Got reaquainted with my old friend the E machine this week.

6 Months ago, I joined a Boot Camp for military wives.  I love it, and I trust my trainer.

We run 4 week cycles, and get a week off (or two in December).  The Boot Camp is our "strength" days and we are supposed to do an hour of cardio 4 additional  days a week.   I kind of kink this up a little, because I strength train 2 additional days by doing CrossFit.  But, really CrossFit is both.  And a very intense version of both.  The only issue I have is that often our workouts are very short - sometimes as short as 5 minutes, but thats following some heavy lifting.   So, because the math is too complicated, I've pretty much stopped all cardio, except maybe one good run a week.  

This month at weigh in, I'd gained 4 lbs.  YES, my trainer's magic scale indicated that it was 4 pounds of pure muscle and I'm awesomely cool with that. Except, I live in Hawaii, and I've worked really hard, and yet I know that belly fat isn't going anywhere until  I lose some more "fat".  Really, it's probably less than 2-3 lbs, but it's there, and hanging out right on my "problem area".  

So, this week, our off week, I am experimenting.  I ramped up cardio, tracked my eating, and (because I was sick, not because I meant to) only went to CF once.    The twist I added was to eat ALL the calories I burn working out and to have one "refeed" day, where I ate between 500-1000 over my daily "maintenance" number.    Does that make sense?  Apparently, this should help me lose without losing muscle.  It's really more or less an experiment - can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time or not? Well, I guess I'll figure it out.  And, if I don't like the results, guess what?  I eat differently next month.

Tomorrow, it's back to CF and BC so I'm going to have to figure out how to balance "cardio" and CF.  I know the CF community thinks that's silly, but I'm healthy and I love being able to endure the hour long intense workouts at BC so a little experimentation should be fine. (-:   I'll keep you updated.

(oh!  and I'm not weighing or measuring myself at all.  I want to give it a full month to balance out the water weight etc. )