Move Aware.

Abandoned? Nope.

Kind of looked that way, huh? While I haven’t posted here in months, I’ve been doing Stronglifts 5×5 since February and making steady progress. The idea of cross-posting my training log on the Stronglifts forum and here doesn’t really appeal to me, but it won’t hurt to check in from time to time here with milestones and general status updates.

After about 4 months of total time on the program, I’ve had a few setbacks:

• Squats: I was making major form errors and had to drop weight and fix it.
• Shoulder pain: I developed persistent pain in my left shoulder that was pronounced during workouts, but it went away after careful attention to soft tissue work of the rotator cuff and increased strength.
• Inconsistent training schedule: I’ve had maybe two total months of consistent twice- or 3x-weekly workouts. The latest major disruption was the final few weeks of rehearsal and performances of Side by Side by Sondheim, which is now over.

All of these, however, are in the past, and I’ve been progressing steadily, working up momentum to get back on a regular training schedule.

I’ve also started rowing… started only in the sense that I’ve been out in the boat once, but I plan to join regular workouts 2 or 3 times per week on off days from strength training.

Diet is currently the major challenge. For the first few months of SL5X5 I decided that I needed to eat as much protein and as many calories as I could to support strength gains. I have put on some muscle, but a lot of fat has come along with it. My body fat scale currently puts me close to 30%; it was 15% when I first bought it in 2004, although I also weighed less than 150 lbs at that time. My diet for the last few months has consisted of pretty much whatever I wanted to eat at any time, including a lot of high-carb and high-fat meals.

I now have a specific goal for the summer. Since I’ve been cast in South Pacific and need to appear believable as a Marine lieutenant, wearing an A-shirt on stage, I need to lose this gut. Diet and cardio seem to be the consensus solution, and I’ve already worked in a bit of running and cycling, but it needs to be consistent. Regular rowing should help.

If the body fat calculations are correct and the scale is to be believed, I would lose about 20 lbs of fat going from 30% to 20% body fat, if I remained at my current weight of 194. I’ve put on between 5-10 lbs of lean body mass and 4-7 lbs of fat in the 4 months since February (most of the fat and LBM gain came within the first 2 months). For a few weeks it will remain to be seen at what rate I can add muscle and lose fat with the new diet and cardio focus.

I think it would be realistic to lose at least 1 lb of fat per week and gain 1 lb of lean body mass per month, which would make me about 190 at 22% body fat by mid-August when the show opens. It may be possible to lose 2 lbs of fat per week and gain 3 lbs of LBM per month, which would put me closer to 182 lbs at 16%.