Being fat, slow, and dangerous

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday... We haven't known each other for too long; online for a couple years, and only actually physically met about a month ago (he wasn't living nearby until a few months ago).

Anyway, I was helping him move, focusing on what I could do best, while preserving my knees: I was picking up the heavy stuff, moving it through the door and over a 4 foot high wall, and handing it out to two other guys.

After watching me pick up a 300lb dresser, and lift it over the wall, and other similar things, for three hours... He said something like "damn man, you're a beast. Seriously, only an idiot would screw with you".

Well... yeah.

I'm fat, and I'm slow... but I'm still dangerous.

I started off writing this as a comment to a post Caleb wrote, which was itself prompted by a forum post "Why are so many competition shooters so fat?". After writing half my comment, I realized that I needed to expand it out a bit to say what I wanted to say.

A little over 15 years ago, my weight varied from 265-285lbs, I hovered from 10-13% bodyfat, and I worked out most every day. I also shot at least once a week, if not every day or every other day (depending on the week, and what job I was on at the time etc...). At least 4 hours a week, and at least 500 rounds of handgun a week... and often as much as 8 hours a week and 1500 rounds of handgun. I was competing in every IDPA match I could make it to, as well as any other kind of match I could get to in any way, at any time.


I was actively involved in both eastern and western martial arts (particularly jiu jitsu) from the time I was 5 years old (and an SCA sword and board hardsuit fighter from 16), until my health and injuries got too bad to do so.

I have also been a fanatical powerlifter, from the time I was 13. I LOVE working out. I LOVE lifting weights. I even love riding the exercise bike (recumbent bikes... and used to love riding the real thing, until the knees and weight added up to make a conventional bicycle too painful for me to ride for long).

I'm a vet, and after I went reserve, I spent a lot of time doing physical security work. Bouncer, event security, principle protection etc.. as well as training in self defense, and security work.

So... I used to be one of those fit guys who you saw at the range, who knew what I was doing, and was as "dangerous" as I looked so to speak. I was never a top tier competitive shooter, because I didn't want to be. It's not that I don't like winning... It's that I wasn't "playing the same game" as the other shooters. My mindset at the time was that I didn't want to develop "gamer" reflexes. I shot my stages like I was clearing an engagement area, not like someone trying to win a stage. I looked at IDPA as a great way to practice unknown range and position shooting, target transitions, and taking purposeful action under stress.

Note: I still do. In fact, I think it's even better INDIVIDUAL training when done on a consistent basis, than force on force shoothouse, simunition, airsoft, or paintball training. 

The shoothouse is extremely valuable periodically, but the team dynamic, and extremely high intensity fast moving, fast changing nature of force on force; makes focusing on particular aspects of your own individual performance, and making the small iterative improvements so important to becoming truly expert at something, more difficult. 

For team training, there is no substitute for shoothouse work (though individual focused training is also extremely valuable of course). Competing in IDPA on a weekly basis (or even twice or three times weekly, as you can get in some areas like Arizona), with another pratice session for the week, and then a shoothouse session every couple months; is, I personally believe, a better balance of environments and methodologies for developing individual expertise in defensive shooting. 

And I admit, I was actually pretty arrogant about that at the time. I took pride in being "tactically sound", and not being a "gamer" etc...

That was before I met Rob Leatham, Jerry Miculek, Matt Burkett, etc... Yeah, I don't care how "tactically unsound" their "game" is, I wouldn't want to be on the other end of their muzzles under any circumstances...

Anyway, I digress (as I so often do).


I don't have any pictures from that time period anymore, but this is what I looked like in early 2000, after I had started gaining weight a bit, but was still mostly fit (I think I was 305lbs there maybe?):

By 10 years ago, I had slipped a bit. I was still working out 3-5 times a week most of the time, and when I could (unfortunately only every month or two) I was still shooting as much as I could; but my knees were already pretty badly hurt (weightlifting, wrestling, football, jumping, various injuries), I was doing a lot of international travel  (I was living in Ireland at the time), and my weight would cycle from 295-325, and up to 18% bodyfat. At one point, when my knees were hurt pretty bad and I stopped working out for a couple months, I even got up to 345, and 23% bodyfat, though I pretty quickly went back down as soon as my knees were healed enough.

