NROL4W - Stage 1 - Week 1

14Feb08

So I started on Monday after taking a week off from Cathe to get myself prepared. Although I had had success with Cathe’s cardio and circuit workouts, lately I’ve felt as though all that working I was doing (6 days a week, at least an hour or more of cardio or circuit workouts) and literally nothing to show for it week after week. Now granted my eating probably wasn’t the best, but I just didn’t know why I was working so hard but kept gaining and losing the same like 3 pounds week after week after week, not to mention feeling totally drained after a Cathe workout. I remember many a Sunday where I’d get up in the morning, spend an hour and a half doing Drill Max 2, then being too tired to take a shower. I’d just slowly walk to the kitchen (still sore) make myself a bowl of cereal or some turkey bacon and an egg, eat, and get back in bed. Workouts aren’t supposed to make you feel like that.

The NROL4W book says that the reason I wasn’t losing was because my body had adapted to what I was doing. Which does make sense now that I think about it. The book also says that steady state cardio isn’t the best way to lose weight. The book recommends three days a week of weight training mixed with short sessions of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) which is just fancy words for something like 1 minute at a really really really high intensity, followed by a 2 minute low intensity recovery. And you can mix up the ratios however you want, to vary things up. I must say it’s quite interesting to actually do. I can’t say I’m at a point where I’m all out super high intensity during those one minutes, but I’m getting there. Plus, it’s given me an excuse to break out the treddy that’s been sitting in my bedroom unused for a few months now.

Anyhoo, those are pretty much the basics of the plan. Of course they give you specific weight training exercises to do on specific days, and say three days a week of weight training is ideal. So for me it’s Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays I’ll probably do some kind of cardio session because I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that I don’t NEED steady state cardio to lose weight. At least not yet. I will definitely vary the cardio sessions, and shorten the time I spend doing them. I also do 20-30 minutes of HIIT after weight training if I feel up to it. The book doesn’t require the HIIT sessions after weight work until after the first six weeks, but since I don’t really consider myself a beginner, I figured it couldn’t hurt to throw those in there. The only difference is that unlike before, I’m listening more to my body. Since this is brand new for me, and I want to make sure I give my body time to rebuild and prepare for the next weight session, if I intend to do cardio on a Tuesday or Thursday or after a weight session and my body doesn’t think it’s a good idea, then I will either shorten the time, lighten it up a bit, or not do it at all. There’s always tomorrow.

So here are my stats. I took pics too, but I don’t know how I feel about posting those up on here. I think I’ll just keep those to myself for my own FYI. Or I can post them and cut my head off so no one knows what I look like. Although anyone who knows me can tell me by my hair. My hair always gives me away.

I’ve never measured myself before, so please excuse the crudity of the terms I use. You get the idea…

Sunday February 10th

Starting Weight: 166.4

Waist (at navel): 33

Hips (low hips, above booty): 40

Hips (high hips, below navel): 41.5

Left thigh: 25.75

Right thigh: 25.75

Left bicep: 12.5

Right bicep 12.5

Here are my weight selections for the first workout of Stage A. I won’t update these until the end of the six weeks so I can track my progress and how much my weights have increased.

Stage 1 Weight Selections

Workout A - 2 sets 15 reps each (8 reps prone jackknife)

Squats: 34#

Push ups; 60 degree version: body weight (BW)

Bent over row: 34#

Step ups: 34#

Prone jackknife: BW

Workout B - 2 sets, 15 reps (8 reps Swiss ball crunch)

Deadlift: 34#

Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 12#

Pullover: 13#

Lunge: 28# (needs to be lighter)

Swiss Ball Crunch: 8# (needs to be heavier, or another variation)

The one thing I’ve noticed is that if the ab work on the ball is supposed to be challenging, then my core is stronger that I thought it was, because I have to add weight to these or come up with other variations to make them more challenging.

So I guess that’s it for now. I guess I’ll be back periodically to talk about how I’m doing with the program and the eating.

Filed under: weight loss   |  
Tags: weights, cardio, lifting, hiit, high intensity interval training, intervals, Cathe