Day 6

I've decided to do strength training in my off days. My schedule now looks like runs ('walks') on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and strength on Mon-Wed-Fri. Except, after this week, just Monday and Friday. Or maybe once every 4-5 days.

I'm doing one-set-to-failure. Yesterday was my first day doing that, and it was great. I'm only a little sore today. I think I've started working out a dozen times already in my life. I sign up for a gym membership, go for a few months, and then something happens and I stop going. The next year, the same thing. So I now know to start any exercise program off slowly.

Except one-set-to-failure (1S2F? OStF? OSF? 1SF?) kinda goes for that you-worked-out-too-hard vibe. The general idea is to do 8-10 reps at a weight so high that, at that last rep, one just can't do another rep. Failure. There's a few key points I remember, but I wrote them down on a notebook I left at work, so I'll talk about that tomorrow.

My run today was going to include five 1-minute runs, ie one minute of running, wait until I'm recuperated, then run again. Except my ankles and feet hurt so bad after the third one that I just walked back. The whole outing was about 3km, about an hour on the road. Instead of walking over to Terry Hershey, I just wandered through the nearby neighborhood streets. There are no hills, and the street isn't any more cambered than the trails through Terry Hershey, so for what I wanted to do I think it's a good course.

The diet is... ok. I'm still cheating. I had a couple kolaches plus a can of coke yesterday morning, and some chips and a couple tortillas with lunch today. Dinner was 0-carb. My goal for right now is to reduce my after-breakfast carbs. I'm not doing Atkins, so I'm looking for a lifetime eating plan. Ketosis shmetosis. Hence, no induction period, no letup for maintenance. So I want habits that I can maintain 24-7. I know that if I tried quitting carbs cold-turkey, I'd be off that plan in a month or two, or cheating more, or something. I don't want to do the cheat-one-day-a-week thing that's somewhat popular (Bill Phillips, Jorge Cruise, Timothy Ferriss). I'm not shooting for starvation.

I'd say the three main influences on my diet decisions are Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories; research from the Weston A Price Foundation; and random tidbits from sites such as the Junkfood Science blog.

My next run is on Thursday. I'll grab my notes from work and talk about one-set-to-failure then.