BUT...

I was also still very active in the martial arts, I was still fighting in the SCA, I was still doing physical security work, and I was playing semi-pro football on the weekends.

Here's a pic of me with the team, after winning our national championship game. I'm the big bastard in the middle if you don't recognize me:

When I moved back to the U.S. from Ireland Christmas 2003, I weighed 325, and I was unhappy with that weight, so I spent the time and effort on diet and exercise, and got back down to 295...

...and then went back to 100% travel jobs for the next two years, working out whenever I could (and shooting at least 500 rounds and usually more like 1000-1500 every weekend I was back in AZ, or in a state or country wasn't a total pain in the ass). So my weight stayed on that 295-325 yo-yo, and my fitness slowly went down.

These are all me from 2004 and you can start to see the weight coming on:

Then, all of a sudden... it seems like almost overnight to me...  I went from a BIG, fit guy, who worked out a lot to a FAT guy.

Two bad knees, two bad ankles, a bad back (all of which I had BEFORE I got fat, and certainly aided in the process of) and endocrine cancer (though we didn't know that until last year) did it.

I gained about 220 lbs in less than five years, while reducing my caloric intake, and until the injuries prevented it, increasing my exercise levels.

Eventually, I hit just under 500lbs:

I lost more than half that gain in the last year, through proper medication. No change in the diet, no change in exercise, just proper medication.

See... some fat guys... yeah, we're fat; but we're not fat, useless, pathetic slobs. Some of us are strong, and experienced, and well trained, and got fat not because we were sad, lazy, gluttonous etc... but because things in our life changed, and our bodies (or our habits and our brains) didn't adapt appropriately.

And some of us, are still surprisingly good at what we do, and surprisingly capable.

I can't run for shit anymore, but I can walk until the knees give out, no problem (good days and bad. Some days I can barely walk, some days I can do three hours around Costco, Safeway, and Home depot). Stairs kill me, but it's not the cardio, it's the knee and back pain. I ride 10 miles a day on my exercise bike on a pretty challenging program. I do 45 minutes of heavy circuit free weights every other day (and by heavy I mean nothing lighter than 200lbs, except the curls); and the healthier I get the more I'm ramping that up (eventually I hope to be back to working out every day, rotating focus groups on a 3 or 4 day cycle).

I never stopped shooting (though I did shoot a lot less)... and I DID lose the ability to run away, so good shooting became an even higher priority; and I focused almost exclusively on rapid A zone hits at 15 yards or under, and on target transitions (I do need to train MUCH more on presentation from concealment, and reloads).

Several of you have seen me shoot. Unless I'm actively sick (which I have been a lot unfortunately) I'm a damn good shot, and pretty damn quick at it. What I'm not, is particularly mobile... even without the extra weight, my knees are just shot.

So I'm not a competitive shooter anymore (though I plan on getting back to it as I get healthier), but I can still shoot.

And as far as underestimating folks who are fat... well... Some of us know better.

For those of you who know me... Who have seen me pick up and carry a beer keg on each arm, hauled multiple cases of ammo over each shoulder, picked up 200lb shooting tables to carry them to the truck... or those who have received a bear hug from me...

I got fat... I didn't get weak (though I got "weaker"; but when you started as strong as I did... well, for me "weaker" means I bench less than my bodyweight instead of 1.5x and deadlift 1.5-2x my bodyweight, instead of well over 2x, and at my bodyweight that still means I'm stronger than most "fit" men... I'm just only able to sustain that for a few minutes at a time instead of hours), and I for damn didn't lose my brains, my experience, or the fact that I'm an evil bastard who fights dirty, because that's how you win.

So... the point of all that is, yeah, I'm fat. I call myself a gigantic fatass in fact, because I have no problem admitting that's what I have become.

BUT...

For those of you who know me... got a question for you?

Would you want to face me either in an unarmed fight, or in a gunfight?

If so, would your plan be to hit once, and then run like hell?

I got fat, and I got slow... but I never stopped being dangerous.

Perhaps I should have said "re-balancing" instead of Recalibration

I recieved an interesting response from a reader about my post "Recalibration" where I talked about upping the intensity level of my workout, and further chainging my diet around.

