Today was an upper body workout day starting at 7 am.
Yesterday I did squats and deadlifts and today I went for overhead press and pullups. And after this 30 minutes of strength training I did a 2 mile walk/run.
Overhead press starting with a warmup weight of 45lbs for 5 repetitions, then 65lbs for 5 reps, 70lbs for 5 reps, 75lbs for 5 reps, 85lbs for 5 reps and 95lbs for 5 reps.
In between shoulder press sets I did pullups on the assist machine starting with 80lbs of assistance and then down to 75lbs, 70lbs, 65lbs and 60lbs.
I am planning on doing pushups at home, still have not done today as of yet, but I do plan to shoot for 100 total pushups today.
The walk/run was the best that I had today since I started to do walking/running instead of the elliptical. I was getting bored doing the elliptical and needed to change things up and I thought of doing a high intensity interval training workout. That idea comes from watching soccer players who walk a bit, jog a bit and run a bit and appear to be in great shape. I want to leave the long walks for spending time with my wife, family and friends but use 30 minutes in the morning to train and get stronger and fitter. I started on monday and today thursday was the first day that I went up to 6mph. I know that might sound ridiculously slow, but for me it is an accomplishment. Twelve years ago I could not walk on my leg because of a torn medial meniscus in my left knee. I could not walk for a good six months till the swelling went down and at that time, I did not consider getting arthoscropic surgery.
As recently as three years ago I still could not run. I could walk and believe me I was very grateful for walking, but I could not run and any time that I tried I would get sharp pains in my knee and could see it swell a bit. That was when my weight was fluctuating between 250lbs and my highest weight of 275lbs. Back then the best I could do for some cardio exercise was to swim.
During the last two years that I have been 75 lbs lighter, I never even thought to try to run. The pain from running in the past was enough of a deterrent for me to not attempt to do any running. I cannot tell you exactly why, but this last monday I was thinking about my walking and elliptical program and it did not feel like it was enough. I was spending an hour a day sometimes just walking and while I like walking, I prefer to do that with company and when I exercise, I want it to be more productive for building better fitness. The first day that I ran was monday, I was nervous about the first few steps, but I noticed that I was not feeling pain in my knee. So I kept going. At first I did just 15 seconds of running at 4.5 mph after a couple of minutes of walking at 3mph, and I did that for a half hour, gradually increasing the time that I was running.
After finishing two miles alternating between running and walking with no knee pain, I was euphoric, first because there was no pain and second because I felt different, perhaps the runners high? I felt so good that I did the same running routine twice that day so that I could feel that high again. I am sure though that a good health coach would have told me to not overtrain and by running three times in one day, even if it was for a short period of time, that is overtraining. As a result, I felt a bit of strain in my left achilles area. So, I dialed it down on tuesday and wednesday, still ran slowly, but kept building up my running time to where it is now, two minutes of running after two or three minutes of walking.
How can I be running? I hope that the difference has been weight training with squats and deadlifts over the last two years. I believe that the surrounding muscles of my knee must have gotten stronger and perhaps that is adding enough stability to my knee that I have been able to run this week. I am hoping that this can continue, because if it does, I want to see if I can continue to increase my running time to the point that I can enter a 5k race, that would be pleasantly shocking.
Meal plan for today
Breakfast – Mango, persimmon and avocado in the morning. The weather is hot and those fruits felt like a good choice after working out. I added the avocado to slow down the digestion of the sugar with the added fat.
Brunch – Egg omelete – now this one was really good, here is how to do it. Sautee two or three slices of onion and half a tomato in extra virgin olive oil. Keep the flame moderately low and use a wooden spoon to move the vegetables around in the pan. Add one whole egg and two or three whites, these should be organic eggs without antibiotics or hormones. Stir with the wooden spoon so that they look like scrambled eggs. Add a tablespoon of grated or ground parmesan cheese and again stir the eggs. Let them set and take a plate, use large spinach leaves raw and arrange them on the bottom of the plate and put the omelete on top.
Add half an avocado on the side and you have a great breakfast. If you are missing the feeling of having a sandwich, take the large spinach leaves and put some omelete between them and voila, spinach sandwich, even Popeye did not think of that one despite how much he loved spinach.
Lunch – Tuna salad made with chunk white albacore, cucumber, tomato, onion, olives, garlic dill pickle and a tablespoon of mayo and half an avocado if you have a good ripe one. They are not so easy to find. Do the same with the spinach leaves at lunch as in the morning.
Snack – Apple and walnuts
Dinner – Broccoli and chicken
Snack – Grapes and nuts or greek yogurt and berries and some nuts.
Shoot to get to sleep at ten.
Rinse and repeat , Lift (weights or body weight), Walk, Run, Water (Drink lots, shoot for a gallon a day), Vegetables (Every meal must include vegetables, they are the foundation of our food pyramid) which looks like vegetables and protein for meals, fruit and nuts for snack. Simple.
Please let me know how you are doing, what was your workout and meal plan today, thanks for sharing and encouraging us all to get fitter in body and mind one day at a time!
Ben Isaac is the author of 