Figure Mommy

Focus

2012-03-10T18:20:00.008-08:00

Focus

I’m one of those people who needs to funnel their energy somewhere. Lately, I keep issuing mini mid-workout challenges to myself. Last week on leg day I didn’t feel inspired to wrap up with cardio so I decided to go a little lunge crazy. The most I’d ever done before was an even 300 (10 sets of 30 walking lunges with a 40 lb barbell on my shoulders) so I thought I’d aim for 400 for the hell of it. I was only going to carry lightweight (12.5 lbs each) dumbbells so I started out alternating sets of 50 and 60 reps on an indoor track with 30-60 seconds rest between sets. My last set I went to failure and my grand total reps came in at 463. I’ve also had some really great upper body workouts lately where I’ve maximized the benefits of super sets to work really hard and comprehensively hit two muscle groups on very limited time. Being the accounting nerd / lifter combo that I am I tallied up my lift total after a recent biceps and shoulder session for kicks. My total was 12,645 pounds, 8,950 pounds of which was biceps and 3,695 pounds of which were shoulders, in less than 40 minutes. Silly quantitative moments like that make me smile =)

(click to enlarge)

I've been implementing HIIT (high intensity interval training) lately and it’s led me to start enjoying cardio again. Shhhhhhh ;) I made a bet with my mom a month ago about healthing up our respective diets and I’ve lost 4.5 lbs since then. I’m even enjoying eating clean (well +/- 90% clean) again. I pass by the Starbucks treat case almost daily and the rice krispy treats and vanilla bean scones lack the siren call they had a few months back.

So, WHY AM I NOT COMPETING??! =)

I don’t know – I feel like I should be.

There aren’t any figure competitions in Washington State on my timeline, unfortunately. The Washington Natural was in Seattle in July last year, but moved up to April this year :( Unless I want to travel out of state, that leaves Ironman in October. If I do it I won’t go it alone again. I would join a team, likely Tanji Johnson’s Save Fitness. Having the support of a team would protect me from the pitfalls of my first attempt: namely the post-competition crash and improper posing.

There’s also power-lifting, which I loved trying. I think it’s an amazing sport, but my form for both deadlifts and bench would need A LOT of work, preferably with a trainer.

Then there are the competitions designed solely to get your thrill on: The Survivor Mud Run, Warrior Dash, and Tough Mudder, to name a few. They consist of courses anywhere from 3.5-12 miles long fraught with 11-25 obstacles, and lots of mud of course!

My max pull-ups right now are 8 with an overhand medium grip. I want to be able to do that many or more with the challenging, but lat-loving wide grip. That’s a great mini goal, but I NEED a big training goal in my life again. Figure, powerlifting, and thrill-seeking all appeal. Regardless of if I’m dropping body fat for a stage tan or building strength to master obstacles and coat myself in mud I will be training for something by the start of spring quarter. The only question is, what?

Coffee Duel!!!

2012-02-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

One week ago I decided to get real about my diet and start eating clean again. I’m not a figure competitor anymore – I just lift 5-6 days a week, get in cardio when I have time, and know that I feel better when I eat a high protein veggie heavy mostly clean diet. One week ago I was 7 pounds north of my preferred body weight. I’m now 5.5 pounds north of it. I’m not going diet crazy, just returning to caring about what I’m fueling myself with. I’m eating roughly 2,000 calories a day of 90% clean foods. I eat 5-6 smaller meals and I make sure to pack them up with protein. I allow myself some leeway though. I might have a Cadbury cream egg one day or a Tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte another day. I see no sense in harping on myself for these 150-200 cal splurges of junk calories – I see them as making my diet a realistic lifestyle. When my intake is 90% clean I feel better, pure and simple: no competition carrot, no 1,500 calorie budget of strict macro ratios, just feeling healthy and living a lifestyle that’s realistic for me in the long run.

One of my favorite magazines, M&F Hers, always has “duels” between two types of exercises or machines. I’m a fan of such comparisons and thought I’d do a coffee one for kicks. On Monday after my workout I was craving a Cinnamon Dolce Latte en route to my rather dry afternoon lecture. Leaving the locker room I realized I didn’t have any quick protein so I bought a Muscle Milk Light. I normally pack protein powder from home to save money, but I was unprepared that day. I thought I was getting the chocolate Muscle Milk Light, but when it came out of the vending machine it was a Café Latte flavor I’d never tried. It wasn’t until I drank it that I noticed the big letters on the front declaring it “Caffeinated!” That completely eliminated my Cinnamon Dolce Latte justification so I didn’t get one that day. Which caffeine treat would win a Muscle Milk Cafe Latte Light vs. Starbucks Tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte duel? Let’s find out ;)

(click to enlarge comparison chart)

In terms of nutrition the Muscle Milk is the clear winner. In terms of taste satisfaction the Cinnamon Dolce Latte is the winner, but just barely.
I’m going to declare neither the winner and instead call my homemade frothy Frappuccino-esque shake version the winner for both nutrition and taste =)

Stats & Recipe: 188 calories, 26 grams protein, 12 grams carbs, 4 grams fat.

1 scoop MyoFusion Probiotic Delicious Vanilla protein powder
¼ cup whole milk (yes, whole!)
4-6 ice cubes
4-6 ounces cooled drip coffee
Adjust ice and amount of coffee to your own shake thickness preferences =)

The Athlete's Heart

2012-02-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

The Athlete's Heart

You know how you hear gym junkies (like me!) talking about their splits a lot? Shoulders, Back, & Abs on Monday & Friday, Chest, Biceps, &Triceps on Tuesday and Thursday, Legs on Wednesday and Saturday, Sunday rest - that type of thing. It’s just that, for some, there’s one more muscle that’s been getting worked, growing new muscle fibers, and dramatically changing in overall structure. It’s been getting trained all six days of the split; it’s an important muscle, the heart.

This summer I popped up with a pattern of pre-hypertension blood pressure readings, 134-140 / 74-90. This was new; I always used to have nice low readings in the healthy <120/<80 range. I thought I’d be proactive about it so I signed up for a $50 “Take Heart” screening at a nearby hospital. My fasted blood sugar, triglycerides, and “good” and “bad” cholesterol readings were all within normal bounds and I managed a better than usual 128/74 BP reading.

I was pleased and largely forgot about it until my ECG reading came back in the mail with abnormalities: a Right Bundle Branch Block (RBBB) and a sinus arrhythmia. The RBBB is the freaky one. If you Google it you get a nice big list of heart disease variants as the potential cause so I decided to see a cardiologist to answer questions.

At my cardiology appointment they did a new ECG and then the cardiologist began chatting me up. He noted that I had filled out “exercise 6 days a week” on the intake paperwork and inquired what I did. I got about a minute into describing my training for bodybuilding and having just done my first powerlifting competition when he said, “you may have just explained your problem. Your abnormality may just be Athlete’s Heart.”

I’d never heard of that. Apparently, long-term athletic activity is known to cause morphological and functional changes in the heart characterized as left ventricle cavity dimension changes, wall thickness and mass increase, and rhythm conduction changes. Taken together these changes are collectively known as “Athlete’s Heart Syndrome.” My cardiologist ordered an Echo-cardiogram to look into it further and sent me on my way.

Not being one to sit idly by with a rather important body part in question I took advantage of my access to a university library and found myself deep in the periodicals section rousting up the September 2009 installment of the British Journal of Sports Medicine. I was seeking an article entitled “12-lead ECG in the athlete: physiological versus pathological abnormalities,” but as it turned out the entire journal issue was centered upon sudden cardiac death in athletes. Perfect!

We’ve all heard at least one news story about the uber fit young healthy triathlete, ironman, marathoner, bodybuilder, soccer player, world class swimmer, etc. who was young, the quintessential picture of health, and suddenly dropped dead from cardiac arrest either during or immediately after competing in their sport. How and why does that happen? It just doesn’t seem right. I’ve always wondered myself how that happens. Now that I've learned why, let me share it with you. It’s pretty damn interesting.

The ECG is not part of a sports physical in our country, nor in many others. In fact, Italy is the only country mentioned in my research that makes an ECG a required aspect of athletic screening. You see, an ECG will identify abnormalities of the heart that can either be “non-threatening” Athlete’s Heart Syndrome or insidious underlying sneaky heart conditions that left unidentified and undealt with can kill an athlete at the height of an adrenaline pumped competition. An ECG is not a foolproof tool for warding off such happenings though. You see, the pathological abnormalities telling of various heart diseases and the physiological changes indicative of Athlete’s Heart are easily mistaken for one another.

I’m in good company, 40% of athletes have been found to have abnormal ECG findings. Dividing up these abnormalities into two categories, common and training-related and uncommon and training-unrelated, is essential. The Corrado article features a table (see above) classifying ECG changes amongst the two categories. My first ECG was interpreted and printed out with a Right Bundle Branch Block finding which falls into the uncommon and training-unrelated category.

When my cardiologist did a second ECG he was leaning towards calling my abnormality either an Incomplete RBBB or a Nonspecific Intraventricular Conduction Defect. This epitomizes the diagnosis issues as RBBB indicates a potential heart disease while Incomplete RBBB is merely training-related and non-threatening.

After my echo-cardiogram I was told that my heart wall thickness was within normal bounds and thus I did not exhibit Athlete's Heart Syndrome. I was actually a little disappointed to hear that as it is an interesting morphology and is not detrimental. Why not have a ripped heart to go with your cut biceps? ;) Instead, a nurse told me that I had a non-specific intraventricular conduction defect. According to the articles in BJSM that's a known ECG marker for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricle Cardiomyopathy / Dysplasia, which as the long hard to pronounce name infers, is bad. I made another appointment to find out what all this did or didn't mean and found out that my nonspecific intraventricular conduction defect is (happily!) not the type to indicate ARVC/D. Mine falls within the category of Lenegre disease and, I'm told, is not concerning. My cardiologist expects that I may progress to a full Right Bundle Branch Block in my lifetime, but he also mentioned his own Lenegre type Left Bundle Branch Block nonchalantly in the same sentence.

The impetus for this post has been very drawn out: from my initial high blood pressure in August, my abnormal ECG in October, Cardiologist appointment in November, Echo-cardiogram in December, and followup and clarification in January. But here we are fast approaching Valentine's Day - isn't a post about The Athlete's Heart perfectly appropriate? ;)

It's a Blogiversary!

2012-01-09T21:16:00.000-08:00

Running outdoors results in better views, especially atop towers atop mountainsides ;)

It’s a blogiversary!

What day is it? January 9, 2012 of course, and when did I start this blog? January 9, 2011. So happy one year anniversary to my intangible alter ego Figure Mommy! (Or umm something along those lines, but slightly more sane sounding ;)

It’s been quite a year. I’ve crashed my body fat to 13.1% (and ratcheted it back up to the low normal zone again – unfortunately!), competed in my first bodybuilding competition, competed in my first powerlifting competition, acknowledged my core values, and had loads of pithy randomness along the way.

I’m goal-less as the second year of this blog begins, but I have been trying new things. Today between six hours of straight sitting (aka classes) I asked my friend Hannah if she was game to go workout. She countered by asking if I’d run outside. If you follow this blog you know I don’t do any real running (just elliptical, stepmills and the like), but what the hey so I said okay. We ran up a wooded mountainside into an arboretum with a tower at the top containing half a dozen flights of stairs. So then we ran up and down the tower stairs four times for good measure and then back down the mountain looping around the south side of campus for 32 minutes all told. I was wearing my FiveFingers so I can all but guarantee my calves will feel it tomorrow. This one will be going into the “worth repeating” category of new fitness things tried.

One thing I believed before this blog began and that I still firmly believe now is that if you want to train, you can. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with, whatever equipment you do or don’t have to work with, you can make it happen if you have an honest drive to do so.

On that note, and the blogiversary theme, let’s sign off with a flashback shall we?
This was in December 2010, over winter break, when I found myself stranded far far away from any gym while visiting family in Northern California. Not being able to get in a workout was really bothering me so I decided to improvise. I hadn’t yet put in any substantive effort into getting in shape or even dreamt of bodybuilding or this blog, but a month later I did.

Disclaimer: Now don’t pick on my form, rep quantity, etc. Thirteen months ago I had little clue what the heck I was doing when it came to weight-training ;)

Funny Feet =)

2012-01-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

I’ve pretty much abandoned my blog lately. Not intentionally really, I’ve had a handful of post ideas brainstormed or even mostly written, but my lack of fitness focus led me to disregard them. I know I need to blog; it’s a positive outlet for me. When I go too long without doing it I start to notice that I’m posting to Facebook at three times my normal rate, which is a lot less convincing an activity to sell as a positive thing ;)

I have no fitness goal right now. It’s a problem for motivation, especially diet motivation. It’s a problem for blogging – a lack of correlation. I’ve juggled around some prospective goals, but nothing inspiring. I’d like to intentionally shed leg muscle to improve my relationship with denim. I’d like to drop body fat. I’d like to be able to bench press my body weight + 10 pounds. There are a lot of things I’d like to do, but none of these things have a concise specific goal outlined and none of them are set on a strict timeline beyond my control. In short, none of them are a figure competition.

Part of me would like to do another figure competition. This blog and my wild three month ride to my first figure competition began last January. I had 16 credits winter quarter 2011 – I even pulled off a respectable GPA that quarter despite committing 15 hours a week to the gym and strictly dieting. Now winter quarter 2012 has just begun; I have 16 credits again, I have a lot more muscle, I need to drop my holiday poundage, in theory I could compete again. But last year I crashed and burned impressively in school as spring quarter began and the post competition blues crushed me. I can’t afford to repeat that. So . . . what to do?

For a while I focused my training around just being stubborn and seeking to lift the heaviest anything and everything I could. I was proud when I was able to do a 65 pound single arm bent over dumbbell row. I was pleased when I got my Olympic barbell bicep curls up to 70 pounds. I had a ton of fun when I jumped into a powerlifting competition and benched 120 pounds, squatted 190 pounds, and deadlifted 240 pounds. I was my very proudest when I got my dumbbell shoulder press up to 40 pounds. Women aren’t generally known for hoisting the iron equivalent of a sack of dog food in each hand for a shoulder press. I thought it was the best thing ever so naturally I made a movie and blogged it here.

The problem is all that heavy lifting caught up to me. I have minimal flexibility in my neck and upper shoulders. Three weeks ago I got a tension headache that lasted for just under five days despite repeated Advil and Excedrin Migraine intervention. I could feel the tension running up my neck from my left shoulder and encompassing my whole head. It, umm, sucked. Since then I can feel the beginnings of a tension headache in my upper shoulders about two thirds of the times I train upper body so I pop an immediate Advil dose to kill it. You might call this a problem (I definitely do).

A five day headache will make one far more open-minded to the notion of change than the societal expectation of setting a New Year’s resolution will. A chiropractor suggested that I do yoga 4-5 times a week to help. I found a Vini Yoga Therapy DVD designed to specifically treat upper back, neck, and shoulder pain with resoundingly positive reviews on Amazon. I plan to start fitting that into my life soon. My approach to lifting needs to change too, by how I’m not yet sure. In the meantime I’m going to be open to trying new fitness adventures and writing about the ones that turn out to be entertaining.

This brings me to my funny feet =) You may have seen Vibram FiveFingers stepping around your local gym or out and about when the weather was warmer and dryer. They’re pretty odd looking huh? When my boyfriend got a pair last summer I thought he was downright goofy for it. I may have even chuckled, teased, and rolled my eyes, but then in the next few weeks he kept talking about how great they were in the gym. He kept repeating how much better squatting was in them so I began to get intrigued. Then my beloved M&F Hers featured a pretty pink pair in the Oct/Nov issue and I was drawn in. Rich got me that pair for my birthday and after two and a half months with them I LOVE THEM. It seriously creeps me out to wear anything else in the gym – it just feels wrong once you’re used to being “barefoot.” As for the tangible benefits (beyond getting to swear off socks – yes!) there are many. Primarily, you build calf strength and ankle stability. When I squat I feel so much more solid and stable. They make walking lunges more challenging (in a good way). They make climbing a Stepmill or running on a Treadmill feel more real and more productive, at least for me =)

Logging a solid 60 minute StepMill session between classes today FiveFingers style.

If you’ve been on the fence about trying a pair head to your nearest REI and go for it. Don’t let the initial try-on thwart you. It took me (and many others I hear) a good 10 minutes to get all my toes in place the first few times, but now it’s as easy peasy as putting on a pair of gloves. If you hate them, REI has an endearingly generous return policy, or if you love them you’ll have funny pink (or violet, blue, black, red, white, yellow, or green) feet like me!

Powerlifting!

2011-11-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Recently I wrote about my wondering if I should try a different sport. I love lifting, especially lifting heavy, and that doesn’t completely mesh with Figure. I like to squat heavy and that builds big quads and hams that are not competitive in Figure. I’ve been lightening up my leg routine with a lot of plyometric based stuff and low weight squats lately to start changing my leg muscle formation. The problem? I have the most fun lifting heavy. That’s what led me to start thinking about powerlifting.

I bench regularly and squat pretty regularly, but I almost never deadlift. I decided to see what I could be capable of two days ago and I managed a 230 lb deadlift, so I decided to check out powerlifting up close and personal. My university’s annual powerlifting competition just happened to be today so I decided to sign up and jump in last minute for the experience.

I hadn’t expected to be competitive today, but I’m happy with where I clocked in. Powerlifting is scored with a ratio. Your cumulative pounds lifted between your best squat, best bench, and best deadlift are divided by your bodyweight and then competitors are scored based on the highest ratio to the lowest. My best squat today was 190 lbs, best bench 120 lbs, and best deadlift 240 lbs (I lifted 250 lbs in my 3rd set, but I made a first attempt, repositioned and then got it off the ground so that disqualified the lift) and I weighed in at 143.6 lbs bringing my total score to 550/143.6 or 3.83. I placed 5th out of the 8 women competing. One of the things that makes powerlifting great is that it’s more about having fun together and rooting for everyone out there than being strictly competitive. I’m proud to say my friend Rachael came in first today though, with a crazy impressive 295 lb squat, 190 lb bench, and a 405 lb deadlift. It’s hard to not get all amped up about powerlifting with a friend who gets out there and rocks it to that degree. Totally proud of her today =)

I’m off to a good start, but I have a long ways to go if I want to become a real powerlifter. I have good squat form, but my bench and deadlift form need a lot of work. You can hurt your lower back very easily with poor deadlift form so my top priority is to start paying careful attention to my form at lower weights and then work up my weight after I have solid form. As for benching I just need to do it more often with Rich there spotting me to lift heavy for low reps. I also need to practice bringing the bar to touch my chest, pause, and then lift. Today we each got three tries at each lift and I failed the first two bench attempts by not being able to get it back up all the way after touching my chest. My third attempt barely cleared the good lift test (aka eyes of the judges). You can’t lift lower on your 2nd or 3rd lift than your 1st so you have to be careful to start with a number you can clear for sure. I started too high with 120 and was stuck with it, but I’m happy, today was a learning experience =)

Bye bye Figure Mommy? Hello Power Mommy? Maybe...We'll see! ;)

Shoulder Strength! =)

2011-11-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

Shoulder Strength

My shoulders are one of the main muscle groups I’ve been seeking to build both strength and mass in. One of my favorite things about training is getting my numbers up. Getting a new “heavy” (a new max weight for a particular exercise) pleases me like nothing else in the gym. This is what sometimes leads me to wonder if I should give up the notion of competing in Figure again one day and train for power-lifting instead. Power lifters compete on their max bench, max dead lift, and max squat. Maybe someday =)

When I first took up with weight-lifting I could only hoist 15 lb dumbbells, alternating arms, for the shoulder press. I then got stuck on 20 lb dbs for months upon months and worked up to a simultaneous shoulder press (both arms moving together). I was proud when I started doing 25s here and there. Then, 6 weeks back I said to heck with it it’s time to jack my weight up and worked through 30s to 35s. I’ve been able to do sets of 6-8 reps with the 35s for 5 weeks now. I tried last week, after a few sets at 35, to go for the 40s and could only get them up to 60% of one rep, fail. Today, I decided to go for the 40s fresh. I warmed up with cardio first and a quick 12 rep pump with 15s to prevent injury and then it was time to go for it. Success!!!

Nutrition thought of the day:

Do you go grocery shopping in November? Oh, say, in Trader Joe’s? And get a craving and a half for a huge plate of Thanksgiving helpings thanks to the elaborate pie ingredient displays, turkeys all lined up in refrigeration, and delectable cornbread stuffing with cranberries, chestnuts, and gravy being handed out at the sample table? Find yourself thinking it would be a good idea to make a “trial” Thanksgiving dinner now and subsist on the leftovers for the next 2 weeks? Nooooo. That didn’t happen to me on our way home today. Why ever would you ask? ;)

Solution:

Buy turkey breast tenders and sear them off with salt, pepper, and Pam Spray in a 450 degree oven for 12-15 minutes (until cooked through). Let cool and slice to apportion into Tupperware along with a handful of steamed asparagus, green beans, or broccoli, 2 tablespoons of cranberry sauce and ¼ cup of Trader Joe’s turkey gravy drizzled over the top. 4 oz. of turkey breast tenderloin packs a lean 28 grams of protein for 120 cals, the veggies are innocent bystanders, the gravy is 20 cals of negligible macros, and the only naughtiness involved is the 12 simple carb grams of the sugar laden 50 cal portion of cranberry sauce. If you want to get hung up on that aspect make your own cranberry sauce with Stevia. I didn’t though; I just bought it at Trader Joe’s with the rest of the stuff. That’s what I had for dinner and I have 3 more servings all Tupperwared up and ready to roll in my fridge. Turkey is regarded as lean all year long until November hits, but with a little savvy you can keep that bird, and yourself trim!

The Bulking Season

2011-11-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

You may call it the holiday season, but Gaspari (the maker of my favorite protein powder, Myofusion) aptly calls it “The Bulking Season.” First comes:

1)Halloween – the holiday so oddly reminiscent of a figure competition. There are big bowls of candy everywhere just like in the backstage dressing rooms at a competition. Fantastical costumes, fake eyelashes, mass makeup, and fake nails abound on stage and on the streets of Halloween night alike.

2)Thanksgiving – Yoga pants are recommended wear for this holiday, not for their gym practicality, but for their easy waist expansion capabilities. M&F Hers and other fitness minded mags are happy to offer up turkey day trimming ideas, but apportioning out 4 oz. of white meat turkey, skipping the mashed potatoes and gravy, the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, the rolls, making your cranberry sauce with Stevia or Splenda while skipping dessert altogether does not sound like any fun at all! A true Thanksgiving meal should not be avoided, but ideally, the leftovers thwarted.

3)Christmas – The catalyst of the January gym joining rush. If only Christmas was but a day, but it is holiday parties galore, treats at the office, secret Santas bearing edible gifts, two days of decadent meals and the days of leftovers to follow.

Beyond the holidays Mother Nature and your own biology are seeking to bulk you up. As temperatures dip to frozen it becomes instinctual to crave comfort foods. Your body is purposefully seeking to increase body fat to stay warm. Not quite like a bear preparing to hibernate for winter, but close enough! This is warranted and healthy. Walking in the cold this morning I recalled how cold I was all the time last April when I’d plunged to 13.1% body fat for Emerald Cup. If I was at that composition currently I’d be too cold. One can see why there are hardly any bodybuilding competitions in the Northwest November – February.

Bulking has its purposes. It’s far easier to put on new muscle mass without trying to lean out at the same time. Really, there is no solidly merited reason to detest bulking. You can gain new muscle if you structure your workouts right. You can enjoy some foods, albeit in moderation, that you wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch. You can stay warm for the winter (that one’s making me laugh).

The drawbacks? You can’t wear your favorite jeans. You start to worry that you won’t ever get back on track. You realize you need to get a plan and set some goals.

The Plan

Constraints:
Limited to 5 – 50 minute workouts and 1 – 90 minute workout a week. Only working out once a day. Refusal to cut calories substantially.

What I’ve been doing:
Skipping cardio altogether most days of the week, only doing it 2x week, to allow more time to lift. Not counting calories or tracking macros at all, a don’t ask don’t tell policy of sorts, haha. Not packing meals every day, or in some cases, intentionally carbing up what I do bring. Bringing tasty cheeses and Wheat Thins into the house. Those are my #1 snack weakness and I know better than to make them accessible, but I’ve been disregarding better judgment. Eating a handful of Halloween candy most days. Shhhhh.

What needs to change for the next 4 weeks:
1)Each week 5 of my 6 workouts need to begin with 30 minutes of cardio and then have my weights session squeezed (through super sets and very short rest periods) into the remaining 20 minutes. The sixth workout will make up for the lack of traditional cardio with a plyometric and track workout session targeting the lower body.

Mon: Chest & Triceps
Tues: Shoulders & Abs
Wed: Legs
Thurs: Back & Biceps
Fri: Plyos & Shoulders
Sat: Legs
Sun: Off

The most ideal training split is to hit every muscle group twice a week, but by putting cardio back in the picture I won’t have time. Continuing to build shoulders and working on leg shape are my key work areas so they’ve been left in a 2x week split format while abs, back, biceps, chest, and triceps will only get hit once a week.

