Wondering....

I stepped on the scale today, mostly out of curiousity, although I am due for my weekly weigh-in tomorrow and it read: 205lbs. So no change from last week. Can't say I'm surprised since I have no idea when my body will give up the retained water or when my new workout will begin to show results on the scale. I think it's going to be awhile so I need to accept that and not let it get me down. I still haven't gotten my measurements done, I did mention it to Red the other day and she was game but it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully by the weekend.

I'm wondering if I'm getting enough cardio now that weight lifting and other calithstenics are the biggest part of my workout. I'm in the gym for approximately 2 hours; only about 25 minutes of that is dedicated to cardio and that's at the end of the workout. I've been alternating between the stationary bike and the elliptical but I'm wondering if maybe I should be just doing the elliptical because it burns more calories.

Another thing I've been wondering is whether or not I should alternate between weights and cardio throughout the week. Maybe do weights Monday, Wednesday and Friday and cardio the other two days. It would increase the amount of cardio i get in a week but I would have to compress my weight workout into that 2 hour window and I don't think it can be done without speeding things up. I have tried cutting the resting time between exercises down so as to keep up a good pace, but it really tires me out after a couple of sets. I think this is referred to as increasing the intensity of your workout, but I don't know if I can cut any more rest time out without just going from one exercise to the next without a break. I'm already pretty quick moving from one to another and I just don't know. Plus, if I'm not careful, I could hurt myself and then I'm screwed.

I'm not sure what to do, I know I need both, but how to do it without spending 3 or more hours in a gym every day? I'm only concerned about it because of the great calorie burn I'm getting from the cardio which is unmatched with other exercises. But on the other hand, as I grow muscle, that will burn more calories in a resting state which is a good thing too. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism works to burn calories. Maybe I'm just getting impatient with my weight. Not so much with the last two weeks since the change, but overall and this inability I have to shed the 200lb threshold. I know I can do it by going back to straight cardio, but that workout is severly lacking and I need more strength. Plus, I really want to grow some muscle and fill out better. I hate the way my body looks and I know I can affect some changes to it, not all I'd like, but maybe enough to make me content. Then again, maybe not.

I thought losing 170lbs would make me happy, it didn't. But i think most of that was because of how I ended up looking with loose flabby skin hanging off me and man-boobs that won't go away. These things are so stubborn that when I was sick with issues from my stapling surgery, they were the last remnants of fat to disappear after just about every other ounce of fat had melted away. It wasn't until I was about 140lbs that I finally had a flat chest! And guess what came back first when I was healthy again? 3 guesses and your first 2 are wrong! There's a medical term for them: gynecomastia. Among the causes of them: low testosterone, drugs, medical disorders, and of course obesity. Now since I'm not obese anymore, I shouldn't have them, right? Wrong. Maybe I'm low in testosterone? Never had a doctor tell me so, so who knows?

When I had my tummy tuck done in '03, I asked the surgeon to perform lipo on them hoping that would solve the issue. It didn't. He sucked out some fat but without correcting the hanging skin, they remained and while they were somewhat softer (this is starting to sound like a soft core porn blog), the manboobs remained. He did tell me that time would solve it since he had sucked the fat out, the skin would retract. It never did. So I'm trying, once again, to do something I've tried in the past: do enough chest exercises to encourage muscle growth and hopefully fill out the boobs with muscle and make them more natural looking for a male. In all the years I've worked with weights, it's never happened and I'm pessimistic it will this time, but I might as well try again. Guess we'll see.