I am "High Intensity Man"!

This morning, I managed to get up a little earlier than usual for my aerobic workout. I was worried that my twenty minutes of high intensity cardio was becoming thirty minutes of medium intensity cardio. This is, on some level, patently ridiculous considering the resistance levels I've been using and the number of calories I'm burning, but that didn't lessen my concern. Yesterday, I was reading about the dangers of doing too much cardio in Body for Life, and then Cheryl mentioned the same thing. It had me thinking about changing my program.

When it comes to burning fat and building muscle, there are three primary body types, ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. Ectomorph's are those perpetually thin people that can eat anything and never gain any fat, but they have a real challenge building muscle. Endomorphs, on the other hand, can build muscle, but they gain fat very easily. Then there are the lucky ones, mesomorphs, who's bodies are not pre-programmed and who build muscle when they do resistance training and lose fat when their caloric output exceeds caloric intake (in other words, when they control their diet and get sufficient exercise).

Most of us are not pure ectomorph or endomorph. For instance, I lean towards ectomorph, but I will gain fat if my diet is high enough in the wrong things, so I am at least part mesomorph. Where I am particularly challenged is in gaining muscle. I have to work extra hard to get even modest gains.

Well, excessive cardio can compromise muscle gains. So I was thinking I needed to shorten my cardio workouts to be closer to the "by the book" program. So I went for higher intensity this morning by picking up the speed. I still did a longer cooldown than specified, but the core part of the workout was pretty much by the book. I was pretty happy with the results. I burned as many calories as before with a much shorter workout!

We won't be able to do the studio quality photos this weekend as planned. The camera is still in the shop. We are probably going to do pictures anyway (with the other camera), but we won't be putting up the backdrop or using the studio lights. The full blown photo shoot will have to wait for the final pictures.

My sister saw me yesterday for the first time in several weeks and mentioned that it looked like I've lost weight. I tried to explain that I've actually lost weight and gained muscle. It's amazing how may people have asked, "How much weight have you lost?" Really, ten pounds in nine weeks is not impressive to anyone. And most people are not capable of understanding that you can lose body fat without losing a pound on the scale if you are adding lean weight (muscle) at the same time (and that you can lose weight on the scale without losing body fat!!!). If I've gained nothing else from this process, at least I now have a better understanding of how my body works.