2)Nutrition. I’m going to be super lazy here and go in with the 40/40/20 macro split for my 1,800 cal budget. I’m going to throw allowances for a 10% macro variance and a 200 cal variance as the benefits of perfect meal planning don't surpass the costs.

What, by the way, is a 40/40/20 macro split?

40% of your cals come from protein
40% of your cals come from carbs
20% of your cals come from fat

1,800 cal budget x 40% = 720 cals for protein / 4 cals per gram = 180 grams protein
1,800 cal budget x 40% = 720 cals for carbs / 4 cals per gram = 180 grams carbs
1,800 cal budget x 20% = 360 cals for protein / 9 cals per gram = 40 grams fat

How do you catch and redirect yourself when you veer too far from your goals? What works? What doesn't?

Built to Last

2011-09-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

C and I getting ready for our new routine.

Built to Last - a book that applies not only to corporations, but to anything worth building.

Built to Last

Anything that is not “built to last” will eventually fail. I’m about 30 pages shy of finishing the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras for a seminar class in cost accounting. The book details a six year study of eighteen corporations that the authors have deemed “visionary companies” They rigorously compared each company to a comparison company in the same field. The comparison companies selected were also successful, just not to the same degree as the visionary companies. The authors sought to ascertain what ideologies, traits, and practices were exhibited in the visionary companies alone. What ideals made (and continue to make) them timeless and stoic in an ever-changing business environment?

In the preface, Collins and Porras offer that the operating principles found in the visionary companies should not only be applied to the management of corporations, but to the personal lives of their readers. I wholeheartedly agree.

When it comes to the maintenance of a fit and healthy lifestyle there are those who seem to lead such a life effortlessly. For many though, it requires a concerted, even forced, effort where success is achieved in spurts without a feeling of sustainability.

In reading Built to Last I began to relate the business principles presented to my own attitudes about fitness and nutrition. Adhering not just on paper, but in action, to your core ideology is the essential basis of sustainability. Your core values, your personal acknowledgements are meant to get at the gut of who you are and stand the test of time and change. Mine are:

1) I am better at everything else in my life when I am training.

2) I am what I eat.

From your gut-level values stem your core principles, the guidelines with which you apply your core values to life, day in and day out.

My primary operating principle is:

To have time to work out no matter what else is going on. There is no time constraint or excuse to the contrary.

Fall quarter is less than two weeks old and I am already stretched thin. My class load is the most demanding, in terms of time commitments, since I began college. My time deficit is substantial. Nightly unwind time has already hit the chopping block, posts to my blog will be very sporadic, and I’m already shaving down to six hours of sleep to make it work. If I gave up working out I could gain a much needed six to eight hours a week to allot to other demands. Yet I don’t even view that as an option. The times in my life that I have given up regular training I have floundered. Built to Last lends clarity as to why. A fish without water cannot swim. Likewise, a corporation breaking from its core values will stumble, just as a Figure Mommy breaking from hers will.

We all have individual values beyond those of society’s accepted moral and ethical behaviors. We all have something that makes us tick, makes our hearts smile. Mine happens to be the endorphin rush, the stress relief, and the tangible reward of new muscle built from hard work and discipline that, to me, defines bodybuilding.

For a corporation, a clock must be built that can tick on, not missing a beat, through changes in leadership. For a person, a clock must be built that can tick on, not missing a beat, through changes in life.

What are your core values? Do you hold true to them?

This quarter has already thrown me curveballs. My son caught a cold and couldn’t start preschool when I started classes. My mom saved me there. I hurt my right heel, although I’m not sure how. It has been tender to any pressure for five days now, a bone bruise I’m guessing. If it doesn’t go away within a week I’ll go see a doctor about it, in the meantime I’ve canceled cardio to not aggravate it. I still get in and do my weights. I lessen rest time and focus on super-setting and giant sets. These tactics can get your heart rate up and sweat flowing. You don’t have to have traditional cardio to get your NO2 max up or burn fat. All things are adaptable…when you have core values to guide you.

Today’s 55 minute Chest & Triceps Training Session

Warm-up: Don “weighted vest” aka 4-year-old child in piggyback stance and proceed to jog from commuter lot to preschool entrance.

Chest and Triceps:

4 sets bench press maxing out at 100 lbs for 7 reps

Giant Set (repeated 4 times): dumbbell kickbacks 10-12 reps, dumbbell flies 10-12 reps, weighted bench dips 10-12 reps, push-ups to failure.

Super Set: (repeated 4 times: Barbell skull crushers 10-12 reps s/s with dumbbell incline bench chest press 6-8 reps.

Triceps Polish: One-armed dumbbell overhead triceps extensions to failure alternating arms for 3 sets.

Cardio: 2 laps...realized it was aggravating heel (still, ugh) and off to the showers

What Keeps You Motivated?

2011-09-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

I had some friends ask me about getting some diet advice recently. It led me to reflect and realize that I haven’t been eating well at all lately. At first it’s just a weekend of baked goods and barbecuing. Then it’s a few days with not much protein, and then all of a sudden you’re only eating three meals a day instead of the usual five or six. At first it’s fun to eat whatever you want, but then you realize why you’re not feeling your best: improper fueling.

The three big taboos of food land (in my opinion) are:

1)Not eating enough protein. If you’re going to turn body fat into lean muscle you need adequate protein to do it, weight training alone won’t complete the job. The rule of thumb is 1 -1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. I weigh 140lbs so that dictates 140-210 grams of protein daily. You should ALWAYS know what your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is. That’s how many calories you would burn in a day if you stayed in bed and didn't move an inch all day. My BMR, for example, is 1,439 calories. Add calories to your BMR to reflect your activities throughout the day. While training for The Emerald Cup my workouts burned 800-1,100 additional calories most days. If you’re looking to lose, maintain, or even gain weight you want to eat fewer, the same, or more calories than you burn. That being said, 1 gram of protein is 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates is 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. So if you plan to eat 140 grams of protein in a day that will use up 560 calories of your total calorie “budget.” When I’m looking to lose I aim for 1,800 calories daily. The rest you make up with carbs and healthy fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated).

Calculate your BMR here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/heart/basal/basal.html

2)Not eating often enough. Eating 5-6 times a day better supports your metabolism, prevents you from feeling totally ravenous when you do eat, and maintains your blood sugar at a more even level throughout the day to prevent an energy crash.

3)Justifying the crappy food splurges as ”I deserve it because...” Yes, when you’ve been getting to the gym daily and watching your diet it is easy to convince yourself that you deserve a donut, or chips, or a cheeseburger or whatever your weakness is, but how is going against your goal a reward? If you feel the need to reward yourself after behaving for a month buy yourself a cute new piece of gym gear. Alternatively, you might think “I can get away with it.” Yes, you can get away with the occasional food splurges, but mentally utter that thought pattern too often and lo and behold, you’re not getting away with it anymore, it’s getting away with your skinny jeans ;)

I’ve been committing all three food land taboos lately. To start getting back on track I went out and stocked up on some of my staple proteins: lean ground turkey, Isernio’s chicken sausage, water-packed tuna, and tilapia. For an on the go snack I like to carry raw almonds and sliced strawberries.

My favorite Tupperware packing recipe is pictured above. It’s an easy batch recipe; one package of the turkey will net you 4 meals. I like to buy the frozen microwave steamer bags of rice at Trader Joe’s. Each bag is 2 cups and thus perfect to get divided and used up in this recipe, plus, no dishes ;)

1 serving:

5 oz. Jennie-O Taco-Seasoned Lean Ground Turkey
½ cup rice
½ cup diced tomato
1 cup mixed greens
1 T salsa
1 big squeeze lime juice

Stats: 354 cals 29 g protein 12 g fat 33 g carbs

It’s a splurge, albeit a healthy fat packing one, but I added ¼ cup diced avocado this batch which adds 60 cals 1 g protein 5.5 g fat and 3 g carbs.

Dependent on if I’m on a 5 or 6 meal split I like to make each meal 250-350 cals with protein allotted evenly and carbs stacked earlier in the day.

Today was rest day aka cardio only day (60 minutes on an elliptical) so I thought I’d post yesterday’s workout. Normally, I’m my own motivator, but yesterday I wasn’t. Trying to justify not going I had told my son I wasn’t feeling that good to which he replied, “We should go to the gym.” He was right and I’m glad I listened. I was never fully in the mood, but I know I would have felt worse had I skipped it

The “I don’t wanna workout I’m grumpy, tired, and the little voice in my head saying I won’t feel better until I do workout isn’t loud enough, but my kiddo’s voice is” legs and core workout ;)

I find that when I’m headed into the gym with a bad attitude and in stressed / tired / grumpy mode the best thing to do is to hit it hard.

I’m anti-cardio lately so when feasible I try to integrate cardio into my weights so as to justify avoidance of the elliptical, stepmill, etc. Running up and down real stairs will take your breath away and make you sweat much more quickly than a stepmill will anyways.

1)Run the Stairs
20 flights up 20 flights down

2)Parallel Squat in a Rack
Set 1: 95 lbs x 8 reps
Set 2: 115 lbs x 8 reps
Set 3: 135 lbs x 8 reps
Set 4: 135 lbs x 8 reps

3)Walking Barbell Lunges (these are equal parts cardio and weight training)
Set 1: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 2: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 3: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 4: 40 lbs x 30 reps

4)Machine Kickbacks (I prefer the cable kickback, but there are no straps for it at Gold’s right now)
Set 1: 40 lbs x 16 reps each leg
Set 2: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg
Set 3: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg
Set 4: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg

5)Decline Bench Dumbbell Crunches
5 sets x 20 reps x 10 lbs

6)Run the Stairs Again ;)
20 flights up 20 flights down

7)Abs Giant Set
Shoulder Crunches 15 reps R 15 reps L, Vertical Leg Reverse Crunches 20 reps, Mini Crunches 20 reps
Repeat Giant Set 3X with no rest in between.

8)Last Round Abs
3 Sets Medicine Ball (10 lb) Side Twists x 30 reps superset with 3 Planks (45 sec hold)

What keeps you motivated?

Make em’ Hurt

2011-09-06T16:02:00.000-07:00

Make em’ Hurt

My biceps are my best muscles. Weird statement to make? Eh, maybe, but I like to know my strengths and weaknesses. I call them my best muscles because they are my most visible muscles. I try to hit biceps 2x week, but my biceps routine has been pretty stale for a while. I used to just curl a 40 or 50 lb barbell both seated on a bench and standing and do dumbbell hammer curls. A few months back I took up with curling an Olympic barbell instead, it is over 7’ long so the need to stabilize it makes the muscles work harder. I usually just do the bar (45 lbs) so that I can go high rep (15-20/set), but my current heavy record for Olympic Barbell Curls is 65 lbs for 5 reps. I’m also a big fan of the hammer grip rope curl which is essentially a triceps rope pull-down flipped 180 degrees as a pull-up to hit the biceps instead. I love those last two exercises, but I know my body has come to expect them and that I need something new to keep my muscles guessing and adapting.

Today I added in a tip from IFBB Figure Pro Mona Muresan that I read in the current issue of Muscle & Fitness Hers. I have sporadically tried and then run and hid from standing high cable curls. I have to set the weight low and even then I feel like my form is off and I’m not doing them right, so I promptly quit. Mona, however, does a one-armed version which I tried today. You grab the side of the cable station with your resting arm to stabilize yourself and then focus on your working arm. By doing them this way you're able to carefully control the movement to ensure proper form. I did these only a few hours ago to polish off my biceps and they already have a quiet ache. My biceps do not normally experience muscle soreness, so this move is getting a big thumbs up from me. Here's hoping it hurts to hold up my blow-dryer tomorrow! =)

Today’s Biceps & Triceps Session:

1)Elliptical for 15 min to warm-up.

2)BT Superset 1, warming up the muscles:

Set 1: 15 reps Olympic Barbell Curls (45 lbs), 12 reps Dumbbell Standing Triceps Extensions (20 lbs)
Set 2: 15 reps Olympic Barbell Curls (45 lbs), 12 reps Dumbbell Standing Triceps Extensions (20 lbs)
Set 3: 15 reps Olympic Barbell Curls (45 lbs), 12 reps Dumbbell Standing Triceps Extensions (20 lbs)
Set 4: 15 reps Olympic Barbell Curls (45 lbs), 12 reps Dumbbell Standing Triceps Extensions (20 lbs)

3)BT Superset 2, make em’ work:

Set 1: 8 reps each arm (full set, then switch) Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (25 lbs), 16 reps Triceps Bodyweight Bench Dips (body weight ~ 140 lbs)
Set 2: 8 reps each arm (full set, then switch) Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (25 lbs), 18 reps Triceps Bodyweight Bench Dips (body weight ~ 140 lbs)
Set 3: 8 reps each arm (full set, then switch) Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (25 lbs), 16 reps Triceps Bodyweight Bench Dips (body weight ~ 140 lbs)
Set 4: 8 reps each arm (full set, then switch) Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curls (25 lbs), 16 reps Triceps Bodyweight Bench Dips ( body weight ~ 140 lbs)

4)BT Superset 3, cable station:

Set 1: 10 reps Hammer Grip Rope Curls (50 lbs), 10 reps Triceps Rope Pushdowns (60 lbs)

Set 2: 10 reps Hammer Grip Rope Curls (45 lbs), 10 reps Triceps Rope Pushdowns (60 lbs)

Set 3: 12 reps Hammer Grip Rope Curls (40 lbs), 12 reps Triceps Rope Pushdowns (60 lbs)

Set 4: 12 reps Hammer Grip Rope Curls (40 lbs), 12 reps Triceps Rope Pushdowns (60 lbs)

5)Polishing off my Biceps:

Set 1: 12 reps each arm Standing One-Arm High Cable Curls (20 lbs)

Set 2: 12 reps each arm Standing One-Arm High Cable Curls (20 lbs)

Set 3: 8 reps each arm Standing One-Arm High Cable Curls (30 lbs)

Set 4: 8 reps each arm Standing One-Arm High Cable Curls (30 lbs)

Set 5: 12 reps each arm Standing One-Arm High Cable Curls (20 lbs)

6)Polishing off my Triceps:

1 Set 12 Dips on the Assisted Pull-up Machine with a 60 lb offset

3 sets Dumbbell Single Arm Overhead Triceps Extensions to Failure (10 lbs), failed between 6-10 reps each arm, decreasing with each set

7)Stepmill…5 min and then remembered I’m not on a lean out right now so I decided to be done and nix the cardio =)

My biceps may be my best muscles, but my right one takes the prize. Symmetry is important in bodybuilding and if I flex my right bicep pops up noticeably higher than my left one. I don’t think the inequality has anything to do with what I do in the gym as I work them equally there. My theories are kind of humorous. Just this week I’ve started wearing my iPod armband on my forearm for biceps day as I’m concerned that the tightness of it on my left bicep is restricting the muscle when I’m working it.

The second theory is my flexing habit. Since I took up with this blog adventure I’ve had many random conversations where I happen to mention that I’m into bodybuilding. Outside the gym in street clothes I really don’t look the part. I weigh 140 lbs and have noticeably big arms for my body, but I’m a size 4, relatively tiny in the scheme of the world. This always leaves me wondering if people think I’m a big dreamer when I mention being into bodybuilding, so I always tend to follow up the statement with a quickie right bicep flex. It pops up and that’s when people tend to react. It’s entertaining. As anyone who has practiced posing for a competition will tell you, posing is a workout in itself, so I wonder if always popping my right has caused it to be bigger than my left. Those are my two silly theories; the third and most reasonable one is simply that I’m right-handed ;)

Leg Day aka Lunge Love!

2011-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Leg Day! =)

Leg day is one of my favorites. The flaw with it though is that if your energy isn’t there it can be pretty tough to get through, especially squats. Yesterday I was feeling pretty weak so the result was Smith Machine squats to the floor, but only 4 sets and never more than 35s on the machine (putting the weight at about 90 lbs). By contrast when I go into leg day feeling strong you might catch me at the rack doing a set of parallel squats as high as 165-170 lbs.

When I do legs I like to have at least one, preferably all three of the big compound leg exercises involved: squats, leg presses, and lunges. Many people will point out that the dead lift should be included in the big compound leg move list. I didn’t list it because I largely avoid them as they make my lower back tighter than I’m comfortable with. Then I round it out with more targeted moves such as hamstring curls, leg extensions, hip adductors, hip abductors, cable kickbacks, standing unilateral leg presses, single leg squats, dumbbell step-ups, stiff-legged dead lifts, good mornings, etc.

Lately without a strict gym goal to guide me I make up my workouts as go along. Yesterday worked out to be:

1)Smith Machine Squats
Set 1: 70 lbs x 10 reps
Set 2: 70 lbs x 10 reps
Set 3: 90 lbs x 8 reps
Set 4: 90 lbs x 8 reps

2)Leg Press
Set 1: 135 lbs x 20 reps
Set 2: 135 lbs x 25 reps
Set 3: 225 lbs x 12 reps
Set 4: 225 lbs x 12 reps
Set 5: 225 lbs x 12 reps

3)Walking Barbell Lunges
5 sets x 30 reps x 40 lbs on my back. The key here is finding a long straight place to walk out your 30 reps.

4)Leg Extensions (works your quads)
Set 1: 60 lbs x 12 reps
Set 2: 60 lbs x 12 reps
Set 3: 60 lbs x 10 reps
Set 4: 50 lbs x 12 reps

5)Prone Hamstring Curls
Set 1: 50 lbs x 20 reps
Set 2: 50 lbs x 20 reps
Set 3: 50 lbs x 16 reps
Set 4: 40 lbs x 20 reps

6)Stretching! I’m usually bad about stretching, but if I don’t make time for it on leg day I regret it pretty seriously the next two days. My hamstrings get especially tight so I focus my stretching on them.

If you’re brand new to weights and wanted to try a similar workout I’d recommend squatting to parallel with your bodyweight only, or perhaps one of the preloaded 20 lb barbells across your shoulders to get comfortable with the move. You can also place a bunch under your butt and practice squatting low enough to touch it without letting your knees go over your toes. For the leg press you would want to start out with the sled alone (most weigh about 45 lbs) and then add weight as you became comfortable with the movement. Walking lunges are known to be very hard. It has taken me a long time to work up to the rep counts and weight I currently use. Starting out with bodyweight only is smart. You want to focus on your form, making sure your knee doesn’t go over your toe, you don’t wobble on your ankle, but that you still feel a deep stretch in the movement. I’ve been stuck on the 40 lb barbell for forever. I occasionally grab the 50, but that tends to result in a lower rep count per set and I prefer to up my reps rather than up my weight with lunges. It’s a muscle group I’d rather tone and tighten as opposed to expand muscularity on, thus the lean towards high rep vs. high weight. The prone hamstring curl and leg extensions are machines and thus pretty straightforward to approach.

The leg workout detailed above hits the full legs and glutes with the compound exercises and then focuses in more detail on the quads and hamstrings. I hit legs twice a week and always include a handful of glutes focused exercises (such as cable kickbacks) on at least one day.

Squatting to the floor is an advanced move. Parallel is what you want to begin with if you're new to weights, but here's how I like to squat these days. This movie was made about a month ago and has been waiting for a blog entry!

Gym Happy! =)

2011-08-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Whew! It has been a long time since I posted. A lot of different topics to write about have come into my mind and then filtered back out like wisps. That’s the strongest “dislike” I have about not being a daily blogger anymore. I’m blogging tonight mainly because it relaxes me. Why relax? Tomorrow I have to drive 2 hours, sit for a 4 hour exam that will make, break, or be a neutral factor in my admission or lack thereof to graduate school and then drive 2 hours back home.

I’ve put my time into studying so I took the weekend to prepare myself in the best way possible: doing the things I love most with those I love most. My son, my boyfriend and I made our own pizza last night and it was delectable. I’ve made pizza dough from scratch in the past, but we took the easy route and bought a bag of whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. Consider this a five star endorsement of that dough! I was in charge of proofing and stretching the dough, Rich was in charge of the sauce spreading, Charlie was in charge of the cheese sprinkling, and we all topped it. Yum =)

Rich and I got in a solid workout yesterday that my abs are still very sore from (2 person abs exercises kick the butt of most self-administered ones. I wish I had a workout partner on weekdays too =) Today all three of us hit the gym and I met one of my current goals! I got my one rep bench press max up to 135 pounds. That’s 96% of my bodyweight, awesome! I did 4 reps at 115 lbs just prior or I *might* have been able to bench my bodyweight. I want to get strong enough to do a set at 135 lbs for 6-8 reps. Then we switched and I spotted Rich for 2 reps at 305 pounds. That’s 149% of his bodyweight. Sure, he has testosterone on his side and he has been doing this for A LOT longer than I have (about 15 years longer despite only being 2 years older), but I’m can’t resist feeling proud of him. When you lift with your boyfriend, girlfriend, son, daughter, friend, husband, wife, etc. you can sponge a secondary endorphin high off of their lifts just by feeling pride in what someone you love has trained themselves to be capable of. I feel really blessed to be with someone who loves this hobby / lifestyle as much as I do. Beyond that, I feel very blessed to see my son influenced by this hobby of ours. He smiles when he talks about going to the gym, as do I =)

Triceratops! aka Triceps are Tops!

2011-08-10T20:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing a three day split this last week. Saturday was chest, triceps, and abs, Sunday was off, Monday was legs and glutes, Tuesday was shoulders, back, and biceps, and today was back to chest, triceps, and abs. Are you detecting a pattern here? =)

I’m not biased when it comes to grouping body parts, so next week I might do chest and back together and biceps, triceps and shoulders together with abs on leg day. You get the idea. You can change it up a 3 day split invariably. Beyond that combination you can change up what you’re doing to work each muscle group invariably. This will keep your body guessing and your muscles growing.

Triceps really exemplify the variety principle. They’re the one muscle I don’t find myself getting bored with =) I’m a big fan of various triceps moves you can do on a cable station: rope pushdowns, a single arm variation of the former, straight bar pushdowns, single arm with a D handle, dips on the assisted pull-up machine. There are more, but those come to mind at the moment. There are various machines that hit your triceps, although personally I’m not a big fan of machine weights for biceps, triceps, or abs, but I’ll mix in some for chest, back, shoulders, and legs. To each their own =) When it comes to triceps I’m a big free weights fan.

Today I managed chest, triceps, and abs as follows:

1)Warm-up
15 minutes Stepmill
Triple Set repeated three times with no rest:
20 dumbbell pushups
30 medicine ball wood chopper squats
40 second side planks – 1 each side

2)Flat Bench Press in a Smith Machine (best substitute if your BF is unavailable to spot you ;)
Set 1: 75 lbs x 12 reps
Set 2: 95 lbs x 7 reps
Set 3: 95 lbs x 6 reps
Set 4: 85 lbs x 8 reps

My bench weight is not something I’m a fan of disclosing. It’s embarrassing! I’ve just started doing chest 2x week instead of only 1x. That and always including classic bench should help me build up my numbers. I’ve made a bad habit of subbing dumbbell benching too often. DB benching should ideally be used to augment classic bench, not replace it. My goal is to be able to bench 135 lbs on a free bench (not smith). Why that number? So I can have a 45 lb plate on each side and consequently actually look semi-buff. No, really. That’s my reason! =)

3)Triceps Time! Circuit Style – circuit repeated 3 times
1. Overhead Triceps Extension – 20 lb DB (sometimes I do 25, as in the video, but I’m not always feeling strong enough) x 8-10 reps
2. DB Triceps Kickbacks – 15 lb DB x 10-12 reps each arm
3. Skull Crushers – 30 lb BB x 10-12 reps
4. Bench Dips with Plates (45 lbs + body weight) x 8-12 reps
5. Single Arm Overhead Triceps Extensions – 10 lb DB to failure 4-5.5 reps per arm per set today)

The skull crushers aren’t a regular part of my routine. I used to do them a lot as they’re a primary move in most Body Pump triceps tracks, but I’ve done them little since I took up with free weights. I’m doing them now to shake things up a bit. Kickbacks make my triceps feel really swollen in a good way; they seem to pump blood in most effectively and make the skin feel really tight. The extensions are a classic standby and the bench dips with plates are my favorite because they’re fun. I also love doing the same move, no plates, just body weight. That way you can go to failure which always puts a smile on my face. I just love it when a muscle gets stuck at a half rep and you literally can’t budge it without an assist from your other arm, another person, or just quitting at the partial rep. That’s why I do single arm overhead extensions to finish the 5 exercise set. My triceps always fail early at that point and it is easy to take down the little 10 lb DB with your free arm when the active arm gets stuck =)

4)Abs Circuit – repeated 3 times
1. Shoulder Crunches x 30 reps
2. Reverse Vertical Leg Crunches x 15, 15, 25 reps
3. Mini Crunches x 15 reps

5)Cardio
20 min Elliptical

I don’t know what will be up next, but I think I will make a point of doing a video for each muscle and a corresponding post. In case you were wondering from tonight’s video…..yes I belong to 3 gyms. If you’re thinking of pointing out my gym “problem” it’s a little late, everyone already knows about that =)

Influence

2011-07-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Influence

I really hadn’t thought I’d convert to a “Fit Mommy” Blog, but when inspiration strikes one to write…

I was taking my last opportunity until fall quarter to workout at The Rec this morning. Today was both my last day of summer quarter and Charlie’s last day of preschool. I was in the downstairs weight room doing an upper body set (hitting back, triceps, biceps, and shoulders) when I saw Charlie walking in the main entrance with his class for their weekly round of swim lessons. One of his classmates had recognized me first and waved and then Charlie saw me and got all excited. There’s a big glass window facing out also I walked up and blew him a big kiss through the class. Seeing him excited and pointing with pride, “that’s my mom” means the world to me.

