What Makes Rest Days Regrettable

Day 73


Monday, March 21, 2011

1. You notice muscle soreness whereas you don't on training days.

2. You want to eat just as much,if not more, but you lack the 700-1,100 cal burn otherwise known as your training and cardio.

In case it isn't obvious I took a rest day today =) That last one was March 10th. The main reason I took one today was I got to go in for a massage with my old masseuse who is amazingly good and who I haven't seen since moving last summer. That was great, but training shoulders after having all my muscle knots worked out and loosened up sounded like a sure fire way to ask for a strain. I almost decided to go anyways this afternoon and ate a piece of sprouted wheat peanut butter toast in preparation, but then I realized that laying down on my mom's super comfy couch for a nap sounded like exactly what I needed. Ah well, rest days are warranted and beneficial overall to training - just tough mentally!

Tomorrow will be jogging for am cardio and then a second cardio session in the afternoon (elliptical most likely) and a full session of weights training back and shoulders.

Right now I just want to eat eat eat, but I actually need to start tapering total cals while keeping macro ratios where they've been. I'm actually looking forward to school starting again as it helps me stay on track. I eat my first meal at home, pack 3 small meals in my cooler bag and then have dinner and a bedtime snack at home. I keeps it all nice and regimented. When I don't plan the day I just about always wind up going over on cals.

On that note today my macros clocked in at:

189 grams protein 62 grams fat 213 grams carbs

The ratio is fine my cal tally is just too high again:

2,166 cals ingested
(1,448) BMR
(0) Training
718 Net Gain (in theory that's 1/5 of a lb of body weight! dislike!)

It was all clean food today: oatmeal, sprouted wheat bread, chicken, veg, some peanut butter, think thin bars, whey protein, just too much of it total.

I think I need to go adjust my macros to not go over 1,700-1,800 cals daily at this point and just make myself work within that "budget," after all there are only 3 1/2 weeks to go! I'm going to go bug some of the experienced competitors over in the forum at bodybuilding.com for help before setting that in stone. I'm guessing it is a good number, but we'll see what the voices of experience think first =)