Go with the muscle mass hypothesis. Honestly, if you can see things changing (like muscle definition), then that's good weight.
Besides, oh, dieting, such torment.
Will pass on that tip to my son when the time comes.
Funny, my doc said the same thing yesterday. When I tried to explain how I got up over 220, he said not worry about absolute weight, just look in the mirror
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Using the mirror criterion, I would say the weight gain is a bit of both. I can see some muscle mass gain a bit on the upper body, but I can also see regrettable (why does regrettable have two 't's?) fat gains around the waist, although I haven't yet passed onto a different size belt or pants size. I'll keep attacking the fat with a purely calorie-burning approach for another month or two before giving in and adopting a calorie-limiting approach as well. Right now in my running I seem to be butting up against a 7-to-8-mile limit distance-wise, so until I can push past that barrier, I'll continue working on increasing my max weights and intensity in st and start doing one 'speedwork' (tempo or intervals) run every week, which burns more calories and seems to give me a greater metabolic boost afterwards.
Also, as my daily runs creep past the one-hour mark now, and require more warming up before I even head out the door, I've been thinking about allowing my strength-training to exceed an hour a day too, mostly by working in more mobility, 'core' work, and flexibility stuff. That should help burn more calories too. I can justify the extra time by reminding myself that if I diet, I'll feel hungry at my desk, which will cut into my productivity
. My sleep also becomes really efficient with more exercise. Often just 5-6 hours is plenty when I can get into an exercise-induced, really deep slumber
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Sorry to hear about the cootie return, btw. It's good of you to battle through it while continuing your multi-modal fitness regimen
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Kudos to Nick on the BFR
. For the ankle, you might try walking backwards, calf raises, or rotating the foot around while standing on one leg. Looks like the Hawks got another few decent FAs to sign. Congrats.
Ok, off to try a full version of my revised "bottom" st. I got rid of my useless plyo boxes a while ago and will just use a cinder block for the step and jump plyo stuff I've been meaning to get back to, now that my left MCL seems good again. I'm also going to try to push the dead lifts a bit and see how the MCL does with that.