My how time flies when you’re having fun. August is over, and now my September 30^th deadline is staring me in the face. While I’m a little worried about only having 4 and a half weeks to accomplish the goal, I’m also excited that the moment of truth is almost here.

The regimen will be a bit different down the homestretch. I’m still lifting 3 times a week, and doing the yoga, with rock climbing spiced in here and there. But cardio is taking front and center.

Not only am I running and rowing, but my new “go-to guy” for cardio is cycling (or “spin”) class. I prefer “cycling” personally; it sounds more masculine. “Spin” doesn’t sound like anything I want to be a part of. I’m not much of a twirler.

So I’m doing the cycling classes twice a week now, and they say that you can burn as much as 600 calories in a single class. I believe every word of it. You know it’s not going to be good when, during the pre-class warm-ups, the instructor says, “Don’t worry, the lights are dim, if you puke nobody will know it’s you. So go ahead and puke, I don’t care!” …Yay, I can’t wait.

You’ll be happy to know I haven’t puked (yet), but I do leave covered in sweat and what is probably drool. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really ridden a bike since I was 13, I have no idea, but I feel like I’m dying by minute 7 of a 60-minute class. Point being, if you want a sure fire way of burning calories, cycling classes may be something to try.

Or “spin”, whatever.

So I’ve got a solid workout plan I’m sticking to, and assuming I adhere to my diet, I firmly believe I should be able to hit my 6% body fat mark.

I do have one big, self-imposed obstacle in front of me though: I’m taking a 5-day vacation to Florida to see an old college buddy of mine, Nick, and we tend to drink… a bit.  That, coupled with the diet pitfalls of eating on the go, make for a very bad weekend if not planned properly.

My strategy?

1. Get a cooler.
2. Go to grocery store.
3. Stock cooler with all the healthy things I love to eat at home…and some beer. Light beer.
4. Give myself a cheat day on Saturday, but other than that, stick to a slightly increased 2800-calorie plan.
5. Tell Nick to shut up and choke him out when he busts my chops and calls me “a girl” for counting calories.
6. Do at least 30-60 minutes of exercise each day, pre-fun… I figure if I’m lucky, Nick will still be sleeping off his hangover/choke out when I’m done.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully it will give me some good blog ammo. I’ve already got a few ideas brewing… ha, brewing. My brain is already in Florida.

This article has absolutely nothing to do with an unethical love life.

…Okay, now that I’ve lost 99.5% of my readers (grandma, you better still be reading), this has everything to do with cheating on your diet.

This kid's diet is shot.

Over the years I’ve read various articles about how once a week or so, it’s a good idea to have a cheat meal or even a cheat day. Meaning, you break free from the strict confines of your normal, low calorie diet, to enjoy yourself a little more and eat like a normal human being for a change.

The theory behind this is, if you stick to such a rigid low-calorie diet for an extended period of time, your metabolism will start to slow down to compensate for the lack of calories. Increasing your calories for a meal/day will kickstart your metabolism and keep it fighting to burn those calories.

While I’m no doctor, and I’m no nutritionist, like most people I am somebody who would rather eat more than less. So hey, sign me up.

In fact, if I’m being honest, I had a cheat day last weekend. On Friday night a few friends came in to town for a wedding the following day. These weren’t just any friends; these were college friends. Not only were they college friends, they were fraternity friends. What does this mean? It means when we see each other we drink because we can’t have fun otherwise. So drink I did…

However, I didn’t go crazy. All the articles I’ve seen that argue against a cheat day assume that people are going nuts and stuffing their faces. My take on a cheat day isn’t:

“Hey barkeep, get me 3 orders of cheesy fries, 2 Jagerbombs, and a bottle of ranch…with some bleu cheese… and something for the lady…. Which I will probably end up eating.”

This isn’t a day to eat like you’re about to be executed. This is a day to relax your diet a bit, and have fun within reason. I still count calories, and I still eat relatively clean. I just increase my budget for the day.

For example, my current caloric budget on a normal day is 2500-2600 calories per day. On my cheat day, I increase it to 3300 calories.

Where did this number come from? This is the number I’d have to eat on a daily basis to maintain weight. So it’s not like I’m putting on 1.2lbs of fat in one day, erasing everything I worked so hard for the previous 6 days.