The reduced presence of required P.E. classes and funding for athletics in schools these days is something that bothers me. I think promotion of exercise at a young age serves so many positive purposes. It fosters the groundwork for a lifetime of healthiness. I’m not exactly writing a well cited research paper here or anything that formal, but over the years I’ve read many little blips about sports helping to keep kids off of drugs or drinking, more focused in school, less depressed, and healthier over their entire lifetime. I can see how exercise does all of these things, the endorphins create a rush to your brain making you happy, not desiring artificial and detrimental endorphins, and they relieve your stress and excess energy to allow you to sit down and focus when needed. My awareness of all these benefits is precisely why I was in the gym this morning instead of this afternoon. I had my last exam of the quarter at 12 pm and knew that the best way to mentally prep for it was to physically sweat before it =)

Naturally, I want my son to grow up with all of these benefits as well. I didn’t get into weightlifting because I’m a single mom and wanted to be able to teach stereotypically boyish hobbies to my son, but seeing his excitement and intrigue with the sport one more reason, and the best reason, for me to want to keep it up for the foreseeable future. A year ago when I first started with Body Pump classes he was exited to help and would proudly carry over the little 1 kilo plates for me. When we went to see family out of state and were caught gym-less he was pleased to be my weight for triceps stair dips and imitated me lunging across the courtyard. When we both began our new schools here last fall he most mornings say “I don’t want to go to school, I want to go to the gym.” When I was being a goof and set up a dumbbell at home to match his bodyweight ad curled it in one arm with him on the other he grinned. Around that same time he bent over and made an attempt, in what was essentially dead lift form, to hoist a 20 lb dumbbell at home. At that time that was 76% of his body weight, equivalent to my dead lifting 108 lbs…not bad for such a skinny guy. When I fixated on a YouTube video of Erin Stern doing a hang snatch with an Olympic barbell and wanted to try it he did too. Then, when I arrived home with myself and Rachael on video dong them at The Rec he REALLY wanted to try it. So he did, with his “horsey weight” and a HUGE smile. When I ordered Nicole Wilkin’s video we watched it together and then he started requesting the “girl with the big weights” movie over his usual classic kiddo movies. So when I saw him all elated to spot me in the weight room this morning it made my heart smile.

Whether we intend to or not we influence our children, even before they are born. It is said that a baby’s tastes begin to form around what you eat while you’re pregnant and what you eat while you breastfeed. When I was pregnant I ate a ton of veggies, whole grains, lean meat and dairy, oh and 4 Marie Calendar’s Chocolate Satin Pies (shhhh I’m human and those things are far too tasty to have come from the grocery freezer aisle). The funny thing is that is what Charlie willingly eats: veggies, lean meats, he prefers brown rice and 9 grain bread, likes his dairy, and is weak for chocolate. It is really hard to get him to eat more than two or three French fries, go figure.

I’m an imperfect mom: we watch a lot of movies together, don’t go exploring the outdoors as much as we should, etc., but I’m so immensely happy to be influencing him to not only see working out as an expected aspect of daily life, but to love it for what it is. I love that he gets so excited about trying the things he sees me do with weights. I absolutely cannot wait until I can take him with me, not to the gym childcare, but to the weight floor of the gym to show my little man how to lift =)

A side note: I expect my blog entries as “Fit Mommy” to occur sporadically with no predictable pattern whatsoever. I only write well when a tangent inspires me to do so =)

“There is a difference between giving up, and knowing when you have had enough.”

2011-07-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

I quit. Actually, I quit a week ago, but I wanted to let it settle and make sure it wasn’t an impulsive decision before posting it here. I still train and lift and I intend to keep that up on a perpetual basis, but I quit the prep diet. The funny thing about the sport of figure is that it is essentially a dieting sport not a weightlifting sport. While it is true that to be competitive at it you must have both a solid training regimen and a very specific very restrictive diet plan, 80% of it is the diet.

There are many women out there who make all that work and are successful at it. There are caveats though; I recently ran into a woman I know who competed a year before I did and she said it well. She said that she loves the sport and the industry surrounding it, but that it is a selfish sport because it affects everyone around you. I thought she summed it up perfectly.

By training and dieting to gain the competitive edge I lacked at my first competition I was wiping out everything else in my life. I was really tired, coffee was useless, I was forgetful and lacked the energy to do anything else. At first I thought maybe I was just a wuss and would acclimate to 1,100-1,300 calories a day of very specifically combined and timed macro-specific mini meals, but then people in my life started commenting on my demeanor with concern. They all worded it various ways: “worried about me,” “that I was getting a bit loopy,” “figured you would want to stay in because your diet had you so drained.” It was costing me too much. My son comes first, doing well at school is important to me, I need energy to get my work done, and it is nice to be able to have a social life that includes dining without carting along little 4 oz. Gladwares and staring forlornly at your boyfriend’s or friends’ plates.

During and after my first prep, which will now be renamed my only prep, I started getting lackadaisical about other long-established goals of mine. I started questioning whether I should just quit with a B.A. in Accounting or just take random other classes to fill out a fifth year. I had pretty much moved a Masters off the table. Now that I’ve gotten my wits back about me I’ve become decisive and taken action. I had my major evaluation completed to confirm that I can graduate when I intend to with the class schedule I’ve planned. I also visited the Assistant Director of the MBA program to find out what I can do now to strengthen my application and undo the damage I caused to my transcript when I crashed after Ecup. Everything looked rosier than I had expected so I’ll be spending my free time before fall quarter starts studying to take the GMAT. That’s not something I could have done if I had continued on with figure. I’ve reordered my priorities and am much happier with myself now.

This does mean the end of Figure Mommy though. I’ve become pretty affectionate towards my blog so I’m sorry to say that. Part of me is tempted to cross out the “Figure” in my title graphic and rename the blog “Fit Mommy” sporadically posting tales / tips on maintaining / achieving a fit physique while balancing life with kid(s), but I’m not sure if the candor or quality would be there as that is after all a rather common theme.

For me, the whole point of my alter ego (for lack of a better term) Figure Mommy was to be rare, or most optimistically an exception to the rule. When people used to ask me, “how do you do it all?” I used to smile and minimize my obligations to deflect the compliment. The accurate answer is, “I can’t.” Sometimes saying it is the healthiest direction to take.

I saw this saying in my Google+ feed, the original author is unknown to me, but thank you to E.L. for posting it. I hope you don't mind my borrowing and embracing it =)

“There is a difference between giving up, and knowing when you have had enough.”

Wasssssssup??!

2011-07-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Day 18 Ironman Prep

How do you Wasa??!!

Wasa is a word you can say very enthusiastically to the point of ridiculousness (if you want to). I however had never heard of a Wasa cracker until a few days ago when I got my second phase of diet dictation. I had to Google “Wasa cracker” to find out. It turns out they are a super healthful cracker with big dreams of knocking out bread and replacing its role in dietary society! Or, um, something like that.

I intentionally have been staying away from my blog since getting my latest nutrition plan because I was being negative about it and I try to not write if I’m not going to have a good attitude (seems a fair presumption that you don’t read this to hear me bitch right? ;) It was a pretty big downer to tally up the new meal plan and find I was getting cut another 200 cals a day and see that one of my six meals consisted of half a can of water packed tuna and 2 Wasa crackers (three others are equally tiny). Some plain tuna with 2 crackers? Really? I’m supposed to eat that and still do things like expend 50% of my total daily caloric intake on an hour of quality time spent with a stepmill? The notion almost turned me into a quitter! So I took a few days to digest it, pun intended. I got the details behind my nutritionist’s philosophy and I realigned my attitude. I don’t want to be a quitter who only ever competed once, didn’t pace, and gave up. I want to get better at this sport.

So tonight Charlie and I went to the grocery store in search of the mysterious Wasa cracker. There they were, bottom shelf mid-cracker aisle and they were big. BIG crackers! They have a slogan on the package, “How do you Wasa?” With tuna thank you! Wassup Wasa cracker?!? Really, try saying Wasa dramatically. It’s fun. Say it like you’d saw “wasssssssup?!?” Or, just say I’m WEIRD, but in my defense one must delve deeply to stay spunky and positive about their figure diet!

My new plan dictates eating exactly the same for four days and then a second meal plan for the next three days. I’m pleased with the boringness as it makes planning and prepping easier. Plus, the more monotonous it gets the easier it is for me to quell cheat urges. Any creativity or variety just begs for a fueled flame to cheat. Same old same old is thus desirable =)

Wassssup Wasa cracker…. wassup??! Lean muscle mass is up and body fat is down! ;) Hehe.

I love it when famous people remain real people and act as such

2011-07-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

Day 15 Ironman Prep

I was having a bit of a little bit of a downer day today. I was tired when I woke up this morning and only did 25 minutes of cardio instead of my usual 30. After class I wanted to go sleep, but I went to the gym instead. When I walked in I saw Laura was working so that was a happy thing. Sometimes talking to someone who knows can really help. Most people just think you’re nuts with the diet and training, but Laura has five bikini competitions (the training for bikini is VERY similar to that for figure) behind her so she knows. She’s also used the same nutritionist I’m now using before and it was a relief to hear that she was also tired all the time on this plan; I’d been starting to wonder if there was something wrong with me.

Lately, I seem to forget something every day. A few days ago I got to the gym only to realize I hadn’t packed a sports bra. After I got creatively dressed I promptly realized I’d walked out of class leaving my favorite water bottle behind so I’d jogged back to that building and up to the third floor to retrieve it. Today I almost walked out of the house without my iPod, thankfully remembered, but forgot to pack RedLine. I bought some at The Rec. I used to be anti-supplement, but now that my nutrition is the figure norm I need them. I’ll stick to RedLine and then when it starts to lose effectiveness I’ll replace it with a different pre-workout supplement.

Awhile back I ordered Nicole Wilkins' DVD, In Pursuit of a Dream, from her website. It came in the mail today and I was shocked to find it in an everyday manila bubble mailer hand addressed to me. The DVD case was also signed by Nicole and matched the handwriting on the package. Her and Erin Stern are the biggest names, the top champions, in the Pro Figure world so I had been expecting it to ship in a barcoded package from a warehouse somewhere. Nope!

It’s a little thing, but I thought it was really great. I love it when famous people remain real people and act as such. The DVD itself is really good. I’d ordered it so I can put the portion on posing on repeat and emulate a zillion times with a full length mirror next to my TV. Posing is my biggest weakness, so imitating an expert at home for the next few months can only help me. I was also surprised to see footage of an F&M Hers article I read some months back. Nicole and her trainer, Kim Oddo, had a body transformation challenge competition. I distinctly recall the article because the winner, Shannon, was actually a single mom who did almost all of her workouts at home while her shorty slept. In the DVD when they’re talking Nicole compliments her for pulling it off as a single mom, committing to getting organized to eat right and be regimented with the workouts. Of course that struck a chord for me. Someone should do a study to see how many extra calories daily responsibility for a small child causes a parent to burn! Kidding (sort of, haha). All I know is every time I give Charlie a piggyback ride (he thinks it’s more fun when I run) I start getting goofy ideas about using him at a track for some sort of weighted sprint plyometric theme….you know the whole sprints with a weighted backpack or parachute thing … just with 30 lbs of 4-year-old instead ;)

It was really interesting to hear what Nicole eats. No foods I haven’t already used in my diet. The most encouraging thing I heard in the DVD was that Nicole has a tendency to hold a lot of muscle in her thighs. That’s me! Her trainer combats that with track workouts among other things and Nicole demonstrates one in the DVD. She is huge on cross-training: traditional gym/weights stuff, 1-2x week track workouts, 1x week gymnastic workouts, yoga. I’d like to try the hand stand step-ups from her gymnastics workout sometime; they work both your core and shoulders. If you’re at all curious about what Figure really is, what the lifestyle is, how it all comes together, I’d highly recommend watching this DVD. It’s pretty inspiring; I know, I was having a shitty day and it made me feel better ;)

The Early AM Expedition

2011-07-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

The quiet parking lot, cardio stats, and breakfast afterwards. The whole point in am cardio is burning calories on an empty stomach and forcing the body to turn to fat as an energy source to burn. This stage takes far longer to get to when your tummy is full and you're adequately fueled.

Ironman Prep Day 14

You know what is not tasty? A shot of RedLine and a grape berry glutamine chew before you’ve brushed your teeth. It flashed me back to the very first time I ever got up for morning cardio. I had been trying to be super sneaky and get on my machine as quickly and quietly as possible so I’d decided brushing my teeth could wait. Yuck! By day two I’d decided the extra few minutes of running water was worth the risk of waking Charlie. Now I have my routine: I set out shoes, clothes, my iPod, and water bottle the night before so that I can get up and get going as quickly as possible. I know the creaky spots in the wood floor by his room to avoid when heading to brush my teeth. Most mornings I estimate too conservatively and am up and done with cardio 30-40 minutes before he wakes, but on occasional mornings he’s up early and sneaks up on me in the middle of it. He finds it especially funny if he catches me doing abs because then I’m on the floor oblivious with a blaring iPod, he’s taller than me, and he likes to take advantage and sneak and growl like a big scary Charlie-saur.

Charlie was at his dad’s house last night though so I had a rare opportunity to try morning cardio the way most people do it, at the gym. Sunday is rest day on my current schedule which means no weights and 45 minutes of cardio. I ran off to Gold’s arriving by 7:20 am with fewer than five cars in the parking lot. Abandoned! I was definitely more awake than usual which was both a blessing and a drawback. I was trying harder to keep up my RPMs, but I was more conscience of being tired. In the end I did 50 minutes instead of 45 because I wanted to cross the 500 calorie threshold and then I did three sets of shoulder crunches, reverse crunches, and mini crunches with some brief stretching before heading home. I love the little elliptical I have at home, but it isn’t the greatest for longer bouts of cardio so it was nice to get my longer session done on a gym machine. I’ll definitely do it again given the opportunity.

P.S. I haven’t had any coffee today. I do, however, have a quart and a half of coffee creamer in the fridge. What in the world am I going to do with it if my coffee hiatus turns out to be permanent?

Natural Mindset vs. Fake Energy

2011-07-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Day 13 Ironman Prep

Ode to an Olympic Barbell

I know my weaknesses and I know my strengths. If I had to pick my top competitive asset it would have to be my biceps. Proportionately, they’re the most developed muscle group on me. They also show vein pop most easily which is something that ALWAYS boosts my mood. Yesterday, I briefly mentioned Olympic barbell curls. Today, I’d like to show them to you: the latest and greatest in my vein pop repertoire ;)

Natural Mindset vs. Fake Energy

The mental rush of visual muscle pump, like that above, helps to create the necessary mindset to get through a challenging workout when your energy level just isn’t there. Lately mine simply hasn’t been there. I drink my three sludgy cups of coffee in the morning and I don’t feel them at all anymore. Meanwhile I’ve sporadically tried various pre-workout supplements that pack a caffeine punch. I’d like to use them more frequently, but I worry about their caffeine content on top of that of my coffee. I think I’m going to try quitting coffee for a few days to see what happens. My favorite pre-workout supplement, RedLine (pictured above) will sub in. It doesn’t taste great, but it’s a small dose (like taking a shot), packs amino acids and a ridiculous amount of B12 in addition to the caffeine and is zero carb zero cal.

P.S. RedLine isn't quite that visibly powerful, although I like to think my picture edit above captures the potential energy of the supplement ;) I applied a "Space Textures" effect to it at Picnik.com, which is in my opinion, the best ever novice photo editing package =)

Encouraged and Intimidated

2011-07-08T21:18:00.001-07:00

1) My biggest worry about competition remains my “wings” aka having big enough lats and pulling them out for an effective back pose come competition. As such, I was as entertained as could be when picking my son up at school one day this week. He’d made a set of paper wings and antennas with his teacher that he was wearing. He was super excited to show me his butterfly wings and I couldn’t help but wish it were that simple to create my own wings.

2) Me curling an Olympic barbell during a biceps workout this week. This is a recent addition to my repertoire. What makes it different is that an Olympic barbell is 7.22 feet long so your muscles are challenged beyond simply lifting the weight to stabilizing it as well. Also, an Olympic barbell weighs 45 lbs and my coach has me do sets of 15 reps. For perspective, I used to curl a 40 lb or sometimes 50 lb standard barbell in my EC training, but would only do 8-10 reps for most sets.

3) My coaching is primarily online so I have to take periodic pictures to email my coach so that he can assess my progress and base the next phase of my nutrition and training upon it. These were taken yesterday, 11 days into training. I have a long ways to go yet!

4) My freaky thigh picture. I snapped this while doing leg extensions on quad day this week. I really love the degree of quad definition I have built up at this point =)

Encouraged and Intimidated

Day 12 Ironman Prep

Having 5 days off from blogging has definitely shown me that I’m a better blogger on a daily basis. I’ve had many fleeting thoughts in the last few days, wisps of things to write about, and I’ve forgotten most of them. When I write daily I get to focus in and devote a few paragraphs to whatever little idiosyncrasy of this bodybuilding lifestyle has most struck my fancy that day. On that note, aside from sporadic days off I intend to go back to my daily entries. They kept me straight for my first competition and I’m finding I really need the routine of daily reflection on my sport to stay focused for my second competition.

I feel both encouraged and intimidated. I know where I erred last time (diet – allowed myself too much total intake) and I’ve remedied that by taking out the guesswork and acquiring a nutritionist. I’m also starting with a better base from which to build. There is substantially more muscle on me now than there was in January when I began my first quest. I find these facts encouraging. However, having some history now I know I have to take my game up a notch. Any cheating on my diet will have to be very small in scale and very infrequent, no decadent cheat meal events like last round. I will have to become very diligent about my sleep routine. I’m quickly realizing that I need at least 9 hours on this kind of calorie deficit. Getting in my workouts is easy to meet, but I need to jack up every rep to maximum effort, every cardio session to maximum rpms, and every set rest to the minimum plausible. I am intimidated by these necessary changes, but I can do these things and I will find the will and energy to follow through.

Ginger Lime Chicken with Snap Peas

2011-07-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

Grabbing a few things at the store. I hadn’t planned it then, but the ginger and lime turned into dinner and the cooking video below.

Day 7 Ironman Prep

I’m really tired today. I think I’ve likely shocked my body from a metabolic standpoint. New workouts, back on am cardio, a substantial caloric intake reduction, an elimination of all simple sugar or processed foods. I’m there mentally, but the change can take a body some time to acclimate to.

I decided to spice up my 5th meal of the day today without hurting its nutritional value. Check out my Ginger Lime Chicken with Snap Peas here:

I did my 30 minutes of am cardio at 6:30 as usual and then went back to bed till 9 am as I was tired and Charlie was still snoozing away. To deal with gym closures tomorrow I switched my Sunday and Monday workouts. Today was supposed to be my “rest day” aka 45 minutes of cardio, no weights. I can do that at home tomorrow if I need to so I did Monday’s hamstring workout today. It’s a toughy and I showed up at Gold’s with zero energy despite the ½ serving of Redline I decided to take. Let’s just say it’s comprised of 75 dumbbell push-ups, 72 wood chopper medicine ball squats, 6 side planks, 120 total deep stretch weighted walking lunges, 70 hamstring curls and 40 medicine ball squats and the whole thing goes down in just over 40 minutes. I had warmed up with 8 minutes of cardio and capped off the session with another 25 minutes of cardio.

I am so used to squats consisting of a rack or a Smith and plates and a bar accumulating to my body weight and more. So far in my coach’s style of training my squats are more like plyos: holding a medicine ball, focusing on the motion etc. I haven’t asked yet, but what I think is going on here is trying to shrink my lower half. I built up a lot of lower body muscle my squatting heavy throughout my training. To be competitive at figure I actually need to sacrifice some muscle in addition to melting body fat.

I’m debating whether or not to write another book. The video explains:

P.S. Don’t mind my voice in tonight’s videos, I sound as tired as I feel. My normal tone is much more chipper =)

A Few of My Favorite Things

2011-07-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

Ironman Prep Day 6

I was done with training by 11 am today. I broke a rule too. I’m not supposed to hit the gym until I have at least 2 of my 6 meals behind me. We had a Birthday party at noon to go to though and Gold’s only has am childcare on weekends. So I set my usual alarm for 6:15 am and had 30 min of cardio, breakfast, and a shower behind me before Charlie woke up. Then we were off to Gold’s where I warmed up on a rowing machine, did triceps and biceps, and wrapped up with 15 min on the stepmill.

A few of my favorite (fitness related) things:

1) Suits by Amy – Amy Ardizzone designed the suit I wore at Emerald Cup. She’s great to work with and turns out beautiful custom suits. www.suitsbyamy.com

2) Gaspari MyoFusion – My longstanding favorite protein powder. I should warn you though, once you go MyoFusion the texture of all other proteins will suck by comparison. It’s a mix of whey, casein, and egg albumin. This makes for a good all-purpose protein, the only caveat being that it is a little higher on cholesterol than some other protein powders. It’s available most places: Amazon, GNC, and Bodybuilding.com to name a few.

3) Dave’s Killer Bread The Good Seed Sprouted Wheat – I love bread in general, but the DKB brand makes extra scrumptious bread you can actually feel good about eating. The one mentioned above has 110 cals / 17 g carbs / 3 g fat (0 sat fat) / 6 grams protein / 4 grams fiber. Higher protein and lower carbs than your average slice. Yes, there are a zillion 70-80 cal per slice breads out there, but they aren’t satisfying. This slice is satisfying, and it had better be; my current nutrition plan only nets me 3 slices of bread a week. DKB bread is available at most grocery stores. Just stay away from the loaf called “Sin Dawg.” It is a little cinnamon loaf, maybe 10” long with a 2” diameter. That tiny loaf has 1,600 cals and tons of fat! Scary! I tried it once, prior to reading the stats. It is DELICIOUS, but deadly ;)

4) Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey and 100% Casein Protein Powders – I have a 5 pounder of the whey in Cake Batter (great flavor!) and a 2 pounder of casein in Chocolate Peanut Butter. These are great protein powders because they’re reasonably priced and are loaded up with 4-5 grams of glutamine and 5-5.5 grams of BCAAs per serving. I prefer this over taking a bunch of separate supplements.

5) GNC Glutamine 2500 Power Chews in Grape Berry – I know I just said I don’t like taking separate supplements, but glutamine is one that I sometimes take in contexts where I’m not eating, such as prolonged exercise. These chews are handy to pack and they’re as flavorful as a grape Laffy Taffy.

6) HTC Incredible aka my phone – Think this is an odd thing to list? Not really =) Each and every video clip posted on this blog and just about every picture has been captured with my phone. I also have an app on it called JEFIT Pro that shows me animations for a ton of different exercises and sorts them out by muscle group for easy on the fly referencing. Lately, I’ve started using the stopwatch to time my rest time between sets. Naturally I scan Facebook and catch up on emails on it during my am cardio. My Amazon app lets me cross-check prices when I’m in GNC and sometimes save a lot on my protein, I’ve even ordered it from my phone. I love my phone; it’s a figure girl’s best friend ;)

My Favorite Abs & a Snazzy Bike

2011-07-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

The bike kept making me laugh because it would scroll across the screen and tell me to “ease back into a relaxed state.” What?! No cardio machine is supposed to tell you to relax, lol, that is not my idea of an interval! I wish I could take actual spin classes, but the schedules at both my gyms always have them super early in the am when I don’t have any childcare options.

Day 5 Ironman Prep

I am tired. I had five or so more interesting things to ramble about earlier in the day, but I’ve forgotten what they were, haha. You probably believe me about being tired now =)

The usual took place this morning: 30 min of elliptical plus some abs (3 sets each shoulder crunches and medicine ball side twists). I hit The Rec at 2 pm for a full chest session with a splash of shoulders and 5 sets of weighted crunches to failure at the end. I wasn’t sure what specific weighted crunch I was supposed to be doing as there are about bazillion variations on that one, so I went with weighted decline bench crunches with a 10 lb plate. I’ve been a fan of these for a while now; they’re tough, but you get results. I had sore abs this morning already from my daily 10 minute morning sessions so I expect it will feel more pronounced tomorrow. My calves are doing that thing where you walk and they sort of tighten, almost like a cramp, with each step, especially downstairs. I even have lines of muscle soreness running down my forearms which is not typical for me. I’m pleased with all this; it means progress =)

My favorite abs:

I was supposed to do 20 minutes of cardio on a bike after my weights so I chose this snazzy teched out spinning bike. It had a cool feature where you can plug in your iPod and it will create a workout to the rhythm of your music. I tried, but the plug in for my headphones wasn’t producing sound (or likely I just didn’t know what I was doing ;) I went with an interval program on it instead. I’m really not a bike fan, but by the end I was entertained enough that I’ll try it again. My top 3 preferred cardio machines are ellipticals, AMTs, and stepmills. I think I’m going to have my 6th mini meal and go to bed. I’ve been not getting to sleep till 11:30ish the last few nights, but still getting up by 6:15 for am cardio and it’s catching up to me. I really need a solid 8 hours when I’m training. Night!