"I just stumbled onto your page by accident but started reading. I am an ACE certified personal trainer and a Nutrition and Exercise Science major. If you want to keep from "eating up your own muscle mass" you actually need to not cut your carbs (unless you are eating an unusually high level of carbohydrates.) Carbs are what your body uses for its main source of energy.

I know you want to burn fat so you figure if you don't eat carbs, you will use fat as energy, but that is not true for all body processes. First of all there are parts of your body that can ONLY use glucose, if they don't have it, they will synthesize it from other sources...most likely MUSCLE. Also, if you are doing cardio at 80% of your max HR, this intensity brings the body towards more carbohydrates during substrate utililzation, so once again, if you don't have carbs stored in your body, it will use other sources, i.e. MUSCLE.

Studies actually show that working at 50% of VO2 max intensity results in the highest percentage of fat burn during cardio. Now as you train the HR that correlates with this 50% VO2 max will change and you will need to train at a higher intensity, but the basic point is that 80% HR is going to give you greater cardiovascular benefits, but result in less fat utilization.

And I would watch it on all the protein, a.a.'s, and vitamins. Even if you are heavy weight lifting, your body only needs 1.8-2 g of protein per kg body weight. Anything over this level will just be stress on your kidneys/liver and you will just pee it out...so big waste of money. Eat your carbs, don't cut them, so your body doesn't have to eat up your muscle to make up for its carb deficits. And eat lots of dietary protein too. It is so easy to get all the protein you need just from your diet so you don't need to waste your money on supplements.

Anyway, like I said, I just stumbled on here and wanted to leave a comment. Take it as you wish"

Beth,

Firstly, I thank you for your advice; and I'm aware of the fast burn needs for simple carbs, and the dangers of too much protein (I am constantly warning people off of atkins, at least without doctors supervision).

You can see my diet and excercise here:

Chris and Mels fitness log

And you'll note that currently, carbs and fat make up perhaps 75% of my caloric intake; and that my overall protein intake is too low for my activity level, my body mass, and my muscle mass.

I'm not getting enough dietary protein, because my caloric intake is too heavily weighted towards bread, potatos, and rice basically.

Just as an example, two days ago my total caloric intake was 2011 calories, and the only significant source of protein I had was an 11oz new york strip, for a total of less than 60 grams of protein; when I should be somewhere up around 200gr. For that same day, my total carbohydrate intake was almost 400 grams, and my fat intake almost 150 grams.

I currently weigh 178kg, and I'm targeting 130kg. For my 130kg target I should be eating at a MINIMUM 130gr of protein a day, up to over 250g. I should also target no more than 95g of fat, and no more than 425g of carbohydrates, with ideals more like 65g and 285g.

Of course at my desired activity level, and current weight those numbers change a bit. I want to have a somewhat elevated simple carbs number, a somewhat elevated complex carbs number, a bit less fat, and to come close to maximizing protein.

Also, the reason I vitamin and mineral supplement greatly, is because, especially for my body mass, I dont eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables; having perhpas 8 or 9 servings a week, instead of the 3 or 4 a day I should be eating. I don't take any other dietary supplements, protein powders etc...

Also, I suffer from ulcerative colitis; which complicates matters further. If I eat too much fat, or too much carbs I have problems. If don't eat enough protein, I have problems. If I eat too MUCH protein or tooLITTLE fat I have problems. I have food sensitivities, I dont digest vitamins and minerals as well from my food, and I can develop anemia very quickly if I'm not careful.

As I said, I've been doing this for 15 years now, very freqeuntly under the supervision of doctors, and especially sports medicine trainers and dieticians. I know whats health and what works for me; I was jsut too lazy, and too busy to do it for the last few years.

Oh, and currently I'm working out in the 70% max range; do you think that a lower intensity would be better? Honestly anything less than that, and I really don't feel much effect; but I was a guy who worked out a LOT before my injuries, and I have a greatly elevated stimulus threshold.

I can be cruising along at 75rpm, and 14mph on the bike, with my heart rate right at 120 for 30 minutes, and I'll barely be sweating with only slightly rapid breathing.

I have to push the resistance level up and the speed up to get into 135-140 range to get into the 70% zone. Last night I did 35 minutes at 15.8mph around 80rpm and I barely broke 133.