Another thing that I’ve found works best for me is to plan ahead for the cheat day. Don’t let it be sporadic. Specify a day before your week even starts, and stick with that day and only that day. If you don’t, the next thing you know you’ll have “cheated” 3 days in a row, because you’ll have told yourself:

“It’s okay, I’ll just work like crazy for the next 15 days straight”.

It doesn’t work that way. That’s not called cheating on your diet. That’s called divorcing your diet and running off with a hot cinnamon roll.

So if you’re working hard, day after day, week after week, I don’t see anything wrong with having a cheat day once a week as long as you’re smart about it.  From what I’ve read, and experienced, it’s probably even a good thing to do. In fact, my last weigh in was a couple days post cheat day, and my progress was right where I wanted it to be. No harm, no foul.

So what are your thoughts on cheating? If you’ve done it, do you think it’s helped or hindered you in achieving your goals? Do you find it helps to motivate you the rest of the week? I’m always interested to hear other people’s opinions and experiences.

If you’ve been following this blog at all, and I’m sure you haven’t, you’ll know that I’ve been testing my body fat at least once a month to track my progress towards my goal of being 6% body fat by the end of September.

Something you may have been curious about is how exactly I’ve been testing my body fat content, and how accurate that number is.

I’ve always been curious myself as to how accurate my readings were. If they were artificially high, then obviously I wanted to know so I could feel one step closer to my goal. If they were coming in too low, well… I guess I didn’t really want to know in this case. I’m happy to live a lie.

Let me point out that there are many different ways of getting your body fat tested, and most of them are considered more accurate than the two that I’m facing off in this article. However, the most accurate all seem to involve seeing a doctor, gypsy fortuneteller, or some form of specialist (You can get a pretty exhaustive list of the different methods here).

Well I don’t want to have to bring my health insurance into this, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. So that gives you a couple more economical options:

1. Calipers (the old fashioned, time tested method)
2. Bioelectrical Impedance testers (Handheld, and scale)

What I’ve been using is a handheld bioelectrical impedance tester called the Omron HBF-306C:

I love this thing for several reasons:

1. It’s easy to use

All you have to know are your basic stats: age, height, weight, and sex. If you don’t know the answers to these basic questions, or how to find them out, your parents have failed you miserably.

When you power the unit on, it will prompt you to enter these numbers, and after doing so will say “Ready”. All you do then is stand up straight, hit “Start”, grasp the handles, and hold it away from your body with your arms straight out in front of you until it gives you a reading (usually about 5 seconds or so). That’s it. Done.

Keep in mind that the best time to weigh yourself and do the test is in the morning before you eat anything. This will generally give you the most accurate reading.

2. It’s extremely portable

Do I really need to talk about this one? You see the picture. It isn’t made of plutonium. The thing probably weighs a pound, if that. Just pop it in your gym bag if that’s where you weigh in and you’re good to go.

3. It’s cheap

I think I got mine for like $30 or so. Before buying one though, I’d check with the folks working at your gym to see if they have one. You might be able to use theirs. Why spend money if you don’t have to, right?

4. It’s great at parties

I love to play the “I bet you’re fatter than me game”. Talk about a crowd pleaser that’s good for any self-esteem…

All jokes aside, this thing seems pretty solid. However, if it isn’t accurate, who gives a crap. I might as well just slap my belly and count the jiggles (I initially spelled that as “giggles”. Would’ve been funnier, so I saw it fit to mention).

So I decided to see how this thing measures up to the tried and true body fat calipers. While calipers are obviously dependent on the knowledge and skill of the person administering the test, they have been shown to be highly accurate in the hands of a trained professional.

Having a trained professional who was crazy enough to meet me at 6:45am, I went to Amanda for another body fat test this morning. She administered the test several times to ensure accuracy, and hey whaddya know: I’m down to 7.8% according to the calipers. Hey I like these things. Last time she tested me (which was a little over 2 weeks ago) I was at 9.1%. That’s solid progress.

After I got the caliper test, I went directly to the gym to weigh in and test myself with the 306C. I weighed myself 3 times just to be sure of the number, and used the 306C several times to get a solid average.

My weight: 181.6. Nice.

Body fat: 8.6%…. Not quite as nice as I’d hoped, but still progress from my last reading.

