Month In Review // October 2015
This post is the fourth of my Month in Review series. Read my first post here for more information.
Fitness
I’ve been focusing more on eating less again. I have found that selective eating can be difficult in social situations, but portion control always works. I have also been grilling my dinner Korean BBQ style after being inspired by this Tim Ferriss show podcast.
I gave up on running a marathon this year and have shifted my focus to building a good aerobic base, where I focus on consistency more than increasing mileage. I have also added pushups and planks to my workout routine. I installed an app for pushup tracking and for plank tracking that you can find under obsessions and finds below.
Here is how my workouts look now.
Day | Running | Plank | Pushups |
---|---|---|---|
Sunday | yes | yes | |
Monday | 40 minutes | yes | |
Tuesday | 40 minutes | yes | yes |
Wednesday | 60 minutes | yes | |
Thursday | 40 minutes | yes | yes |
Friday | 40 minutes | yes | |
Saturday | 80 minutes | yes |
My pace has been improving continuously over the last few months. At the end of September, I was running around a 10:00 minutes per mile pace at 150 bpm HR. I ended October at around 9:15 minutes per mile. I’m pretty happy with my results and I’m going to continue this for a few more weeks before increasing my mileage again. Also, I returned to my normal mileage in October after September saw a drop to 24 miles from 75 miles per month the 3 previous months.
October also marked 3 months since I got a DXA scan. The results are below.
I lost 4.6 pounds of fat and 1.3 pounds of lean tissue. My bodyfat percentage dropped from 24.6% to 22.5%. I’m pretty happy with this result and will continue to improve my eating habits so that I can drop more fat before my next scan. I also gained a modest .5 pounds in my arms.
Obsessions / Finds
100 Pushups All-Star – iOS My app of choice for the 100 pushups challenge. I’ve been using this to track my pushup workouts. Warning: this app will require an in-app purchase to continue beyond a few weeks.
Plank – iOS I have been using this app to track planks. It will slowly work you up from 30 seconds to 5 minutes over the course of a month.
Neil Gaiman – Inspirational Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts 2012 – YouTube Jeff and I launched our Kickstarter this weekend. I know that failure is a distinct possibility. I couldn’t have watched this talk at a better time. Make Good Art.
Calendar
October 4 // Breakfast @ Brohaus – I finally got around to hosting breakfast at Brohaus. We had omelettes, hash browns, pancakes and smoothies.
October 5 // Burma – Part 3: The People – post A post about the people of Burma.
October 10 // Month In Review – September 2015 – post The month in review post for October
October 10 // K̶o̶r̶e̶a̶n̶ French BBQ? – With the help of everyone at the Haus and a few other friends, I was able to mash up French cuisine with the Korean BBQ eating style. We grilled beef on electric grills and dipped them in French sauces.
October 11 // Lucia di Lammermoor at San Francisco Opera – Q and I watched the tragic opera in San Francisco.
October 12 // Burma – Part 4 – post The final Burma post.
October 17 // Clay Pigeon Shooting and Hotpot – Natalie and Steve hosted Q and me for a fantastic day of clay pigeon shooting followed by a visit to a pumpkin patch and hotpot for dinner.
October 23 // SEF Dandia – Q and I dressed up and attended the SEF Dandia at the Santa Clara convention center. pic
October 28 // Hawaii – Birthday in the Aloha State – post Post about my trip to Hawaii with my father.
October 30 // Past-Me Versus Future-Me – post A crosspost of my first ever Medium piece.
October 31 // Halloween in SF – Q and I dressed up as a bamboo steamer with a dumpling and soy sauce respectively for Halloween and went up to SF. pic