbbells. Sounds pretty ambitious. Plus, the heaviest fixed-weight dumbbells I have are 25 lb and I don't think I can build up anything more than about 35 lb dumbbell with free weights. I don't know what the heaviest dumbbells I can get at Walmart or someplace similar. I don't want to use a barbell because I don't have a spotter to do it safely. Even if I did, the heaviest barbell I could build up would be just under 150 lb. My stepmom might still have some of my dad's old weights and I know he had four 25 lb weights. Of course, if I start getting into the weight training enough that this becomes an issue, then it is probably reasonable to consider investing in a decent workout machine or at least some more free weights, provided the finances will allow it. |
Day 01 - UBWO #1
FINALLY got started!!!
Need some tweaking, but that's to be expected. The fact that I'm 12 years older and not taking in near the calories I ideally would be is definitely having an effect. But that's fine. I'll go at water pace I can go. Reps / Planned Weight (lb) : Actual Reps / Actual Weight (lb) (Intensity) UBWO
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Day 03 - LBWO #1
Reps / Planned Weight (lb) : Actual Reps / Actual Weight (lb) (Intensity)
LBWO
Definitely broke a sweat with this one. Have a lot of tuning to do, but at least now I have a starting point. I sorta did an aerobic workout yesterday -- swam 500 yards nonstop in just under 30 minutes. So a very sedate pace that only barely counts as aerobics. |
Day 05 - UBWO #2
Did some re-arranging and got closer to a very good plan.
Reps / Planned Weight (lb) : Actual Reps / Actual Weight (lb) (Intensity) UBWO
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Wow! You are motivating me to at LEAST make a list that includes other life stuff -- its important to consider it all together isn't it? I am really not finding the motivation to exercise, having to build it into aother activities, walking the stairs, etc. haven't been back on the water since we got back....anyway, don't want to mess up this nice celan exercise space, see you over in you regular journal!
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Did a 20-minute aerobic workout on the old recumbent stationary bike that I have. The preprogrammed internal workout is junk and much too easy. It turns out there is no way to manually program one from the console and the SD Cards have to be in the iFit format which would require me to figure out the format. I may play with that at some point, but not now.
So for now I will have to do it manually. The BFL targets for each minute are: 01 - 5 02 - 5 03 - 6 04 - 7 05 - 8 06 - 9 07 - 6 08 - 7 09 - 8 10 - 9 11 - 6 12 - 7 13 - 8 14 - 9 15 - 6 16 - 7 17 - 8 18 - 9 19 - 10 20 - 5 The bike has 12 resistance levels. What I will try -- and adjust as needed -- will be to use the following mapping between intensity level and resistance level 5 - 2 6 - 4 7 - 6 8 - 8 9 - 10 10 - 12 It's easy to remember. Then I will maintain a uniform speed throughout the workout and, as my fitness improves, I will keep the same resistance profile but just increase the speed. It will take a few workouts to figure out the best speed and whether or not this resistance profile will work. I will not be surprised to discover that the resistance that I need to achieve a given intensity level will be different early in the workout compared to later. But since I am not worrying too much about rigid adherence to the optimal plan but, rather, just finding a sustainable workout plan that moves me in the right direction, I'm willing to trade efficacy for convenience. |
Day 07 - AWO #3
EXERCISE: Stationary Bike
TIME: 20 min SPEED: 12 mph DISTANCE: 4.15 miles CALORIES: 124 kcal PEAK HR: 169 bpm Did a true interval aerobic workout on the bike and the plan I worked out seems to work very well. I maintained 12 mph or a tad over most of the time and the intensity seemed to match the resistance level pretty much according to my mapping. It says that I burned 125 kcal and did 4.15 miles. Who knows how accurate either of those are, but it gives me a baseline for comparison. I will maintain this pace until the peaks of the intervals get noticeably easier and then bump it up to 13 mph. My goal is to be at 20 mph by the end of the 12 week program. My pulse at the peak was 169 bpm, which is probably not too bad. The good Dr. Cooper uses a max heart rate of 205 bpm minus 1bpm for each two years of your age, so for me that would be 180 bpm. He then says that your target heart rate should be between 75% and 85% of your max, which for me would be between 135 bpm and 153 bpm. So 169 bpm is a bit high, but not hugely so. Perhaps I should stay with this profile until my peak heart rate is below 150 bpm. The seat on that bike is too shallow and the seat back isn't angled back at all. It forces me to sit on the edge of the seat which makes my butt sore. I'll probably get used to it. |
Day 08 - LBWO #2
Reps / Planned Weight (lb) : Actual Reps / Actual Weight (lb) (Intensity)
LBWO
This is getting pretty close. I hate the BD Lunges and I know I'm not doing them well. Hopefully with practice. For the Bent Knee Leg Raises I doing reps to achieve the desired intensity level. I'm sure I'm not getting my butt off the floor far enough yet. Similarly, I'm sure I'm not getting my shoulders high enough on the Floor Crunches; I just don't have the abdominal strength yet. Again, with time that should improve. |
Day 09 - AW #4
EXERCISE: Stationary Bike
TIME: 20 min SPEED: 12 mph DISTANCE: 4.14 miles CALORIES: 125 kcal PEAK HR: 176 bpm Although my Peak HR is officially a bit higher than last time, I think that might be because I didn't capture the true peak the first time. I'm pretty sure I did this time. On the first two intervals I was really doubtful that I would make the distance. I think that was due to fatigue in my leg muscles given the LBWO yesterday. The final interval was definitely challenging. Will stay at this speed for now. |
Day 10 - UBWO #3
Reps / Planned Weight (lb) : Actual Reps / Actual Weight (lb) (Intensity)
UBWO
Pretty good workout. In some things I didn't do quite as well as last time, but I think that's because my muscles are still adapting. Also, I'm trying to get better at the form and that's making things a bit harder. Of course, I'm not seeing any progress yet -- and probably won't for another month -- but I'm feeling good about myself for doing it. |
Day 11 - AWO #5
EXERCISE: Stationary Bike
TIME: 20 min SPEED: 12 mph DISTANCE: 4.15 miles CALORIES: 125 kcal PEAK HR: 170 bpm The HR monitor on the bike was flakey throughout the workout, but I'm pretty sure I captured the peak okay. I think I'm going to dig out my pulse oximeter and use it from now on. Seeing what my SpO2 levels are would not be a bad thing to do anyway. |
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