I Film for Myself

2011-06-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

I have something in common with Erin Stern and Nicole Wilkins Lee. I know I'm nowhere near their level, but it pleases me to know I share a commonality with them. They both have history as track athletes. I never made it farther than tri-district, but I was all about track in high school. I did hurdles, sprints, and the long jump. Today’s jump filled plyos had me thinking about track and I decided to go digging around my nostalgia box in my basement to see if I could find this pic, and look! I did. That's me about 11-12 years ago, yeah, not to date myself or anything ;)

Day 4 Ironman Prep

I film for myself. It sounds funny, but the root reason behind my filming sets at the gym is threefold. I find that by watching myself after the fact I can spot and correct errors in form (and consequently long term results) that I wouldn’t otherwise have been aware of. Secondly, stockpiling these 30-40 second clips keeps me motivated and also reminds me of things I haven’t done in awhile and should do again because they’re fun (hang snatch is a prime example here). The third reason is that I have fun making this blog a multimedia one and making amateur mini movies to post on it.

I’m completely in the zone with the diet now and I really like not counting. I did my own nutrition for Emerald and got downright neurotic the last two months tallying up my cals and macros and maintaining my desired protein/carbs/fat ratio. While I still ran a deficit I was taking in too many calories for figure, feeling starved all the time, and getting buried in the details. Being told what to eat is great. I’m given a week of dietary recommendations at a time and literally just eat what he tells me to at the frequency I’m told. I think 70% of the battle of a competition prep diet is all the time spent contemplating it and questioning what you’re doing. Are my cals too high? Is my protein too high? My carbs are on track, but I ate half of them at night, shit. That kind of thinking. I also have a background as a sous chef so I got creative when I did it myself. That actually was a hindrance. You’d think it would be great to cook up something delicious and interesting, but still clean. Nope! The less interesting your food is the better. If you make something craving worthy you start craving more and viewing food as something delicious. To be successful on a prep diet you must train yourself to view food as fuel and nothing more. It has a purpose to fulfill, changing your body composition for competition.

My boyfriend happens to make REALLY great waffles from scratch that he then smothers with peanut butter and drizzles with maple syrup. I know this because he made them on Mother’s Day and brought me a plate before I’d made it out of bed (he’s pretty wonderful like that :) and I’ve had them a few times since then. Those waffles represent loving food for the enjoyment it can bring. Tomorrow morning my Kashi 7 grain waffles are up on the breakfast rotation. I’ll be having two of them with 22 grams of protein powder in water. I won’t need a plate as there will be no butter, no syrup, they will be plain. I can walk around and treat them like frisbees if I want to ;) That may sound boring, but I’m looking forward to it because those waffles represent one of many tiny steps of progress towards my goal :)

Today I had my 30 minutes of am cardio and 3 sets of bicycles (30 reps/set) and 3 sets of mini crunches (20 reps/set) done by 7:15 am. I hit Gold’s at 11:30 for some lower body plyos and a back session. The last plyo exercise was doing a long jump off a bench. My coach had told me to make sure to use a bolted down bench or it would go flying. I had no clue where I’d find one and Laura said there were none at The Rec and then, helpful fitness genius that she is, suggested using a cable seated row bench, so I did. They were 3rd up after 4 sets each of lateral bounds and bench jumps. I’ve had a quad session and a separate hamstrings session within the last few days that already have me noticing substantial muscle soreness each time I walk, sit down, bend…so I’m really excited at how I’ll feel by tomorrow. I love being sore because then I know my session was really effective. My body got used to my old training style so I got to a point where I’d only get sore if I lifted really heavy. Doing new things keep my muscles guessing (and sore ;)

Shoulders, Quads, and Cheap Protein!

2011-06-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

The "upside down" leg press which presumably has another name beyond that which I've made up ;)

Day 3 Ironman Prep

I’m feeling good about being back on the diet. It takes about three days to get in the swing of it and I’m there now. I had 30 minutes on my elliptical and 10 minutes of abs (3 sets of dumbbell side bends (30 lbs) superset with 45, 45, and a 60 second plank) behind me by 7 am. That is the best feeling to start the day with. It makes me energetic and can do vs. sluggish and wondering when I’m going to get my sweat on.

Today I trained my quads and shoulders. I again found myself doing things completely differently than I would on my own. I am quite liking it actually. It almost feels like it’s making the gym new again. One of my tasks today was four sets on the leg press, but the reps per set were 18, 20, 30, and 40 for the last. Unfortunately the traditional leg press at The Rec was out of order so I used the sort of upside down one upstairs and managed 130 lbs for the 18 and 20 rep sets, 115 for the 30, and 100 for the 40. The rest between sets was only 40 seconds. I’d like to know what weight I’ll manage when I do it again next week on the traditional leg press machine (translation: I’ll plan ahead and go to Gold’s).

I have honestly hated lateral and front raises for shoulders for months. They strain me easily and you have to use the weeny (10-12 lb) dumbbells for them so some twists on the standard versions were very welcome. I was to do my laterals leaning which I found I really actually liked a lot. Yay! The front raises were with a barbell instead of the usual dumbbells, also an improvement.

I popped by GNC after my workout to acquire some pure Casein powder. I’m a longstanding MyoFusion lover as it has the best texture / taste hands down amongst protein powders, but it’s a mix of whey, casein, and egg albumin. I also have some Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey that I’m happy with. When it comes to dairy derived protein you have whey and casein. The whey digests quickly and thus is good for before and/or after workouts when you’re seeking to feed your muscles promptly. Casein is a slow digesting protein and thus ideal as a last mini meal before bedtime as it will feed your muscles through the night as it slowly digests.

As anyone with a bodybuilding habit knows protein powders and other supplements can start to add up quickly. That is why I always comparison shop before buying. I have the Amazon mobile app on my phone so if I see a product I want while at GNC I pull it up on Amazon on my phone to compare the price and also so if reviews are positive or negative. I was looking at a 2 pounder of Optimum Nutrition 100% Casein Chocolate Supreme for $44.99 at GNC and Amazon had that exact one for $25.52 and a 4 pounder of Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Chocolate Crème for $46.29. The 4 pounder will be here Friday to the tune of saving almost $20 or 48% of the sale price. That being said GNC had a lower price by about $12 on another product I eyeballed while there. It pays to shop around! The only flaw being that I can’t start on Casein until then.

Positive Stubbornness

2011-06-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

Bedtime snack aka 6th meal of the day

This is what happens when you try and photograph an elliptical while using it. Can you make out the 202 on the right? That's strides per minute. I averaged 179 over the 30 minute span.

Ironman Prep Day 2

Stubbornness

I was proud of myself today. I woke up at 3:23 am with a splitting full skull and neck headache, realized my Advil were out in the car and stumbled to the kitchen for 3 aspirin and then back to sleep. I’d hoped by the time my alarm sounded at 6:15 that the headache would be hidden. Nope! But I got up anyway and logged 30 minutes on my elliptical followed up by 3 sets each of shoulder crunches, reverse crunches, and mini crunches. Then I went and got the Advil and took 3 which I never do, always only 2. Didn’t work! I ran behind schedule, dropped C off late and arrived at my service appointment late too. Getting out of the car at the dealership I promptly realized my carefully packed cooler bag with my 3 out of the house meals was still sitting at home 40 minutes away.

I could have rolled over and kept sleeping this morning, but I’m stubborn about my goals and commitments so I did my cardio anyways. I could have gotten frustrated when I forgot my cooler and eaten something regrettable, but I didn’t. I scrounged up a single serving pack of raw almonds and some protein powder from my purse to bridge the gap till I could retrieve my cooler. When I got back to school I still had my headache and tried for 2 more Advil, no dice. Actually, I still have that headache now as I’m typing this. I still went to class and I still went to The Rec immediately after to try my first workout from my new coach/nutritionist. I’m proud that I choose to be positive when I could have easily gone the opposite route.

When I first saw the workouts from my coach I got hung up on how different they were than my own. I’m ALWAYS doing something in the “man cave” at The Rec, always in need of a rack, the Smith, or free weights. Today doing hamstrings I did not set foot in there once, I began with a quick warm-up, 7 min on an elliptical and then went straight to the “giant set.” It was comprised of dumbbell push-ups, wood chopper deep medicine ball squats, and side planks. Sounds innocent enough right? Haha, no. You do them all back to back no rest and repeat the whole shebang 3 times. Now that will get you warmed up ;) I ALWAYS involve some form of walking lunge in my leg days, usually a 40 or 50 lb barbell on my shoulders. Nope! I was only holding 10 lb dumbbells today, but I was lunging differently, really stretching and focusing on the hip flexors. Plus, the reps per set were high. I then moved on to high rep sets of hamstring curls, wide medicine ball squats, a final set of walking lunges, and 30 more minutes on the elliptical.

This workout seriously kicked my ass despite being so different from what I usually do. I knew it early on because I normally think while I work out, not today. I wound up having the same song on repeat for my entire resistance set (Technotronic Pump the Jam) and the same song on repeat for my entire cardio set (Cascada Everytime We Touch). I am very much a music person for training. I need a song that meets my mood and artificially jacks up my energy level when it isn’t really there. What that song is varies day to day and I normally do listen to more variety in a session, but today I was so focused on just hitting it hard that repeat it was. I started smiling when I bent down to position myself over the dumbbells to start the giant set with 25 push-ups and the throbbing loud beat of Pump the Jam came on in tandem with my headache pulse. Odd as it sounds, it hit the spot and did the trick ;)

The Waffles Say it All ;)

2011-06-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

1. The waffle "competitors"

2. Their drastically differing stats. Note the composition of the fat. Kashi is primarily the "good" fats (polyunsaturated & monounsaturated) while Smuckers is, uh, not.

3. My new food scale! (and 4 oz. of chicken) I eyeballed last contest...I suspect eyeballs get bigger when one's diet gets tougher. I'll trust the scale for round 2.

4. My "support team." They took their duties very seriously last night: flavor selection for my last hurrah, aka the last gelato outing. We went with the toasted almond and the pineapple, aka the BEST flavors ;)

5. Me yesterday being silly and frosting my son's birthday cake. I've accumulated bigger triceps and biceps since Emerald, which is great, but I have much trimming to do, I'm at least 18% body fat right now, likely higher.

Day 1 Ironman Prep

Here we go again!

The waffles say it all.

But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My son is a super skinny guy who is hard to put fat on. I am beginning my 12 week lean out for my second figure competition. It is fully accurate to say we have precisely polar dietary needs. This makes for some funny looking grocery shopping. I can generally be spotted afoot in the store with a small Spider-man, Fireman, or regularly clothed boy in my cart and opposing food selections. I buy a combination of the most calorically dense foods for him and the least caloric highest protein ones for me.

This evening waffles for each of us were on the grocery list. I am only allowed a rare breed of waffle right now: a low carb high fiber waffle. I’ve heard Special K makes one, but I’ve never seen it. I did, however, track down the Kashi 7 Grain ones at Target of all places. The stats, I must say, are fantastic:

Serving Size: 2 waffles, yes 2!
(72 grams)

150 Calories
5 g Fat
25 g Carbohydrates
4 g Protein

Let’s have a comparison shall we?

For Charlie and his polar dietary needs I acquired a box of Smuckers Snack’n Waffles. The average frozen waffle is around 110 calories so I was pleased to find these fatty ones. The stats are:

Serving size: 1 waffle, only 1!
(57 grams)  smaller volume than Kashi too

220 calories
8 g Fat
32 g Carbohydrates
5 g Protein

If you divide those stats out on a per gram of food basis you find that my waffles have a mere 2.09 cals per gram while C’s have 3.86 cals per gram, nearly double. When you’re looking to cut body fat minimizing carbs is a major issue (while upping protein) and my waffles are only 35% comprised of carbs while C’s are 57% carb comprised.

Whatever your physique goal may be: muscle gain, fat loss, weight loss, or even weight gain you can make food work for you. You can find variations in the basics that meet your needs and goals.

The waffles say it all ;)

Today’s muscle group was back and that mostly boils down to trying to do my best to tease my lats into some legitimate wings. I was short on time so I just super set with minimal rest. I started with 4 sets of 12 reps each wide grip lat pulldowns s/s with 4 sets of 10-12 reps seated cable rows. That was followed up by 4 sets of 8-10 reps T-bar rows, loaded heavier than my usual, superset with 4 sets of cable straight bar pushdowns at 12 reps per set. My back is my weakness on stage so I am really focusing on quality over quantity here. That is a reasonable amount to do and call a back session, but I’m going 5-10 lbs lighter than I’m capable of to focus on improving my form. If you don’t have proper form you can wind up bearing some of the load unintentionally on other muscle groups and thus defeating your purpose.

Getting back to strict clean eating is hardest the first three days; I think any diet change takes about that long to not want to fight it. I feel like I’m off to a good start though. I’ve had 1,430 cals today disbursed across six meals: an English muffin turkey sausage egg white breakfast sandwich, ½ scoop of MyoFusion and ½ grapefruit, 4 oz. chicken with black olives cucumber & bell peppers, a 200 cal pack of raw almonds, 1 cup cheerios with ½ cup 1% milk, and another 4 oz. chicken with black olives, snap peas, and bell peppers. I don’t intend to keep my intake that low daily until the last month, but I’m doing it for the first three days to “break” myself of my munchity munch eat all I want off season habits.

My goal for my second show is very simple, to improve over my first. What does “improve” really mean?

To me it means that I will get on stage with real wings, leaner than last time, and more practiced at posing. I also aim to learn how to apply fake eyelashes myself before then ;)

Nowhere to go, but Up!

2011-06-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

Decline Push Crunches with a 10 lb Plate

Super sweaty me fresh off the elliptical and a 517 cal kill (Darene! This one is for you! Remember harassing me for that other gym pic with perfect hair etc.? This is what sweaty me fresh off the machine looks like ;)

A killer 45 min on the elliptical: 4.7 miles and 517 cals burned res 5 gluteal 2 routine, woop woop!

My new playlist! =)

Nowhere to go but up

We are on a brief break from college / preschool right now until summer quarter starts up on Tuesday. It’s nice to be all about the gym! I took advantage of the opportunity and went to two today. The Rec on campus this morning as I didn’t have C and I avoid doing glutes at Gold’s if I can help it. Then, in the afternoon, Gold’s with C for cardio and abs. I prefer glutes at The Rec because Gold’s is ill-equipped for two of my fave glutes exercises: cable kickbacks and unilateral standing leg presses. For a cable kickback you simply need a cable station with a pulley on the lowest setting and the ankle straps. The Rec has top of the line padded leather ones with metal buckles and Gold’s just has some old black cloth Velcro ones that are smelly and I can’t find half the time lately anyway. The unilateral (single) standing leg press is done on an assisted pull-ups/dips machine. At The Rec there are two and they both have coated metal bars for standing on while Gold’s has a big pad for kneeling on instead that I’m guessing I’ll eventually get in trouble for standing on. Thus, The Rec’s glutes set-up “wins.” My access to The Rec will, sniff sniff, be heavily curtailed in August and most of September with C out of preschool. I plan to take any/every opportunity that I’m not in possession of him to go do glutes at The Rec, hopefully that will amount to at least 2X a week, or Gold’s it will be!

I’ve been easing myself into competition prep mode / mindset. I don’t feel like I can successfully go from zero to sixty with it. If starting tomorrow morning I was setting the 6 am alarm for empty stomached am cardio daily, eating tiny meals 6X daily with no cheats and strict cals/macros, and having a daily pm weights/cardio session I don’t know if I’d be fully vested in it. Not being fully committed equals being ripe for quitting, and we don’t want that! So I’m easing in. Starting with little bits. I ate well today, small quantities of clean foods, but I haven’t started counting cals yet. I worked out twice today, woot woot, but none of it was at 6 am. I think easing in will work.

During my cardio today at Gold’s I was spacing out to my playlist as usual and got to thinking about how truly fearless I ought to be about my next competition. I have nowhere to go but up! With other pet projects or ambitions that I’ve deemed to be my “thing” over time I have often shot out of the gate high and truly only been able to either maintain or fall from grace. Well, with bodybuilding I did not hire a nutritionist; I made it up myself. I cannot yet say that I’ve been lifting weights for a year. I took up with Body Pump classes late last July after moving here and didn’t take up with free weights outside of that until November. The Emerald Cup (unless I’m grossly misinformed) is pretty much the biggest figure competition in the state. Go big or go home! When I got there I did kind of freak out realizing: I’m such a newbie! Look at these women, what am I doing amongst them?? Eek! I didn’t go home though, nope I went big, and in my own heart and mind I failed big too. I don’t know that I’m entirely over that yet to be truthful. I’m getting there and my mindset today, while maxing out on the elliptical, was simple and beautiful: I have nowhere to go but up. There’s no GPA to suffer a hit, no former placing to come in under, or any other perceived lessening of achievement to be had. Nope! My posing will get better, I will come in leaner than last time, and my weak areas (primarily my “wings”) will be stronger and more prominent than their first showing.

I got to see Laura when I was at The Rec earlier and found out our schedules will be matching up summer quarter: yay! She is so great at mentally pumping you up and making you believe in yourself, I don’t even know if she does it intentionally or just exudes that quality. I’m not the only person I’ve heard it from either =) For my glutes I warmed up on an AMT and then did 4 sets of hack squats (drop it to the floor! Ala T-pain hehe) superset with 4 sets of Smith lunges, then 6 sets of waking barbell lunges, 5 sets of cable kickbacks, and 5 sets of standing unilateral leg presses. Yes, a shorty I know, by the time I got there I only had 50 minutes until I had to depart to pick up C and was equal parts distracted by being social and trying not to want to puke. Hah, yeah. I tried a sample pack of Advocare Muscle Fuel (creatine, caffeine, some other stuff). I took it about 2 hours after eating breakfast so a theoretically “empty stomach.” I will definitely use it again, just likely on a less empty stomach. It had me all jacked up and powering through things that would normally cause me to quit at fewer reps or take longer between set breaks. I like the energy of that supplement, it’s super hyper; it’s just a tad rough on an empty stomach. Then I took off down I-5 munching my raw almonds, drinking my 100 cals of Pure Protein shake and happily munching my super sweet delicious plain red bell pepper slices. Those things are the candy of competition prep! I have a serious bell pepper weakness, mmmm.

I meant to eat again before gym round two, but instead we stopped on by Costco and I dined on samples. I tried to balance it into a legitimate fuel source, sneaking back for seconds on the panko sweet chili shrimps and Korean style bbq chicken. Both of those are so tasty and both of those are things I can’t even dream of buying much less eating during contest prep. Sure, they sound like innocent protein, nope! They are protein, yes, but coated in sugary carbs and lots of bad fats! No wonder they’re so yummy, haha. We hit the freeway home and thankfully C didn’t fall asleep. I had been going to stop at home first, but feared if I didn’t we might not make it out again so straight off the freeway to Gold’s we went. I hit the cardio hard and then, go figure, saw C’s best friend from preschool walk in with his mom. I didn’t even know we shared a gym, yay! I knew C wouldn’t want to leave right away with his buddy there so I hit abs too. They have the best benches for decline weighted push crunches at Gold’s. I usually do no more than 20 reps per set, but I was all hopped up on cardio and made myself do 4 sets at 30 reps each with a 10 lb plate superset with 4 sets of side bends at 12 reps per side with a 35 lb plate. It was good.

When we first got home I was starved so I had a TJ’s chicken nitrate free hot dog (60 measly cals 1 g carbs 1 g fat 9 g protein) with a little ketchup wrapped in a toasted Dave’s Killer Bread sprouted wheat slice. Dinner was only an hour later, it was chicken breast based and also had a small amount of yam and a large amount of kale. If I was in competition prep that would have been overeating, blowing a budget. Actually, I’m sitting here guilt-tripping myself about that and I shouldn’t be, haha. For my bedtime snack I had a Kashi 7 grain waffle (75 cals only 12.5 g carbs) smeared with my kryptonite, I mean Bees Knees peanut butter. If you have not tried it, don’t start! Well, unless you aren’t a bodybuilder, in which case, DO IT!!! Hehe. The uh kryptonite was accompanied by ¾ of a scoop of Optimum Gold Standard Whey with 6 oz. REAL milk. I must tell you, I will be MISSING dairy when it is gone again. I LOVE my dairy. I feel good about my whole grain and my protein, if I was in contest prep it would have been whey in water, no waffle, and 1 teaspoon of the pb on a spoon for a treat, maybe, depending on how many weeks in. I’m working up to that though, and I’m actually excited to be. Yay! =)

Stern-spiration

2011-06-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

C "doing pull-ups" I love that he loves the idea of training =)

Stern-spiration ;)

I’ve been pretty directionless lately. I should tell you that nothing bothers me more than not having my mind set on something: be it a near future goal, project, or long term plan. So when I’m without any of the above I STRESS OUT. The nicest way to describe how my quarter has been going is “less than stellar” a more accurate depiction would be “shitty.” I can be really great when I want to be, but if my goal is questionable at best and the going gets rough I get stubborn and shutdown. You would think being fully aware of it would be enough to right it, but nope. I have to have a purpose, a “thing” if you will to motivate and excel. I had this great float going up until now where all the coursework had a lot of direct relation to my work experience and I hadn’t particularly expected that trend to end. Then, boom, this quarter 2/3 of my classes were all brand new crap I’d never seen before, AT ALL. Stuff that’s hard to memorize, less than intuitive, and well shit I’ll use that word that I usually leave out of my vocabulary: HARD. I dropped one class a month ago in an attempt to save the other. It didn’t work; I fared even worse on the second midterm. Thankfully I have one class that still relates to what I know; one small point of success for the quarter. I’ve been having a hard time even studying for that final though. Why? The whole goal (become a CPA) I set in motion 3 years ago is faltering. Being a CPA in 10 years is practical when my son will hit his teens and no longer think it’s cool to hang out with mom, but until then he has a right to a present parent. I’m the one he’s got, sporadic hit and miss contributions from the other half of his genome aside. I need a good job that only asks for 40 hours a week. Personally, 60+ doesn’t put me off, but I’m obligated to shorty first and that would set him up to be raised by babysitters. Child or career, child or career? Many women do both, but that is far more fair in two parent households. I’m going to finish my B.A. in Accounting. I only have a year left so it would be silly not to. Does it make any sense to do a fifth year now to cover my CPA exam eligibility anyways? Who knows, the only certain selling factor I can list for that is it would keep C in the college preschool (which btw is the best preschool ever!) until he hits kindergarten. I’m trying my best to try something new: to be guided rather than to plan. I’m going to just say I’m a college student for the next year, not that I’m “working towards getting my CPA” as I’ve been saying for the last 3 years.

I’m going to be something else too though. I’m a BODYBUILDER and I’m going to own that and embrace it. I’ve been waffling since Emerald as to whether or not I ever wanted to compete again. Yes, publicly I’ve been saying I should do Ironman, but I didn't believe in it. I wanted to try competing outside of the NPC too and had my eye on an NANBF competition late this month. After Emerald I’d gotten setup with a nutritionist and trainer I met at Emerald and had planned to prep for the June competition. A week in I realized that I was still burnt out and my classes were kicking my ass (translation: shitty ass grades on midterms in two classes) so I dropped the plan to compete in favor of focusing on school. Surprise! It didn’t work.
Winter quarter I had 16 credits, was training 15+ hours a week for Emerald, spending 7 or so hours weekly on this blog, and January is what I fondly refer to as “bookkeeper’s hell month” (W-2s, year end, etc. on top of the usual grind). Yet despite all that going on I pulled out a 3.4 GPA, at the time I thought it crappy as I’d somehow managed a 4.0 till then, but looking back that 3.4 was GREAT. Now here I am not training, not blogging (well at the moment I am haha), not in the busy season, and I may not even come in high enough in a class to get credit on my degree for it. How can one explain that?

Here's how. I NEED BODYBUILDING. Training doesn’t just give me big muscles, take my body fat into the cool sub-normal person realm, and pump me full of endorphin highs. It does so much more. I love that it keeps me sane in times of maximum stress. I love the amazing friends it has allowed me to meet in the weight room. I love that my sweet and caring boyfriend kept giving me his number after watching me drip sweat squatting my bodyweight or curling 20s at his gym when I visited home (and that thankfully I eventually gave him a chance ;) I love that weight-lifting can be sexy and feminine. I love that my barely 4-year-old son loves going to the gym, plays with dumbbells at home, imitates Rich doing pull-ups, and bossily told me to “do it just like that momma” after watching a video of Erin Stern doing hang snatches last night. I love that I feel good when I sweat. I love that I’m better at all of life when I’m in training. I love bodybuilding.

