MEN Only -- A.I.M Challenge: Labor Day Challenge OPEN

This is a Motivation/Challenge designed for Men.  This is a continuation of the April Fool's Challenge and the July 4th Challenge for men started by pinksalmon.

Pick your personal goal: Weight Loss, Increased Fitness, or Fat Burn.  Post it and commit to it.  This forum is here to challenge you to meet your goal.  The Purpose of the AIM Challenge is to provide:

1.  Accountability:  Weekly check in to update your progress.  Weigh in each Wednesday Morning. 
2.  Information:  We will share our experiences, what is working to get into shape, nutritional suggestions, fitness advice, and best practices for results.
3.  Motivation:  Encouragement to make and continue life changes that lead to burning fat, increased fitness, and overall health.

Challenges follow a quarterly time frame and are open to any men willing to commit.  Do you want it?  We are getting it DONE!

AFC Result:  277.5 lbs and 971,250 calories burned off
J4C Result:  172.6 lbs and 604,100 calories burned off
2008 combined total: 450.1 lbs and 1,575,350 calories burned off

Check out our previous challenges here:
http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/post/716 05.html

Want your current BMR?  check out Phord's BMR page 

Check out our results:  AIM Challenge Results

I'm starting w2d1 of c25k tonight and I'm a little worried because w1d3 did not go so well on friday.  I'm thinking it's just because I was really exhausted on Friday when I got home from work and hadn't slept well the night before, but I really don't know.

Has anyone else had this experience when just starting out running again?  Is it normal?  I'm just worried because I was having trouble finishing my w1d3 run, and don't want to really struggle with w2d1 tonight and end up not being able to finish or too wiped out to do it properly!

Did w3d1 of c25k as a followup to yesterday's mistaken w4d1! On a hilly route, went well. gotta run

dybo,

Would listen to your body.  programs are guidelines and better not to hurt yourself.  Repeat a given workout until comfortable to move on.  No sense pushing to get 1 day ahead and then set back a week and/or get discouraged.

Just stick with it ... In Jan could not make it more 1/2 mile run and no pretty confident can finish 1/2 marathon in decent time and hopefully survive a Marathon??

RK1

 

congrats on getting so far in such a short period of time!  my eventual goal is an entire marathon, but i'm gonna start slow and shoot for a 5k this fall/winter.

thanks for the advice rk1.  thankfully my body wasn't really screaming at me to stop, its just that I was really really exhausted when I finished.  hopefully it was just a result of already being pretty wiped out and that just put me over the edge.  I caught up on my sleep this weekend, and think i'll try w2d1 tonight and see how it goes.  if i find that i still can't do it, i'll go back and do w1 over again.

dybo70 I think that I started running the same week as RK and my experience has been the same.   The first time I started trying to run, when I first became serious about losing weight (~255 to 260)  it was part of a New Year's resolution.  I really pushed myself.  I injured my knee within three weeks of starting.  It took a full three months before I could walk without pain.  It took me another four or five months to get serious about running again.  If I had to do it all over again I would have started much more slowly.  Rest is a very important component of overall health and fitness.  When I started with  my resolution this January, it was to run without injury.  Since then I have increased my mileage from only 1 or 2 miles per week to 18 or so.  The biggest increases have come over the last month.  I spent months sticking with 30 min. training sessions before trying to gain some distance.  Remember this is for you, your health, and your life. 

Keep at it you are an inspriation!

Original Post by rk1:

WW,

Definetly get the HRM, I have been really pleased with training since getting it and has helped me focus more on quality of training versus just quantity of X miles.  Really helps on long runs to see what effort you should maintain and getting better idea of how that equates to Pace that my body can sustain. 

Tue - intervals : 

Thur - Tempo run

Today (sun) - Long Run

(research shows these short walks help reduce injury/speed recovery without costing endurance ... sounds good and on long races would need to slow for water anyway so training that way). 

