What's Up FAT

It’s been almost 3 weeks since I last updated my FAT blog. I know I need to be doing it more regular. My workouts have been good the last few weeks. I finally feel like maybe I am catching some wind in my work out sails. My food intake has kind of been hit and miss for a long time now. I guess it has always been my Achilles heel. My goal with eating these days is to minimize junk food and eat smaller portions in general. There really isn’t much to a 4-6oz piece of stinking chicken. There is also always more room for veggies.

I had somewhat of an eye opener conversation with a friend of mine the other day. I have spoken about him in past blogs (the firefighter who’s training for a ironman). I was out at his house for dinner and we were talking about his training schedule which is absolutely insane. I started bitching about my workouts and trouble losing weight. He is one of those lucky guys that can eat just about anything and never get fat, so he didn’t have much advice on diet. He only had a few pieces of info on diet “calories in calories out” and “pre/post workout shake or drink”. What he did bring back to the forefront of my mind was heart rate while working out. I have a polar heart rate monitor and never really put much stock in where my heart rate was at. Well I have been running in the 165-175 bpm range when doing runs on my treadmill. I was gassing out after about 15-20min and had no stinking energy. He told me I was working way too hard and that I needed to slow down even if it meant walking some. The stupid thing is I already knew all this information but wasn’t putting it to use. I started researching it a bit and found some generic MHR equation like 220-your age = MHR (max heart rate). I am 33 so my approx MHR is 187. So pretty much anything over 168 was putting me into the red zone 90% of my MHR. My understating is it’s ok to get into those number if you’re doing HIIT but steady state cardio is another beast. So the last week or so I have been keeping my MHR under 160 (preferably 155) while doing steady state cardio. My workouts have been much more enjoyable and effective. Last night was a 40 min cardio session that resulted in over 3 miles and 550 calories burnt. Previously I was lucky to hit 2 miles and 400cal in 25 minutes or so before practically crashing. I think the main issue was I was still trying to work out like I did when I was 30yo, <200 style=""> So if you have a HRM use it and listen to your heart. Your workouts will be longer, more affective, and more enjoyable which will increase the likelihood of doing them again.

Keep it real FAT.