Fitness Update

Sorry I haven't had many informative posts lately. (Assuming anyone is still reading my blog at this point to notice my apology), but I have tried to fit tidbits of real life into my quick posts lately.

Things have been very busy and blogging has been on the back burner.

I'm a little sad and a little happy at the same time today. My goal to run the half marathon is over. Our lodging fell through and our friends that planned to show us around the city can't go. I hate to give up on it but after three weeks of fighting injuries instead of running and wishing I was lifting instead of running, I've decided to call it quits. On one hand I hate not completing a goal I set for myself, but it's the right decision. I plan to start back lifting again today, and doing the HIIT that I have been reading about for a while.

I plan to do the workouts in The New Rules of Lifting, on M-W-F, and do the HIIT training on tuesdays and thursdays. At this point I don't have clear cut goal which is bad. I need to pack on muscle so that the next time I try to cut, I actually have something to cut. I have been so obsessed with cutting my fat that I haven't spent enough time building muscle. I'm going to go through a few cycles of this training plan and see where I'm at after that. If I've built a bunch of muscle and feel ready for a cutting cycle then fine, but I really want to see some REAL gains in strength and size before I get to that point again. The HIIT training will help keep my metabolism up and hopefully keep me from adding too much fat. Perhaps I have finally found the way to build muscle and cut fat at the same time? We'll see...

HIIT = High Impact Interval Training by the way. It will consist of 15-20 second sprints followed by 1 minute walk/jogs. Supposedly this is by far the most effective way to burn fat and keep my metabolism up. My hope is that this will counteract the extra eating I will be doing but not keep me from building muscle.

Eating-wise I plan to eat a maintenance calorie level for 185 pounds. My hope is that by staying at that level and focusing on my protein intake, I may lose a little fat but still make gains. I may need to eat more than that but I'm not sure. I don't want to make the mistake of not eating enough but I also don't want to eat so much that I'm putting on as much fat as muscle.

So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'm on the right track, and I can stick to it pretty well.