Cardio for Weightloss

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy weightlifting, free weights or weight machines. If you're going to do heavy lifting, I would suggest a nice 30 minute warm up. My choice would be the bicycle, treadmill, or jumping rope. And stretch between switching exercises, especially when you're doing arms.

But when it comes to weight-loss, it's cardio all the way for me. I gain mass too easily to start out with weights. Even now, my biceps are gigantic just from carrying around a small child occasionally.

So, when I started going to the gym after years of being out of shape, I started out on the elliptical. Mainly because I'm overweight, and it's low impact and easier on the joints, while still good for building up muscle and endurance.

A light stretch before exercising is always good practice. And then a more involved stretch after your workout is excellent for increasing mobility and flexibility, since you'll be warmed up and able to stretch more efficiently. I use a stretching chair at our gym, plus additional stretches for the calves and quadriceps.

My goal currently is to build up strength and endurance. Either of these can be achieved by exercising longer or exercising harder, or doing both. Although, a person new to exercising, probably shouldn't do one type of cardio machine for longer than an hour because it invites injury through repetitive motion. Even less time should be spent on one exercise if it's high impact and you're doing it on a daily basis.

It takes time to build up a good muscle base that can take the longer and harder workouts. I actually hurt myself during a hour long run. Just pushed too hard. Ended up straining a calf muscle, which I stupidly continued trying to run on for a couple of weeks.

I took last week off from running and started using the foam roller to try to work out the cramp. The stair stepper and rowing machine have been dear friends during this period, but I still miss running terribly. The burn in the lungs is something else. Hyper dance aerobics with lots of jumping and kicks doesn't really come close. Although, combining kickboxing and burpees almost gets me there.

I think part of my problem is the amount of weight I'm carrying around on my frame. It's too much for how hard I like to exercise. I've been researching intermittent fasting and alternate day fasting. My husband and I normally do a long fast in the spring. But supposedly intermittent/alternate fasting doesn't contribute to muscle loss, the same way straight fasting can.

I'm Off the Keto

I did end up losing twenty pounds on the keto diet after just a couple of months, but it's just not a long term solution for me. It was unbearable missing out on all the fruit.

And being Vietnamese, it was really hard eating that much meat, cheese, avocadoes, and eggs on a regular basis.

But the diet did help get rid of my sugar cravings. No more late night sweets with my tea. No more deserts period. We actually have ice cream in the fridge, which only the kiddo eats. When I do end up eating a donut or piece of cake, it's strangely disappointing.

Mainly, I'm just trying to eat healthier and exercise on a regular basis. My husband and I eat salads everyday, as well as fruit. On the weekends we make fruit smoothies.

A Little Update on Life and My Exercise Regimen

I haven't been posting for awhile because my husband had a major health scare last year. He was hospitalized twice last summer and had to have emergency surgery at one point. He lost 60 pounds and all of his muscle mass, and ended up fairly frail. He was actually down to his high school weight, but without any of the musculature.

Since we have a young child, we found it to be a frightening experience. We've been making massive changes in our lives, trying to be healthier and getting strong again.

In November 2018 I talked him into joining a gym. The first month and a half we did the elliptical everyday, with some rowing and stair stepper for variation, just to build up some strength and endurance while doing low-impact exercise.

I mainly run now on the treadmill 3-5 days a week. While my husband alternates running days with the elliptical to give his bad knee a rest.

We are both feeling stronger. Life is good.

Is Having High Amounts of Ketones Bad?

Since I've started exercising three days ago, while still on the keto diet, my ketone levels have been in the high range. Even when I didn't workout for 2 days it still remained high. So, I'm wondering whether that's bad health wise?

We have been making bullet proof coffee with MCT oil, butter, and heavy cream which is supposed to help throw you into ketosis, but my husband continues to have low levels of ketones as measured in his urine. Although, he does snack a great deal. He's being very faithful to the keto diet but he continues to snack throughout the day, albeit on more healthy things with lots more vegetables in general.

I'm still doing my usual mix of high cardio hyper aerobics and alternating with kickboxing. But ever since it's been getting lighter earlier in the morning, I've been thinking about running before work. It's an interesting thought. I used to love running during the summer, sweating like crazy and just pounding it out. Hmmm. Maybe I'll wait until I lose a few more pounds so it won't be so hard on my joints.

Exercising on the Keto Diet

I've been on the keto diet for three weeks now and just recently started exercising again, just the beginners section in Jane Fonda's New Workout which is fairly hyper dance aerobics. Working out is easier when you're in ketosis. It felt pretty good and I didn't have to stop in the middle of it.

It had been three months since I had exercised last, do to being ill. But with a kid in school and daycare I'm probably going to keep getting sick for years, and I can't keep using the excuse of being ill to stop me from exercising. Yes, I'm actually ill right now with a sinus thing. You just have to keep doing what you're doing no matter what.

