-Diablo's Journal, 10 Jan 20

Thank you. I need that! 

Amen brother! 

I can't imagine only eating 800 calories per day (although I have friends doing it right now via Medifast/Optiva). How do people do that without feeling brain fog? 

Jazzy agreed 😂  

That's what I love. The scientific proof 👩🏻‍🔬📊🧬🧪 

Hah Sabrina, true! People ask me how to be fit I say lift. They say what?? I say sorry, science.  

Yet, one more reminder that I need to get my butt into a gym and start working on my upper body. I recently read a cycling article saying I was not balancing out my exercise, cycling without upper body work.  

People around me tell me that its the age that causes fattening. I say its the muscle loss and the reduced activity resulting to caloric surpluses. They say that at my age i should do cardio. I say that i must preserve or even grow my muscles for well aging. 

Yep, ideally you should incorporate both into your fitness plan. 

Yep, Tassos, It's the fountain of youth. Especially when sarcopenia is fighting us after age 50. Cardio will do jack for that. 

I combine my cardio with resistance training. I go to the gym on my lunch hour, when it is almost entirely empty. I circuit train with no breaks. In 30 minutes I’ve done all my lifting and my heart rate is around 135 during that time. Gasses me but an hour later I feel like a champ! 

Jheeden, that's totally viable and makes cardio unnecessary. Nice! Cardio, you mean lifting weights faster?😁👌🏼 

Thanks for the post and discussion. I agree, adding resistance training has made a difference for me. It's worth the effort... 

Yes, David. With nobody in there, I pick 2 machines that work opposing muscles and do 10 reps back and forth through 3 sets. Then I move to the next 2. No breaks. I do 6 machines MWH and 6 others T-Th-Sat. Split upper and lower body. Make sense? Is that a good approach? I’m always gassed and Apple Watch monitors my heart rate. Optimizing my workouts. Just finished my 3 miles. Wish I wasn’t 52! 

I am trying to do something very similar to you, jheeden. Today I pretty much went back and forth between different kind of weights for 45 minutes. I'm trying to do 4 sets of 12 but lowering the weight as I reach the last sets... So I can keep going. My heart was going and going, but I ended so exhausted that I started perspiring really badly and got nauseated... I think I forgot to breathe sometimes! 😁 I felt pretty horrible, but I was fine half an hour later. 👍 I'm interested to hear what you have to say toto jheeden, Diablo  

Longer rest equals more strength, less rest equals more endurance. There is a sweet spot in the middle for muscle gains. It can be slightly individual but most would do great with 1.5-3 min rest intervals for optimum muscle gains. If you're going so fast that youre needing to lower the weight by a lot to get close to the same amount of reps, you may be moving too quickly. You can always have cardio lifting days and muscle building lifting days if you want a variety to cover your bases and to keep it interesting. 

Something like legs chest and back I'll need longer rest to recover 2-3 min. While bicep/triceps/calves can get away with a min. Now if you're hitting opposing muscles back to back, then by the time you catch your breath and hit the next muscle the required time would probably have gone by. 

Speaking of rest... You must be taking a heck of a break at the gym writing these paragraph responses. Don't be getting soft on me. 😁💕 

This gives me hope. My knees are shot and arthritis has hold of my hips which make even basic walking of any real distance painful.  

😂😂😂David! Thanks for the advice. If we lived in the same town I’d be a gym rat with you. I will incorporate your advice into my challenged schedule. I’m trying to build muscle to burn fat around the clock. Unfortunately time is my enemy. And soft is leaving my vocabulary lol