Week 2b Fitness Wrap-Up

Friday was a low-key day, I played some Rock Band and rode the bicycle a little, staying on the diet. Saturday morning I lifted, but Saturday evening I went out to eat and then did some drinking. The downside is that I probably stifled what could've been a big positive over the weekend. But the upside is that even with multiple mistakes, I still lost weight. That tells me that one of these weekends, when I stay on target, I'll have a big weight loss.

I also did some reading and found a few interesting nuggets that I'm going to try to (or continue to) incorporate. The general focus is on increasing my metabolism, and maintaining that increase. While I found at least a dozen ways, these were the two I would like to embrace the most actively:

• Lift weights - I knew weightlifting was a good idea, but the information I've read shows that the benefits go well beyond muscle definition and burning calories. First, lifting earlier in the day gives you a metabolic boost that persists throughout the day, and which you can complement with other strategies to really pump up your calorie-burning power. Additionally, having greater muscle mass increases your basal metabolic rate.
  
• Sleep - I've always felt like sleep was important and that not getting 8 hours a night was causing some sort of problem for me, but now I've got the reasons why. The piece of information that struck me the most goes back to weightlifting: if you don't get 7-8 hours of sleep, you aren't allowing your body to build muscle, and so your weightlifting can be less productive.
  

After getting this information and comparing it with my own habits, I've decided that perhaps the most beneficial thing I can do is change my sleep cycle. Instead of going to bed around 1:00 every night and waking up at 7:30, I should go to bed around 10:30 and wake up around 6:30. That will give me plenty of time to lift in the morning, and ensure I get enough sleep to reap the benefits each night. It'll take some internal negotiation to make the change, but I've had to change my attitude on eating already; this change would offer similar benefits, in addition to the fact that getting more sleep will just be better for me regardless.

Week 2b weight: 322.8