Now, doing the circuit training, it's a different story. I don't wear a heart rate monitor while I'm working out; but I am DEFINITELY expending greater energy, and exerting greater effort than on the bike; and my heart rate is definitely peaking higher than on the bike. By the end of the workout I'm breathing harder, and sweating much more.

For the last couple weeks I've been doing the circuit every day but weekends. Right now I'm doing the bike every day, and the circuit every other day. When I was doing the circuit every day, and I found I wasn't giving my muscles enough recovery time. Then I tried doing lighter circuits every day, and it wasnt as effective, and STILL wasn't giving enough recovery time; so I've decided I'm going to do the circuit with a medium weight level, every other day.

I'm going to work that in for a bit to get fully used to it, and then see if I can do a heavier circuit day, followed by a lighter circuit day; and then start throwing in heavier weight training in place of the heavy circuit days as my general fitness level comes back towards where I want it to be; so I can rebuild some of the lean mass, keep my anabolic activity high, and do some spot work.

Once I'm happy with my general fitness and muscle tone, I plan on moving to a heavy weight regimen every other day, with rest days in between; and to maintain the bike every day for cardio.

And yes, I know, I need to eat my fruits and vegetables... but I won't wanna mommyyyy wahhhhhh...

Sorry, couldnt stop myself.

Recalibrating

So, I overdid it on my knees Saturday (actually, Friday night, but Saturday didn't help), and I took the weekend off from working out.

My weight has been really fluctuating rapidly. My water retention is all over the place, and my weight readings have been varying as much as 16 pounds during a single day.

Plus I'm burning a hell of a lot in excercise, and with the high protein and the supplements... well I've only been working out again for two weeks now, and I can already see strength and endurance gains.

It's six weeks in to my diet and excercise program, and near as I can tell, my baseline weight is between 391 and 396; about 25 lbs below where I started on september 11th; but my weight on a given day may read anything from 391, to as high as 407 the next day (like yesterday and this morning).

As of a few days ago, I'd lost over an inch on my pants, an inch of fat on my arms, and here's the kicker, TWO FULL INCHES of fat on my chest; plus I've upped my muscle tone significantly. I've also put almost half an inch on my neck, probably just in tone.

This probably means I've lost a couple percentage points of bodyfat in the last month, but because of my high mass, and fluctuating water levels I can't get an accurate or consistent reading; and the tape is just a wild ass guess.

I've got pretty odd muscle structure; I tend to bulk up rapidly, but tone slowly past a certain base level of muscle tone. I'm at that tone level now in some muscle groups, and I can see actual mass gains in two weeks.

Anyway, I've decided to up my aerobic workout intensity and duration a bit. I've been doing 20 minutes a day on the excercise bike, at resistance level 1-2, and keeping my heart rate around 125-135. Today, I upped my program to resistance level 3-4, upped my heart rate range to 135-145, and increased my duration to 30 minutes.

That brings me up to about 70-80% of my peak heartrate, which would qualify as fairly vigorous excercise. For a guy my size, that's about 870 calories worth of burn (according to the instant read calorimeter on my bike anyway); and a nice solid aerobic workout.

I'm pretty happy with maintaining 2600 calories average intake level; it seems to be giving me a good balance between energy, total intake, fullness and hunger, and portion size. Actually, most days I'm coming up a bit short, and filling in the gap with a dessert, or some snacks.

My hunger level has reset very rapidly. Most days I'm not at all hungry, and in fact have to overfill myself a little to make my intake. Better, the more I work out, the lower my appetite (I've always been like that, unless I'm in a heavy mass building period in which case I can't eat enough).

I COULD jsut reduce my average intake, but I'm already in famine mode, and I want my body to stabilize at the 2600 calorie intake level. Plus, with the excess burn from excercise, I don't think that's a good idea at all.

I'm doing enough aerobic work, between the bike and circuit training, that I'm going to have some catabolisis if I'm not careful. I don't want to reduce my excercising, in fact I want to increase it; so I'm going to have to go with a heavier supplement regimen (back to the full stack in a few weeks I think), and up my protein intake, because my diet is somewhat heavily carb weighted at the moment.