How a pro does it :

At long last that lengthy lead up brings me to the Stern-spiration. Erin Stern is one of the top three figure pros right now, actually her and Nicole Wilkins-Lee have been duking it out lately for the top spot and it varies competition to competition which one is number one. On Facebook I have all three in my “likes” (Erin, Nicole, and Ava Cowan) so what posts on their pages shows up in my feed. Last night I happened to click on one of Erin’s videos. She may be HUGE in the figure world, but I felt like we could relate because she goes and props up her camera and walks off to start what she’s filming just like I have been for this blog. I also find her relatable because she started in track (a high jumper) and she still integrates hurdles into her workouts. I did track in high school and loved it so I can’t help but respect that. Last night I was watching her video on hang snatches and also one on cleans. I’d never done either, but it’s finals week and I’ve been wanting to throw a barbell from the frustration so it looked far too fun to not try.

I went to The Rec first thing this morning and ran smack into my friend / trainer Laura (yay!) then immediately into my friend Rachael (totally amazing power-lifter woman who can deadlift 395 lbs!) who showed me how to do a hang snatch. In a case of perfect timing there was a guy doing cleans in the next rack over so I got to see both, but we focused on the hang snatch. The bar weighs 45 lbs and we did that first for form. In the video there are some 10 lb plates thrown on and the cuffs are 2.5 lbs each bringing the bar to 70 lbs. Weanie! I know, as it turns out these ARE NOT something you just go throwing weight on (ya know, like squats ;) it takes a long time to get good form and build that strength up to roll heavy in Olympic lifting. I’m now doubly impressed / inspired that Erin Stern has a vid of herself doing 3 reps at 135 lbs. That’s hardcore! Especially while on a competition diet. Damn.

I’m going to start “officially” training for Ironman on the 24th of this month. It’s taking place September 24th. I’m going to shake up my routines and try some more crazy barbell throwing moves. For the moment we’ll call the hang snatch my new favorite move (replacing such former top hits as push-ups to failure, real pull-ups, and single arm bent over dumbbell rows). I also one upped my triceps bench dips today. I’ve done them at body weight to failure as the end move on my triceps circuit for a good while now, but Erin throws weight on and I’d been meaning to start. So today I did them with a 35 lb and a 10 lb plate on my lap (the 45 lb plate is just too big for my lap haha). Good fun =)

When in doubt, hit the weights!

Triceps to Failure Baby! AKA The Stuff That Makes Me Tick =)

2011-05-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. I decided last night that it was time to start writing down what I eat again. Until you are keeping a log you can make yourself believe that you’re behaving when you really aren’t. After about three days I should be back in the groove of it. I went Tupperware crazy tonight too and I have a bunch of mini meals made up for the next few days.

Oddly, what managed to cause my great day today was my kinda misguided attempt to wean myself off of coffee (to less not none) this morning. I’ve become a 3-cupper (12 oz. mugs) and I’d like to get back to only 1. So I did that, left the house with none on the go and only 1 cup ingested. My friends Karen and Hannah noted my glazey hazey look when I came to class and apparently my friend Erica saw me in the hall and tried to get my attention and I never had a clue she’d been near. Umm yeah, I apparently “run” on coffee more than I realized. I’d gone to class in workout clothes with the intention of hitting The Rec immediately after class. I headed over, but wondering how I was going to get going and get in a meaningful workout I decided to buy this random zero cal energy drink called Redline that was in the vending machine. It did not taste good at all, ewww! Coffee is where the yum is at ;) The Redline did, however, pack 316 mg of caffeine amongst other things.

So the jitters from the first half of my workout were caffeine derived, but the latter half? Muscle quivers! Pure depletion, lactic acid baby, love it! =)

I went in intending to hit shoulders / biceps / triceps. I hit shoulders and biceps with a dumbbell barbell combo circuit and then moved onto triceps. Triceps are my favorite muscle and it has been REALLY bugging me that I have not been maintaining them well since Emerald. I wound up doing 4 separate circuits, that’s triple my usual triceps training. The first of the circuits was the most intense. It was:

DB Single Arm OH Triceps Extensions x 10 lbs x 8-10 reps ea arm
DB Triceps Kickbacks x 15 lbs x 10-12 reps ea arm
DB Standing Triceps Extensions x 20 lbs TO FAILURE
Body Weight Bench Dips TO FAILURE

All of the above repeated for 5 total sets.

And then moving on to 3 more triceps circuits of 3-6 sets each (click pic to enlarge for full details if that kind of thing interests you :)
I literally had to drag myself out of the weight room

Once I get in the zone I just want to keep going and going and have to make myself stop. I did and headed up for 30 min on the Stepmill followed up by 3 sets of 4 abs exercises and some brief stretching for a total of 2.5 hours at The Rec. Yay!
I then went and sat in the lounge area to clear 2 chapters of reading in my cost acct book. All in all staying in The Rec makes me far more productive both at clearing studying and working out. That’s going to be my new rule, avoid going home and avoid computer labs. Put me in front of a computer and I will just dink around convince myself distraction is justified and not accomplish much. The Rec is the land for me :)

So what’s up with all the circuits? I’ve long been into supersets and drop sets, but never really did much circuit stuff. Since my last post I’ve gained 210 lbs and it’s been really wonderful. That would be my sweet funny amazing boyfriend Rich who I dare say may actually be a bigger gym rat than me. He has the arms, chest, and lats to prove it too :) One of the days we worked out together I managed to out one rep max him! Hip adductors: I could do 180 lbs and he only made 170 lbs, but anything upper body he outlifts me by like 5x! His big thing is taking over as many weight benches as he can muster and setting up a bunch of free weight stations that he then runs through expediently as a circuit. Smart, huh? :) So I’m copycatting to a degree. He includes machines too and tends to hit multiple muscle groups in a single circuit. I prefer straight free weights and maybe some cable station stuff and hitting a single muscle group on my circuits, like today’s triceps. I do have to say the gym is an awesome date venue. Think I’m strange? Probably :) but doing something you totally love with your sweetheart who loves it as much as you do along with sweaty endorphin rushes for all involved is beyond fun in my book :)

Today’s counts:

1,783 cals Ingested (33% Protein 45% Carbs 22% Fat)
(1,448) BMR
(1,072) Training Burn
(737) Net Loss =)

Thank Goodness!!!

2011-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Phew!

So I’ve been MIA because the post competition crash hit me. Not everyone does, some stay right on track, but many competitors crash post contest. You now, don’t want to go to the gym, eat complete crap, gain just over 5 lbs in barely 2 weeks. Ok, that was me =)I have been in the gym some. Getting back on track more this week, even am cardio empty-stomached at 6 am twice this week. I had a leg day late last week that left me ridiculously sore for over 3 days, yay! The last 2 months headed to competition I wasn’t getting any DOMS at all anymore. I did back, chest, and mini biceps today and am hoping to feel that tomorrow too.

I’ve been worried about diet though, big time. Worried that I was not ever going to get back on the proverbial horse, but rather keep eating one!

Then tonight, while coaching this REALLY cute guy on contest nutrition who has been coaching me on new lat and shoulder stuff, I got it back! I actually WANT to eat clean again. Thank freaking goodness or I was going to be in major trouble in another month. So I packed up 3 meals for school tomorrow: 1 pb Think Thin Bar, 5 oz. Isernio’s Italian Sausage with ½ cup sweet potato, and another 5 oz. Isernio’s Italian Sausage with 1 cup broccoli. So excited for oatmeal with whey for breakfast and those meals on campus, plus 2 more clean meals at home. Phew, my motivation is back!!!

(I was getting pretty damn worried it wasn’t going to return!)

Oh, and if you ever wondered Give Me Everything Tonight by Pitbull and featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer is the absolute best song to dance around your house to with an iPod late in the night. Also great in the weight room or for cardio =) I can't find the actual official music vid on YouTube just lots of random ones so no embedded vid tonight unfortunately!

The Emerald Cup

2011-04-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

See the "Ecup Pics" posts below / in the sidebar for additional pictures. (Blogger limits how many I can put in each post.)

Let’s just get the disappointing part out of the way first. I was last in my class, barely, but I was. Based on how they score I wasn’t last in Figure, but I was last in my class and that’s what gets recorded. Each judge rates you based on what place they think you should be out of the group on stage, all seven judge’s choices are tallied up and that’s your score. The higher your score the worse you place. I was one of 14 women in Open Figure Class D (5’4” – 5’5”) and I received the following: 14, 14, 12, 13, 14, 12, 14. I’m thankful that at least two judges put me 3rd from last, but my total score was 67 against two other girls at 65 and 64 so it was very close, but I still came in last. Ecup is a big show, the biggest around these parts, and it is untested. Laura had warned me back in the beginning that it was a somewhat crazy choice for a first show and that was true, but I did it, I don’t regret it, and I’m proud of it. I also now know exactly what I need to hone to become competitive.

Even if you don’t actually know me in person you know me a little from reading my blog so that means you know I always find a way to put a positive spin on everything, right? =)

So here goes! I’m glad I competed. I handled my stung pride smartly. I waited around until the very end of the show so that I could go talk to the judges and ask for feedback on my top weaknesses. If I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn and improve for my next competition. What cost me in placing?

1) My lat spread. This was no surprise. I knew going in that pulling out my lats was my biggest weakness. I did not have the back quarter turn nailed and my lats are still small to begin with. I simply have not been weightlifting or practicing posing long enough yet. The really great thing though was that a woman bodybuilder was standing right there and she showed and helped me try a method of pulling out my lats that I hadn’t seen before. It worked well for me and I’ll keep practicing it. She was really nice too. I have a ton of respect for women who do full bore bodybuilding. Figure is intense, but bodybuilding takes it up a few more notches beyond.

2) They want to see more shoulders on me. I need to rip out my delts to the point that they are visibly differentiated from my biceps and triceps when my arm is unflexed. Like three separate big bumps of beautiful muscle per arm.

3) I’m not lean enough. They’d like to see me shed another 3 or so pounds and I need to get down to around 11% body fat.

4) This one is the kicker. My suit hurt me. The style of bikini top I was wearing has thicker neck straps than the other girls were wearing (see pics below) and it covered up muscle. The judge told me that when it is a really close call small details like your suit can hurt you. I’m definitely getting it altered before my next show, no question.

This entry has been so slow in posting for two reasons. I needed to allow my stung pride to dissipate before I was willing to publicly say I came in last in my class and I went and spent the rest of the weekend with some of my best friends. My friends mean the world to me. I’m an only child which I believe gives me license to call family as I see it. Kelly has been in my life since 4th grade; Eli has been in my life since 7th grade. Interestingly we’re all only children. So is Eli’s girlfriend, Krysta, who grew up with us as well and our friend Quinn who now lives out of state was too. Funny how we all flock together. But Kelly and Eli are really family to me. They’ve always been there through the good, the bad, and the ugly and I love them dearly for it and also just for all that makes them who they are. We’re still quite new in each other’s lives, but my friend Darene also always has my back and is a beyond awesome inspirational strong person. I love her too. In the last year after moving I’ve been lucky to meet some wonderful new friends at school and at my gym. You know who you are =) I feel so lucky to have been supported by everyone in this experience. All your kind words kept me up and meant the world. The people in it are what make my world beautiful.

I especially want to thank my trainer, Laura. More than all she taught me in the gym she has been just amazing at playing moral support while I was at The Emerald Cup feeling intimidated. I’m so thankful / happy to have her as a friend and resource. Also, I’m totally proud of her! She took 4th place (tied for 3rd and then got 4th by 1 judge) in the tall bikini class at The Emerald Cup. Woot woot! She works REALLY hard and deserved that trophy big time =)

I’m going to keep blogging, but no longer on a daily basis, probably weekly or as bloggable interesting things in my training strike me.

Oh, and The Washington Ironman, September 24, 2011? It’s on ;)

Ecup Pics 1 of 4

2011-04-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

Ecup Pics 2 of 4

2011-04-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Ecup Pics 3 of 4

2011-04-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Ecup Pics 4 of 4

2011-04-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

T-1 Day

2011-04-14T19:53:00.001-07:00

Day 96

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I’m at the host hotel. I think I’ve practically already written a blog post in the form of my numerous excitable / freakoutable FaceBook updates, lol. I’m waiting for my ‘Seared tuna, balsamic grilled vegetables, mixed greens and pesto vinaigrette” from room service. As this is the host hotel they have these snazzy little extra “Emerald Cup Menus” printed up that purport to be prepared without any salt or oil so as to pertain to our competitor diets. Crap, I just reread the menu and I totally should have ordered the “bay shrimp, crisp romaine, boiled egg whites, avocado, corn and sundried tomato vinaigrette.” Damn that sounds even better, ah well. I’m surprised that there is so much broccolini on the competitor’s menu; don’t they know broccoli makes you bloat? Sheesh. I avoided the tasty dishes that had brocolini as I’d feel silly abandoning a veggie on my plate.

I am very very tan right now. It is entertaining. I also have the green armpits my trainer warned me about. I didn’t wear any deodorant today, but it happened anyways. Luckily they don’t show onstage!

They just brought my food and it was the wrong thing. The salmon with mashed sweet potatoes and broccolini. Having been formerly in the restaurant business I like to roll with the flow on mistakes, but I can’t eat the broccolini and my carbs are too high already for the sweet potatoes so I called to have it replaced. I hate doing that, but well, yeah.

I am so thankful and lucky to have Laura, my PT. She has warned me about so many things that if she hadn’t I might freak out about. The green armpits are a good example! She also warned me that you are butt naked in little not very private tents when they airbrush tan you so you see a lot of your competition naked and they see you. I must say that was intimidating and threw me off my game. A lot of these women are so sculpted that they make me look flat and fat. I realize that I look great and am my no means fat and that my body fat percentage is 13.1%, but apparently some of these women have single digit BF%s. I don’t know that I would ever be willing to do that. Then I was chatting with a guy who does nutrition for competitors and mid-conversation he said “not for me to take any offense, but that I currently looked like his clients do walking around regularly.” As in, not going into contest. He’d also said that he keeps his client’s 30 days out from contest consistently in terms of look so it wasn’t totally insulting, but gee, way to throw my confidence, thanks!
When I went down to do the early check in tonight I found out that I’m taller than I thought! I had registered way back for the over 5’4” to 5’5” figure class, but I got bumped up to the over 5’5” to 5’6” class because they got me at 5’5 ½ “. I’m feeling positive about it though. I like to think that I will look more muscular in a taller class. Sounds good anyways right? That's my competitor goody bag in the picture at the top.

I can’t wait for Kelly and Eli to arrive. It’s a bit lonely being here by myself and makes it easier to get disconcerted. I’m excited to see them too, just for the sake of seeing them, living 2+ hours apart we don’t see each other in person as much as I’d like to.

Here are my macros before the seared tuna salad coming from room service:

98.6 grams Protein 113.4 grams Carbs 54.7 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,340.3 Ingested
(1,448) BMR

The tuna will delete the prospective net loss, but will accrue the protein I’m missing. Here’s hoping it arrives soon. I’m starved! I have a mini fridge full of chicken, round eye steak, asparagus, oatmeal and strawberries that I packed from home, but I wanted to try the special competitor’s menu for fun and a little variety from my own cooking! I’m not going to stress about perfect tracking tonight. T-1 day out = I think I’ve earned a tad of relaxation =)

Update: The Tuna FINALLY arrived and the pesto vinaigrette is F-ing DELICIOUS!

Hehe ;)

(Inspired by my friend Darene and my own mind too - we think a like!)

Love her mucho! Wish she could be here =)

Next competition she will!

Packing, Prepping, and a Pedicure

2011-04-13T21:53:00.001-07:00

I finally got my yellow carrots tonight! Carbs are allowed! They were sooo good because they were juicy and my mouth has been feeling dry all afternoon. Juicy vegetables are where it's at! Lol.

Day 95

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Not too much to report today. I started rationing my water. I was supposed to cap fluids at 1/4 gallon (32 oz.) but I went 6 oz. over coming in at 38 oz. I usually take in 100-130 oz. daily so this is the tough part for me. Oddly, it reduces hunger. I had intended to only take in 1,500 cals which was an arbitrary number so I'm not bothered that I clocked in just over 1,600. No training today on account of the fluid restraint.

Tomorrow my fluids will go down by half. What's ot fun is most mornings I have 3 big cups of coffee and this morning I only had one small one. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow as my fluid budget is going down to 18 oz. So I'll lose half if I have a cup of coffee,but I'm also hitting the road for a 2 hour drive to the host hotel in the morning and I want my coffee! =)

I got a pedicure today so I have pretty toes for the competition. It was a good way to distract myself from not being able to drink at a time of day I'm usually sucking down 2-3 water bottles.

I've just been packig for the last 3 hours. Yes I'm only going on a couple night trip. It's the cooler that takes time. I have tupperwares of oatmeal prepped, a big one of sliced strawberries, a ziploc containing 2 bunches of steamed asparagus, tupperwares of cooked and sliced eye of round steak, some chicken breast, Isernio's chicken sausages, a tupperware of sweet potato, and these 45 cal (5 p 3 c 1.5 f) diabetic friendly Danon yogurts. My cooler is ready to roll!

I also needed my NPC card, posing suit, tickets for my friends, clear posing heels, bikini bite, muscle juice posing oil, glitzy bracelet, ring, and earrings, super dark makeup to match the fake tan I'll be getting, sweats to wear backstage, sheets so I don't stain the hotel's and get billed (from the tan, a resistance band in case the pump up room is packed, all kinds of stuff.

I'm looking forward to bed. Night!

Macros

126.7 grams Protein 172.2 grams Carbs 47.5 grams Fat

Cal Tally
1,623.1 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
175.1 Net Gain

Carbs are intentionally high. Today and tomorrow are the days I'm carb loading.

I'm all Woman, but my BF % Qualifies me as a Male Athlete. That's Entertaining!

2011-04-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Day 95

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

This will likely be my shortest entry. Laura tested my body fat in the Bod Pod for the 3rd time today. I was at 13.1% and my weight is down to 136.7 lbs so I am made up of 18.0 lbs of fat and 118.7 lbs of lean mass. There’s the printout. (click to enlarge)

My body fat progress has been as follows:

January 18th, 2011 20.4%

March 17th, 2011 15.1%

April 12, 2011 13.1%

I’ve managed to shed 7.3% in three months despite my beginning number having already been on the cusp of “Athletes” / “Fitness.” I’m proud of that. I’m also now just entering the “Essential Fat” zone which in women is 10-13%. What is essential fat? It’s the stuff that’s in your organs and in other places where it is essential to your physiology and healthy functioning. In Bikini 14-16% is commonplace, Figure 12-15%, Women’s Bodybuilding goes even lower than that. Just in case anyone is a new reader or plum forgot, I’m competing in figure =) I’m official now; my body fat means I’m for real or at least by my logic of the moment. I’m also feeling it now. I’m just finishing my 3rd and final day of carb-deplete. I’m exhausted. I had planned to, but I’m not going to do cardio tomorrow morning. I don’t need to take my fat one iota lower. Some women do, yes, but I don’t want to. I need to strike a balance. Today may have been the last day of training, unless I’m stressed tomorrow. Then I will circuit train for 20 minutes for stress relief.

My day isn’t over yet, I have one more meal coming. I may carb it up and have a big bowl of oatmeal. It would be 12 hours early, but I feel like I may actually need some carbs. Here are my stats as of 7:30 pm. I’m fading fast and don’t want to need to do this later, thus the early and unfinished log/blog post for today:
I did 23 min of cardio on an AMT machine and 30 min of circuit weight training. Free weights, but lower weight and high reps.

Macros

As of 7:30 pm: 101.9 grams Protein 117 grams Carbs 49.6 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,322 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR)
(448) Training Burn
(574) Net Loss Planned to be reduced by 378 cals (up to by 1,700 budget) for an end net loss of (196)

Gold's Gym is Where This all Started =)

2011-04-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

It's true. Before we even moved here Gold's Gym became my plan for sanity. C man was going to be out of preschool for a full 2 months which meant zero guaranteed breaks or "me time" for me. As any parent knows, that is not good. So I went searching online. I found Gold's and I found they had onsite childcare a whopping 7 days a week. I was elated! When we moved and we went there to check it out it was a nice clean happy big room with loads of things to do a and a friendly caring staff (translation: a place you can feel good about leaving your kiddo behind in). I signed up for unlimited right off the bat and we've been going ever since. Then I started Body Pump classes, got obsessed / addicted with weight training and eventually found Laura to teach me all things free weights at The Rec on campus.

Day 94

Monday, April 11, 2011

Things are starting to get hard now. I’m questioning everything. I’m especially worried that I’m not going to coordinate the water deplete with the carb deplete / load correctly and that I will end up looking flat on show day. I’m also quite hungry and tired. I almost screwed up carb deplete allowance, but had to skip all veggies at dinner to right my ratios. I just finished eating some almonds and olives because my fat intake was too low, protein was headed high, and carbs were already maxed. My dinner consisted of 4 Isernio’s chicken apple breakfast sausage links. I REALLY wanted steamed yellow carrots I have in the freezer from Trader Joe’s with them, but I had to refrain because I couldn’t afford the carbs in the carrots. That’s kind of screwed up, huh?

I got up and did 50 min of cardio at 6:20 am this morning. I then trained my back and chest at Gold’s this afternoon for 45 minutes followed by 20 minutes on the StairMaster and a quickie abs circuit.

I did get some good news today. I won my category (females age 18-29) in The Gold’s Gym 12 Week Total Body Transformation Challenge. There weren’t a whole lot of us in the contest, but I am still proud. It is a good feeling. They’ll send my info and pics off to the Gold’s Gym national level on account of it, but I’m not expecting anything to come of that.

Macros 185.4 grams Protein 125.4 grams Carbs 43.8 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,637.4 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,140) Training Burn
950.6 Net Loss

Carbs were too high by 15 grams though. I have to back up and remind myself that this is my 1st competition, an experiment, not perfection.

What Peak Week Really Looks Like

2011-04-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

My manicure paired with iron makes me laugh, so I took a picture.

The tupperware is back!

That was dinner AKA meal 4 of 6.
(That's a salad plate)

Day 93

T-5 Days

Day 1 of Carb Deplete

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Today has been interesting. I’m very strict now. The entire contest prep diet has been low on carbs, but I just started carb depleting today so my former macro allowance by 40%. I’m also gradually trimming my calorie allowance. Today the cap was 1,700. Wednesday and Thursday I will not be working out at all due to the water depleting so I may cut as low as 1,500 on my cal budget, but those days I will be carb loading. I still need to go read up on how many carbs constitute “loading.” I’m not sure if it is going back up to where I was (170 +/- grams a day) or a little bite more than that.

I went to Gold’s this afternoon and began with cardio as I feared I would try and wuss out on it if I did weights first as usual. I wound up doing a full 90 minutes on the StairMaster. I had initially set it for 40 on speed intervals level 10, then I decided to tack on another 20 of fat burner level 10 and by the time that was over I was just in the cardio zone so I tacked on another 30 of speed intervals level 10. That all culminated to 865 cals burned, 8.79 miles, and 424 floors climbed.
Hehehehehe I think the peak week craziness has hit. Truth be told I wanted to keep going and do two ours, but I made myself quit realizing that I had already made it that much harder to stay on track with my cal / macro numbers tonight as cardio seems to incite extra hunger. I went brief on weights after that. Only 40 minutes encompassing a shoulder circuit, biceps circuit, and triceps circuit. I’ll combine back and chest tomorrow.

