Been a while since I posted on here!

Well, I’ve been undisciplined in 2012, and I was at the doctor’s office a couple weeks ago and the scale said 211 pounds. So I’m getting back into things.

I’ve taken up martial arts, studying at Plumer Karate America here in south central Wisconsin. This is good for me on a number of levels, not just physical health.

Now, I haven’t done anything “cardio” in many years, and even the treadmilling I would do is at a low pace. I usually walk somewhere between two and three miles per hour, because when I’m walking, I’m not exercising, what I’m doing is NOT sitting. I’m not pushing my heart rate or my respiratory system to the limit.

Cardio is a part of my karate instruction, and I’ve been noticing, even on non-cardio nights, that there are times where I get winded or even light-headed. In high school, a doctor gave me an inhaler prescription for athletic asthma, or something like that. I didn’t really notice that it ever made any difference, and since high school, I haven’t worked at a high enough level that would make it necessary, anyway.

I have played saxophone on and off since fourth grade (I’m not currently playing, though I did through most of 2010), but I didn’t ever really get winded or out of breath from that.

But this cardio thing has me thinking about other areas as well. ADHD, in particular. What if the reason I’m getting fatigued and sometimes light headed in cardio and karate isn’t just this athletic asthma thing, but maybe I’ve got something going on that is affecting my oxygen utilization (you breathe in so much oxygen, and you breathe out less oxygen, the difference between the two is how much you utilize). Maybe I need more red blood cells or something.

ADHD isn’t caused by an oxygen deficiency, but not having enough oxygen in your bloodstream will reduce cognition in general (including ADHD symptoms). More blood and more oxygen to the brain is a good thing, whether you have ADHD or not.

So I’m going to look into improving my breathing. Any tips on that? I’ve got a few other things to investigate as well, but that’s where I’m going to start.

First impression, I think I like my quinoa cooked, not raw. Then again, raw sprouted quinoa is probably better as an ingredient - not as something to it plain, by itself.

I’m probably due. And not just because my type is in higher demand. Tim Ferriss talks about giving blood as a way to, among other things, take the edge off your iron levels in the event that it’s too high because of the diet. But it could also help push through a fat-loss plateau if I remember correctly.

When’s the last time you gave blood? Are you due for another donation?

Here’s where I got the photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26827043@N07/3973531204/

Longer update coming later.

This short post is just to say I did a lot of treadmill today, plus 4x25 kettlebell swings. Treadmill speed was between 1 and 1.5 mph, probably did 5 miles if not more.

Labor Day, Sunday, and Saturday night turned out to be 2.5 cheat days. The two days was planed. The .5 was not. Oh well.

But Mondays, whether it’s cheat day or not, are kettle bell swings. And I put them off until 11pm. On a second cheat day. So my body is running on low fuel, poor fuel, a long day, and I’ve been on the treadmill on and off for the last two hours at least.

I did three sets of 40. The leg muscles above my knees are sore. The muscles between my wrists and elbows are sore. Between my second and third set, I took some potassium pills and a calcium / magnesium / whatever else pill. And I washed it down with a whey protein isolate shake (all natural, no flavor, etc). Hopefully this will all help my recovery.

My hunch is that I overdid it. Last week I did three sets of 30, right? Or was it 35? I didn’t remember. I still don’t. I could look it up, but I’m typing right now, aren’t I? Anyway, if I was only supposed to do 35 this week, I’ll dial it back to 35 for Wednesday and Friday. And I’m going to take it easy tomorrow.

Now if I do a cold bath tonight, will that help or will that make it worse? That I WILL look up before I shut down the computer for the night…

My weight loss has been much slower this week. There are a few small things to which I could attribute it, but I just realized a glaring omission: I haven’t been drinking nearly as much water as usual this week. I haven’t done my 500ml of icewater, especially. I think I spooked myself into thinking that cheat day means more water retention, therefore, less water intake is less water retained. But the Four Hour Body is pretty emphatic that you NEED to drink more water on the slow carb diet. So the rest of this week I’ll be more conscious and intentional about drinking enough water.

On a unrelated note (or maybe it is related), my threshold for tolerating cold water baths seems to have lowered. I’m not as willing to do ice baths this week. It might just be psychological, but worth recording if some correlation is suspected in the future.

Just finished today’s swings: Three sets of thirty swings. Last week was seven sets of ten, but last Friday I wanted to just be done with them so instead I did three sets of 25. That worked out well enough. Next week I will start incorporating “the rest” of the kettlebell swings prescription and introduce “flying dogs” and other stuff.

Some days, like this morning, I don’t have my eggs, spinach, lentils breakfast within 30 minutes of waking. My fallback is 100% pure whey protein isolate natural unflavored by Now Foods. Some 4HB folks will caution you, and I don’t doubt them, that one of the problems with whey protein is that it’ll hit your bloodstream fast, and pretty much all at once. This is not ideal for the slow carb diet.

The obvious solution to this problem is what I did this morning: don’t drink it all at once! Spread it out having a gulp every five minutes or something. Just like Tim Ferriss recommends not wolfing down a meal but take time to chew, take five minute breaks, and whatnot.

So yeah, if you’re doing whey protein as a method of getting your 30g of protein in the morning, don’t drink the whole shake at once. You’re probably better off metering it out over a span of time.

Cold therapy, wine, and no exercise other than kettlebell swings.

Cheat day was Sunday; Monday morning I weighed 197, so cheat day put on five pounds. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to see if I could repeat my results from cold therapy and also wanted to see if staying off the treadmill would help me drop the cheat day weight faster. Here are my weight results so far this week.

• Monday: 197 (+5)
• Tuesday: 195 (-2)
• Wednesday: 194 (-1)
• Thursday: 192 (-2)

Monday night and Wednesday night both were significant ice baths (still working my way toward 20 minutes from the neck down), I have not done any treadmill this week, and I also had a healthy dose of yellow tail pinot noir Tuesday evening. I read somewhere (I would link to it if I could find it) that certain alcoholic beverages can help release retained water. Pinot noir is allowed on the slow carb diet, so there you go.

I’m really happy with the results this week. No post cheat day plateaus, cold therapy is definitely boosting my fat loss, and at present my weight is at last week’s low point, so any weight lost for the rest of this week is “pure profit.” If I stay on this current trajectory, I should be at 187 pounds on Sunday morning.

Oh, I should note that, par for the course, I’ve added another set of ten kettlebell swings. So I’m doing 70 swings three times a week. Next week will be 80.