Also, I'm going to put in some heavier large muscle training in a few weeks, to up my anabolic processes. Heavy leg work once or twice a week, with a complete workout to failure and exhaustion once a month, and some upper body work to balance it out ought to do it... if I supplement myself properly (lots of vitamins, protein, and amino acids), otherwise I'll end up eating my own muscle through catabolisis.

If I have the time, I'm also upping my circuit training routine, to include more balanced upper and lower body work; and increasing the total time to 60 minutes, instead of 45; at least every other day, and if I can manage it, every day.

This will give me up to 90 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity every day (and at least 30); with breaks on weekends. I'm going to have to work hard at preventing catabolisis here.

My goal is to burn fat off, rebuild muscle mass, and re-tone; not eat my own muscles, so again it's time for recalibration. Up the protein, up the vitamins and amino acids, cut a lot of the carbs... and then figure out what intake level I need to keep up to avoid muscle loss.

I expect between famine mode, the water retention, and my muscle mass starting to build up; that my weight is going to plateau for a while, but my fitness level is going to increase rather rapidly; at least I hope so.

Pulling the Circuit

We finally finished assembling it last night, probably 8 hours all told including breaks, and with thanks to the able, and much appreciated assistance of Kommander and JohnOC.



So I did my first full circuit tonight on the machine, and man I am really hapy with it.

I started off with a stretch, then a shot warmup on the bike followed by 20 minutes in the zone (with the heart rate control program keeping me around 135) and a 3.5 minute cool down; then I switched off to the circuit for 40 minutes.

I was really happy with the speed I was able to run the circuit. My heart rate never really dropped, and by the end of it I was POURING sweat, but still breathing well.

The point of circuit training is to use light weight, as fast as you can with good form, and keep your heart rate up; and believe me I managed it.

I don't have the routine down yet, but what I did was pretty much this (mostly in order, but I don't remmeber 100%):

1. military press, 15 reps
2. leg extensions, 15 reps
3. pec flys, 15 reps
4. Leg curls, 15 reps
5. deltoid flys, 15 reps
6. behind the neck lat pull downs, 15 reps
7. Back squats, 15 reps
8. Seated row, 15 reps
9. back row, 15 reps
10. Front push downs, 15 reps
11. Preacher curls, 15 reps
12. leg press, 15 reps
13. Crunches on the decline bench, 15 reps
14. shoulder shrugs, 15 reps
15. Bench press, 15 reps

Doing all that, the only configuration I had to change was to move the bench out of the way for the floor excercises, and adjust the bench back and preacher pad settings; and the whole circuit took me 40 minutes.

I'm thinking about adding hack, chest, and dumb squats, and some elevated calf raises; because I need to add more leg to balance out the arm and chest work. I'd love to add lunges just for the heart rate benefits (lunges are VERY hard if done properly) but I really can't because of the knee strain. I should note, that I do a ham squat, where the back of my hamstring is just below parallel to my knee, because any lower causes knee strain (any higher causes knee strain as well, dont think a half squat is any better, it's actually worse).

Also, it's important to note that you shouldnt do heavy back squats on a smith machine, because the restricted range of motion is bad for your knees, hips, and lower back. Hack squats on the other hand work reasonably well on a Smith.

I may also add some decline presses to balance the upper, lower, and mid chest work.

If I was strength or size training, I would have slowed things down a lot, used a lot more weight for less reps, and varied the weight between excercises a lot. As it was, I just left the same weight in place for the whole circuit, because I wanted to change from excercise to excercise as fast as possible.

I didnt do any rep to failure; and during circuit training you generally don't want to. That said, doing some limited range of motion leg presses to failure is a really great way to kick up your overall muscle production, and toning; because putting so much stress on the large muscle grounps involved kicks your bodies anabolic reaction into emergency mode. When I feel better about my knee strength, I'm going to add some leg press to failure into the routine.

When I was done, I felt great; and I almost got back on the bike for another 20 minutes; but I had to make dinner. I'm definitely thinking hard about doing two circuits and two rides a day at this point.

Oh, and yeah, I definitely need to pick up more weight. I think at least another 320lb set. I'll probably pick up another full weight set without the bar (I've already got two, the rail bar, and a free bar), which is actually 275lbs, an easy curl bar, and two dumb bell bars; and then 4 more 45lb plates, for a total of 730lbs. That way I can get some good squats and leg presses going, I can leave enough weight on the various stations and not shift the plates from station to station; and also have the variety of smaller weights for use with the dumb bells and preacher bar (especially for Mel).

