Dan on April 19th, 2006
Here’s an update on how my workout routine is going. I started working out on Feb 13, 2006. Now, two months later, here are my results thus far. I’ve gained over an inch around my chest, over 1/4 inch around my arms, and my weight is up to 150 lbs from 139 lbs. I also have gains elsewhere, but those are the most pronounced.
Some of that weight is from fat. I have a weakness for jelly beans and consumed many bags this Easter season. Now that Easter is over and the jelly bean supply has dried up I’ve decided to begin cutting. I want to drop about 5lbs of fat and get below 10% body fat. To do this I’ve reduced my diet from 2300 calories to 2000 calories and have begun a much more intense cardio program. I was working out 3 days a week. Now I’ve added an additional 3 days of cardio, and extended my warmup run to a 15 minute minimum (except on leg workout day). Instead of trying to build muscle I’m now trying to preserve it while reducing fat. My workout routine will consist of more reps now (7-9 instead of 4-6) in a shorter period of time. This keeps my heart rate elevated and increases the calories burned.
I hope to be below 10% body fat by the end of May. Then I will begin bulking again, but this time watching my diet more closely to reduce fat gains.
Dan on March 4th, 2006
I’ve now been working out for 3 weeks straight and I feel great. I’ve been pretty surprised at how well I can run, considering I haven’t done any aerobic exercise in years. I think I can probably make my goal of a 8.5 min mile now, but I haven’t tried yet. I tend to do 8.7-9 min miles and run for 10-15 minutes.
Lifting is also going well. After this week I’m upping the level on almost all machines and free weights. I took out my tape measure and found small but measureable results on a few different muscles.
I’ve gained 2-3 lbs since I started working out and not all of that is muscle. My waist has grown a bit since I started. I’m not particularly concerned since my current goal is muscle gain and not weight loss. A lot of that was from a lot of cheating over the past 2 weeks. Over both of the past two weekends I’ve eaten pretty poorly, including full bags of jelly beans (~1000 calories) and other junk food. Jelly beans are generally only available during the Easter season so I’ve allowed myself to eat them since they are one of my favorite candies. I did go a bit overboard though eating a full bag in a day. Lent is starting this Sunday and although I’m not particularly religious I’ve decided to give up pizza. I only eat it on occation now but even so I think giving it up will help put me back where I need to be.
So far the only supplements I’ve been using are a multivitamin and whey powder. I’ve been taking the multivitamin since I changed my diet in November. I decided to stop using it for a week to see if it makes any noticable difference, positive or negative. If I don’t notice any negatives I’ll continue using it next week. After next week I plan on starting use of creatine. I’ve researched it and found only positive results from scientific research with no negative health consequences. I’m also researching other supplements, but haven’t choosen to use any others at this time.
Here’s a detailed break down of my workouts. I workout Monday and Wednesday 1PM-2PM and Friday around 1PM, give or take an hour. I eat a meal at 11AM. During a workout I make sure to drink plenty of water. Afterwards I drink 1.5 cups of milk with 2 tbsp of whey protein (may be increasing this). I eat my next meal at 3PM.
I start all of my workouts with a run on the treadmill. Monday I run for 17 min at speeds ranging from 6-7mph. Wednesday I run for 11 minutes, speeds from 6-6.7mph. Friday I run for 12 minutes, speeds from 6-7mph. Once it gets warmer out I plan on running outside Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
After I run I stretch and then do situps, crunches, and pushups. Not a lot, just to the point that I start to slow down. The main point is to warm up my muscles. After I’m done all of that I start lifting. Monday I work on my core (abs, back), Wednesday is legs/calfs, and Friday is upper body (chest, arms, shoulders). I do 2 sets @ 4-6 reps at each workout, with 3-5 different machines or lifts on a given day. I pause 2-3 min between sets. I haven’t been doing warmup sets but now that I’m increasing the weight I’m going to start doing 10 rep, 40-50% weight sets for each muscle group.
That’s it! I record everything I do so that I can track my progress. I always feel great after a workout and have more energy for the rest of the day. At no point do I feel like blowing off a workout day. I always look forward to it because I know that I’m improving my body and I enjoy it.
