BigSean’s FatBlog

I’m back home and at the office. I was bad while I was traveling. Very bad. Afraid-of-the-scale-bad.

Be that as it may, I’m back, so it’s gym time in a day or so when my back recovers.

With my knees and back killing me, I took off yesterday and instead went to sleep shortly after I got home. I was exhausted.

I have an engagement tonight, so it’s back to the gym on Friday. Hopefully the two day break will be enough to heal up a bit. I’m also looking at alternatives to the cross-trainer. I think I can do 3 days a week on that puppy and really tear it up, but need to find something back and knee friendly for alternating days.

Today I got the the gym shortly before 1PM, finished off my SlimFast and hit the NuStep TRS 4000 Recumbent Cross Trainer. This piece of exercise equipment has been a real boon for my bad back. Since my back was giving me trouble yesterday, I started out light, but wasn’t even breaking a sweat after 20 minutes. I felt fine, so I picked up the pace.

By setting mini-goals “Burn just 50 more calories” and keeping mindful of what my body was telling me, I had the best workout yet, burning up a tad over 750 calories in 90 minutes. I’m pretty surprised and this just reinforces the wisdom of listening to my body and skipping a workout when my back is telling me to.

I hopped on the scale and it told me I upticked a pound to 326. Given that my weigh can fluctuate nearly 10 pounds within a day, I’m not concerned. It’ll drop and experience tells me that just before a sharp weight drop I have a slight uptick in weight. I don’t know the physiological reason for it, but have observed it time and again.

Slow and steady wins the race. Since I have the slow part down-pat, as long as I keep up the steady everything will be cool.

I’m skipping my workout today. My back is hurting with sciatic pain shooting down the backs of my legs. It’s not super-bad, but enough to make me pause. I’ll rest today and see how it feels tomorrow.

A bad back, exacerbated by morbid obesity, requires additional consideration when exercising. I’d rather miss a day or two than re-injure my back and be out of action for weeks or worse.

Update: Thanks for the ice packs, Joe.

I weighed in at 333 pounds today and kicked butt at the gym.

The recumbent cross-trainer is my current favorite machine. It works my arms and legs and doesn’t tear up my back. I used one like this when I was in physical therapy for my back. Today I did 40 minutes and reached 380kcal. The time isn’t really important to me, it’s the calorie count.

While I know it’s a wild assed guess, I want to ensure that I reach at least 350kcal per workout. If I can manage to do that 10 times, that’s one pound. Five times, one half pound. I’ll adjust that accordingly, but it gives me a goal to shoot for.

After the cross-trainer, I spaghetti-legged my way up two flights of stairs to the track and walked a bit over a mile at a slow but steady pace. I did 10 laps and it’s a 1/9th mile track (long story as to why), so there ya go. This served as more of a cool down than anything else.

I felt good and was in a good mood. I was looking forward to the workout and it’s a great stress reliever. Huzzah.

I just have to be careful not to be over-enthusiastic and mess up my back again. But this is a pace I can deal with for now and I’ll adjust to what my body tells me.

Anyhoo, here’s a mirror pict so you can see my rotundness. This pict was taken in not the most flattering pose after my cool-down. A dude walked in whilst I was smiling and gave me the oddest look. It was awkward in the locker room there for a minute. LOL.