The more reading/research i do I think these 3 seperate workout types seem to be proven winners.  As you work on short term speed (which really gets to max hr); The Tempo runs for sustained speed; At to me now the Long Runs are more about getting the Body prepared to take the abuse/strain of long distance as well as mentally being able to run that far.

RK: I like your training format.  And I see you are coming around to my way of thinking about walk breaks.

Are you running 3 days per week or more?  I have been following a 4 day per week format M W Th and Sa.  The distance varies M and Th being shorter runs, W an intermediate distance and Sat the long run.  I have noticed an increase in endurance but speed has remained the same.  My weight has stabilized at 198 to 200 (I keep eating back my deficits).  I am not sure that I can build speed and endurance at the same time.  Like you I feel confident for the Half mary and am actually looking forward to the challenge of the full mary but I would like to finish in less than 3 hrs for the half and 6 hours for the full.  All this to say, I think I am going to try and add intervals and the tempo run on the short days and see what happens. 

ww

WW,

Just going with the 3 days running,  but I also get 3 days of a good workout of 30-45 min of cross traing (Usually elliptical)and 15 - 20 min circuit weight in on M/W/F to keep/build cardio and strength. 

I kind of morphed Hingdons 1/2 Marathon plan (3 days running which is similiar to his 10K but longer and I liked it) and his Marathon plan (which has the 4 - 5 days running) to get the extra distances on Int and Long Runs. 

My right knee still worries me and do not want to run on back to back days.   Been rebuilding distance after e few weeks of setbacks and no pain the last 2 -3 weeks and legs are not even stiff and/or any signs of the 8 miler yesterday.  Like you mentioned above ... rest is an important thing and switching to x-train on off days puts focus on other areas while letting the knee/legs recover.

PS - been reading up on Bone density increase and that has to be the answer to lack of weight loss ... By my calculations my Bones now weigh 20 more lbs than before! ... (just kidding)

 

dbyo: I triple the previous go slow comments. I pushed myself about 3 years ago and re-injured my knee, not enough to warrant surgery but enough to keep from walking and periodic pain. So go slow and listen to your body. I'm a week ahead of you on the c25k program and it seems to be working for me. If you are not aware of it there's a c25k motivational thread; Couch-To-5k Motivational Thread on cc.

ww; rk1: keep it up guys. There's hope for me yet. Even tho I'm on w3 of c25k, I'm looking forward to training for a 10k and half mary. Family members, including nurse practitioner daughter, think I'm crazy for wanting to run a marathon eventually, but I'll listen to my body and see what it tells me. I'm not having many problems wogging 5k+ distances, and think 10k is not out of reach (on a wogging basis at least - don't know about running a whole 10 k yet). You guys are inspiring a bunch of us.

thanks bobev, I'm going to go check that thread out now.

I did w2d1 last night and didn't haev much trouble at all.  my body felt pretty good when I was done, and no joints or muscles hurt me this morning, so I'm good as far as that goes.  I think my main issue last night was breathing.  My lungs are still not quite where they were a few years ago, so that was really the only difficulty I had.  Thankfully it was never so much that I had to stop or slow down, more of an annoyance than anything because the rest of my body felt good.  If I feel the slightest hint of pain though, I'm gonna stop/slow down and either go back a week in the program or hit the elliptical instead, cause I'm really enjoying the runs, but they aren't worth getting hurt over!

dabo70: great to hear that things are going better.  Don't be surprised if you have some days that are better runs than others.  The weather can play a really big role.  For me the high humidity can slow me down even when I try to keep a specific pace.  What is normally easy can feel hard.  

I couldn't agree more with others here that you also need to listen to your body.  If your are tried make sure to get rest.  That may even mean taking the day off or deciding before you go out for a run to run a shorter distance. Taking a day here and there off in the long run is much more efficient than having to recover from an injury.  

