Cardiovascular gains

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While I still have a long way to go on my weight loss (lost 35 lb so far, another 110 to go) I must say that my training programs are working noticeable results already.

I've been strength training, and I notice I've built a lot of muscle - when all the fat is gone I'm gonna be a pretty muscular guy at this rate. (And yes, I had the embarrassing "What's that bulge? Oh, it's a muscle ..." moment a few times.)

The interesting thing, though, was something I noticed when playing around with a pulse oximeter while sitting at my desk. I had been doing HIIT for two months, hoping to improve my cardiovascular health. So I had the finger clip on and was playing around, when I noticed - my resting heart rate was 59 bpm. That came as a shock, particularly as my BMI is still 40 so my heart needs to supply blood to a whole lot of body. I rarely actually measure heart rate outside of exercise sessions, but my last resting heart rate I can recall measuring (long before I began the HIIT) was above 75. At the same time I feel I have a lot more energy, so those training sessions seem to have actually made significant progress on heart efficiency and strength.