October is getting to be a better month

I'm doing a lot better on my exercise this month. I'm not quite averaging thirty minutes a day. It's closer to 28 minutes a day.

I swam 2100 yards in 68 minutes today, with Friday and Saturday being rest days. I am trying to make small increments each time I exercise. I am alternating Swimming, Exercise Bike, and Weight Training. Next time I swim I should do 2200 yards and next time on the Exercise Bike needs to be 32 minutes. That's an increase in my stamina/exercise of over 3% per week.

I'm going to try to graph this and see if my exercise keeps increasing or plateaus.

Not a good summer

I threw my back out lifting boxes in June, and again in September. I am recovering nicely in Oak Ridge, Tennessee now. I have restarted my exercise program now that is October. I am trying to average thirty minutes of exercise per day. Unfortunately it was very little exercise for this summer.

West Nile Fever

I got bit by a mosquito on a lovely Fourth of July weekend and despite having a wonderful time at parties I came down with West Nile Fever.

July was a pretty miserable month. I was so sick I lost ten pounds.

Back in Golden, Colorado

Hi Everybody.

Big gap in the blog. I left Oak Ridge, Tennessee and came back to Golden, April first. A lot has happened since April. Mostly me falling off my exercise program and getting some fairly painful psoriatic arthritis. My exercise dropped down to less than ten minutes per day.

I've been doing a lot of reading about my condition. I am experimenting. I am off of artificial sweeteners. That is helping the arthritis, and I think the psoriasis is going into remission. I've been reading about leptin and I'm trying to go on a low carb diet. That seems to help keep my appetite under control. I may try to be a vegetarian a few days per week. That also seems to cut the appetite way down.

Last week I threw my back out and I've spent most of the week flat on my back in bed. Oh well. At least the back injury killed my appetite and I'm under three hundred pounds again!

I hope to resume swimming soon and light exercise next week.

I'm 53

I am 53 today and I feel it sometimes. Vitamin I is my new best friend. I've been reading about health, medicine, psoriasis, and arthritis. The more medicine I learn, the more I want to stay healthy.

Stamina is up

I did 50 minutes on the exercise bike at level 13. That's an increase of only 5 minutes but it's also an increase of 10% in my stamina for the month. I got my heart rate up to 120 bpm. I feel like I'm on the right track.

I'm only averaging 18 minutes of exercise per day for March, and I need to get that eventually up to 30 minutes per day. I averaged 25 mpd for January and 24 mpd for February. I'm feeling the difference. I hope to start looking better this summer.

Made the goal for February!

It's a new month and today is weigh in day. The body fat scale shows me down 1% to 49.1% Body Fat. This corresponds to my weighing 308.4 pounds. I only lost one centimeter off of my gut. I really need to triple that this summer and lose an inch each month. It would make a great difference to my wardrobe. I've got lots of old clothes I want to be able to wear again.

I missed my goal for January. I hope to make that up later this year.

I need to add some more pictures to document this weight loss blog.

Now the goal for March is to do even better.

Not quite up to speed

Today was a pretty good workout. The arthritis was painful, but I was able to work through the pain and after a few sets I felt better. Unfortunately I can't lift heavy weights. I just don't have the grip. I've got the strength to curl 30 pounds but I'm only curling 15 pounds because it hurts too much to grip the weights.
The goal is to average 30 minutes of exercise per day by going to the health club four days per week. I averaged 26 minutes of exercise per day for January and I've now averaged 24 minutes of exercise per day for February. I hope to add cycling in March. I hope that will make it easier to get to my time goal.

The result is that I'm feeling a little better, my stamina is better, but I'm not losing enough weight. Weigh in is Monday. Goal is still to lose one percent body fat per month and also to lose three pounds per month.

A new goal is to put on one pound of muscle per month.

EVH

New distance record

A new personal best distance record today. I swam 3.4 km in two hours. That's two miles swimming pretty much non stop. I felt fine afterwards. My stamina is getting better. I need to diet more and see if my speed will increase as I lose weight.

One third Olympic speed

Today I swam a mile in one hour. That's one third of Michael Phelps' speed. My goal is to get to one half Olympic speed this year.

I have the body of a God!

Too bad it's Ho tei the God of Happiness.

It's February already!

My weight was 312 pounds and 50.1% body fat, down only 0.2%. for the month. I took Mom and Dad out last night for their 58th anniversary and ate way too much at the Super China Buffet. After fifteen hours of exercise for the month of January I've gained .6 pounds of muscle and I am feeling a little better.

The Goal now for February is too lose 2% body fat to 48% gain another pond of muscle by exercising at least 15 hours and drop my weight 2% to 304 pounds.

A Liitle More Each Time

I'm getting to National Fitness Center every other day and I'm still able to increase my workout. That's great. I'm getting the hang of using the exercise bikes and I increased my workout by five minutes and five BPM on the heart rate. I'm up to forty minutes at 110 BPM on the heart rate monitor and had a good cardio workout today.

