Changes and week 1 results

Never again will I doubt the sage-like advice of Tom Venudo.  He promises that you can not lose body fat without cardio.  He claims that yoga is good, but for most people, they can't sustain the intensity of a yoga workout for the full 30-60 minutes that a good cardio exercise requires.  I agree with him on this now.

Yoga did not get the heart rate up high enough to enter the fat burning zone.  I love yoga, and will continue to find room for it in my routine, but it is no longer a core in the routine.  I just don't have enough hours in the day to work it in on a regular basis.

Change #1:  Replace Yoga with traditional cardiovascular workouts.  I chose the elliptical, as I'm still trying to kick the smoking habit, I can maintain the full 30 - 40 minutes on the elliptical without feeling like I'm going to die.

Change #2: The injury, however short it was, rose an alarm for me.  If I miss routines, that means certain parts of my body aren't getting worked that week.  To minimize the damage this can cause, I decided to go to a full body routine, as recommended by my fitness coach (as part of my health insurance plan) and by the sage Tom Venudo.

I decided that I'm going to keep P90X as part of this routine, because I really want to give it the praise that I think it deserves.  So, I whipped up a full body routine that incorporated 4 sets working each muscle group: Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps.  I took my 4 favorite exercises from the 1st phase of P90X and made a full body workout plan.  Now, I'd still be doing the exercises that I feel are giving me progress, but won't miss a muscle group if I get injured or am told by the boss that I have to work late.

In addition, as an extra tiny bit of cardio daily, I skate with the dogs around the lake in the morning.  They love it, and it gets me going in the morning, and pumped for an exciting day.

So, here's the results from week 1 with the new changes:

3/6/11
Weight: 159.5 lbs
Body Fat%: 13.3 %

This is more like it.  The overall weight lost was within the 2-3 lbs indicating healthy weight loss (more than that you're losing lean mass, and probably water wight too!).  My body fat % dropped almost a full 1% from the previous week.  My goal is between 0.5% and 1% each week.  The big jump I believe is from adding the cardio regularly.  I expect to see that move closer to 0.5%.