Exercise snapshot

I've gotten into a routine of doing my daily walking in multiple blocks of 2K to 4K steps in a 15-30 minute sessions. Spread throughout the day this makes it quite easy to achieve my goal of at least 14K steps/day (up to around 20K on some days). I went to the gym for weight training yesterday, as I am now losing 1 - 1.5 kg/wk fairly consistently, but would like to rmitigate the lean mass loss from the current ~25% of the overall weight loss to under 20%. And the only way to achieve that is to do regular weight training sessions to achieve muscle hypertrophy. On the days I don't go to the gym for weight training I will do one (or more) 5 min 'high intensity' sessions on my Waterrower to boost aerobic fitness and VO2max. My performance is (so far) improving with each day of rowing, but I still tend to run out of 'puff' after about 5 mins (around the 1.4 km mark). Hopefully this will slowly improve until I can do the 2km distance in under 7 mins. Apparently the Waterrower is about 15% faster than the Concept2 machine used for competition events (and WR times), so achieving 2km in 7 mins on the Waterrower would still be considerably slower than the WR for the 60-64yo male category of around 6.5 mins.

I remembered to wear my Fitbit watch while rowing today, so did a record of a 5 minute rowing session and the start of a walking session about 30 minutes later:

It was interesting that my 'resting' heart rate while sitting in my home office working was around 72-78 bpm prior to the rowing session, but after the rowing it only dropped back to the 88-94 bpm range. This is why doing HIIT training is good for weight loss, as boosts your metabolism long after the brief exercise period has ended. The indoor rowing HR falls into the 'hard' exercise intensity band (for my age bracket), while the walking is 'light' exercise (which is good for fat loss without losing muscle mass).

While weight training my heart rate tends to sit in the 115-135 bpm range, which would be 'moderate' to 'hard' intensity for that hour or so.

From: https://www.heartonline.org.au/resources/calculators/target-heart-rate-calculator

I plan on sticking to this exercise routine from now on. But I will increase my caloric intake as I approach 80kg to slowly transition into 'maintenance' mode (this has been my biggest issue when previously losing weight -- I would tend to revert to 'ad libitum' eating after finishing (or giving up on) a diet, with snacks and junk food leading to a rapid regain of excess weight.

In the long term I hope to stick around 76-80kg body weight with around 12%-15% body fat, and ideally would do this on a modest 15%-20% 'CRON' (caloric restriction with optimal nutrition) food intake (for the possibly lifespan benefits). Just keeping to a healthy BMI and doing regular exercise will be a major improvement.

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End of Week 9 of '90 day transformation challenge'

Diet and walking was on track during the past week, resulting in a -1.3 kg change in weight for the week, and a -1.3% reduction in body fat percentage. The diet and walking resulted in an average daily caloric deficit (compared to estimated BMR) of -1,206 kcals/day on average during the past week. The charts of weight loss per week vs. average daily caloric deficit show an almost perfect match with the predicted loss of 1kg/wk for a 1,000 kcals/day (7,000 kcals/wk) deficit for the weeks where my diet was 'ongoing'. There was a higher rate of weight loss during the first weeks, and the week immediately after I had paused my diet and exercise regime due to my BPV episodes. The higher rate of weight loss can be explained by the usual 'water weight' loss that usually occurs when a diet commences (and overall bulk of food consumption decreases).

I still haven't resumed going to the gym for weight training sessions yet -- my new Waterrower arrived on Tuesday, so I did rowing sessions on Wed, Thu, and Sun instead of going to the gym. This week I'll try to doing rowing on the 'rest' days when I don't go to the gym for weight training. While indoor rowing is a good 'full body' workout, it is only 'bodyweight' and is more limited by aerobic capacity than muscle exhaustion. So far I have only managed to do one or two 6 minute sessions on the rower, covering 1.3km in about 260 seconds. Despite 'only' being 1.3 km, this pace is still about 30% slower than the WR pace for the 2km event for the 60-65yo age male open category, so I'll need to first improve my aerobic fitness and endurance to be able to row 2km at a decent stroke rate, and then (hopefully) improve my technique and strength to slowly improve my time for the 2km indoor row. The rowing can be quite strenuous, so I'll start wearing my fitbit watch while rowing so I can keep an eye on my maximum heart rate.