How have you been exercising? If you haven’t I strongly recommend you start. At the very least start speed walking for 15 minutes a day, 3 days a week. After a few weeks it will be like second nature and you’ll want to increase what you do. Our society is becoming overly seditive. You need to get out and exercise!
Dan on February 25th, 2006
This week my sleep patterns have been a bit unusual. I would frequently take extra naps at night, getting a total of 4.5-6 hours of sleep in a day. Getting through the night has been quite hard. I’ve been getting in the bad habit of “snoozing” - waking up after a nap and then taking another one right away. There were also a few days when I woke up from a nap and decided to lay there for a minute - and woke up 1.5-5 hours later.
This wasn’t a problem since I this week was school vacation. I didn’t have to worry about being late to class. Next week will be the true test. I’ve been slowly giving up these extra “snooze” naps and getting out of bed right away. Last night I decided to go back asleep after my 1AM nap and didn’t set an alarm. Luckily I woke up at 3AM, my normal breakfast time. My body does seem to be getting used to waking up after shorter periods of time. There were a few days where I slept more than 1.5h on my core nap, but woke up multiple times during it.
On a side note, the low amount of sleep hasn’t seemed to affect workout recovery. I’ve been working out 3 days a week. The workouts themselves give me a lot more energy and keep me awake. I’m very happy that I started working out again. So happy in fact that yesterday when I showed up to work out and the gym was closed I was quite disappointed.
Dan on February 20th, 2006
I’ve always liked spicy food. Chili, General Tso’s Chicken, curry chicken, buffalo wings, etc. It’s gotten to the point where I call Frank’s Red Hot “weaksauce” and don’t consider something hot unless it has at least Cayanne, or even better Habaneros in it. For those of you who don’t know, habaneros are the hottest pepper in the world. Very little is required to make something hot. For example, earlier today I was crushing habaneros that I dryed a few days ago. When finished I licked the small amount of dust left on the spoon and my mouth was burning for about 5 minutes.
Only recently have I taken interest in the chile, the mechanisms of how it makes food spicy, and the side effects. Through our favorite friend the search engine I’ve found plenty of interesting data. I won’t restate all of the basics, but here are a few to get you started.
Capsaicin is the chemical in chile peppers that causes the spicy or burning sensation. The body has receptors that are sensative to this chemical. The interesting side effect of this is that the body produces endorphins to help stop the pain. Endorphins cause a natural high. This explains why many people like capsaicin-infused foods.
For the past two weeks I’ve been using much more capsaicin products in my food, including store bought habanero sauce, homemade habanero sauce, and chili powders. I’ve found that the rush of endorphins temporarily helps to make me more alert and less tired. It’s an interesting way of reducing sleepiness related to polyphasic sleep. Plus it makes food taste better 
It’s gotten to the point that I won’t eat certain foods in resturaunts anymore because they aren’t hot enough. I was at Uno’s Saturday night and skipped on the chili because it’s mild and they didn’t have anything to spice it up. I think I’m going to start carrying habanero powder with me when I eat out. That should solve the problem.
Dan on February 13th, 2006
Ever have one of those weekends when you know you have stuff to do but just aren’t motivated to do it? That’s how this weekend has been. I’ve acomplished a few things, like listing an item on Ebay, writing up ideas for my new website, and cooking some new foods. Other than that I blew through the weekend without acomplishment. No laundry washed, no cleaning of the apt, and no polyphasic sleep. Sleep plays a big part of it since life is shorter on monophasic sleep. Days fly by much quicker when you are missing 5 hours.
I also ate pretty poorly this weekend consuming candy, cake, and snack foods. My appetite has been through the roof this week. I’m constantly hungry and crave snack foods. I’m not quite sure what is causing this but I don’t like it. I’ve gone for 3 months now on my nutrition plan without incident and I don’t want to change it now. It could be a combination of sleep changes and eating pattern changes. I’ve been moving my meals around to different times everyday due to sleep patterns. I’m hoping that once I re-adjust back to polyphasic sleep my appetite will slowly return to normal. Between monophasic sleep, working, school, and general apathy life has been quite different this month.