From this, you can see that the figures between the two tests were fairly close:

7.8 on the calipers, 8.6 on the 306C.

Less than a full percentage point of difference, which most people can live with. But which reading am I going to put my money on?

As far as an official number, I’d have to say calipers. Why? And no, not because it’s the lower number (though I am pretty excited about that)…

I have to believe that calipers are better testers of overall body fat. The samples are taken from various locations on your arms, upper body, midsection, and legs, giving a fuller picture of your body’s fat content. These numbers are then averaged to come to your overall fat percentage. Sounds like a solid formula to me.

With the handheld unit, it only tests the fat content in your upper body, and from this reading, makes assumptions about the fat content of the remainder of your body.

Why do I say this? Well it’s sending an electrical current from one electrode to another, or from one hand to the other. If my understanding of electricity is at all accurate, then the electrical current will take the shortest possible path to close the circuit. This means that the test runs from one hand, down your arm, through your chest, and back up the other arm to the opposite hand.

Put simply, it measures the fat in your arms and chest. That’s not exactly what I’d call a full body sample. While I’m sure the equations it uses to calculate the rest of your body are as scientific as they come, it’s impossible for it to account for the infinite number of differences between people’s bodies, and in the end is just an estimation.

Does this make the 306C worthless? Of course not.  As shown, it’s fairly accurate. Plus, with all the pros I stated in the beginning, it seems a good option for the self-tester. After all, who has the time or resources to grab a personal trainer every morning or so to do a caliper test?

I plan on testing with the 306C weekly from here until the end of September to make sure I’m progressing. However, at the end of September, you best believe I’m going to recruit Amanda’s help for a final caliper reading.

Bottom line: The Omron HBF-306C may not be quite as accurate as the calipers, however it’s low cost, ease of use, and portability make it a solid choice for self-administered body fat testing.

As promised, I weighed in this past Tuesday the 17^th. I took the pictures you’ll see below before heading to the gym to weigh-in. When I looked at the pictures, I thought: damn, I look exactly the same. This was discouraging.

However, I’m more concerned with the numbers, because they don’t lie (or judge how I look in my underwear).  I got my work clothes and grub for the day together, and headed off to the gym.

Side note: I bet the morning staff at Gold’s Gym think I’m one of the biggest posers around: I show up in gym clothes, and then leave 5 minutes later in my work clothes. Not a drop of sweat to be found. Anyway…

I got to the gym and stepped up on the scale… I got off, reset it, and stepped on the scale again. Same result: 183.

I’ve got to say, I was pretty happy with that. However, losing weight isn’t the goal. Losing fat is the goal. So I took that number, and plugged it into my handy dandy body fat monitor. The result? 8.8% I retested another couple times to be sure, and got the same result every time.

Progress tastes sweet… speaking of taste, I’m hungry.

Overall, I’m happy. This means I’m heading in the right direction, and theoretically I’m on track for hitting my goal of 6% by Sept. 31^st. But one thing bothers me….

If I lost 0.8% body fat since July 17^st, that means I lost roughly 1.5 pounds of body fat. So where did the other 2.5 pounds come from? Water weight? Some of it, maybe, but realistically I probably lost some muscle mass as well. This is really not what I want, and in the long run is detrimental to me reaching my long term goals.

The reason? Too much cardio? Not likely. From everything I’ve learned, cardio in and of itself doesn’t lead to muscle loss. The problem, if there is one, is coming from my diet. My brash decision to cut my caloric intake by another 300 per day (without my coach’s consent) may be costing me.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, I’m going to stick to 2500 per day for a couple more days, weigh in again, and see what’s what. If I have some unexplained weight loss, you best believe I’m jacking up my calories to 2800.

…If so, praise Jesus: more chocolate milk.

Day 6:

I’ve  been rationing myself to 2500 calories a day for almost a week now. I’m doing my best to keep myself hydrated to fool my body into thinking my stomach is full. Evidently my body is smarter than I am though, and isn’t buying it.  I don’t know how much longer I can hold out… Tell my family I love them… Jesus is calling my name…

I like to pretend in my brain that this is much more epic than it is (obviously). But let me just say that strict eating is not as easy as it sounds, and it’s making me a little testy. I just feel…different. While I’m not starving, and I shouldn’t be, my body is having a hard time getting used to not having an endless supply of calories pouring in.