2.7 km swim today

Do a little more each time. That's my motto for as long as I can keep the exercise increasing. It's tough. I can't grip the weights very well. I'm going to start taking fish oil and I hope that will cure my arthritis.

Last Saturday I lifted weights, with some difficulty, but today was another good day of swimming. 2700 meters in just over an hour and a half. This brings my exercise average back up to 30+ minutes per day for January. I'm feeling better and my jeans are getting a little looser.

The weight is fluctuating but I think I can still loose 1% body fat for this month. I'll weigh and measure in on the first day of each month and post a new picture.

A good swim of 2.6km

Today I swam 2600 meters without any problems. This week went well. I can make it to the health club three or four times a week and I finally figured out that I need to run the exercise bikes in Cardio mode and adjust down for a good target heart rate. Yesterday I did 35 minutes on the exercise bike with a target heart rate of 105 bpm. Next time I'll increase that to 110 bpm.

Increasing the exercise a little each week seems to be working well for me. I'm starting to feel a few changes from all the exercise. I hope it will be visible. I plan to post a new picture on this blog on the first day of each month.

Every other day

I'm making it to the health club every other day. I'm still averaging thirty plus minutes per day. I hope to keep that up so I can answer my big question; "How much exercise does it take to add a pound of muscle?"

I'll use my body fat scale and do the calculation on the first day of each month.

A nice little swim of 2500 meters.

Today I swam 2.5 kilometers and I feel fine. My stamina seems to be improving a little bit. I'm going to try to increment the exercise every week. I was trying to increase my exercise every time I went to the health club, but that's just a little too hard.

I may hit a plateau in my exercise but that's not a problem right now. I'm averaging a half an hour per day of exercise. That's my first goal. The second goal is to go at least every other day to the health club. The third goal is to add more diverse exercises to this program.

The next thing to do is to figure out how to chart my exercise so that I can see it graphically.

Arthritis is a real pain

I renewed my membership at the Oak Ridge, National Fitness Center for the next six months. I'm staying in Oak Ridge to take care of my Mom who is 83, and unfortunately her Alzheimer's is getting worse. If I do go back to Golden, Colorado it won't be too painful to transfer this membership to The Point Athletic Club.

The real problem is that I have dactylitis. A form of arthritis that hits people with psoriasis. No known cure and its really making my fingers and toes hurt. It's really making it painful to grip the weights when I workout. Today I rode the exercise bike for 31 minutes instead of following my rotation and doing the weight training.

New Year's Resolutions

I've just been looking at my list of New Year's resolutions from 1982 and the list is still good. Lose weight, get organized, save money....

Nothing much has really changed. I want a place for everything and everything in it's place as opposed to a place for everything and everything on the floor.

Today will probably be a rest day on the exercise and a good day to do yard work. Exercising hard every other day looks to be more sustainable than exercising everyday.

Experimental Graph from Excel

Here is a weight chart I just made in Excel, that I then saved as a jpeg in Preview, and uploaded in Blogger.

A Good Swim

Yesterday was a rest day. Rest days are important part of training. On rest days you build back up some of the muscle you tore down exercising.

Today I swam 2400 meters in one hour and twenty-two minutes. That was a good workout but it's only one third Olympic speed. I really hope to get my speed up this year to one half Olympic speed. I'm doing a little more each time I work out. I may eventually hit a plateau but I'm going to do a little bit more each workout for al long as I can.

I need to figure out how to add graphs to this blog so I can show my progress.

Day One

This is me!

Today is Friday, January 1st, 2010.
My starting weight is 311.8 pounds, and I'm 50.3% body fat.

Hi,
My name is Erik Von Halle, and welcome to the DELTA Program. DELTA is my acronym for "Diet and Exercise for Lighter Transformed Anatomy".

My goal is to get lighter and healthier. My goal for this first month is to get to 49% body fat by February first. I hope to lose a pound per week. I plan to use this blog to document my progress and to answer a few questions. How much exercise is right for me? How much exercise does it take to add a pound of muscle? Can I lose weight with diet and exercise as opposed to just exercising?

I have a log book and I've been recording my exercise for years and it shows very little progress. I hope to use this web log to answer the question "What have I been doing wrong?"

The Plan

I'm in shape. Round is a shape, right? I've been putting on about five pounds a year since I graduated high school in 1975. That's going from 175 to an all time high of 330 pounds. It's affecting my health.

I am very well read. I've read lots of books and magazines on exercise. I've got a strong background in science. I'm an avid swimmer. I have access to lots of exercise equipment. I own a very nice BikeE recumbent bicycle. I have a gym membership at the National Fitness Center.

The plan is to use my Homedics body fat scale and a tape measure to record and graph my progress on the first of each month.

I will use cross training by rotating cycling, weight training, body weight exercises and swimming for at least three hours per week. I'll record my exercise and my daily weight in my log book.

I'm not sure what to do about my diet. I'm going to try to eat healthier and stop snacking between meals. I will also try to convert the snacks I do eat to fruits and health foods instead of junk food. The big change is to try eat a healthy brakfast everyday. Having an egg for breakfast each day seems to make a big difference in my appetite and keeps me from binging.