Gold’s Gym 2:40 – 5:20 pm

StairMaster:

40 min Speed Intervals Level 10 381 Cals Burned 3.85 miles 186 floors climbed
20 min Fat Burner Level 10 196 Cals Burned 2.01 miles 97 floors climbed
30 min Speed Intervals Level 10 288 Cals Burned 2.93 miles 141 floors climbed
5 minutes stretching
5 mg Glutamine taken in water to prevent muscle loss

You’ll see me numbers of sets, numbers of exercises per body part, and weights are all down from the usual. During peak week you’re supposed to cut back and not lift more than 80% your usual weight and favor higher reps and circuit training. Or at least that’s what some of the ton of conflicting info I’ve read has said, haha ;)

Shoulder Circuit:

1. Dumbbell Alternating Shoulder Presses 20 lbs x 18 reps
Barbell Upright Rows 40 lbs x 10 reps
Barbell Military Presses 40 lbs x 8 reps
2. Dumbbell Alternating Shoulder Presses 20 lbs x 16 reps
Barbell Upright Rows 40 lbs x 10 reps
Barbell Military Presses 40 lbs x 6 reps
3. Dumbbell Alternating Shoulder Presses 20 lbs x 16 reps
Barbell Upright Rows 40 lbs x 10 reps
Barbell Military Presses 40 lbs x 10 reps

Biceps Circuit:

1. Seated Barbell Curls 40 lbs x 10 reps
Dumbbell Seated Alt. Hammer Curls 20 lbs x 16 reps
2. Seated Barbell Curls 40 lbs x 12 reps
Dumbbell Seated Alt. Hammer Curls 20 lbs x 18reps
3. Seated Barbell Curls 40 lbs x 18 reps
Dumbbell Seated Alt. Hammer Curls 20 lbs x 26 reps

Triceps Circuit:

1. Dumbbell Kickbacks 15 lbs x 10 reps each arm (full set then switch)
Dumbbell Standing Overhead Extensions 20 lbs x 12 reps
Body Weight Bench Dips to Failure 16 reps
2. Dumbbell Kickbacks 15 lbs x 10 reps each arm (full set then switch)
Dumbbell Standing Overhead Extensions 20 lbs x 12 reps
Body Weight Bench Dips to Failure 14 reps
3. Dumbbell Kickbacks 15 lbs x 12 reps each arm (full set then switch)
Dumbbell Standing Overhead Extensions 20 lbs x 12 reps
Body Weight Bench Dips to Failure 18 reps

Remember how I used to log everything I ate in each blog entry? Well I’m going to bring that back today to show how peak week differs:

8:30 am
1 slice sprouted wheat seed bread (6 g P, 23 g C, 3 g F)
4 Isernio’s Chicken Apple Sausage Links (26 g P, 6 g C, 5 g F)
½ cup Strawberries (0.6 g P, 6.4 g C, 0.2 g F)
Coffee + creamer x 2 (0 g P, 8 g C, 3 g F)

11:50 am
½ cup plain sweet potato (1 g P, 18.8 g C, 0.1 g F)
5 oz. Isernio’s Spicy Italian Chicken Sausage (26 g P, 2 g C, 6 g F)
Coca-Cola Cherry Zero (0)

2:00 pm
1 Tablespoon Natty Peanut Butter (4.5 g P, 3.5 g C, 7.5 g F)
1 scoop Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey Cake Batter Flavor (24 g P, 3 g C, 1 g F)
8 oz. Silk Soymilk Plain Sugar Free (7 g P, 4 g C, 4 g F)
½ cup plain sweet potato (1 g P, 18.8 g C, 0.1 g F)

6:30 pm
6 oz. leanest cut ground beef with salt and pepper (43.7 g P, 0 g C, 10 g F)
8 plain steamed asparagus spears (2.8 g P, 5 g C, 0.1 g F)
1 cup steamed spinach with a splash of ponzu (5.3 g P, 6.8 g C, 0.5 g F)

8:15 pm
4 oz. spiced baked chicken breast (26.1 g P, 0 g C, 1.4 g F)
2.5 cups baby butter lettuce greens (1 g P, 2 g C, 0 g F)
1 teaspoon each cherry balsamic vinegar and rice wine vinegar (0)
Hot tea Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange Spice no sweetener (0)

9:50 pm
Peanut Butter Think Thin Bar (20 g P 24 g C 8 g F)
1 cup decaf coffee w/ 1 T creamer (0 g P 4 g C 1.5 g F)

After the gym I popped up to the mall to snag a pair of sweatpants I’ve walked by quite a few times. I read a packing for competition article last night on bodybuilding.com and hadn’t previously thought of the need for a zip sweatshirt and drawstring loose sweatpants for show day. I bought the XS and they fit right. That’s new! The sweats were at Victoria Secret. I’ve also been meaning to get a new bra because of fit issues and as expected I bought one a full size smaller than my usual. Bodybuilding doesn’t make everything bigger, it makes some things smaller, haha. Let’s just say I now better understand why so many figure pros have fake boobs and leave it at that. I also bought some purple eye shadow and dark pink sparkly eyeliner they had by the checkout counter. They will have a makeup artist doing all the competitors at the show, but things can get crazy and run behind backstage so I want to come prepared to do my own backstage if I have to. I haven’t put on black pencil liner in years much less sparkly pink liquid liner so I had better practice a lot. I’ll also need fake eyelashes and I haven’t a clue about those. We may be strong women who lift with sweat men for hours upon hours a week, but when it comes down to competition day there sure are a lot of beauty pageant-esque elements mixed in.

Macros

195 grams Protein 114.5 grams Carbs 51.4 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,700.6 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,126) Training Burn (865 Cardio 261 Weights)
(873.4) Net Loss Oh Yeah =)

My protein is running heavy, but when you carb deplete your cals have to come from somewhere. My cal count is perfect, right where I wanted it. I’m a few grams heavier on carbs than I wanted, under 110 grams was my goal. It’s premeditated though. I tallied this all up before eating the Think Thin Bar and drinking the decaf. Those extra 4 grams of carbs over my goal are totally worth it to have my cup of decaf with creamer. I need the hot liquid with the bar to feel satisfied and while I could drink unsweetened tea for 0 cars and cals the decaf with 1 T of creamer is soooooooooooooooo much more satisfying =) Off to make it and drink it now. Goodnight!

Yummity Yum Shrimp Louie! 53 g P 11 g C 10 g F What a Lovable Ratio Too! =)

2011-04-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

Day 92

Saturday, April 9, 2011

I am officially turning into a total spaz. I almost forgot to write this tonight. Today was my last serious leg workout. I did a squat rack pyramid, skier and sumo smith machine squats, unilateral smith machine squats, smith machine lunges, 4 types of walking lunges (20 lb dumbbells, 8 lb mb side twists, glute squeezes, 40 lb barbells), a massive 8 set helping of cable kickbacks, cable hip ad/abductors, prone single leg curls, and single leg extensions. Altogether it was about an hour and 20 minutes which only left me with 15 minutes for the Stairmaster. Tomorrow I need to hit triceps, biceps, shoulders, and chest plus a long cardio session. Then Monday I’ll do back and cardio. Tuesday will be the last day I can work out and I will probably do a circuit of my two favorite exercises per body part. Which means of course cable kickbacks, pull-ups, and dumbbell single arm bent over rows will be involved! =)

Why is Tuesday the cutoff? Because Tuesday I will be limited to 1 gallon of water, Wednesday 1/2 gallon, and Thursday 1/4 gallon. No, I don’t get to have other drinks beyond that. I’ve decided to water deplete. It’s standard practice in figure and I don’t want to disadvantage myself on stage after how much time and effort I’ve put in over the last 3 months. Tomorrow through Tuesday I will be carb-depleting and then I will carb load on Wednesday and Thursday. The word load is misleading here; it’s still nothing like a normal diet. Friday morning I will only be able to have sips of water and a few bites of carbs before pre-judging. Rice cakes are a popular option. I’m not happy w/o coffee, but my trainer made the smartest suggestion: take a Starbucks Via packet and mix it with only 1 or 2 oz. of hot water and take it like a shot. Smart, huh?

I love shrimp Louie salads. They’re tasty and spring weather makes me crave them. They’re high protein, low carb, and if you make your own Thousand Island like I do low-fat too. My entire dressing was ½ T mayo (yes mayo, 6 g fat) 1 T ketchup (4 g carbs) and pickle juice with black pepper. I had a massive 9 oz. of shrimp meat and then 2.5 cups baby butter lettuce greens. The whole plate clocked in at 53 g protein, 11 g carbs, and 10 g fat. Great ratio! A satisfying meal too. I would normally have added an avocado, olives, tomato, and cucumber, but not on this diet, and especially not during peak week.

Alrighty, I swear I had more interesting things to say earlier today, but they’ve escaped. It's time to rest anyways!

Macros

150.9 grams Protein 153.5 grams Carbs 47.3 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,643.3 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(682) Training Burn
(486.7) Net Loss =)

My Blood is Sea Green

2011-04-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

(Click to enlarge)

Day 91

Friday, April , 2011

Peak Week started today. One week from right now The Emerald Cup will be behind me. I’m tired and very much ready for bed now, but I had a good day. I got up for cardio bright and early this morning. I got a haircut. I got my fake nails done. I got put through a killer 50 minute plyometrics session by Laura, my PT. She said the goal was to shock my body. I think it worked. She also brought in a friend of hers, who is in training to be a judge, for posing tips. I got some great tips from him and now know about a slight shoulder rotation I need to do when popping my lats out to better nail my back pose. Yay!

I’m not sure how I feel right now. I’m part intimidated, part ready to sleep for 5 days straight, part excitable. On Monday I’ll find out how many other women are in my class. Here’s hoping it is 15 or under! I have my nails done, my posing suit, my competition heels, my glitzy bracelet and earrings, my NPC card, my bikini bite, my posing oil should be here Tuesday. Laura will test my body fat for the third and final time on Tuesday morning. I really hope it is at 13 point something percent. It’s a reasonable hope based on the last reading (15.1%) and my behavior since then. I have visible veins everywhere. I find it extremely entertaining and simultaneously freaky. I have a very cool hairdresser, Amy, she thinks this whole thing I’m up to is really interesting and inspiring. She had me flex for one of her coworkers today too, then I showed her my arm veins and her eyes got huge. I understand; they’re pretty surreal in person! That pic up there doesn’t do them justice (wish I had a DSLR!), but gives you an idea of them.

Speaking of cool people in my life, Laura, my PT, is so inspirational. She’s a kinesiology major and she really knows her stuff. Her goal is to get her pro card. She competes in the bikini class (less bulk than figure, but they have to work equally hard to train) and she is hardcore. She just did a competition one week ago and she’s also doing Ecup. So what is she doing in between, in addition to her regular training? Boot camp! Boot camp that meets 3 days a week and is put on by a former NFL guy! She has 4 competitions behind her and has taken as high as 2nd place. When she gets her first 1st place finish, damn, it will be deserved =) P.S. I think this boot camp business relates to the very challenging plyos session she put me through this afternoon. I was shocked at how hard the abs set was. Click on the list – all of those abs moves will make you hurt 3 reps in – no joke.

It’s really fun to have fake nails again. I got them regularly for a brief time, but that was 7ish years ago when my friend Brooke and I used to get them together. That was a happy time in my life, even though I was totally gym-less then, haha. Miss seeing more of you Brooke! I’ll probably keep my nails a month or so beyond the competition for fun =)

I’m all over the board tonight aren’t I? That last pic is C and I being big dorks in the kitchen when I was taking the vein pic. He likes to “flex” his big shoulder-padded in Spider-man muscles. We’re, uh, not your average family ;)

Macros

143.5 grams Protein 188.7 grams Carbs 54.3 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,817.5 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(762) Training Burn*
(392.5) Net Loss =)

Guesstimated the 50 min ploys session at 450 cals

My Kiddo Keeps Me In Line

2011-04-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

Day 90

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Nope! Not going to do the pizza aka crap-loading thing. I didn’t look bloated this morning, but there was no dramatic difference in my muscle shape or fullness either. I did, however, weigh exactly 1.5 lbs more than the day prior. Day to day weight fluctuations are totally normal, but I’m not going to eat something the night before the competition that incites an upswing in my weight. I’ll also feel much more prepared mentally if I eat chicken and oatmeal the night before. If I eat completely clean I’ll feel smart and prepared going in. This sport may appear physical, but when it comes down to pulling it off the biggest feat is mindset maintenance, no question.

So I have my real PT Laura who totally rocks, but I also have a live in very influential personal trainer. His name is Charlie, he’ll be 4 later this month, and I should listen to him all the time. He tried to stop me from ordering that pizza yesterday. He kept saying he’d rather have the salmon (king, fresh, on sale, woohoo!) we’d gotten at the store. I finally talked him into going pro pizza with promises of delivery being exciting. He was right though, we should have had the salmon. We had it tonight and it was deliciously tasty. It is so rich compared to the fish I’ve had lately due to the higher fat content that eating a small portion works – you still feel satisfied.

Today my only free time was between 9 am and 12 pm and I REALLY needed to, ya know, do some of those assignments from that full load of accounting classes I keep on the side ;) It is really hard to want to prioritize anything but The Emerald Cup this close, but I can’t blow off the obligations that existed prior and in the grand scheme probably take precedence. I was worried it could mean a skip day so I did a full 50 minutes for am cardio instead of the usual 25-30. When evening rolled around and we got home from school I asked C what he wanted to do: stay home or go to the gym? He was all pro gym. I was all tired and complacent and I tried to sell him the merits of staying home. No go. He was really insistent, stuck to his guns on this one. I’m glad he did though, he was right. I would have had regrets if we hadn’t gone. We only stayed one hour instead of the usual two though as going at all was pushing Mr. Non-napper’s bedtime as it was. He gets excited to see his gym friends and I think he is overall largely in it for the shake he often talks me into getting him on the way out =) I trained back and abs while we were there: two variations of lat pulldowns, dumbbell bent over single rows, two variations of seated cable rows, straight arm dumbbell pullovers, DB Decline Push Crunches, and DB Side Bends.

I am very pleased with how I ate today: totally clean. Great macro ratios and under my cal budget too. I started a new class today. It is totally outside of my realm: it’s an every other week dialogue group on creative learning. It’s just one credit and it is pass/fail which is perfect. What was so funny though is that when I showed up they had bowls of those pink and white frosted and rainbow sprinkle covered animal shaped cookies sitting out everywhere for munching. Haha, I didn’t touch them! I did have a small handful of the pretzels, my carbs still clocked in low today and they appeared to be whole grain pretzels :P If I take 13 credits instead of 12 for a few quarters I can avoid having to take another 16 credit quarter, thus the desire for a one credit class. I can do 16 credits, but it’s a gpa killer and a major stress upper. Most importantly, I suck at giving Charlie undivided focus when we’re home with 16 credits and that’s not fair to him. With 12-13 I have enough breathing room to prioritize our quality time together.

Macros

151.3 grams Protein 147 grams Carbs 52.2 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,663 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(892) Training Burn
(677) Net Loss =)

Pizza with Purpose

2011-04-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't been on the scale at home in a good while.Turns out I'm at the lowest I've been in almost 6 years. I wasn't anywhere near this lean back then though. As for the other pictures, read on:

Day 89

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I’m down to the wire for planning my peak week. I’ve heard about four different approaches directly from people who’ve done it and I’ve read many many more. There’s sodium manipulation, carb depletion followed by carb loading, fat loading, and water depletion. Some people do all, some one or two, some none. Most recently I read about “crap loading.” No, don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds! Basically that means you eat crappy food for dinner the night before your show. It’s essentially doing your big cheat meal 24 hours early, but for a purpose. Time and time again I see people writing on the forums about amateurs looking way better the day after their show than the day of. Why? The cheat meal they had after. A big influx of carbs and sodium inflates and hardens your muscles by filling them with glycogen and the sodium draws the water in where it is supposed to be instead of spilling over and flattening out your look, or so they say. I don’t have the time for a trial run peak week, but a trial run of crap loading, to determine whether or not I should include it in my peak week was doable.

I put a lot of thought into this. There is a local non-chain pizza place I love, but pizza has substantial variance and I need carbs and sodium to be constants not variables here. Answer? Domino’s. There’s one here that delivers and there is one within delivery range of the host hotel for my crap dinner the night before the show if I do it. I had 4 slices for a total of 36 grams Protein 104 grams Carbs and 32 grams Fat. Craziness! I haven’t had a meal with that many carbs in it in months! That’s more than 60% of my total daily carbs allowance and more than 50% of my total daily fat allowance, but only about 20% of my daily Protein allowance. You can see why bodybuilders consider pizza to be “crap,” don’t get me wrong, we think it’s yummy just like you do, but it is the opposite of what is needed to lean out and cut body fat. If a bodybuilder was a car, putting pizza in it would be like putting diesel in a gas engine. You won’t be getting on the road to your goal anytime soon!

Alrighty, I’ll stop dissing pizza before I offend everyone! I decided to trial crap load today because I was super-duper well-behaved on nutrition all day (my 1st 4 meals were made of oatmeal, whey protein, sweet potatoes, and Isernio’s spicy chicken sausage) By 2 pm I had burned about the same number of cals working out (1,124) as I’d eaten (1,191), never mind BMR. As I was rolling in heavy on cals burned and rolling in light on cals eaten I decided it was a good day to completely blow my macro ratios and cal budget. Well, it’s never a good time for that, but it was a better time than already running heavy on my counts would have been. Tomorrow morning I’ll allot an extra couple minutes to do some posing when I first get up. Then I can make the call on whether or not I should crap load for The EC. If I look bloated it’s a definite no. If I don’t appear bloated and my muscles have a nice hard filled out look then it’ll be a yes. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

I did my am cardio today, but got cut off at 25 minutes. C woke up and came in at 21 min, but I got him jumping on my bed until I hit 25. He then insisted I jump on the bed too. I noticed that bouncing really accentuates my abdominals so I said “oooh, my abs came in.” He said, “I don’t have abs! I have spider-man boots!” Haha. It’s true too, he may be Mr. Skinny, but he does have a little belly =) I also trained biceps, triceps, and shoulders at The Rec for an hour and 15 minutes immediately followed up by my second cardio session (30 min on an AMT machine).

I feel good about doing this to plan my peak week right, but I regret eating the pizza. I wouldn’t have done it for its own sake. I wasn’t even really craving it, neither was C. I asked him if he wanted pizza or salmon and he kept answering salmon. I only talked him into pizza by telling him a delivery guy would bring it (he’s used to it being freezer derived). We’ll be having the salmon tomorrow night.
What happened to the extra slices? The freezer. I have frozen pizza around for C all the time and it doesn’t tempt me.

Macros

147 grams Protein 248 grams Carbs 77 grams Fat

Scary!

That’s a blown ratio if ever there was one.

At least I did it for a purpose ;)

Pizza with purpose, haha.

Cal Tally

2,273 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,124) Training Burn
(299) Net loss (Still!) =)

Ready NOW & Dreading Reverse Dieting

2011-04-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

Day 88

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

If The Emerald Cup were this Friday instead of the following one that would be great. I feel like I’m just playing a waiting game now. The energy drain is making me weak when it comes to resolve and I keep wanting to have just a few bites of various disallowed foods. I’m getting these cravings every single day. It’s a problem. I’m not sure how I should kick it. I’m considering limiting myself to just a few foods and only those foods until the competition. A lot of people go down to something like that for the last week. One guy’s peak week diet that I read was basically just cashews, sweet potatoes, salmon, and top round steak. He was intentionally loading fat. I forget why. I can recite the water depletion, sodium, carb depleting, and carb loading bits pretty well, but I forget the theory behind fat loading during peak week. That same guy also practices what he terms “crap loading” which is where he eats a cheat meal the night before the show instead of waiting until after the show. The logic being that is that a lot of competitors look fantastic the day after the show because all the carbs and sodium in their cheat meal (think pizza) fill out their muscles and make everything look hard. It sounds interesting. I need to come up with a definitive peak week plan of attack pronto. I’ve procrastinated on those decisions long enough: my peak week starts this weekend!

I trained glutes and chest today. I managed to get in 40 minutes of am cardio at home before breakfast and before C woke up. That was great. I was only at The Rec for an hour and 10 minutes this afternoon. A short one: glutes, chest, and 15 minutes on the StairMaster. I have been tracking macros throughout the day and am clocking in right on target:

Macros

139.1 grams Protein 160.5 grams Carbs 58.3 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,723 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(976) Burned Training

(701) Net Loss =)

I have a headache yet again. I’m not sure if it is the afternoon coffee, the tightness in my neck lately, something seasonal, or whatever else. Even though I’ve never liked it I think I should take up with yoga in the off season. I never stretch adequately and I read an article in F&M Hers awhile back about how beneficial yoga can be to building muscle. The added flexibility primes the muscle fibers to grow more freely or something to that extent. I’m starting to dread reverse dieting, that’s what you do after a competition. You gradually start adding back your carbs, you cut down your cardio, you don’t freak out if you only get to the gym 5 days a week. That all sounds like a nice relief of my packed schedule, but at the same time I dread covering back up the definition I’ve quickly grown to love so much. I’ll do my best to embrace the merits of the off-season though, and then right about the beginning of July I’ll start shedding again for the Ironman (it’s end of Sept beginning of Oct – don’t know the exact date yet).

I Like to Breathe in the Testosterone

2011-04-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

That’s white roughy (5 oz. portion) baked with lime and salt and pepper and served on a bed of kale sautéed up with bacon, garlic, and balsamic. Yes, bacon. I can afford the 5 grams of fat in 1 slice and it makes the kale rich and yummy. I threw in the two tasty green olives for a last minute salt rush.

Stats: 27.5 grams protein 7.3 grams carbs 8.8 grams fat 218 cals

Day 87

Monday, April 4, 2011

I really love my fake tan. I love being tan in general, if not for that whole kill me off with skin cancer bit I’d take a daily 15 minute nap in a tanning bed. I’d like to live to be a crotchety 93-year-old woman out at the bar having a long island iced tea with my lifelong friends (or more likely sipping coffee at home ;) though so I resist the siren call of the sunlamp.

Being tan in my hot pink tank top and black capris in a weight-room packed almost 100% with college boys is highly entertaining. There’s just something totally invigorating about being the only girl in there, many days there are other girls, but seemingly never more than 3-4 of us. Don’t worry, I don’t want to find a date next to my weights, lol. I tend to go at lunch and it tends to be packed then. This correlates with my getting some of the best mental pumps and consequently some of my “heavy” weight records.

I’m a very competitive personality and the more packed the weight room is, the more in the zone I get and the higher weights and additional sets I log to show for it. My favorite thing is when I spy a guy using the same or lighter weight than me for the same exercise. This entertains the crap out of me in that I can be all girly in my pink, weigh 20-50 lbs less than the guy, not have anywhere near his amount of testosterone (women have a little) yet lift the same or more. I don't see it as him being emasculated or anything like that, I just like to have my think I'm a tough chick moments. I like to poke fun at everything, so my other “theory” is that there’s a bunch of testosterone in the air in there and that breathing it in ups my upper body strength and explains the heavy pumps I’ve gotten in that weight room ;)

I had a freak injury there today. I was training back and shoulders. Thankfully, I had finished with free weights before it happened, as getting a good grip on a dumbbell afterwards would have been a bitch. I was removing a metal short bar with D-handles from the seated cable row pulley and the damn thing had a sharp spot in the metal that sliced my thumb tip wide open. It was a total gusher too. The guy manning the desk was nice, and apparently not squeamish, about helping me get a bunch of tape on there. I had to come back twice more for more tape because the damn thing kept wanting to soak through. I finished my workout. I didn’t get to do my pull-ups though, too much tape for a good grip. It was down to a dribble by the time I finished my cardio and tore it all off to rebandage. I’m now wearing a Toy Story band aid, snazzy.

I workout with nasty headaches (yesterday and lasting into the 30 min of cardio this morning at 6:20 am) I workout while bleeding (hygienically under wraps) I had my son with no drugs and still have my “I’m tough” souvenir sealed bottle of hydrocodone they gave me after that I never used. I like to think I’m not a whiner. My issue is not a lack of will, nah, it’s a lack of time in the day. What I wouldn’t give for the freedom to be at the gym daily without a 90 minute limit, without a 2 hour limit, without other pressing things that are getting put off to be there, without putting off needed sleep to clear some, but not all of those things later. I sure dream a lot for someone who doesn't sleep much. Maybe I should go buy a Lotto ticket ;)

I screwed up my cal budget today. I didn’t do anything outlandish or outright rebellious, I just didn’t track. Most days I tally macros before starting each subsequent meal. That way, I know if a particular macro, or total cals, are running high while it is still early enough to catch and fix. Today I just tallied up for the first time two hours ago and found I was already at 1,737 cals with macros along the usual ratios. Crap. I still had one more meal coming and skipping the meal was not an option as that leads me to binge from hunger or wind up going too many hours in the night without muscle maintenance fuel. So:

Macros

185.6 grams Protein 167.2 grams Carbs 60.5 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,955.7 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,006) Training (355 am cardio + 453 1 hr & 10 min weights 198 pm cardio)
(498.3) Net Loss =)

Why is my cal budget only 1,800 when I still run a net loss at higher intakes? Yeah, I don't know. I know a lot of other figure girls eat far less than I do, so somehow that translated into my deciding to cap my budget at 1,800 daily for the last 3 weeks to be competitive or something. Or, put another way: I don't actually know what the hell I'm doing. Remember? This whole thing is a crazy experiment ;)

Gold's Gym Total Body Transformation Challenge Before/After Pics

2011-04-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Click the picture to enlarge to a viewable size!

I have to say now that I'm seeing the before and after side by side, damn, I truly have transformed myself =)

Day 86

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Remember The Gold’s Gym 12 Week Total Body Transformation Challenge that I entered and began this blog about? It kind of got forgotten after I went crazy (read: got some balls) and decided to enter The Emerald Cup didn’t it? ;) Well today was the final day so off I went to Gold’s this morning to get weighed, measured and photographed. Here are the results:

BEFORE AFTER DIFFERENCE
WAIST 30.5” 27” Lost 3.5”
R THIGH 24.5” 22” Lost 2.5”
HIP 40” 38” Lost 2”
R BICEP (Unflexed) 10.5” 11” Gained 0.5” =)
BODY FAT % 20.4% 15.1% Lost 5.3%
WEIGHT 150.4 lbs 140.2 lbs Lost 10.2 lbs

Not bad, eh? I think the before and after pics say it all. I still have a long ways to go to have a chance at placing as a figure competitor, but long gone are my saggy butt and pudgy stomach thank you very much!

