Anyman Fitness – Week One

Originally published on September 12, 2024.
Last Updated on September 15, 2024.

Week one is in the books and I’ll characterize it as a success!

My main memory for this week is muscle soreness. I mean walking funny, having problems brushing my teeth (tri’s did not want to stretch enough and certainly did not want to move back and forth,) and shoulders curled in to protect my aching pecs. This is all my fault. I knew this was coming … I even told myself to go easy and lift light, but then I discovered how weak I really was and crap, curling sissy 10 pounders was NOT something my ego could stand. So, ‘Big guy’ … suck it up buttercup!!

Here on Sunday night I’m finally beginning to loosen up and while I know I will be sore after each workout for the next several weeks, I also know that the worst is over.

As a guy who has lifted a fair amount in the past (distant past,) I have an idea in my mind what are my strength areas and what will always need work. I also have some idea of the weight I’ve lifted in the past (did I mention distant past?), so when I would grab a ‘starting weight’ that was waaaay too heavy, I simply forced myself to gut it out. It’s a mental thing … and a guy thing … all wrapped up in a big hairy, soft macho man package. (There’s an image for you to try to forget … lol.)  I’ll do better with the mental control in week 2 for sure.

Food …. mmmmmm Foooooood.

Food was not that big of a deal. I have a type 1 diabetic son, so counting macros is something we’ve done for every morsel for over a year now … I just added in counting calories as well.  The biggest change for me was the volume of food. Going from a high fat Paleo diet of mostly meat which has a relatively low volume of food to a higher volume but lower calorie diet was tricky. There were a couple of meals on Monday and Tuesday that I just could not down that much food = not a bad problem to have really. I did have a bit of hunger now and then but nothing unusual.

Building meals and plans for the day takes time for sure. I use my Fitbit software which makes it really easy to swap stuff around to get just the right blend of macros to calories. We grow a LOT of our own food and our garden is in full swing right now so there is a bit of ‘best guessing’ going on as I try to calculate the macros for our homegrown food.  I confess that I bought more packaged stuff than I planned to this past week just to make it easier to calculate. This part will take less time as I get some set meals planned out.

Sleep

I have not slept well this past week. Not sure if this is just due to soreness or if there is some mental aspects from changing the diet. I will maybe add potato starch to my diet if this issue does not clear up.  In a previous experiment I found I slept better when taking potato starch before going to bed … something about gut biome, poop and all that good stuff. Check out Richard Nikoley‘s site Free the Animal for more information on this. Oh, and I’m not cold at night … something Paleo people hate to admit but a real phenomenon in the low carb/ketosis world.

I did not have the massive mood swings that often accompanied the change from high carb to low carb dieting so my family and cats have found that a relief. Lol. All in all I feel mentally clear and stable.

Finally … I miss alcohol.  I’ll leave that at that.

Results

Results of week one:  Weight is down 12 lbs – yes I know … mostly water, but still visible after 1 week.

Rest of the numbers to come later after I measure.