Weekly weigh-in #6

78.7kg.

Quite a big loss from last week, of course it's not fat loss and last week's gain wasn't a fat gain anyway.

I'm going low carb, as I have said many times in the past.  I'm not 100% sure whether I've lost the glycogen based water weight or not, it's only been about 30 hours since I had carbs, so who knows.

How is it at the gym?

Generally, okay.

I went for an evaluation (which was really just a blood pressure measurement), my blood pressure was normal which was good.  I was also shown how to use the various weight machines.

It was with extreme shame that today I didn't go to the gym.

I lost my access card today, it turned out it was at home.  I could have gone to the gym after finding it but the desire to have a nap after work was too strong.  Some days after work, I just feel like a nap.

I did keep a diary of my exercise activities at the gym, but I kind of stopped.  Since my first day after joining up, I've gone every day until today (Saturday to Wednesday).

Here's what I've been doing:

Elliptical - I love this machine.  It requires very little brain power.  Back in 2011 I would do a 2 hour session just on the elliptical.  Get up to speed, switch off.  Because I'm not fit right now, I can't do that yet.  I'm not sure if I will even.  But it is my ideal machine, if I had to choose just one.

Treadmill - it's winter here.  If it were summer I may not even join the gym.  But walking around at 5 degree C weather is just not fun.  I don't like to run in the dark after work for obvious reasons, so that's why the treadmill is a good machine.  I'm running for the day of the month in terms of minutes.  So tomorrow I'll run for 10 minutes.  I'm not fit yet.  By the end of the month, I will be.  Walking on the treadmill is pretty easy, but I would prefer to have some form of exercise that is more energy intensive.

Weight machines - I am using these for the first time.  I'll explain why I'm using them later on.

Generally speaking, a gym session finishes when I run out of energy.  Usually that's when I finish my run on the treadmill.  That's happened a few times now, I go for my run and then head home for a nap.

Ideally, I would have 10 gym sessions a week.  That's a lot.  If I lose my access card, or have an appointment (ironically, I had my evaluation at the gym that caused me to not have two sessions that day) then that will cause me to drop the number of sessions per day.

The days that I'm not working, I plan to do two gym sessions.  I've done this before, going swimming twice a day, back in 2012.  I loved it, but I'm working more this time which means less days doing multiple gym sessions.

Diet - this of course is the biggie.  I'm going back to the coloured charts that I've used in the past.  Green is "ideal" and red is "not ideal".  I'm allowed "nice food" every kilogram or every week.  Apart from that, it's veges, sardines/tuna and olive oil.  That's it.

Yesterday I walked from work to the car (only about 17 minutes walk away) in the freezing cold.  It wasn't actually freezing, but it was blowing a gale and very cold.  What happens when you're cold?  The eating reflex kicks in and you buy a hot meat pie just to warm yourself up.  I'll buy myself a hot liquid container tomorrow for reaching the car and having something warm just to prevent any food cravings.

So for the next few days, I just need to continue avoiding the carbs (except the one kilogram of vegetables that I'm eating) although I'm allowed nice food when I hit 78.0 kilograms.

Two sessions at the gym each day I'm not working.  Leaving the gym run until the end of the session rather than the middle.  That makes sense.