I trained my biceps, triceps, and abs today for 45 minutes and then did 30 minutes on the StairMaster. I’ve had a splitting headache since before I got out of bed this morning. I got up for aspirin and went back to sleep, didn’t work, took more aspirin getting home from the gym, still have it now while I type, bleh. Here’s hoping by the time I wake up tomorrow morning it is gone!

My macros were in perfect order until I got oatmeal cookies on the brain. Someone in my fb feed was talking about them and I’d read a bodybuilder dude’s pre-contest diet and peak week detail earlier and he eats all this junk during peak week to carb load, including oatmeal raisin cookies! Yeah, they got in my mind I had 8 big bites of the cookie dough, and then I baked them, took 2 bites and remember how much baked cookies suck compared to the dough so I quit. It was dumb, but it could have been worse. I could go calculate the p/c/f grams in that cookie dough, but I don’t want to. I think it’s fair to say I wiped out my net cal loss. How about we just say that and call it a night?

Macros (pre-cookie dough)

170.5 grams Protein 151.9 grams Carbs 51.5 grams Fat

Cal Tally
1,753.1 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(583) Training
(277.9) Net Loss
Less Cookie Dough Wipeout
Equals…It’s a Wash!

P.S. They don't judge the Gold's Gym Challenge until the 11th. I'll let you know if I place or not when I hear =)

Insert Witty Post Title Here

2011-04-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

Day 85

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

I hadn’t planned on it, but I made today a full real rest day today: no cardio, no weights. C and I were almost out the door this morning to the gym when I somehow managed to lock my bedroom door (the lock is on the inside) and I was still in a bathrobe and ALL my clothes were in there. That took a good while to get sorted out and by the time it did I started realizing that my lower back is feeling really tweaky. I think I may have, ahem, overdone my leg workout yesterday, please join me in laughing at myself ;) I got a bunch of errands done instead and had some fun trying on my posing suit and taking a few photos. I restocked with new clean foods and I’m feeling revived about my diet. Shorty post today!

Macros

139.8 grams Protein 165.4 grams Carbs 62.8 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,786 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(0) Training
338 Net Gain

One Week Left to Train

2011-04-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

Day 84

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Today is the two week mark. I find this both exciting and scary. What it really means is that I only have one week left to train. One week left to get my body fat to 13% (or less!) to finish my training. After that it is peak week. What’s peak week? The last week pre-contest. Everything changes then. If you’re water rationing you have to quit working out 3 days out when you start limiting water. Many people also manipulate their sodium intake too. I haven’t yet decided if I will dehydrate and mess with my sodium or not. There are viable arguments for both approaches and ‘m on the fence. I will get to carb load though! It’s not as decadent as it sounds, but still a welcome change. Peak week is known for being the biggest mental challenge. I’ll get back to you on how I feel about it when we get there.

I started having some nerves this morning realizing that today is the two week mark. I started off well, getting up before C for 40 minutes of pre-breakfast cardio. I haven’t missed am cardio once since school started and I’m proud about that. After dropping C off at preschool I went to The Rec and stayed from 9:35 am – 12:15 pm. Two hours of that was spent training my legs and the last 30 minutes doing my second cardio session. Here’s a video that sums it up well =)

I also got a tan today, a fake tan. An airbrush tan. Remember the Gold’s Gym 12 Week Total Body Transformation Challenge thing I entered back when I started this blog, back before I decided to go crazy and enter The EC? My “after” picture, weigh-in, and measurements are being taken Sunday morning. A tan better highlights muscle definition so I decided to try one.

My suit came today too! It’s beautiful. Why no ode to the suit picture set or posing video? I’m going to do that Sunday in conjunction with my “after” picture. It almost didn’t come today. I managed to miss my mailman and got home to the “we missed you!” slip, but I had seen his truck so I went back, found it again, parked and umm literally chased him down, lol (what? I was still in my gym clothes it made sense :P). He was nice about it and got me the package. Phew!

I’m headed to bed and hoping, hoping, hoping that I am not getting sick. This evening I am noticing scratchiness in my throat and really really hoping it is irritation from breathing in the airbrush tanning spray. If it is a cod I want to wake up totally sick tomorrow. Huh? That will give me maximum time to get better. If it doesn’t catch me for a few more days that will be worse. I can’t afford a cold right now, but if I’m getting one I’m going to be as positive as possible and try to work it to me lean out advantage headed into peak week if I can. Have to make the best of what I’m dealt!

I upped my macro and cal budgets today. I burned close to twice as many calories training today as I usually do by putting in such a long session so I knew I needed more.

Macros

147.9 grams Protein 197 grams Carbs 88.1 grams Fat

Cal Tally

2,172 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,600) Training (494 cals 1st cardio + 780 cals 2 hrs intense weightlifting + 326 cals 2nd cardio)
(876) Net Loss =)

Fake Food vs. Real Food

2011-03-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Day 83

March 31, 2011

I was well-behaved and got up for cardio this morning and was planning to do 40 minutes on my elliptical, but at just under 31 minutes C woke up and walked in upset wanting to know where his Spider-man costume was so I got cut short. Between classes I went to The Rec and trained Chest and Glutes, or T&A, lol. I chose that over Legs because I can easily go 2 hours just on weights training legs, something I have time for tomorrow, but not today. To focus on glutes today I did 7 sets of cable kickbacks, 3 sets each leg of single leg squats in the smith machine, and 4 sets each leg of single leg standing leg presses (using the assisted pull-up machine) I’ll be pretty much hitting ll that again tomorrow as part of the full leg day. Why two days back to back? I’m still trying to burn my glutes as much as possible before peak week hits. Chest was the usual: classic bench, db bench, db flies, db incline bench, and push-ups to failure.

Towards the end I was thinking about how I haven’t been doing my beloved pull-ups lately. I’ve been purposefully avoiding them because I feel weak and I don’t like not being able to do as many as I have done before. At the end today I had an impulse, a pumped moment and I went for it. I busted out 8. That’s my new record now (it was 7 before) and I’m proud. That’s 75% of the way to my goal of 12 reps to a set. Awesome =)

I like real food; in fact I love many real foods that I’m not currently allowed to eat. On this diet, I have come to love fake foods. Why? Because many of them give me the macros I need in a clean form while satisfying cravings.

Think Thin Bars are my favorite fake food in existence. They are like candy bars, especially the Chunky Peanut Butter Flavor. It’s practically a Reese’s. Up until a week ago the White Chocolate Chip flavor was my favorite. Now they both are. I’ll warn you Chocolate Mudslide isn’t great, but Brownie Crunch is. Surprisingly and pleasingly, they contain 0 grams of sugar.

Stats:

White Chocolate Chip 230 cals 20 g protein 25 g carbs 8 g fat

Chunky Peanut Butter 240 cals 20 g protein 24 g carbs 8 g fat

2:1 Protein Bars I’ve only tried the Oatmeal flavor of these. I ordered a box from GNC after reading on the website that they have a ratio of 2 parts protein to 1 part carbs. When I got them it turned out they were referring to net carbs. That’s where you deduct the sugar alcohols. Based on that logic Think Thin Bars are superior, their ratio is close after “netting” carbs and they taste WAY better. All the 2:1 bar has going for it is the amount of protein for the cals and that the bar is pretty big, thus filling. These I wouldn’t buy again. The problem with carb netting is I don’t totally believe in the concept so I count the “gross” or total listed carbs in my macros for the sake of dietary conservatism and thus don’t benefit.

Stats:

Oatmeal 250 cals 30 g protein 24 g carbs 6 g fat

Pure Protein Shakes These are fantastic for their portability. I like to keep one in my car or gym locker for that protein emergency (that’s when you realize you under packed food for the day, you’re starved, and you’re about to go buy some macro destroying nutritionally void snack item on campus. Protein shake in a can to the rescue!) Their flavor is pretty good too. I have the Vanilla Crème ones. They are a bit pricey though, so I reserve them as my emergency fake food.

Stats:

Vanilla Crème 100 cals 21 g protein 4 g carbs 0.5 g fat (they also make a 35 g protein can that is still only 160 cals)

Gaspari MyoFusion My first, and still most beloved, fake food. This is my original protein powder and still my favorite protein powder. I mainly stick to the Milk Chocolate and Delicious Vanilla flavors The Strawberries and Cream is good, but only with milk and I can only afford water in my cal budget right now for my mixer. I started buying this back last summer when I started reading F&M Hers. They sponsor Ava Cowan (one of the top 3 figure pros) and their advertising is good. I needed a protein powder and thought she had killer abs, while of course realizing it wouldn’t necessarily make me look like her I figured what the hey I’ll try that one. So glad I did. It has great flavor and the BEST texture by a longshot. When I blend it in my Magic Bullet with water and ice cubes the texture is as thick and frothy and as satisfying as a Frosty from Wendy’s. SERIOUSLY GOOD SHIT. Plus, it’s a blend of multiple proteins: three different derivatives of whey protein, milk protein isolate, and egg albumin. It also has some additives that are beneficial to the diet: CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid), sunflower oil, and flaxseed oil.

Stats:

Delicious Vanilla / Milk Chocolate 147 cals 25 g protein 5 g carbs 3 g fat

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey in Cake Batter flavor I tried this after hearing how great the flavor was from my PT, Laura. She’s totally right, the flavor is soooooo yummy, but being straight whey the texture just cannot compete with MyoFusion. It has some additives too that enhance the diet: BCAAs, Glutamine and Precursors. It does beat MyoFusion on the stats.

Stats:

Cake Batter 120 cals 24 g protein 3 g carbs 1 g fat

Trader Joe's Vanilla Coffee Creamer I used to put a bunch of vanilla sugar syrup and half and half in my coffee. Now I just put a splash of this. The TJ's one is my favorite because it has 33% fewer carbs per serving than most other brands (only 4 vs. 6 grams). This is a diet change I'll keep in the off season.

Stats:

30 cals 0 g protein 4 g carbs 1.5 g fat

Macros

158.8 grams Protein 174 grams Carbs 62.7 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,895.5 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(709) Training
(261.5) Net Loss

Day 82 - Nothing Stellar to Report, just Aspirin & my Kryptonite

2011-03-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Day 82

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

This is a shorty. I basically didn’t work out today. I did 25 minutes of cardio on the elliptical this morning plus 4 sets of side bends (abs) with a 30 lb dumbbell at 15 reps per sets per side this morning, but I never made it to a gym so I don’t really count it as having actually worked out. I was going to go right after class this afternoon, but the tension headache, general tiredness, realization that if I didn’t do hw due tomorrow then I’d be staying up later tonight to do it and asking for trouble. I also realized it had been 9 days since I had a rest day so I didn’t go. As usual, I ate too many calories today. That always happens on days I don’t really workout. Interesting.

What happened? We took a family member out to dinner for their birthday. I had selected a “safe” restaurant in that I could get a salad with no dressing and grilled salmon (fatty yes, but healthy fat) there. I know that bread is my weakness, my huge weakness, so I had planned to limit myself to a single dinner roll as I was headed into dinner carb count light and could thus afford to have one vs. none. What did I fail to anticipate? It wasn’t rolls! It was hot, chewy, full of texture, crisp-crusted artisanal bread, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Kryptonite!!! I ate three glorious slices mmmmmmmmmmmmmm I can still taste the deliciousness. On a behaved note I only ate half the salad and salmon (huge pserving about 10 oz) and have the rest for one of my meals tomorrow boxed in the fridge. I won’t eat any nuts tomorrow to accommodate the extra fat from the salmon into my ratios. I could have come in under my cal budget of 1,800 if I skipped my last meal, the bedtime snack, but I can’t actually skip. If I skip I set myself up for major hunger pains, cravings, and irrational binge eating once the cravings get the best of me, so I still got my bedtime snack in tonight, wise move =)

Tomorrow I’ll be training legs and glutes in between my accounting and corporate tax classes. I’m looking forward to that feeling of redeeming myself in the gym.

Macros

164.2 grams Protein 190.5 grams Carbs 68.8 grams Fat
Cal Tally

2,038 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(288) Cardio
302 Net Gain

I also have to start sleeping more. I have learned, the hard way, multiple times since starting here in the fall that this 6.5 hours a night business catches up to me very quickly and usually in the form of a nasty bug. I can't / won't let that happen right now so I'm going to start getting 8 hours a night. It's not a want; it's a need. I'm hoping to report tomorrow that I got my 8 as planned, goodnight!

Muscles, Taxes, & Spider-man =)

2011-03-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

That’s the textbook I’m excited about this quarter. Corporate taxation! Woohoo! =) There is a third tax class available in the undergrad program I will take too, but after that I’m fresh out of tax. Still, three is pretty good for an undergrad program. Actually, I flexed my bicep on tax today. The professor is one who likes to have everyone give a casual introduction of themselves to the class: name, hometown, hobbies, etc. So I had to say my son, aka Spider-man, and bodybuilding of course. I explained in brevity what figure is, that my first competition is on tax day, flexed my bicep to the room, and mentioned that if I act strangely in the next two weeks my body fat crashing diet is to blame. I’m guessing at least half the class thought I was an oddball and a half, but in an unexpected one the professor thought it was cool and intriguing and wanted to know more about the sport when I had some questions about exam formats on my way out the door. As I’m getting up on a stage in front of a bunch of strangers to pose so soon I may as well get comfortable randomly flexing in classes full of mostly unfamiliar faces, hah ;)

Day 81

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

There’s not a resounding theme to today’s post other than this is all working well. Today was our first day back at school and C and I both had good days. I was happy with both lasses I had today and will keep them both which means I have to pick one of the two I have tomorrow to drop. Yes, technically, I could do 16 credits again, but I’d rather recover my former GPA.

I was very well behaved this morning and popped out of bed promptly and willingly for 35 minutes of elliptical cardio at 6:15 am. Then I had my oatmeal, coffee, and protein shake breakfast and headed off to school with C. I ate my steak / brown rice / spinach combo halfway through my 1st class, a Think Thin bar en route to The Rec to train back & shoulders and do more cardio, my raw veg and chicken breast combo in my 2 pm class and just before 6 pm at home I had a seafood stew I picked up in the frozen section at TJ’s awhile back (44 g protein, 16 g carbs, 12 g fat). I had a single serve pack of Omega trail mix (walnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios, sunflower seeds, cranberries) and ½ cup of oatmeal a bit ago, a handful of carrots with the last tablespoon of hummus (not buying more till after the EC because it tempts me in excess), and am now having a couple olives from my TJ’s Greek Olive Medley to sure a salt craving. It has been a solid day from a nutritional standpoint and I still got in just 5 minutes shy of 2 hours training today despite it being the often crazy first day of a new quarter =)

I realize I’m getting a bit off track here, but I just love my little man more than anything in the world. Well duh, every mom says that right? The thing is he will be 4 years old in a mere 28 days and he is just becoming so much more of a little boy now than a toddler or a preschooler. He is Spider-man! We’ve been through truck, car, helicopter, train (that was a big one), dinosaur, castles and various other phases, but this is his first superhero obsession and it is awesome. I think he originally picked it up at the gym. I got him a set of Spider-man phonics books from his Scholastic flyer after he started fixating and he loves to “read” them himself. He will also pick the best picture of Spider-man and sit there and have a 20 minute conversation with him. He s very big on making me be Spider-man and converse en route to school or wherever in the Spider-man voice, but tonight after going to bed I heard him in there carrying on talking to Spider-man for almost 30 minutes by himself. He also does the Spider-man web hand thing and I didn’t teach it to him. He is quite adept at structural things so I think he may have plucked that notion from the book’s illustrations. I’m an admitted spoiler so yesterday I got him a Spider-man mask and he actually went to sleep in it (yes, very breathable I checked) I snuck in later to detach it. Today his Spider-man muscles costume (about $25 on Amazon if there's a small Spider-man lover in your house) showed up so he is now sleeping in that. I love entering a new phase of parenting. We’re in the little boy zone now and I just love it. I’m not the ripped one in this house; check out those muscles on Spider-man ;)

Macros

179.2 grams Protein 159.5 grams Carbs 56.8 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,866 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(981) Training
(563) Net Loss =)

The Tupperware is Taking Over!

2011-03-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Day 80

Monday, March 28, 2011

I did something really smart today that took about an hour and 15 minutes. I also did something really dumb today that only took about 10 minutes.

I did one more smart thing that took an hour, but that was just my cardio: 60 minutes on the StairMaster while reading chapter 15 in my accounting book on leases. Apparently, we’ll be starting off with that topic in 343 tomorrow. I created a ittle assembly line factor in my kitchen late this morning and produced 4 each of 3 different +/- 200 cal good macro ratio meals. There’s the Isernio’s Italian Chicken Sausage with Swiss chard, onion, and sweet potato one, the sirloin steak (only 2.3 ounces) brown rice and balsamic spinach one, and the seasoned chicken breast with baby carrots, steamed and chilled al dent green beans, and bell pepper one.

Stats as follows:

3 oz. Isernio’s Italian Chicken Sausage + ½ cup sweet potato + 1 cup Swiss chard

237.2 kcals 22.7 grams Protein 25.8 grams Carbs 4.8 grams Fat

2.5 oz. sirloin steak + ¼ cup brown rice + 1 cup spinach steamed with balsamic and ponzu

197.2 kcals 22 grams Protein 18.3 grams Carb 4 grams Fat

4 oz. chicken breast baked with spices + ½ red bell pepper+ ¾ cup green beans + ½ cup baby carrots

193.8 kcals 29.2 grams Protein 15.2 grams carbs 1.8 grams fat

Sweet stats huh?

My elaborate plot is to get through the week (through Friday that is) my packing tow of those a day plus a 3rd meal, likely a pack of almonds and some veg, a Think Thin bar, or a protein shake. I eat breakfast at home, pack my 3 meals to campus, DO NOT buy any food on campus, come home for dinner and a bedtime snack and there ya go: my 6 daily meals. Once I hit the two week mark I intend to get even more regimented. As in basically eat the exact same thing every day. A lot of competitors d that and it keeps life simple. You know what you’re getting, no surprises o temptations and the tracking gets very simple.

So what stupid thing did I do today?

We hit Gold’s late today: 4:45 – 6:25 pm. I put in a solid hour on the StairMaster coming in at 5.5 miles, 567 cals burned and 264 floors climbed. The stats would have been higher, but I was reading a chapter in my acct text. Why? School starts again tomorrow :(

On the way home I needed to be quick about C’s dinner and he had had a small appetite all day so I needed to pack him full of calories expediently (He’s a tiny guy with a long story behind that – had extensive medical testing when he was younger – never found any underlying conditions, but he is still a challenge to put weight on. In short, his caloric needs are my polar opposite.) Answer? Taco Bell. He said he wanted a taco. We discussed it en route. Chicken or beef? He said chicken. Crunchy or soft like a tortilla? He said crunchy, but then decided he wanted a tortilla too. That’s when the stupidity started. I decided I’d get him the taco and a quesadilla too. When we got there I ordered him the supreme chicken crunchy taco, a beef chalupa, and a side of nachos supreme. We headed home with the goods and at a red light I snagged a bite of the chalupa. He declared from the backseat, “Hey! That’s mine.” So I passed it back and he actually ate most of it in the less than 5 minutes to get home. That was totally awesome because my kiddo is impossible to get to eat enough quite often. He frequently will turn down ice-cream, hot coca, hot dogs….cheeseburgers are a 50/50 shot. When we got home I got out one of my chicken sausage, kale, and sweet potato tupperwares to eat, but the nachos were looking at me. C had slowed down and was picking at those and his taco. It’s not Lay’s, it’s Taco Bell You can’t eat just one! Yeah, I ate half the nacho order. Thank goodness I didn’t get him the really jacked up version that is 770 cals. This version was 440 cals, 24 grams of fat, 12 grams protein, and 42 grams carbs. I ate half of that and included it in my cal tally and macro counts for the day. I admit it when I cheat, not proudly, but openly anyways. I also stole 2 bites of chicken taco and the afore mentioned single chalupa bite, but I am not quite neurotic enough to run numbers on those =) The odd thing is it actually did not come even close to wrecking my cal tally or macro count, but I will not be doing that again despite that. It isn’t just about cals and macros, the food is supposed to be clean food and uh, Taco Bell nachos supreme does not exactly fall under that category, haha.

Today’s total workout was just the 60 min of cardio plus 40 minutes spent on Triceps and Abs. A shorty session, feels like a rest day really. I wanted to mainly focus on my shorty today, I’m just not feeling ready at all to send him back to preschool 40/hrs a week starting tomorrow morning. I lack a choice, but in dreamland I’d be a stay at home mom who doesn’t actually stay at home, but spends like 4 hours a day at the gym where her kiddo also happens to love going. Fall quarter, and sporadically in winter quarter C had the best guilt trip ever to lay on me in the car leaving home in the morning. He would say in his upset voice, “I don’t want to go to school; I want to go to the gym!” He seriously broke my heart with that one, especially in combination with hard drop-offs. He is much more settled in at his preschool now though and has friends he talks about a lot outside of school and looks forward to seeing and his teacher too. I can still emphasize with his complaint though; I’d also rather go to the gym!

Macro Totals

158.2 grams Protein 175.3 grams Carbs 63.4 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,884.6 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(723) Training
(286.4) Net Loss =) Despite Thinking Outside The Bun…

She HIIT Me!

2011-03-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

What is HIIT? High Intensity Interval Training. It’s also something I’ve been meaning to start doing. It is among one of the best possible cardio options for burning fat. You can reinvent it a million ways, but basically it is short in duration (20-30 minute range), gets the heart rate up, and features intervals either between intensity on a singular exercise or a mix of plyos, weights, and various cardio machines. There are a lot of ways to do it.

Day 79

Sunday, March 27, 2011

C man had plans without me today so I went to The Rec and got to see Laura my PT today. She’s competing next Saturday so today is day 1 of her peak week. Ahhhh! She looks great and I’m betting she’ll place 1st or at worst 2nd in the tall bikini class =) The last week is mainly about not going crazy and I’ll get to try it firsthand in less than 2 weeks, ahhh! ;)

I got there early and did 20 minutes on the StairMaster before meeting up with Laura. We did an intense legs session today. Lots of super setting with no rest. She decided to be “evil” and add on a HIIT session using the StairMaster with weighted static lunges, squats, prone leg curls, and hip adductors / abductors. To quote Laura she said I could get my “rest” during the session “when climbing the stairs” lol. Some posing practice in the mirrored room too. N case you ever wondered what a stick figure who has just won 1st place in her figure class looks like there’s one illustrated by my PT on today’s training scan pic. Lol.

I was coming in short on protein today and when shopping at TJ’s the steaks looked REALLY good. They had a tender sirloin cut claiming only 5 g of fat and 25 g of protein in 4 oz so I got it. The steak I ate from the pack was goooooooooood and about 6 oz. I just cooked it with salt and pepper. Served it with a cup of steamed spinach, some mustard sauce for dipping (basically no cal) and a small pile f marinated mushrooms and artichoke hearts. It was tasty! Didn’t violate my macro or cal parameters either muahahaha. Marinated mushrooms, art hearts, pickled green beans, pickled asparagus, actual pickles. I like to keep some or all of these around for a quick essentially cal free salty crazing fix. Good stuff =)

Macros

132.6 grams Protein 136.1 grams Carbs 68.4 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,690.4 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(884) Training
(641.6) Net Loss =)

(Yes I am going to bed at 7 pm. I'll have to get back up briefly when C man gets dropped off, but I am that tired. Have a headache too, been taking way too much aspirin lately.)

Autopilot

2011-03-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Picture rundown:

1)I'm starting to get back definition, I still have too much fat and hydration covering it though. That's the top of a DB Overhead Shoulder Press.

2) This was my attempted self-portrait after noticing how much different my face is looking. This is also why you cannot photograph shit with muscle quiver.

3) Those are my calluses. I've worked hard on those, haha, and I'm proud of them =)

4) I bugged a guy to take the pic for me. It turned out great though. My delt caps are looking great from behind. I wish I had more V-taper, but that takes time. I'll be showing it more prominently by my 2nd competition.

5) That's a scan of page 1 of today's notebook log. I'm not sure what possessed me into starting off with 13 sets of lat pulldowns, but hell I want my V! (yes yes a little late for the EC I know)

Day 78

Saturday, March 26, 2011

This morning I got up and looked in the bottom of 3 cups of coffee for my energy, but didn't happen across it. I went to Gold's anyways. Here's the entertaining part (at least to me). I busted out a pretty tough 1 hour and 45 minute weights session hitting back, biceps, and shoulders. I wrapped up with 15 minutes of cardio on the StairMaster. It would have / should have been longer cardio, but as usual I run long on weights and then run out of my childcare hours fast (2 hour max per visit.