Alas, gone are the days of bathing in chocolate milk.

But I know there’s a science to all this: Create a 500-calorie deficit in my body each and every day. This should put me at a pound a week (since a pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories).  Putting me at my ultimate goal of 6% right around the end of September, with very little wiggle room unfortunately.

My biggest problem so far seems to come during intense lifting sessions. I feel like I’m running on empty, and just don’t have the energy to burn. Amanda (my coach) tells me I need to make sure to eat something substantial 1-2 hours beforehand to make sure I’ve got the necessary fuel to get through the workout.

Interestingly, during long cardio sessions my appetite tends to fade and stay low for an hour or so post workout. The infinitely wise and all knowing Internet tells me this is normal, and so does Amanda.

I know it’s still early, but I’m in it to win it, and I’ve proven to myself that I have the resolve to succeed: Friday night I was at the bar with a few friends, and come midnight I had already hit my caloric limit for the day. I said my goodbyes and ran out of their faster than Cinderella, before I broke down and said “screw it bro, let’s do Jager bombs”.

Lame? Maybe.

No fun? Absolutely.

Worth it? Damn straight.

As I stated in The Yoked Roadmap – Part 3, I planned to meet up with a fitness consultant and get her input on my plan and goals. When I thought about whom to call upon for advice, it was an easy decision.

My coach of choice was Amanda, a fitness, nutrition, and wellness consultant. I had the pleasure/pain of making her acquaintance a summer ago when I participated in one of her boot camps. It was no joke.

I’d highly encourage you to seek her services if you’re in the market for a coach. She does face to face, as well as virtual coaching. Check her out at Kalos Coaching.

She was encouraging, thorough, and she gave me a good once over: Not enough cardio, and I was eating like a fatty (My paraphrasing).

First thing, she told me to cut out all the “incline walking”. It’s funny, because when I say it like she does, it sounds pretty lame: You drop the “incline” and just say “walking” and it sounds like I’m a heifer just happy make it to the fridge for the morning feeding.

Look, I stick by my statement in the last posting about brisk incline walking being a good quick and dirty cardio workout. However, for the goal that I’m shooting for, and in the time frame I’m working with, it’s just not at the intensity level that’s required. So no more walking for me, just running (shins permitting).

Next thing she told me was something that in the back of my mind I’m pretty sure I knew, but for some reason I’d been lying to myself about the necessity of it: Counting calories.

Sure, I was “watching what I ate”… I’d watch it as I picked it up, and continue to watch it as it made it’s way into my mouth just to make sure I didn’t miss (though I sometimes do).

I’d guesstimate at my calorie intake, and just figure that if my body was hungry I should feed it. While I’m still under the impression that you should never be hungry, the amount and quality of what I ate when hungry was something that I was not nearly as diligent about as I should’ve been.

No more of that. As of right now I’m on the 2500 calories a day diet. Amanda did some fancy number crunching to come to this number (and then I cut it a little more. shh, don’t tell her). This means measuring my cheerios and the milk I put in them every morning. This means saying, “no whip cream” when I order my girly coffee in the mornings. This means no more cheating on the weekends. This means if you see me at the bar ordering my 7^th beer, say “Hey slacker, what do you think you’re doing”. You get the idea.

There was some good news out of this. When Amanda tested my body fat with calipers, I was down to 9.1%. While my progress has been slow, at least there has been progress.

Now that I have a solid, Amanda approved plan, I’m rededicating myself to achieving the goal:

6% body fat or less by the end of September.

This will be accomplished via my previously stated plan, however with MORE cardio and LESS porker eating habits. Still weighing in and body fat testing on the 17^th of this month. Let’s hope over the next 7 days I can shed another pound of body fat. Only 52 days until the deadline…

You just got out of the squat rack, pushed out your final rep, and you’re feeling pretty awesome. It feels like it should be time to go home…

Wait… dammit: Cardio.

Not going to lie, there’ve been more times than I’d like to admit when I just say screw it at this point and pack it up. Even the thought of a solid endorphin high really can’t outweigh my desire to go home, pound some chocolate milk, and veg out.

Lately though, I’ve been much more driven to get to the cardio portion of the workout. I even look forward to it sometimes. There are a few things that I’ve done differently lately that I like to think attribute to this: Knowing what I’m working towards, having decent equipment, and an iPod that actually friggin works to name a few.