Oh, and I definitely need a new pair of lifting gloves now (the knurling tears up my hands, and I need the wrist support); and a belt and straps for when I start to go heavy again (probably in the spring).

One month in, and it's time to pick it up

So, it was a month Wednesday since we started our diets. Mel is down to 217. I was at 395 this morning on the scale, and I'm retaining a bit less water; probably about 4lbs now vs. the 8-12 I was retaining before; so let's say 391.

I've lost an inch off my pants (I wont say waist, since I wear my pants between my waist and hips) since this whole thing began, and my energy, alertness, and general fatigue are all WAY better.

24lbs in 4 weeks, now if I could only keep that rate up for another 4 months, I'd be at my goal before my birthday. Of course that's physically impossible, but a guy can dream right?

Honestly, I expect it will take me the full 19.5 months I've set for myself to get back to the fitness level I want, at the weight I want; which is 265-285lbs at near my 18 year old muscle mass levels, and under 18% bodyfat. No I can't be 18 again; but at 18 I was at 13% bodyfat, I figure I can spot myself the extra 5% for being over 30.

So, I said once I got below 400 I would really kick up the excercise levels, and I meant it; but having to go to the gym means you won't do it if you aren't "in the mood" so today we pulled the trigger on a home gym setup. Yes, it's expensive, but we've been paying $720 a year for two gym memberships we aren't using; and having it at home means we WILL use it (I actually LIKE working out, and Mel is going to do it whether she likes it or not).

Of course, this is me, so I'm not talking about any stupid bowflex crap.

I've been checking out home gyms for a while, and I was trying to decide between a Smith machine, and an olympic leverage machine, both of which use olympic free weights. The Smiths incorporate a power rack and a hack rack on rails, with a weight bench; and a pully system so that you are using real free weights, or free weights riding on rails for your resistance. The leverage machines use pivots and pulleys without the rack.

Here's an example of the Powertec Olympic Leverage machine I've been considering:



Anyway, Mel said to me today "I've got all this excess energy and no way of getting rid of it outside of the bedroom" (which is another thing that has much improved in both frequency and duration thank you) "I'm tired of it, we need to buy the gym stuff now".

I was all for it; since I've been feeling the need for more excercise anyway, with this excess energy. Plus, I'ver really got to build my legs back up again, or my knees are just going to fail even further. I need to do my own physical therapy, and in addition to losing the weight, I need to build my leg strength back up.

I learned a long while back from the sports medicine specialist that got me back to walking without a cane in the first place, that the only way I was going to last til 45 without a knee replacement, was to have my legs strong enough that my joint wasn't taking all that weight unsupported.

Anyway, those Powertecs are EXPENSIVE, so we were going to just go ahead and pick up a recumbent bike for now; but the place we picked the bike up at had a half decent Smith machine on sale for a terrific price, so we picked up both this:



and this:



Those are the Marcy SM4000 Smith machine, and the Schwinn/Nautilus 213 recumbent bike.

Normally I wouldn't even consider buying a Marcy product, but you wouldn't believe how solid this thing is; plus it's got a lifetime warranty; and I checked out the reviews which have all been positive. This particular machine has a hell of alot of options, AND it can be used with or without the bench as a regular free weight bench, and a regular power rack/power cage, and as a preacher bench, and a row bench etc... etc...

Basically it should do almsot everything I would do in a full gym. Sure, I'll have to spend more time changing configurations, but it means I can do everything I want, with free weights, all in one machine.

Yes, one of the more conventional home gym plate machines would be easier for Mel to use, and faster to switch between excercises. Unfortunately, all but the top professional gym grade machines have pathetically small max weight stacks of less than 300lbs; and they have a very limited range of motion, that just doesn't exercise your muscles as well as free weights can.

I'm less sanguine about the bike, because usually consumer grade excercise bikes are pretty flimsy, but it feels solid, and it rides well; plus it's got a good warranty. Given the price we got it for, even if it dies right outside of the warranty period we will have got our money out of it.