On a side note I got the opportunity today to run my 10km along Cavendish Beach PEI.   What a great experience.  Someone from Clevelandtook a picture for me.  Got to love running.  Don't have a scale available but have been watching really close.  Left room for scallops today and going to leave room for lobster tomorrow. Good thing I can run! hehe.

 

 

munrori: You make my mouth water.  The truth about Scallops and Lobster:

3oz of Scallops has only 75 calories, 14g of protein & 28mg of cholesterol or 9% of the daily value
3oz of Lobster has only 83 calories, 17g of protein & 61mg of cholesterol or 20% of the daily value 

The crustaceans get a bad rap!  The thing you have to leave room for my friend is the clarified Butter:

4oz (one stick) of Butter has 810 calories all of it fat, 1g of protein, and  243g of cholesterol 81% of the daily value

MMmmmmm.......Butter.......the secret to life.....

Have fun my friend and live well.

 

210 lbs still not bad. 6.33 am will wright more later.

 

Abner

I will be on the run all day today, but wanted to at least get my weigh-in posted. I'm a restricted diet for a week related to food allergy treatments. In short it amounts to a liquid diet.  As such, I think my weight was a little artificially low this morning.

So I think my average weight (from the CC chart) is probably more accurate.

Last week: 171

This week: 170 (estimated)

Challenge so far: 1 pound.

Weigh IN

LW: 200
TW: 200

No change in weight, but a definite increase in conditioning.  I have gone for quite a while not using the CC diet tools.  So this month I am tracking food and the burn meter again.  I need to get back to basics to see if I am on a plateau because of what I am eating or because my body has decided not to lose any more weight. 

How is everyone else?

Hey guys--time to check in and MAN UP. It has been a busy past couple of weeks, both personally and in terms of training. While the training continues to go really well (I ended up running 280.9 miles in July and am on pace to reach 300 miles in August), my diet has downright SUCKED!! True, the added mileage should allow me to get away with eating a little more, but I admit that I have given myself greater license to overindulge.

Of course, the frequency of family events and outings in recent weeks hasn't helped either. All of this extra eating has led to an increase in weight to 174.6,up from 170.6 the last time I checked in here. I'm not terribly upset about it, but I'm not exactly doing cartwheels about it either. I don't want this upward trajectory to continue.

Meanwhile, I have half-marathon on Sunday, my first race since the marathon in May. I'm hoping to show this race that I mean business. I ran my very first race ever in the 2006 version of this race. But oddly enough, my PR at this distance still comes from that first race (1:51:59, versus 1:53:20 in 2007).  Since I attribute my weaker performance in '07 to inconsistent training, my guess is that I really can't use that excuse this year. I'm hoping for a 1:35:00 or faster this year.

Just one question I'd like to pose to you guys. I have seen an increase of people here who are focusing their efforts on running, and that's great. Are you integrating the strength training, and if so, do you find that it is helping? 

I must confess that I dropped all strength training since January, when I increased my running frequency to 5 days a week. Now I'm running on average 6 days/week (some weeks I'll run on the seventh day and give myself 2 days off in a row, but the average stays the same). I miss the strength training, but I can't seem to find the time to get it done. What has your experience been?  

Is it wednesday already?! Wow, time does seem to fly when you're trying to lose weight!

LW: 273.4

TW: 269.6

hmmmmm....... the only thing thats changed in my habits since last week is the fact that I've now been doing c25k for a full week.  still keeping around a 1000 calorie deficit each day, and never more than that (usually somewhere between 800 &1k), and actually stopped using the elliptical b/c of c25k, so hopefully this loss of more than 2lbs. is just because I have a LOT to lose.

wrm: I was working strength training in regularly until the middle of March.  Since then I have neglected that part of the fitness routine.  Three other people have recommended I add this back in.  I am currently running 4 days per week so beginning on my next off day (Fri) I will be getting up and throwing around the iron.  The confusion I have is do I focus working on the upper body alone trusting that the mileage will take care of the legs? Or, do I add extra quad work in order to strengthen the less used leg muscles, stablilize the knee and surrounding structures etc.

