If you wonder why in the heck I'm committing so much time to working out when I'm already running a major time deficit read that little article over there (taken from
F&M Hers). That's precisely it, the workout high rights my world.
Click it to make it more readable.
The second picture is an example of how I SHOULD be eating. I need to spur my food resistance motivation somehow.
This morning I decided to hop on the scale fully expecting that I had not lost an ounce. I was right, 143.4 lbs, I blame the extra 1/5 of a lb on all the sodium I had at dinner last night (water retention). To perk myself up in my plateau I decided to take measurements.
Waist: 28.5” (down 2”)
R Thigh: 23” (down 1.5”)
R Arm (unflexed): 10.75” (up 0.25”, but it is hard to measure your own arm – could have been an error)
Hips: 39” (down 1”)
I’m going to post some pictures, to update my muscular structure in the next day or two. My mom is going to stay a night with us on her way home from New York and her help beats my self-timer 50 fold =)
I know my body composition has been changing, and overall I am down 7 lbs from my 1/08/11 weigh-in, but I’m not seeing more progress because I’ve been eating and training like it is the off season when I need to be eating and training like I have a contest in 10 weeks. I have been eating 95% “clean” (yes, I know those Luna bars don’t qualify), but I haven’t been keeping calorie counts, carefully maintaining a precise protein/carb/good fat ratio in those calories, or heavily restricting my total calories. I have been ratcheting up my weights substantially and building new muscle because of it, but my novice understanding is that you are supposed to train like that in the off season and then increase cardio and maintain muscle you have already established to lean out in the lead up to a contest.
Hmm what to do? This is a dry run I went into expecting trial and error. I can either start restricting cals, cutting out fruit and dairy now with an initial allowance of 1,600 which admittedly will not be any fun or I can continue on as I am and then restrict 1,200-1,400 cals the last 3 weeks with no fruit or dairy and no cheat meals allowed. I do have a body that responds immediately and favorably to a drastic dietary change so I may take the second option. I’m not sure yet.
Day 16
Sunday, January 23, 2011
8:30 am Protein Shake #1
1 scoop milk chocolate MyoFusion with water and ice in my bullet
9:30 am Breakfast1 cup TJ’s Vanilla Almond Oat Clusters with NF milk
Coffee
10:15 am - 12:10 pm Gold’s Gym Training Back1)T-Bar RowsSet 1: 25 lbs + bar x 8 reps
Set 2: 25 lbs + bar x 8 reps
Set 3: 25 lbs + bar x 8 reps reverse grip
Set 4: 30 lbs + bar x 8 reps reverse grip
2)Lat Pull Downs
Set 1: 60 lbs x 8 reps wide grip x 8 reps reverse medium grip
Set 2: 70 lbs x 6 reps wide grip x 6 reps reverse medium grip
Set 3: 80 lbs x 6 reps wide grip x 6 reps reverse medium grip
Set 4: 90 lbs x 6 reps wide grip x 6 reps reverse medium grip
Set 5:
100 lbs x 4 reps wide grip x 6 reps reverse medium grip =)3)Dumbbell Bent Over Rows(Full rep count on one arm, then switch)
Set 1: 20 lbs x 10 reps per arm
Set 2: 20 lbs x 10 reps per arm
Set 3: 25 lbs x 10 reps per arm
Set 4: 30 lbs x 10 reps per arm
Set 5: 30 lbs x 10 reps per arm
Set 6:
35 lbs x 6 reps per arm =)Superset withWell it started out as a superset, but then I got all excitable about doing a set @ 30 lbs and wanted to do it again. Then I got all ballsy and decided to go for a 35 lb set. The pull-overs got dropped after a 4th set and the last 2 sets of DBO Rows weren’t superset with anything else.