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FFMI calculation

Watching a youtube video about weight loss and body building by Dr Michael Israetel I found a reference to FFMI (Fat-free Mass Index) calculator at https://mennohenselmans.com/ffmi-calculator/ that lets you enter current body measurements and get an estimate of your (theoretical) drug-free genetic potential for lean muscle mass. At my age my maximum muscle potential will be considerably less than this, but it is good as a guideline.

My current measurements entered into the app are: (male, metric units, goal is lean muscle mass for fat reduction from 30% to 14%):

*height 176 cm

*weight 106 kg

*wrist circumference 19 cm

*ankle circumference 26 cm (unusually thick - and I measured my smaller leg - the other has some odema)

*torso circumference 115 cm

*upper arm circumference 41 cm

*forearm circumference 34 cm

*neck circumference 42 cm

*thigh circumference 59 cm

*calf circumference 43 cm

Calculated Results:

Lean body mass left to gain 14.6 kg (need to do more weight training!)

Fat mass left to lose 17.3 kg (more if I don't add the above muscle)

If I don't put on any lean mass, this means losing about 32 kg of fat to reduce weight to 74kg, which is about right). Ideally I can add some lean mass, especially on my thighs.

Evaluation of current physique and possible improvements are:

Neck 6% overdeveloped

Torso 3% overdeveloped (probably overestimated due to fat on my chest and back)

upper arms: perfect (I doubt this as I need to shed fat and gain muscle here)

forearms 4% overdeveloped (again, probably inflated due to excess body fat)

thigh 11% underdeveloped (I've noticed my thighs are not as thick as when I used to do weight training -- need to use the leg extension machine more)

calf 2% underdeveloped (more time doing calf raises)

Potential gains:

Torso max 125 cm (more chest and lat work needed)

Upper arm 46 cm (more bicep curls and tricep work)

Forearm 37 cm (some forearms curls)

Neck 45 cm (shoulder shrugs?)

Thigh 75 cm (definitely need more leg work)

Calf 50 cm (more and heavier calf raises)

Max natural bodyweight 103.3 kg. Normalized FFMI 24.2 (24.9 is upper limit drug-free for most people's genetics) Max natural recorded is 28.0

The app provides a cool visual summary of the above results:

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End of Week 8 of '90 day transformation challenge'

Only did about 10K steps/day for the first two days of the week, but then picked up and by the end of the week the average daily step count was on target. My average daily protein and % calories from fat and carbs was also what I am aiming for. However, I didn't go to the gym to do weight training at all during the past week, which resulted in my weight continuing to drop but my % body fat not decreasing. Overall my weight loss have been about 72% fat and 28% lean mass, so I really need to restart my regular weight training to preserve muscle mass while in caloric deficit.

My progress so far:

         Body Recomposition       Averages (per day)

Week#    Wt (kg)    Body Fat %    cals    g prot    % carbs    % fat    steps/day

1        -3.4       -1.1%         1,348     85      35%        39%      11,118

2        -1.0       -0.4%         1,378     92      39%        31%      12.126

3        -2.3       -0.8%         1,528    121      27%        26%      12,358

4        -0.1       -0.5%         2,223    122      41%        30%       6,459

5        +1.1       +0.4%         2,457    117      51%        29%       1,107

6        -3.1       -1.2%         1,856    114      50%        22%      10,550

7        -0.9       +0.2%         1,782    153      40%        28%      14,293

8        -1.1       -0.0%         1,594    157      29%        26%      15,770

DS1 didn't want the elliptical machine, so we just shifted it into the garage for the time being, so I'll have room in the loungeroom for the Joroto Waterrower when it arrives. The M280 model I bought comes with bluetooth (BLE) connectivity and FTMS (Fitness Machine Service) device support, so I am hoping to be able to data log workout using python on my laptop. After trying to find some existing examples for people who had already developed code for this (to closest I could find was specific to certain models of stationary bike machines), I resorted to asking ChatGPT to "write a python script to connect to a FTMS device using bluetooth" and it came up with a script to connect using pygatt and print the received data. Apparently all I will need to do is specify the MAC address of my FTMS device (the waterrower). We'll see if it works. If it does, I should be able to run the python script within excel to import the data during an exercise session and chart relevant details (eg. heartrate, stroke rate, distance etc.). If I can't get the python working in excel I can always do the required charting in python using matplotlib or similar.

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