Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Hey Jeff,
Some great progress here,
You have lost a massive amount of fat and dramatically improved your cardio, Great Work.
All through hard work, a balanced diet, and plenty of determination.
Good Luck, you'll be hitting the 140's real soon.

Ran 4 1/2 miles yesterday morning and 4 more in the evening, at a pretty slow pace (a bit over 10 minutes per mile). Just trying to get in lots of miles and burn lots of calories. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to run at all today.

Weight this morning was about 152.5, about what I predicted. My scales say my body fat percentage is around 21. May or may not be accurate, but it's down a heck of a lot from June!

My upper back, especially right shoulder blade, is still killing me! I guess that's an exaggeration, I'm not in a lot of pain, but there's enough from whatever multitude of trigger points I set off a few weeks ago that I'm still not in any shape to do upper-body workouts, which sucks! Thank goodness for Ben-Gay! I'm going to look into a self-massage tool called a Thera-Cane, since I can't really afford regular massage or physical therapy.

Weight this morning: 152.0. Maintaining despite no cardio the last two days. So that's a solid 31 pounds of weight loss since July 1, and I'm pretty sure almost all of it has been fat. Back to running tonight, and hopefully edging a little closer to 150!

Slight improvement in my upper back and shoulder tightness this morning. With continued self-massage and maybe a couple of trips to a massage therapist, maybe soon I'll be able to get back to lifting and biking a lot as I was this summer. Alas, for right now, even bending over the sink to wash dishes tightens things up after only a few minutes.

Weight this morning: 151.4. I've hardly run at all since about this time last week--about 3 slow miles last night and three or four, I think, last Thursday--and done very little other exercise. So, although I'm not surprised that I didn't reach my goal of 150 by the end of the month, I'm still pleased with making slow progress without really trying much lately (too busy, and too worried about this economic situation!) other than watching my diet. Weight loss for the month of September was just under 7 pounds; overall in the last 3 months it's been 31.6.

Your doing great! Keep up the good work.

Ran about 10k at a slow pace yesterday, with some brief walking breaks. Am hoping to start hitting the weights hard again soon, but we'll see. Did enough last night to get a pump going, but didn't really push myself.

Weight this morning: 150.6.

How are things going? Just wanted to check in on the blog. Hope all is going awesomely!

Thanks for asking. Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted anything on this. Basically I'm about where I was last time I posted. Unfortunately my upper back and shoulder tightness continues despite regular self-massage and a couple of brief free massages from others. Thank goodness for Ben Gay! I'm really not sure whether working out my upper body would help, hurt, or not make any difference, but I've been playing it safe and not working out very much lately, partly because I worry about making things worse and partly because I only have so much time for exercise and right now, with a 5k race coming up this weekend, I want to focus on aerobic conditioning.

I've been playing racquetball (finally!) the last couple of weeks--there's often somebody to play now that the students at IU are back in town--and it's been great to do some of my conditioning by playing one of my favorite sports. A few days ago I played 2 days (6 games one of them) with about a 10k training run on the day in between, and I was pretty sore. Today I ran about 10 miles at a pretty slow pace with lots of walk breaks. I'm hoping to keep my legs fresh but be in good enough shape Saturday to at least match last month's 5k time. We'll see!

Weight is holding steady at between about 152 and 154 in the mornings. Still about 15 pounds above where I want to be (before I start bulking a bit), but I'll take it for now.

Not sure why my last post showed up twice, as I'm pretty sure I only sent it once.

Anyway, this morning I ran in the Jill Behrman 5k race, and much to my surprise, I bettered my 5k time from last month (23:49) by almost a minute, 22: 55! That's a little over 6 minutes faster than my time a year ago when I ran my first 5k. Yeah!

I wasn't expecting to do even as well as I did last month, as my Achilles tendonitis has been bothering me some the last few days, I haven't done a long bike ride in ages, and my resting heart rate is noticeably higher than it was a few weeks ago. I guess RHR can be a misleading indicator of fitness sometimes and maybe I'm in better shape than I thought. One indication of that is that my legs aren't really sore this evening. Maybe playing racquetball on a few occasions lately is helping my conditioning more than I thought--it's high-intensity interval training, after all, which is said to be the best form of training for VO2max.

Average heart rate during the race was 161 with a max of 174, so I feel like I ran about as hard a race as I could. Luckily, my Achilles tendons didn't really bother me once I got warmed up, and my asthma decided not to bother me until right after I crossed the finish line. I'm sure the fellow who cut off my chip timer was wondering why I was gasping for breath even more than everyone else!

Weight is still holding steady in the 151-153 range in the mornings. I haven't measured body fat lately. I guess I need to up the cardio back to where it was a couple of months ago to get back on the weight-loss track, but that's probably not in the cards for a while.

Still no significant change in the upper back and shoulder tightness, and I'm still (due to that and to time constraints) holding off on lifting and focusing on cardio for now.

Ran about 9 miles today, at about a 9 minute per mile pace. Wasn't sore at all from yesterday's 5k run, and I'm not sore now after my long run. I think the key has been all the self-massage I've been doing lately. Alas, it hasn't noticeably helped my shoulders and upper back much yet, but it's really helped keep any pains in my legs in check and keep them loose enough to keep on running. I highly recommend the Thera-Cane and foam rollers to anyone who works out a lot but can't afford a massage therapist! Also a book called the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook.

Six--or was it seven?--games of racquetball this evening. My kill shots sucked tonight, but I still managed to win some games and lose a close one to one of the better players--and get in a good workout in the process.

Weight around 152 this morning, still pretty much holding steady. I don't have time these days to get in the ultra-long bike rides I was doing in the summer, and just haven't been in the mood to restrict calories, I just try to keep the fat intake down around 10% the majority of my meals. So I guess I don't have any reason to expect further weight loss at the moment.

Took yesterday off from exercise entirely, and today ran about 8 miles at about a 10 minute per mile pace. Average heart rate was 139, with a peak of 168.

Played 6 games of racquetball Thursday. Yesterday, I was unable to exercise at all due to an interminable wait at the Dr.'s office in the afternoon and having company over in the evening.

Today, I ran 11 1/2 miles in about 2 hr. 15 minutes. LSD (long, slow distance), as they say. Threw in a fair number of walking breaks to make things a little easier on the legs. Average heart rate was 130 with a peak of 161.

Weight this morning: 151.6.

Ran about 6 miles this afternoon in 58 minutes, with an average heart rate of 133 and high of 153.