 

 

Checkin:  out of town on business so no scale

Wrm,

I have been doing light strength training past 1 -2 months as was putting on too much in the spring.

Try to hit all the major body parts with high reps and/or resistance training on my MWF between my Runs T,TH,SU (Sat rest).

Overall strength helps in the final push in a race (which is my only good thing as I seem to outkick many the last 1/4 mile after seeming like I am out of gas) and core stregth helps maintain proper running form.  Also more looking at LT training concept is that a larger muscle working at Med capacity produces less LA then smaller muscles working at full capacity.

To me the strength/cross training hits the body a different way then just pounding the pavement 6 days a week.  I have seen your daily #'s on RATW and you are a mad man, but if i tried that I would be down for weeks waiting for legs to recover. 

WW,

originally I thought only upper body and like you thought lower was getting enough from running.  But after "runners knee" realized important to balance the muscled (ie - quads) so work in leg extensions, lunges, etc. early in week as not to get too sore for long weekend runs.

Under the concept about larger muscles have also been doing some calf work to have larger muscles work at lower than full capacity to keep Lacid Acid down.  I am learning all about balance and little steps to increase the muscle and running distances, as do not wantto just bulk up one area to fast.

Would recoommed waiting to off day beginning of week so the Fri workout does not screw up your weekend long run.  So if long is Sun, Lift monday (actually hingdon plan is strength/stretch after long run day.

Thanks for your replies, rk1 and ww. I was curious as to how people were balancing the two, if at all.

For most of last year, I was on a 4 day/week running schedule (Tu/W/Th/Sa), although in some weeks, I did push it to 5 days/week (Tu/W/Th/Sa/Sun). And then, I would lift 3 days/week (M/W/F)--I'd work my upper body on M and F, while working on legs on W (I figured that with the running, one days of lower body strength work would be sufficient). Because I would be running on a day that I was lifting (Wednesday), this also meant that Wednesday was a low-mileage day on the treadmill (yuck).

This year, I started with a 5 day per week running schedule (off on Monday and Thursday), with all of my runs outside. Unfortunately, rather than lift on those two days, I decided to give myself those days off from any sort of physical activity. And now that I run an average of 6 days/week, I find it difficult to schedule time to lift in addition to the time I allocate for my runs (since I would have to go to separate locations for each activity).

I just wonder if I'm hurting my current weight loss efforts by relying only on cardiovascular training. Especially when I look at my weight logs and observe that my lowest weights were at those times when I was lifting three days/week while running 5 days/week.

Can't weigh in today, no official scale, its at home and son doesn't have one. But on Sat morning before we got on a plane I weighed 164.6 which is below my labor day goal of 165. I can probably lower the goal to an aggressive 160. Given my age, 1500 cal min for men, and meds its hard to maintain even a 500 cal deficit, but I'll do my best to get there.

What a day I've had. I completed w3d2 of c25k no problem on the hills near my son's house. I was so far from home when I finished that it took almost 25 minutes to walk home! Then my daughter-in-law suggested that we go to their gym, a Lifetime Fitness "emporium". What a place! indoor/outdoor pool, hot tubs, every machine known to man, spin, steam, sauna rooms and a spa as well! I had a great time. Did w3 on the C2 rower and rowed 5000 meters in just under 28 minutes. Then I located some FreeMotion machines and did chest, lats, triceps interlaced with supported squats and reverse lunges. Total workout time was 115 minutes! The F4 gave me 478 calories burned, but that is low. Felt good!

I'm wogging 3x/wk and most days I add stretching, and sometimes body weight at the end of it, e.g. squats, stationary reverse lungs - good for knees, jumping jacks, push ups, planks, push ups with side planks. When in gym I use FreeMotion machines.