Exercise snapshot

I've gotten into a routine of doing my daily walking in multiple blocks of 2K to 4K steps in a 15-30 minute sessions. Spread throughout the day this makes it quite easy to achieve my goal of at least 14K steps/day (up to around 20K on some days). I went to the gym for weight training yesterday, as I am now losing 1 - 1.5 kg/wk fairly consistently, but would like to rmitigate the lean mass loss from the current ~25% of the overall weight loss to under 20%. And the only way to achieve that is to do regular weight training sessions to achieve muscle hypertrophy. On the days I don't go to the gym for weight training I will do one (or more) 5 min 'high intensity' sessions on my Waterrower to boost aerobic fitness and VO2max. My performance is (so far) improving with each day of rowing, but I still tend to run out of 'puff' after about 5 mins (around the 1.4 km mark). Hopefully this will slowly improve until I can do the 2km distance in under 7 mins. Apparently the Waterrower is about 15% faster than the Concept2 machine used for competition events (and WR times), so achieving 2km in 7 mins on the Waterrower would still be considerably slower than the WR for the 60-64yo male category of around 6.5 mins.

I remembered to wear my Fitbit watch while rowing today, so did a record of a 5 minute rowing session and the start of a walking session about 30 minutes later:

It was interesting that my 'resting' heart rate while sitting in my home office working was around 72-78 bpm prior to the rowing session, but after the rowing it only dropped back to the 88-94 bpm range. This is why doing HIIT training is good for weight loss, as boosts your metabolism long after the brief exercise period has ended. The indoor rowing HR falls into the 'hard' exercise intensity band (for my age bracket), while the walking is 'light' exercise (which is good for fat loss without losing muscle mass).

While weight training my heart rate tends to sit in the 115-135 bpm range, which would be 'moderate' to 'hard' intensity for that hour or so.

From: https://www.heartonline.org.au/resources/calculators/target-heart-rate-calculator

I plan on sticking to this exercise routine from now on. But I will increase my caloric intake as I approach 80kg to slowly transition into 'maintenance' mode (this has been my biggest issue when previously losing weight -- I would tend to revert to 'ad libitum' eating after finishing (or giving up on) a diet, with snacks and junk food leading to a rapid regain of excess weight.

In the long term I hope to stick around 76-80kg body weight with around 12%-15% body fat, and ideally would do this on a modest 15%-20% 'CRON' (caloric restriction with optimal nutrition) food intake (for the possibly lifespan benefits). Just keeping to a healthy BMI and doing regular exercise will be a major improvement.

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