Today begins Day 2 of this Cardio Expedition. As I mentioned in my last post, my approach for this segment is all cardio. My emphasis is on an incline treadmill. To fuel motivation, it's going to be a movie march: cardio throughout the duration of a movie. It's befitting as we just picked up well over 200 movies from a video rental shop that's going out of business. Yesterday, I set up a computer monitor with a BR/DVD player to work in conjunction with the audio receiver that is already out in my gym so that it would be an inviting place to burn the miles.

Whereas I enjoyed listening to music with my past workouts, it got a bit repetitive and far too...reminiscent. There's a place for that, but I don't want to actively live there.

So for 35 posts leading up to June 25, I'll open up with a movie preview and title the blog with whatever movie I watched for the morning. It'll show a clean break from my First Expedition.

40 ½ lbs

These are the results after my First Expedition of six weeks. I got there with a shredding nutrition program and about 50-60 minutes of resistance 4 days a week (plus a 5th day having 20+ min), with 40-60 minutes of cardio 6 days a week. It's a win.

Now it's time to move on from the celebration. I'm rolling it back to like it was day 1. It's a new season, essentially.

I'm going to beat that number. Yes, it's going to be a challenge. I don't have the advantage of being bigger or the initial water weight losses, especially as my advantage of being on a low sodium is gone. But, I'll be employing intermittent fasting along with my 40-hour Sunday fast full time. And my newest adaptation for the Second Expedition is a complete focus on cardio. There's such a shift in that direction that my 4-6AM workouts will only be cardio. Any plans I have for resistance will have to be at a different time in the day. Don't get me wrong, I love lean muscle mass, but at this time, its development is a secondary focus. For now, I only care about fat shredding. I'm not making any substantial changes to my diet. I'll be adding an oz of pickles into my romaine / spinach / broccoli medley as I give myself 200 mg of sodium to play around with, so that it'll replace my Louisiana Hot Sauce.

There is less than 18 hours and change is left before I weigh in and kickoff the the second six-weeks. I'm excited to discover my progress on the scale. I know I've dropped some serious weight because I've run out of holes on my belt. I've got a long way to go, which makes sense consider I'm only six-weeks into it. I also welcome the increased stamina.

And stamina is exactly what I needed this morning. Sure, it's a Sunday, one in which I have pegged as a day of rest and one in which I fast. Nevertheless, I beat the sun out with my weedwhacker unsheathed. Between that two-handed mace, a push mower, a shovel toward removing embedded bricks from a garden, I put in a 3-hour workout that rivaled anything I've done in the gym; I have been exploring to increased my workouts from 2 to 3 hours and this could be a kickoff for just that. Unlike the controlled environment of my gym, while outside, I had to battle through a swarm of gnats that I couldn't outrun.

While my first six-weeks was focused on a resistance / cardio / skills blend, after further research, more specifically reading Effects of Aerobic And/Or Resistance Training on Body Mass and Fat Mass in Overweight or Obese Adults, I'm going to concentrate my time on cardio. sigh So much misinformation out there that I've read before running across this. How many times have I read on a website touting the weight loss capacity of a resistance regimen how it surpasses cardio! Oh, the bruh advice! While I still will carve out time to lift because, hey, lean muscle is pretty awesome, it's no longer the primary. I began to back away from it after the injury.

Therefore, I will have Weights Wednesday. But, it's far less weighty than it sounds. After reading up on the research, specifically Super Slow Resistance Training, I'll be implementing a super slow regimen, 20 second reps, or 10 second concentric + 10 second eccentric. There will only be 1 set with 5 reps, each with weight sufficient to bring about muscle failure, and no rest between exercises. The exercises:

1. Back– Dumbbell Lying Row
2. Chest – Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
3. **Chest – Incline fly
4. Deltoid, Posterior – Dumbbell Seated Rear Lateral Raise
5. Deltoid, Lateral – Dumbbell Lateral Raise
6. Deltoid, Anterior – DB Arnold Press
7. Biceps – Dumbbell Incline Curl (Drag)
8. Triceps – Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension

If everything goes as planned, going super slow will be super quick and should finish under 15 minutes. It'll just be 15 minutes of intensity.

The ab routine will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a 3×15 with 45 second rests involving the following:

1. Twisting Crunch (on stability ball)
2. Bent-Knee Lying Twist

This will also run under 15 minutes, to maximize available time for cardio.

The biggest casualty of this transition is Taekwondo. As much as I valued having aspects of this in my regimen, TKD forms lack the intensity that I would like to implement. While I like their agility increases, at this time I'm uncomfortable with the sheer forces on my knee. And big picture, what is its deliverables?