We've been checking our ketone levels using urine strips so my husband and I know we're in ketosis. Normal ketone levels are negative, so any amount in your urine usually means you're in ketosis. I've also had lab work done which shows I'm in moderate ketosis, but my levels usually fluctuate between low and moderate.

Now, when I jumped up to the advanced workout on Jane Fonda's New Workout, that was a bear. They do a lot of double hops so you're jumping all the time and I was breathing hard throughout the aerobic section. But maybe some of that is due to the respiratory sinus thing I've been fighting off. The next day I was tired but felt pretty good illness wise, like maybe it had cleared me out some.

Progress on the Keto Diet

We've been on the keto diet for 9 days, so far I've lost 10 pounds and my husband has lost 15. His weight loss has actually stalled a bit, he was down fifteen pounds 7 days ago, whereas I was at seven pounds at a week into the diet.

People's bodies are different and the second week is notorious for the weight loss halting as the body freaks out about the sudden changes going on. Most people get back on track by the third week.

This diet is very difficult since it requires so much home cooking to ensure a person doesn't eat too many carbs. I've made asparagus, mushroom, and leek quiches with a coconut flour crust. I made a chicken enchilada casserole with cauliflower, sour cream, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and salsa. And then there's the bacon cooking and the boiling of the eggs, and the nightly spinach salads with a light low carb dressing. I also make a desert dish with chia seeds, plain Greek yogurt, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, vanilla extract, strawberries, pecans, and a little honey. My husband has made deviled eggs.

It's so time consuming cooking all the time, but I do think we're eating plenty of vegetables even though the fat levels are off the charts. This high fat diet is making our faces so oily, we have to wash our faces 4 times a day or risk terrible breakouts.

The thing I worry about the most is whether we're getting enough fiber, but the chia seeds are helping as well as the small avocado I eat daily. My husband doesn't like avocado so he eats a lot of celery with pimento cheese or spinach artichoke dip.

We bought some urine strips to test our ketone levels. We both seem to be producing ketones consistently. On this diet the problem areas seem to go first. We can immediately see our bellies flattening and pants becoming looser around the waist. Just over a week into the diet and we're seeing clothing fitting different, which is exciting.

I'm going to start working out tomorrow. I'll start with my usual routine with dance aerobics, kickboxing, and step aerobics. I already do so much heavy lifting in the garden carrying around six gallons of water everyday, so I'm not interested in weight lifting at this point. I'll probably switch later when I get bored with aerobics, I tend to change my exercise routine every couple of months.

Being Sick and the Keto Diet

I've been ill for most of the last two months, so ridiculous. I don't like to exercise when ill because I tend to get worse, especially if the illness is upper respiratory. But I'm starting to feel like a normal person again and I'm no longer coughing so hard it feels like my insides are going to burst out of me.

As a kick start to getting back into a normal exercise and diet routine I'm doing a low-carb keto diet. I even got my husband to participate in solidarity. We have a sugar and carb addiction so the keto diet will be a good way to break those terrible, oh so terrible habits.

Yesterday on my day off, instead of planting a garden since it was raining, I spent six hours cooking and making snacks so we don't stray and start to mindlessly consume carbs. The main dish is a chicken vegetable soup with bacon, onion, garlic, chicken stock, cauliflower, green beans, spinach and yellow squash which we'll eat for lunch and dinner for a couple days. Breakfast is two hardboiled eggs and two slices of bacon. The afternoon snack will be egg salad with a plain lettuce salad.

And I've been making a chia seed pudding for an after dinner desert which is just 1 c plain yogurt, 1 c unsweetened almond milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp honey, and 1/4 c chia seeds. Leave on the counter for 30 minutes so the chia seeds can swell, and then refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. This should make 4 small servings or 2 normal servings. Then I top the pudding with a couple of sliced strawberries and pecans mixed with a tiny bit of honey right before serving.

I'm one of those people who ordered a giant bag of chia seeds, like 5 pounds, which I've been putting in overnight oats but the bag of seeds seems never ending. I'll probably start adding unsweetened cocoa powder or green vegetable vitamin powder to the chia seed puddings soon, and I'll replace the sweetener with something low carb. One of the miraculous things about chia seeds is the amount of fiber, there's 11 grams of fiber in 2 tbsp or 1 ounce.

Avocado is another thing I eat fairly often when I can afford it, mainly because one avocado has 13 grams of fiber. It's like eating two bowls of raisin bran. Not that I need help in that department, but I really like the idea of consuming that much fiber in a piece of fruit. Plus the omega threes. It seems like a few brain cells have died since having a kid and omega 3s are supposed to help with that.

Tomorrow I need to make more food that'll last us for a couple more days. Maybe deviled eggs, tuna salad, more chicken vegetable soup, celery with pimento cheese for snacks, and spinach salad for lunches.