4)Dumbbell Straight-armed Pullovers (these are challenging for me thus the low weight)
Set 1: 20 lbs x 10 reps
Set 2: 20 lbs x 10 reps
Set 3: 20 lbs x 10 reps
Set 4: 20 lbs x 10 reps
5)Seated Rows 2 Ways (Standard & Single Arm)Set 1: 70 lbs x 8 reps Standard, 30 lbs x 8 reps R arm, then same L arm
Set 2: 70 lbs x 8 reps Standard, 30 lbs x 8 reps R arm, then same L arm
Set 3: 80 lbs x 8 reps Standard, 40 lbs x 8 reps R arm, then same L arm
6)Assisted Pull-ups 3 WaysThe way this machine works is I select a weight that will be subtracted from my body weight to achieve a reduced resistance over a real pull-up. I had been deducting 85 lbs for a long time with the occasional 70 lb reduction, but I need eventually get to real pull-ups so I increased my resistance today.
Set 1: 70 lb offset (so approx. 75 lb res) x 6 wide grip x 6 reverse med grip x 6 narrow grip
Set 2: 70 lb offset (so approx. 75 lb res) x 6 wide grip x 6 reverse med grip x 6 narrow grip
Set 3:
50 lb offset (so approx. 95 lb res) x 4 wide grip x 5 ½ reverse med grip x 5 ½ narrow grip =)7)Cardio – As always, shorter than I’d like it to beStairMaster
“Aerobic Training” program
Resistance 8 / 10 / 8
I originally set it to 8 to be able to read my Marketing book easily and the realized 11 min in it was too easy, upped it to 10, and rescinded that decision about 9 min later so it got split into rough thirds.
3.04 miles, 313.4 cals burned, 145 floors climbed
I was out of time and grabbed Charlie before doing a quick stretch in the locker room.
12:40 pm LunchI read an article awhile back that said if you ever do eat simple carbs to do so right after working out so that rather than storing them as fat your body burns them up to restore glycogen levels. The article mentioned things like fruit or a handful of jelly beans so I’m not sure if that applies to the noodles in my LC, but I like the idea of it being applicable….;)
1 Lean Cuisine Chicken Fettuccine
8 steamed asparagus spears
½ orange bell pepper
Hot tea no sweetener w/ a splash of NF milk
3:30 pm Snack
16 Wheat Thins
2 Wedges Laughing Cow light Swiss Wedges (35 cals each – love these things)
2/3 of a Fuji (C wanted the rest)
4 pm Out to see FriendsI have this awesome friend Rachel whose baby boy will be 1 in March. She’s incredibly strong and has managed to stay that way and accomplish so much while raising him alone. She was the first friend I met in this town, before we moved here actually. We met online when she posted looking for other student moms right before she had her son. She’s done an amazing job shedding her baby weight too, despite a lack of gym access due to school and babysitting constraints. She might be reading this and I’m trying to compliment her, shhhhh, she’s pretty darn inspiring. I wish our degrees paralleled a bit more so we could take a class together and see each other more often =)
6:00 pm The Freezer Can’t Protect MeBefore we left Rachel’s I asked C what he wanted for dinner. He said pizza. Can you already see where this is going? When I had my cheat meal last Wednesday, between him and I, 6/8 slices of that delicious pizza disappeared. What happened to the other two? A Ziploc in the freezer. Very easy to defrost in the microwave and perk back up to piazzalicious perfection in a 400 degree oven. I really should have only done that to his slice, it’s just that a slice of Hawaiian (or Haole as they call it) sounded sooooooooooooooooooooo much better than that cold chicken. I was subconsciously justifying it based on my lack of weight loss this week, discouragement begets misbehavior or something like that, but yeah I shouldn’t have. For whatever it’s worth I had a side of steamed baby bok choy with my slice. That part qualified as clean eating :P
1 slice DELICIOUS pizza
2 cups steamed baby bok choy
Hot tea
7:30 pm Snackin’
18 Wheat Thins
2 Wedges Laughing Cow light Swiss Wedges
I’m getting pretty off track tonight. Carbs at bedtime are a big no no. I forget how the science goes, but basically they’re more likely to stick to you in the form of fat the later in the day they’re eaten. So basically I should have oatmeal in the am, maybe some brown rice around lunch, possibly sweet potato as part of an afternoon snack and nothing more than that in the day aside from the carbs occurring naturally in my veggies. Ahhh, so much easier said than done.
9:00 pm Protein Shake #2These taste good, but I also like drinking them because they’re satisfying and made up of the right stuff, as in no added sugar and 25 g protein for less than 150 cals.