The biggest thing though is variety. This can come in a lot of different forms:

Mix machines/disciplines

Not only is this good for keeping things interesting, but more importantly it’ll make you a more physically fit, and well-rounded person. Something I find enjoyable is making up my own mini “triathlon”. For instance, see how fast I can run 2 miles, row 2000 meters, and then bike 6 miles. Obviously the combinations are wide open, but personally I like to try and do a mixture of exercises that hit on both upper and lower body. If you’re a person, like myself, who’s motivated by seeing your numbers increase (or decrease in this case), keep track of your time and see if you can’t beat it a week or two later. I find that I always give a little bit more when I have a number to beat in my mind.

This obviously doesn’t apply if you’re training for something specific, like a marathon. In which case you’d want to run so much that your body starts to feel like a 6MPH trot is the same as walking. It’s really all about your overall goal.

Intervals rather than steady-state

1. Moderate intensity

So if you’re about to start a 45 minute session on the treadmill, running at the same pace, how much excitement can you muster up for that? If the answer is “a little” then congrats, because that’s more than I can.

If I’m not doing some sort of interval training, my mind immediately will try to find something else to focus on: Music, a game on TV, People magazine (which I hate), guy doing his funny cardio/river dance thing in the corner (wtf is he doing anyway? I’m too afraid to ask). Point is I’m doing everything in my power to take my focus away from what I’m actually here to DO.

If I am doing interval training, I’m focused. Why? Because I have to be. The speed, incline, or difficulty is changing every minute or so, so there’s no time to space out and lose focus. I like to keep the intervals nice and short most of the time (1 minute per stage), but sometimes it’s nice to mix it up too.

A particular interval session I’ve been getting down on lately is to do staggered intervals of incline walking. I know, it sounds lame, but it can get your heart rate going when you’re walking at a 30% incline or more. Try putting the speed to 3.0-3.5 miles an hour or so, whatever feels like a mildly brisk walk to you, and then starting at 0% incline, work you way up to 35% or so in increments of 10% up, 5% down. After you get up to 35%, work your way back down. So that would look like the following. Never thought you’d have to use those middle school sequencing skills again did you? If you can’t figure this one out, please don’t home school your children:

% incline: 0-10-5-15-10…35-25-30-20…0 = 23 minutes @ 1 minute intervals

Now I’m not saying this is going to be the cardio workout of a lifetime, I’m just saying it’ll burn a few hundred calories and absolutely keep things interesting. If you’re a complete cardio machine, adjust it accordingly to make it challenging for you.

2. HIIT

There’s also the fairly popular high intensity interval training (search “HIIT” on Google), which I enjoy quite a bit, and you really don’t have to do gobs and gobs of it to be effective. The method is pretty simple: switch between very high intensity/low intensity cardio. For instance, on a treadmill, I’ll go between a quick walk and a sprint for 15 minutes or so. The idea can be applied to pretty much any type of cardio you choose.

Again this will do more than just add excitement. When done right, HIIT has been shown to burn more fat than Steady State cardio.* However, I’d recommend starting off with something low impact if you’ve never done this before, such as an elliptical. I quickly developed some pretty wicked shin splints, and then started getting some pain in my tibia, so I had to back off on the walk/sprint intervals for a while. Point is, make sure you don’t go too crazy with it if you’re starting out.

Here are a couple links to some other articles on HIIT vs. Steady State by people who know much more than I do:

HIIT Cardio Training

Steady State vs Interval Training

Challenge someone

I wouldn’t recommend physically going up to somebody and saying, “Hey buddy. Yeah you. Get on that treadmill. You’re about to get served”. But sometimes I find it motivating to pick out someone nearby and take a peek at how fast they’re going, or how many miles they’ve gone, or whatever it may be, and mentally challenge myself to top that. You might be surprised at how hard you’ll push yourself to “beat” them.

Obviously it’s only useful if you pick someone in as good or better shape than you. This is not meant to be a cop out mechanism.

So there you have the things that have worked for me. I like to mix and match all of the above, and I honestly don’t think I’ve had a “routine” cardio session all summer. How have you kept your cardio interesting? Please share so I can try it out for myself.

* Pulled from numerous reputable sources. None of which were my ass.