The time has come to review the old and develop the new.

Workout
The last workout was simply designed to maintain. I had no strength goals. I did have a body composition goal of 10% bodyfat, but that goal will be discussed in the Nutrition section.

The workout design was pretty good. The deadlifts supersetted with original hack squats totally killed me. The two exercises are extremely similar. In a deadlift you simple bend at the knees, grab the loaded barbell on the floor in front of you, and stand up. An original hack squat is the basically the same thing only the barbell is behind you. This simple shift in position is enough to totally change which leg muscles do the lifting. In a deadlift the glutes and hams do the majority of the work. In an original hack squat the quads do most of the work. However, in both cases the entire posterior chain, from lower back to upper traps, gets blasted. Supersetting the two exercises killed my posterior chain and forearms. I would be so sore on Friday that I couldn't perform the scheduled standing barbell rows. Instead, I substituted a superset of dumbbell lateral raises and dumbbell front raises. That seemed to work pretty well.

Overall, my gym consistency and focus was good.
Grade: A

Nutrition
The goal for nutrition was to stick to my meal template, update my nutrition log at fitday, and hit 10% bodyfat. I started at 174-lbs at 12% bodyfat and I'm now 168-lbs at 10.2% bodyfat. For all practical purposes, goal achieved. I was hoping to keep my weight over 170-lbs, so when I started dropping bellow that I added a bit more chicken to my nutrition plan. I, also, recently stopped supplementing with creatine, which means the extra weight loss could be from losing excess intracellular water.

Though I achieved my goals, I'm going to deduct points for getting sloppy with my nutrition on weekends.
Grade: B+

Sleep
A'ight, I guess. I always shoot for 8-hours. These past 5-weeks I've averaged 7-hours/night. [cut/paste, eh?]
Grade: B

New Plan

Workout Goals
After much thought, I have devised a new long-term goal: Run 2.5-miles at an average speed of 7-minutes/mile. I did a test run earlier this week and completed the 2.5-mile Washington Park track loop in 20:55.68 minutes. That's (approximately) 8:22 minutes/mile. I have some work to do. A secondary goal is to maintain current strength levels and muscle mass. I will start out running once a week and, hopefully, within a month I'll be running twice a week. For the gym routine I'll use Hybrid Hypertrophy as designed by Chad Waterbury. It's exactly what I had in mind, a total body routing, 3-days/week, heavy weight, and a mixture of low and high reps. On Tuesdays I'll run the Washington Park loop and on Thursdays I'll work on the karate physical requirements (pushups, crunches, burpees, mountain climbers, sprinting in-place).

Nutrition Goals
I want to continue the biweekly evolving nutrition plan... a plan that I modify by +/-250-kcal every two weeks based upon my body composition changes. For this to work I must continue keeping a fairly regular nutrition journal. Overall, I want to hover at 170-lbs. I really don't want to get any lighter and I have a suspicion that running will require me up my kcal intake, but for now:

Meal Template

• 5:30AM: 4 egg whites, 1-cup spinach, 1-oz feta cheese, 0.25-cup black olives (Greek Omelet)
  
• 8:30AM: 1-serv whey protein, 1-tbs flaxseed oil, piece of fruit
  
• 11:30AM: 4-oz chicken breast, 2-cup spinach salad, 1-tbs olive oil, 0.25 green pepper
  
• 2:00PM: 6-oz canned tuna, 1 egg, 1-tbs mayo (…yeah, tuna salad)
  (gym)
  
• 4:00PM: 1-serv whey protein, 1-cup berries, 1 banana (post workout shake)
  
• 5:00PM: 4-oz chicken breast, 1 tortilla, 1-cup spinach, 1-tbs hummus (call it a chicken hummus wrap)
  
• 8:00PM: 1-serv whey protein, 1-tbs flaxseed oil

[(Stats: 2,340-kcal, 103-grams fat, 140-grams carbohydrates, 216-grams protein) On non-work out days meals will be rearranged so that the majority of carbs are consumed early in the day. This is only a template; macronutrient equivalent items can be substituted (e.g., eggs instead of tuna, or salmon instead of chicken).]

Sleep
As usual, I'm keeping my 8-hours/night sleep goal.

Meditation
Not a goal yet, but I'm thinking about it.

I'll give this a month-ish and then review.
...and so it was written, shenry at 3/18/2005 10:07:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .