Rehab Day 16

Weight: 124.6

Food

Another reasonably good day, although by the time I write this I almost forget what was eaten today. Breakfast was the same as always - eggs and nuts. I munched on some nuts and beef jerky through the morning. After my workout, I had a Booster Juice, again with no yogurt and added my own dried egg whites. That's a lot of carbs and it set me up to feel quite munchy through the rest of the day. At some point I ate a Larabar. Thank goodness the box of those things is almost gone because they are addicting! Dinner was some chicken eaten later at night and too close to bed time.

Water Weight

So lets talk about water weight. Between yesterday and today I dropped nearly 4lbs. Clearly this is not "bodyfat". You can't gain or lose 4lbs of fat in a day. What it is, is mostly water. 1 litre of water weights 1kg or 2.2 lbs. My drop in weight from yesterday to today represents aprx 1.5L of water.

Salt, hormones, and different foods can all influence water retention. Large fluctuations in salt (and water) intake can cause big changes in water retention or loss. Female hormones definitely have that lovely monthly effect of making girls bloated and cranky. Other hormones, like insulin, stimulate the kidneys to retain fluid rather than excrete it. A by-product of the chemical equation for metabolizing glucose is water. Some foods, like cucumbers and grapefruits, can have a diuretic effect making you shed water weight. Remember the grapefruit diet? Well that's basically a dehydration plan and it works to dump a lot of weight in a short period of time. It's not fat though. Just weight. Caffeine and alcohol are also both strong diuretics.

Low carb diets are well known to cause a huge weight loss in the first few weeks. "But it's mostly just water weight!" the critics will always whine. Excuse me, but when was the last time anybody wanted to retain fluid? In fact fluid retention is one of the major elements of hypertension. Why are we supposed to be disappointed when we 'just lose water weight'? I don't wanted to be bloated any more than I want to be fat, so if a diet is causing me to shed excess fluid along with the fat that's just peachy as far as I'm concerned.

CrossFit

3-3-3-3-3 Front Squat

121 lbs x 3

126 lbs x 3

136 lbs x 2

Previous 3 rep max was 125lbs with 0 reps on an attempt at 135lbs. The two reps I eeked out at 136 completely finished me off and back was was having no more of making any further attempts!

Later in the day I did the CrossFit Endurance workout on the rower which was 6x3min sprints with alternating rest periods. It goes like this:

3 min on, 1 min off

3 on, 3 off

3 on, 1 off

3 on, 3 off

3 on, 1 off

3 on, DONE!

Distances (in meters) were: 655, 666. 666, 647, 640, 662