We were planning on spending well over $1000 for the Smith machine, and $1500 for a used lifecycle; as it was we ended up paying $200 under list for EACH of these bad boys, AND got a 300lb olympic weight set in the deal. All in all, we spent less than what the bike alone would have cost us, for everything; so if they hold up to our use, then we got a great deal.

I can't tell you how much I've missed working out. If you've never really worked out heavy you don't know what it's like, but after a good workout I'm so pumped up, and yet so tired at the same time, that I get this weird kind of relaxed high. It's great.

Anyway, I had my first real workout in three years tonight. I did 20 minutes of fairly heavy effort on the recumbent bike, managed just under 5 miles in the process and kept my heart rate in the 135-155 zone for almost all of that time.

A note on heart rates: For "ideal" aerobic and systemic benefit, you want to keep your heart rate at 65-80% of your maximum heart rate (which is 220 minus your age) for at least 20 minutes; and don't eceed 85% or you'll quickly exhaust yourself. For any significant excercise benefit at all, you want to get your heart rate up to at least half your maximum heart rate, and at least twice your resting heart rate, which for me is around 54.

So, around 95-110 is the minimum heart rate for me, for aerobic benefit; 135-155 is the ideal excercise range; 165-180 is the exhaustion zone where you are overstressing; and over 180-190 or above is dangerous tachycardia.

I cooled down a bit, and then lifted for a half hour. Moderate effort, high reps low weight shrugs, squats, leg presses, bench presses and dead lifts at 135lbs for 20 reps, then 205lbs for 5 reps each excercise.

When I say high rep low weight, I mean that's nothing weight for a guy my size. I can do 205lb bench presses until my arms give out. A single pushup puts more tension on me than 205lbs. The point of this wasn't to do serious weight lifting, it was to get into the circuit, and keep my heart pumping... to get the high going.

I haven't built the curl bench, butterfly attachment, or pull down attachment yet so I didnt do a full circuit (which takes about 45-60 minutes, and consists of one full set of high rep low weight fast as you can do them with good form; then one set with medium weight and low reps to finish it off) but I still got the high, which is great.

Once this thing is dialed in, and I get some more weight (320lbs isn't much weight for leg excercises in a guy my size. I need to pick up another 300lbs for any kind of serious leg work, and 500 lbs to max the machine), I'm going to get a solid routine going.

My plan is to do 20-30 minutes of cardio on the bike twice a day. I'm also going to do a full circuit every day at relatively low weight just for the fitness and weight loss side of things; plus some spot work on legs, arms, chest, and core (pelvis, back, neck, and abs). These machines should let me do what I need to do; I just hope the Smith setup is convenient enough to switch between stations that I can keep a good circuit going.

Now, what do I do in my circuit?

Well, what I DID when I was training a lot, was a long circuit; starting with a 10 minute stretch and warmup, followed by a 20-30 minute bike session, and a weight circuit consisting of 20 reps of each excercise at a light weight, followed by 5 reps of each excercise with a higher weight; as fast as I could do them and switch between them, but still keep good form; and finally a short cooldown and stretch.

If I did everything right, it took me about 90 minutes to two hours to do it. When I was working out my heaviest, I'd often do it twice a day every other day, and then heavy lifting on the days I wasn't doing the circuit.

My circuit consisted of (not necessarily in order - you want to mix it up to not overstress a particular muscle group during the circuit):

Hack squats
Leg presses (sled)
Calf raises (8" - 4" elevated toe to 4" heel extension)
Shrugs
Single leg extensions (left and right)
Leg curls (left and right)
Bench presses
Military presses
Lat pull downs
Preacher pull downs (pull down curls)
Standing rows
Low rows
Preacher curls
Dumb curls (left and right)
Seated butterflys
Dumb flys (lay down)

Let me tell you, after 20 reps light and 5 reps medium of each of those, fast as you can, you feel like rubber; but it's a GOOD tired.

Given the machine I've got, I can do all of that, except the dumb flys, dumb curls, and preacher curls; and really for those all I need to do is pick up a preacher bar (it's already got a preacher bench), and a couple of dumb bells.

You know what's funny? My knee isn't screaming at me. Oh I know it will be tomorrow after I wake up (hell, both of them probably will be), but for now, the pleasure of working out is dealing with the pain.

Now if I can only manage to get out of bed and walk in the morning....