My recent health/fitness hiccup

[Horace]

I will never understand the compulsion for travel, but I grant that women have it in general. Even while I was traveling in Florence, I did stay at a hotel with a "gym", but what a waste of space. One treadmill, dumbells that went to 50, maybe an elliptical. I purchased a day pass at a gym within walking distance instead. Walking distance from one part of Florence to another means that both points are within florence, but this gym was a 4 minute walk.

The girl at the front couldn't have been more dismissive, as she spotted me as a tourist. Of course everybody in Florence is a tourist. It was a decent gym. Hot as hell on the top level with the free weights.

I ended my workout on the treadmill on the first floor and sweated a fire hydrant as I do. Asked if they had water and she said no. I was aware of a store nearby and asked about it, just to see if I was dealing with someone who wanted to help. She said she didn't know. I went to get water from that store and she went outside to smoke. Eurotrash.

[jon-nyc]

In my experience in the US most hotel gyms (of the chain type) have dumbbells up to 50, a lonely bench or two, a tall pulley machine for doing the myriad things you can do with one of those, and a long line of treadmills. I usually see most people on the treadmills, maybe me and another middle aged guy using the weights. Unless I go in the afternoon, then it's just me.

Some of the higher end hotels that are huge AND near large city conference centers have really impressive gyms. They look like a regular gym without the barbells (must be a liability issue). Vegas hotels also have some impressive gyms.

[89th]

@jon-nyc what do you use the track the weight, just manually log it from a scale or something cooler? I think you have one of those body scan scales or something?

Anyway, thanks for sharing, like @mik said, a world of tradeoffs. Are there foods that absorb more quickly that give bigger bang for the digestive buck? I can't imagine lifting too much will tip the scales (heh) compared to what your body can do on a whim, but still... you're doing what you can do and it's inspirational. And perspirational, too!

[jon-nyc]

I have a cheap digital scale from Etekcity which connects to an app which connects to Apple health app. So as long as I have the scale sync app open when I weigh myself it flows through to Apple health automatically and immediately. The graph I posted came from Apple Health.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Horace said:

I will never understand the compulsion for travel, but I grant that women have it in general. Even while I was traveling in Florence, I did stay at a hotel with a "gym", but what a waste of space.

I will never understand the compulsion for going to the gym. They're terrible places.

[Klaus]

Wow, that sounds awful but I'm glad it's looking better now.

What do you do to get to 4000kcal a day? That's a lot of food.

[mark]

I will gladly give you some extra weight.

Sorry you are going through this. Hope it continues to get better.

[jon-nyc]

@Klaus said:

Wow, that sounds awful but I'm glad it's looking better now.

What do you do to get to 4000kcal a day? That's a lot of food.

In the beginning I couldn’t pull off 3k and started drinking homemade shakes with milk, cream, whole milk yoghurt, oat flour, and peanut butter.

Then I sort of trained myself to eat more.

Typical day:
Breakfast 1 ~ 700 calories
bagel with 2 servings cream cheese (64g)
2 eggs
Yoghurt

Breakfast 2 (after gym) ~ 750
Calorie dense toasted muesli (I found a brand with 390cal in 85g, not sugar laden either)
Whole milk
Banana
30g protein shake

Lunch ~ 980
Turkey sandwich with 85g turkey and thick cheddar slices, generous mayo
60g peanuts
6 chocolate covered pretzels

Dinner ~ 1000
Baked potato with 2tbsp butter
Meat/fish 6-8oz
Veggie

Snack at night - 400-500
Peanut butter toast
Another yoghurt
Banana

Or

Ice cream

Those two breakfast and that lunch are pretty fixed so I get 2500 calories by mid day. Keep in mind I wake up before 5.

[jon-nyc]

Typical macro breakdown:

Protein 200-220
Fat: 160-190
Carbs: 350-450

[Axtremus]

@Klaus said:

What do you do to get to 4000kcal a day?

Would have been epic had the answer been "pies."

Get well soon.

[taiwan_girl]

@jon-nyc wow! I had no idea. Sending positive thoughts to you!!!

[jon-nyc]

So during my trip I averaged 3416 calories/day and 144g/d of protein.

In the previous 10 days before the trip, I averaged 4065 kcal and 201g protein per day.

Also no weights while I was gone. I didn't get much exercise except walking, and not too much of that.

I lost 4.3lbs on the trip.

Back to work. Should catch that up in a few days. By next weekend for sure.

[Mik]

That is so very foreign to my experience as to be alien. I get calories from oxygen.

[Tom-K]

I couldn't lose 4.3lbs. if I stopped eating for a whole month.

[taiwan_girl]

@jon-nyc said:

I didn't get much exercise except walking, and not too much of that.

Maybe a dumb question, but is there a benefit to not exercising so much? Would that help with keeping the weight on?

[jon-nyc]

I would have thought so. In fact I wasn’t worried about lesser calorie intake so much since o was burning less. But here I am.

[Mik]

I just started back to HIIT on the Airdyne the past week or so. Supposed to build VO2 max faster. I’m getting upwards of 110-120 bpm. Plateaued at 67 lbs on weight loss even thought my waist keeps shrinking. Maybe the weight training.

I didn’t have to work this hard in my 30s. Grr.

[jon-nyc]

Update. Its been almost exactly two months since I stopped that drug. My weight hit 168.2 today, my nadir was 148.1 on February 28th.

So I’ve gained 20lbs in 2 months. Good weight too, not sloppy weight. When I hit 175 or so I’ll probably cut back the carbs a bit but keep myself at 3000 calories or so. Maybe not though since by then I’ll be riding a lot and burning calories.

[taiwan_girl]

@jon-nyc That is good news!!!!! Keep eating!!!

[blondie]

Yes! Good news. Keep on gaining!