The health report – June

Yes, I finally got around to weighing and measuring myself! So here is the overview table.

Date:	weight	neck	chest	belly	arm
24-10-2017	114 kg	43 cm	124 cm	124 cm	39 cm
15-5-2018	104 kg	42 cm	115 cm	114,5 cm	38 cm
17-6-2018	104 kg	42 cm	118 cm	115 cm	38 cm
15-7-2018	101 kg	41 cm	118 cm	115 cm	38 cm
15-8-2018	99 kg	41 cm	118 cm	113 cm	38 cm
15-9-2018	101 kg	41 cm	118 cm	114 cm	38 cm
15-10-2018	98 kg	41 cm	118 cm	113 cm	38 cm
02-02-2020	115 kg	43 cm	124 cm	126 cm	40 cm
16-06-2021	117 kg	45 cm	126 cm	125 cm	41,5 cm

I am still keeping my focus on a slow and steady progress in my exercises but it is time I start to look at my weight again. Rowing with this much extra weight is starting to become more difficult. But I’ll go into that in the rowing segment.

There are a few interesting things to note in this overview.

First is off course that my weight is bad. 117 kg is the heaviest ever in this overview.

But I have been exercises for the last year and that 117 kg isn’t the same kg as the 115 kg I was in February 2020 (last decent weighing I did before starting to exercise).

How can I tell? Well, both neck and chest are now a full two cm wider (and my arm 1,5 cm) and believe me, that is not where the fat is on my body.

Actually, my chest is now 1 cm more than my belly. Back in 2017 both were the same size (124cm) and I weighed 114 kg then too. If you actually compare the 114 kg of 2017 with the 115 kg of February 2020 You will notice my neck and chest measure the same. That 1 kg of fat can be found in the 2 cm of difference of the belly!

Conclusion: the 117 kg now contains more muscle. Something you would expect after one full year of exercising. Those muscles explain why the chest and arm measurements went up and I now have the belly width of my 114 kg weighing self. I roughly added 3 kg of muscles over the last year!

Honestely, I am pretty motivated now to lose 3 kg so I can compare one on one with the 114 kg back in 2017! I am not going to make it a hard goal (because I don’t do those anymore) but I am going to focus a bit more on what I eat and see where it takes me.

Let’s dive into the exercises

Fitness

Again, I did not miss any fitness days and continued to add something (either a little bit off weight or some extra reps) to an exercise each and every week.

The result is a slow and steady progress. At the writing of my last post I had lifted 15 504 kg in one week. Now I am at 17 530 kg or 2 000 kg’s more!

Since I am doing low intensity but lots of reps I was wondering if I was actually building strength. Turns out I am! With friends visiting for a BBQ I finally could test how much my maximum bench press weight is now (somebody has to lift it if I can’t because no safeguard on my in house set-up). Pretty happy to report my max is now 70 kg!!

So yes, this low intensity, lots of reps approach does build up strength. Also, I do not think I will ever again weigh less than 95 kg but if I am at 70 kg bench pressing now, 95 kg should be reachable with this approach! I just have to keep the slow and steady approach! I’ll check my max bench press again sometime next summer.

Greasing the groove

I missed one day of greasing the groove. A wednesday where we went to visit Bruges. No American and Asian (because pandemic) tourists means us Belgians have this beautiful city once more all to ourselfs! For some strange reason Bruges does not have dedicated ‘do your sit-ups here’ spots all over the historic centre so no greasing the groove that day. I did go to the office twice in the last month and yes I did do my exercies there. Strang looks from the few co-workers present? You betcha! Me not giving a crap? You betcha!

I also stayed at 25 reps of sit ups for the entire month as I was building up my kettle bell swings. I am glad to report I reached 25 reps there too! So that was 25 reps, 8 times a day for six days for the kettle bell swings and also for the sit ups.

The kettle bell weight is only 4 kgs because that was what I had laying around. I have ordered a 10 kg weigth and I am waiting on it’s delivery. When that one arrives I will drop my reps to 10 reps to compensate for the heavier weight and then start to build those up again. In the mean time I will increase my sit-up reps because I am adding something, somewhere each and every week …

Cardio

Didn’t miss any rowing last month! Woohoo!

So yes, that does mean rowing for 18 minutes when we got back from our day visiting Bruges. It also meant rowing for 20 minutes in our current 31 degrees celius heat wave (I was a puddle of sweat on the floor afterwards). I did both and I am pretty proud of it!

I also reached 20 minuts of rowing this week because I continued to add one minute every week. I am going to stay at this level for the next month. I have a few reasons for this:

• I think I build up to 20 min a bit quick. Once at 15 minutes I feel like I should have added 1 min only every two weeks
• 20 minutes of rowing in a heatwave is crazy. Luckily next week promises lower temperatures but I can use a less intense week or two. Also thinking about buying a mobile airco unit …
• I weigh 117 fucking kgs! And I am rowing for 20 minutes at a pretty decent tempo. Somewhere around the 15 min mark my body is really not liking it anymore. I can’t really blame it. A person of my weight should not be doing this! Especially not in a heatwave … The reality is I need to get rid of some fat if I want to continue to add time to my rowing.

So rough goals for the next month are:

• adding a bit to my fitness (I am ok there, not really having pushed myself too hard over the last month).
• adding some sit up reps to the greasing the groove routine (I am actually eager to add some here since I didn’t do it for a month!)
• staying at 20 mins of rowing
• a bit more focus on food and see where I am weight wise at the next post