Energy free me started out the back session with 13 sets of Lat Pulldowns (a bit more than half wide grip, the rest reverse narrow grip). I can guarantee I'll be feeling my lats tomorrow, actually I think I'm feeling them a bit already now =). It was kind of trippy, as I moved on to DB Bent Over Single Rows, Seated Cable Rows, Straight Bar Pushdowns, DB Pullovers, Seated BB Biceps Curls, Close Grip Standing BB Curls, Standing DB Bicep Curls, Overhead DB Presses, Upright Standing BB Rows, BB Military Presses, Lateral Raises, and Front Raises it was kind of like I wasn't even there. I was proud of my weights. I kept up my usual numbers for most, increased reps above average for some heavies, and did my arm work the "harder way" (full set each arm before switching rather than alternating arms. I noticed while looking in the mirror from my bench that my face is starting to change. I have a pointier face, nit in a bad way, but my features are more pointed, I look more serious, and I occasionally bust out an Elvis-esque lip curl when pushing for an extra rep that isn't really in me. I tried to take a picture of my new look, just holing my phone up to shoot the mirror, but I had muscle quivers since the lat pulldowns so the camera wasn't steady. Autopilot. I like being on autopilot. Thinking too much in the gym detracts from the task at hand. Just being and doing is better.

Macros

145.2 grams Protein 172.4 grams Carbs 66.1 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,865.3 kcals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(749) Training
(331.7) Net Loss

My protein should have been a little higher, carbs a little lower, fat a few grams lower. Good stats today, just room for improvement. What happened? I didn't plan the whole day at breakfast. I ate from my list, but I was pulling each meal from the air. If I plan them all at breakfast I can control the end counts from the start, far less room for unintentional error.

While I am still running a net loss I should be doing cardio right now as C is in bed and I need it to burn more fat off. That was my plan, to do it after he was in bed to make up for only getting 15 minutes at the gym earlier. I feel shitty that I'm not doing it I really do, BUT there is a balance to play with. The occasional prioritization of self-preservation. Choosing rest over cardio too much may cause me to not gt my body fat as low as it could be and consequently not place as well as I could have. I realize this and I also realize that I have too much else on my plate to run myself down as far as I would otherwise be willing to. I have to remind myself that this is supposed to be getting my feet wet. That the hardcore round won't come until my second competition. That feels like an excuse. How fun would that be to train for a competition without any other obligations ( aside from C man that is), but no school, no work? Just gym time, gym time, gym time, sleeping 10 hours at night, and eating with the utmost resolve and good behavior. What a dream =)

On that note, I'm going to bed early - it's much needed.

Night night =)

I've Got my Grit on. Hide Your Chickens!

2011-03-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Day 77

Those are 3 of my 6 meals today pictured. Those are Quakes with the chicken and strawberries. I <3 Quakes! Mmmmm.... They're carb heavy, but clean, so I just have to allocate my carbs carefully to eat them =)

Friday, March 25, 2011

3 Weeks from Today = Showtime!

I'm almost out of time. The last week is its own ballgame in every aspect: nutrition, training, everything. Realistically, it's like I only have 2 weeks to go. So?

It's time to get serious. Neurotically serious, like total type A accountant level of detail and number crunching serious. Oh wait, that's me, hahaha. Perfect! ;)

I brought a pretty notebook today =) I will be recording every minute detail of my nutrition and training in it and will pack it around with me everywhere for the next 3 weeks. Then, when I compete the second time (next fall) I can rehash it and analyze what I did right and what I could have done better / differently in order to apply what I've learned for improvement then =)

Psst I realize it's a little long - so only watch it if nutritional manipulation interests you! ;)

Today's post includes all that detail, but from here on out I'll likely just keep it in my notebook and put the most concise and entertaining highlights here.

This morning I created a spreadsheet of the foods I'll be eating between now and the competition. It's a short list, restricted to the essential foods with the strongest contest-minded macro profiles.

9:30 am C let me sleep in!

coffee w/ creamer x 2
steel cut oatmeal (1/4 cup dry)

meal count: 5 g P 35 g C 5.5 g F

12:30 pm

4 oz chicken breast seasoned w/ cayenne
16 spears asparagus roasted w/ lemon pepper
1/4 cup brown rice
hot tea no sweetener

meal count: 32.8 g P 21.5 g C 2 g F

1:30 pm

200 cal pack raw almonds

meal count: 7 g P 8 g C 17 g F

3:45 pm

4 oz. chicken breast seasoned with Cayenne
1/2 cup strawberries
1 serving (15 pcs) Quakes
hot tea no sweetener

meal count: 27.7 g P 32.4 g C 3.6 g F

Pre-workout count:

72.5 g P 96.9 g C 28.1 g F 930.5 kcals

Training Chest, Abs, & Triceps @ Gold's 4:25-6:30 pm

I decided to "bookend" my weights with cardio today rather than a single longer session.

1) StairMaster

Fat Burner routine Level 10
20 minutes
2.18 miles / 105 floors climbed / 225 kcals burned

2) Bench Press (flat - no spotter)
1. Warm-up: Bar (45 lbs) x 12 reps
2. 65 lbs x 8 reps
3. 75 lbs x 8 reps
4. 85 lbs x 8 reps
5. 85 lbs x 6 reps

3) Dumbbell Flies
1. 20 lbs x 8 reps
2. 15 lbs x 10 reps
3. 15 lbs x 10 reps
4. 15 lbs x 10 reps

Superset with

4) Dumbbell Flat Bench Press
1. 20 lbs x 8 reps
2. 20 lbs x 10 reps
3. 25 lbs x 10 reps
4. 25 lbs x 10 reps

5) Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
1. 20 lbs x 10 reps
2. 20 lbs x 10 reps
3. 20 lbs x 10 reps

6) Abs Circuit
1. Shoulder crunches x 15 each side, reverse crunches x 15, mini crunches x 15, 8 lb MB side twists x 30
2. Same as above
3. Same as above

7) Triceps Circuit
1. Dumbbell Kickbacks 15 lbs x 10 reps each arm, Dumbbell overhead extensions 25 lbs x 8 reps, body weight bench dips x 15 reps
2. Dumbbell Kickbacks 12.5 lbs x 10 reps each arm, Dumbbell overhead extensions 25 lbs x 7.5 reps, body weight bench dips x 12 reps
3. Dumbbell Kickbacks 12.5 lbs x 10 reps each arm, Dumbbell overhead extensions 20 lbs x 10 reps, body weight bench dips to failure (16 reps)

8) Rope Triceps Pushdowns
1. 30 lbs x 10 reps
2. 35 lbs x 10 reps
3. 35 lbs x 10 reps
4. 40 lbs x 10 reps

Superset with

9) Push-ups to Failure
1. 16.5
2. 14.5
3. 9.5
4. 9.5

10) Single Arm Triceps Rope Pushdowns Drop Set
1. 15 lbs x 8 reps each arm
2. 15 lbs x 6 reps each arm
3. 10 lbs x 10 reps each arm

11) 1 Set Real Pull-ups
Almost 4 (3-7/8) For the heck of it =)

I love doing them at the beginning so I can do a lot, but I also love doing them at the end when I can barely do any because I've already exhausted my muscles =)

12) StairMaster Again
Fat Burner routine Level 12
89 floors climbed 183 cals burned

7 pm

200 cal pack raw almonds
8 oz. SF Silk Soy Milk
1 scoop Optimum Whey

meal count: 38 g P 15 g C 22 g F

8:45 pm

8 oz. Shrimp
1 cup cooked spinach
1 pc Applewood smoked bacon *
1/4 cup marinated mushrooms
1/4 cup brown rice
hot tea no sweetener
Coca-Cola Cherry Zero (my cal free vice!)

* I had room left in my fat "budget" so I chopped up a slice of bacon (5 g P 7 g F) to saute the shrimp, spinach, and marinated mushrooms in. Then I doused the whole thing in hot sauce, a splash of cherry balsamic vinegar, and black pepper. Yum! Yet not a macros violation, muhahahahahahahaha ;)

meal count:41.4 g P 18.3 g C 7.9 g F

10:30 pm

15 Quakes
Hot tea no sweetener
1 more Coca-Cola Cherry Zero (Shhhh! Fake sugar = bad I know I know which is why I normally hardly ever do it!)

meal count: 2 g P 26 g C 1 g F

Daily Totals:

153.9 grams Protein 156.2 grams Carbs 60 grams Fat

1,780.4 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(926.7)Training
(594.3) Net Loss =)

Damn, I'm Going to Get a Tan!

2011-03-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

Day 76

Thursday, March 24, 2011

I already knew I'd be getting a really dark, really fake looking, but really fun for a pale ass like me airbrush tan for the EC. In fact, that's the whole reason I have to leave the morning prior, to make my two airbrush appointments at the host hotel. Despite having already known all of this, the degree of tan I'll be did not set in until my bottle of Mac Makeup NW45 foundation showed up on my doorstep. The airbrsh tanning company specs that shade to wear to match for competition and damn, I'm gonna be tan! Haha =) (click pic to enlarge and better see the crazy contrast if you wish)

P.S. Don't mind the lovely bloated look in the pic. That's the I had a NY steak for dinner look. Leg day = steak day.

"I'm tired" is my general theme lately so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I trained Legs and Glutes at Gold's today. Then I got talked into trying a 30 minute TRX class in place of my intended 30 minutes on the StairMaster. Good choice! A try to kill me right after working legs choice, but GOOD FOR ME choice. It's sort of like plyometrics on crack. Well, not exactly. It is basically plyos drills while using a bungee rope thing with handles that is attached to the ceiling. Your foot might be in it for a tough rewrite of burpees, or mountain climbers, or various planks, or you might be gripping them for hopping squats, rows, or twists with a dumbbell. The biggest difference (to me) from regular plyos is that there are no 2 minute breaks between sets like Laura lets me have, no breaks at all! Regular plyos with breaks kick may ass, so ummm these definitely did! I was plum wore out. Granted I'd already been in the gym for 90 minuttes, but still! I should (hopefully will) do TRX again to shake up my cardio / fat burning routine.

Training Legs & Glutes @ Gold’s
10:40 am – 12:35 pm

1) Squat Rack “Climb”
1. 95 lbs x 8 reps
2. 115 lbs x 10 reps
3. 125 lbs x 10 reps
4. 135 lbs x 10 reps
5. 145 lbs x 8 reps
6. 155 lbs x 8 reps

2) Smith Machine Squats (Skier, Sumo)
1. 70 lbs x8 reps x 10 reps
2. 90 lbs x 8 reps x 8 reps
3. 90 lbs x 8 reps ax 8 reps
4. 100 lbs x 10 reps x 10 reps

3) Smith Machine Lunges
1. 70 lbs x 8 reps each leg
2. 90 lbs x 8 reps each leg
3. 90 lbs x 8 reps each leg
4. 90 lbs x 6 reps each leg

4) Cable Kick backs
1. 50 lbs x 10 reps each leg
2. 60 lbs x 10 reps each leg
3. 60 lbs x 10 reps each leg
4. 70 lbs x 10 reps each leg
5. 70 lbs x 10 reps each leg
6. 60 lbs x 10 reps each leg
7. 50 lbs x 10 reps each leg

5) Cable Hip Ad/Abductors
1. 30 lbs x 8 reps each leg
2. 30 lbs x 8 reps each leg
3. 30 lbs x 8 reps each leg

6) Single Prone Leg Curls
1. 30 lbs x 8 reps each leg
2. 40 lbs x 6 reps each leg
3. 30 lbs x 10 reps each leg

7) Single Leg Extensions
1. 50 lbs x 10 reps each leg
2. 50 lbs x 10 reps each leg
3. 50 lbs x 8 reps each leg
4. 40 lbs x 10 reps each leg

8) TRX 30 min Training Session (in place of standard cardio)

4:30 pm More Cardio @ Home

30 min Elliptical Hill Climb Routine

389 cals burned

Macros

171 grams Protein 196 grams Carbs 57 grams fat

Cal Tally

1,981 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,161) Training
(628) Net Loss

Hannah - You Rock! & Kelly - Thank Ya! =)

2011-03-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Day 75

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I did a Body Pump class today. It was good, kinda "faith in working out restoring" kind of good because Body Pump classes are what got me interested in all this craziness in the first place. (Thanks Jackie!=) I finally brought a guest. Since starting going to BP in late July I've bugged: Kelly, Eli, Darene, Rachel, Megan, Karen, and my hairdresser, Amy, to come try it. Nope! No luck, but Hannah, my awesome kick ass cyclocross racer buddy was up for it. My first BP guest =) Guess what she did there? Rolled the heaviest weight in the class on every track but back track! Granted there were only 5 of us today and there are usually 30, but I know what people lift in there (because I'm usually doing my best to be the, or among, the heaviest ;) and she still would have had the heaviest barbell. Kudos my friend =) Go Hannah!

I'm really tired. I think I finally know what people have been talking about. Various times in the last month I've run into people who know a thing or two about figure. I've told them what I'm up to and they have all commented along the lines of "oh you don't have 'that look' yet. How's your energy level been?" They weren't referring to my physique. No, they meant I didn't look tired, underfed, and overworked yet, haha. I think my body has reached it's max point of neutrality on the issue and has now decided to go to war (with me). It just wants to go back to eating normally so badly. I'm not giving in, but it feels like a biological push, not just a craving. My body wants to ratchet body fat back up and put back on weight to get back to its happy little set point homeostasis zone. Meanwhile, I'm telling it, sorry no, you have to wait another 3 weeks and then you can get your way (to a point). So we are at war. At least there is a known peace date - I wish real wars were so simply quelled.

I won today:

Macros

160 grams protein 166 grams carbs 49 grams fat

Cal Tally

1,745 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(758)Training *
(461) Net Loss =)

*(390 cals for 1 hour of Body Pump + 368 cals for 30 minutes of intense elliptical cardio (steady climb program) late this evening at home. Kelly may live 86 miles away (unfortunately!) but we are always chatting on gmail. I happened to see her and tell her, about 9 pm, that all I wanted to do was go to bed and could she please say some magical thing to make me want to go use my elliptical. She's had a nasty bug for a week and so she said "please use elliptical for me cause i can't
cause i'm still stick" and it worked. I started thinking, hmmm, it is only 30 minutes, you can watch Friends while you're doing it, you know you'd just stay up in bed watching Friends that long anyways, so just go get on your elliptical silly goose! So thank you Kelly, motivation coach from afar, and wake up feeling all better tomorrow, k? =)

Camels & Carrots

2011-03-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

The featured pic doesn't have much to do with my training other than it is of what my son was off doing with my mom while I was at the gym today. Cute huh? Yes, this town has a token camel.

Day 74

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

8 am Cardio

My am fat burner aka am cardio went far better this morning. I had made an appointment at 8 am in town to get my car a much needed oil change. I had m mom and C wait till 8:30 to come retrieve me. I had my iPOd and sidewalks so I was free to ran with my all essential gym playlist. I ran around town on the sidewalks, up the port stairs (quite long/steep if I still lived here Id do them repeatedly for pm cardio), and the last 3/4 of a mile on the high school track. All in all my am cardio rain sprinkled jog clocked in at 24 minutes. I'm not a speedy jogger so 'm going to low ball that at 9 cals / minute for a 216 cal burn.

9 am Breakfast

3/4 cup steel cut oatmeal
4 Isernio's chicken apple sausage breakfast links
Coffee + low carb nondairy creamer
3 strawberries

11:30 am Hungry!

1 scoop milk chocolate MyoFusion shaken with water

12:45 am Lunch out with my Mom & C Man at one of my 2 favorite hometown restaurants

I went in thinking I was thinking smart, but this is where I screwed my fat ratio for the day.

1/2 MC Everyday Salad (yummy field greens, carrots, red onion, a sprinkle of feta, sunflower seeds, and golden raisins)

1 slice (8 oz.) meatloaf

I believe their meatloaf is made of a mixture of pork and beef. It also has Delicious mushrooms in it and carrots, onion, celery, etc.

Upon arriving home I looked up the stats for 80% lean ground beef. Ahhhhhhh! 36 grams of fat, at least there were 54 grams of protein too. I tacked on 10 grams of carbs to guesstimate the mixed-in veg, seasonings, et al. If Laurie happens to read this and tell me they actuly use 95% lean ground beef that would be awesome! In the interim I like to track based upon the worst case scenario =)

My other favorite restaurant here is soooooo yummy, but there is no way I could go there without it being a full on big ole cheat meal. I'm looking forward to dining there again sometime soon after the EC, but in the meantime I enjoy the food porn provided by their specials pics in my FB feed, hehe.

2:55-4:45 pm Training Shoulders, Back, and Abs + PM Cardio @ Xtreme

Weight training as recorded on the clipboard pic above (click to enlarge if curious=)

Plus 30 minutes elliptical cross training 1 routine res 5

319 cals burned 2.97 miles logged

Despite a full back and shoulders session I pulled off a set of 7 pull-ups right on my ay out the door. I was so pumped up, just the right song on my playlist, all hyped up from cardio and abs and the good weights session behind me. Also, the new scenery, conquering a pull-up bar at a gym where I had never touched one before had me mentally boosted to hit it hard. 7 real pull-ups is my new record - I keep working towards my goal of 12 in a set - I'll get there eventually =)

5:15 pm Protein!

1 scoop Optimum Nutrition ake Batter Whey shaken with water

This stuff is sooooo much better with the sugar free Silk soy milk I buy, but I'm trying to get my daily cal tally lower now so 120 cals with water beats out 200 cals with soy.

Hi! It's 5:50 pm right now and I'm typing this. I misread the schedule so we won't be home until late tonight. As such I'm writing this now instead of before bed as usual. I'm also drinking a 0 cal Pepsi max I'd intended for the trip. I know diet soda is just generally bad, but it will make you feel full on zero cals and zero macro ratio effects so I have been including it randomly lately.
I'm going to pre-write the rest of my planned eating for the night. If it is altered I'll update this, but writing it out is actually a good tool to motivate me to stick to my dinner / bedtime snack plans.

6:30 pm Dinner

6 oz. seasoned & oven seared chicken breast

2 cups veg (baby carrots, red bell pepper, and asparagus blanched al dente & served cold)

9:30 pm Fuel on the Freeway Home

Think Thin Bar

Today's Macros:

Protein 205 grams Carbs 130 grams Fat 72 grams

Hey that's a surprise! My carbs are rolling in way low for the day (they should be about equal to protein), fat is only rolling in 3 grams heavy (despite my meatloaf debacle - yay!), and protein is at the max it should be. Ideally the protein count should be about 35 grams less. I'm writing thie before having eaten my chicken and veg dinner or my Think Thin bar freeway snack, but I can't just not eat them. If I don't fuel I'll a. go crazy with hunger b. cannibalize muscle in the night from going too many hours sans fuel. I'm going to convert to planing entire days of food and the corresponding macros in advance so this retrospective "this should have been this business stops =)

Cal Tally

1,988 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(925) Training + Cardio
(385) Net Loss =)

See what a difference training days have over rest days? Love my cal tally on a training day, not so much on a rest day.

I usually only post my training record sheets, but I added a pic of my food macro tracking method today too. I'm pretty simplistic. I've downloaded various Android apps or glanced at online tracking programs in the past, but I just prefer scratch paper and a quickie trip to look up stuff I don't know by heart in the cal/macro dictionary known as calorieking.com =)

What Makes Rest Days Regrettable

2011-03-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

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 =)

The Cartoon Carb Devil & The Cartoon Cardio Angel

2011-03-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

Day 72

Sunday, March 20, 2011

My title is meant to be taken in jest, but as with any other joke, a grain of truth. Keeping this up 7 days a week really begins to feel like here's one of those little cliché cartoon devils on one shoulder trying to tempt me with carbs and on the other shoulder the complementary cliché cartoon angel telling me to do my cardio.

I’ve been largely lazy today. Well not actually lazy, but I am tired. I realize I should talk myself into making tomorrow an actual official rest day, but I keep thinking, shoulders, shoulders, you need to train your shoulders.

Also, sometimes I just want to eat without thinking about carbs and just eat until I’m full. Not last night. I was actually pretty well behaved going out. I had a Guinness and was pleasantly surprised when I looked it up later that the whole big tall glass only had 16 grams of carbs, for perspective an apple has 27. What really surprised me was that it also had 4 grams of protein. I didn’t expect there to have been any. Krysta gave me a great tip about the menu and I ordered the chicken lettuce wraps she’s pointed out. They were really good and basically “clean” as I used minimal amounts of the chili and peanut sauces and just sprinkled a little rice on as a condiment leaving the majority behind. I did, however, have 5 pieces o Krysta and Eli’s delicious nacho plate. Eli kind of looks like a bad influence in the picture doesn’t he? Nah, it was my own idea =)

Mentally, these last 4 weeks are definitely the hardest. I’ve been at this, well for 72 days (haha see above) and I feel like I would like a little break, a day without overthinking everything I’m eating, feeling that I HAVE to do weights that day and I HAVE to do cardio too. I miss the doing it all because I want to. I also realize that I can’t slack now though, I just have to do it. It may be just under 4 weeks out, but really it is less time than that. The Emerald Cup is Friday, April 15th, but the last day I can workout is Monday, April 11th. Why? Because on Tuesday I have to start rationing my water. Sounds pleasant right? Thee are a lot of rough bits and pieces necessary to competition that you don’t ever hear about until you’re doing it yourself. My armpits may also turn green from the airbrush tanning, but I find that funnier than anything. Mainly because my PT says it isn’t noticeable on stage.

I feel really great about having my body fat as low as it is. I even ran into a guy I know at the gym today who after hearing it said his was 17%, almost 2% higher than mine, haha, and he is in really good shape, just no crazy diet. Even though my number is good I still feel fat for competition. Please don’t jump all over me for saying that. I realize in terms of the world that is a ridiculous thing for me to say, but in terms of figure it isn’t. I still need to lean out more so that muscles in my quads show, so that the V in my back is more pronounced, so that my abs are flatter. They call it an extreme sport for a reason.

I screwed up my eating today. I didn’t get all the way out of bed until almost 10:30 am (thanks mom!); I did make myself go do am cardio. It doesn’t really matter what time it is, what is key is that you do it right after you get up and most importantly before you eat anything. So I went running off down the road without my iPod because the roads have no sidewalks and are quite curvy by my mom’s house so being oblivious to cars is just plain dumb. I really thrive on music for cardio though so I was having a hard time at it. I had no clue how long I’d been gone and when I got back it turned out it was only a 14minute run, I’d been aiming for 20ish. My first two meals basically rolled together as I didn’t start until 11 am. I got back on track after that though. Then I worked out from 5-7 pm tonight training legs and biceps and doing cardio at Xtreme. The problem was that by the time I got home I was starved. I had also picked up a loaf of Dave’s Killer Seed Bread, which is to die for, and I wound up carbing up inner more than a well-behaved figure girl would have or should have. It was a good workout though: squat rack pyramid (max at 155 lbs – only a weak back cushion available), walking 40 lb barbell lunges, 3 other varieties of lunges, barbell dead lifts (80 lbs), hip adductors (80 lbs) superset with hip abductors (120 lbs), seated and standing barbell bicep curls (50 lbs), incline bench dumbbell curls (20 lbs), and a 30 minute interval program on an elliptical. I wanted to do shoulders today too, but I was tired and hungry and needed to get home to put C man to bed. I should have powered through and done shoulders though. It’s silly, but I’m always paranoid if I go too many days without hitting a muscle group I’ll wake up the next day and all the definition will be gone. Daily training just keeps me on edge like that.

So here are my macros, not great, but not horrific. Ironically, carbs are my only macro that is what it should be. Protein is too high and fat is too high. Protein is too high because I just plain ate too much today and I’ve conditioned myself to favor protein. Fat is too high because I ate a 200 cal pack of almonds earlier and a Larabar too, those 2 items right there account for 21 of the fat grams, meanwhile the 6 oz. NY steak only accounts for 9 grams. Not quite what you were presuming eh? May cals are way too high, like 500 cals too high. Tomorrow’s a new day and can be a better one.

226 grams Protein 176 grams Carbs 90 grams Fat

Bleh

Cal Tally:

2,418 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(993) Training
(23) Net Loss

Screw Cake, Let Them Eat Steak!

2011-03-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Day 71

Saturday, March 20, 2011

Ribeye, medium rare. Grilled with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and melted butter. Maybe a side of mushrooms. Mmmm that's my steak.

Yeah,That doesn't fit my diet =)

Gotta keep it lean baby, so New York is where it's at.

6 oz. grilled with S&P, no butter.

I ate that with a bunch of of baby carrots, orange bel pepper, and green beans dipped in my last few tablespoons of hummus. All as my 2nd lunch (eating six times a day causes one to start renaming the meals). We're out visiting my mom for a few days so then I took a 30 minute sort of asleep nap and hit my old gym for two hours. Today chest and triceps were up on the rotation. Training them took about an hour and 20 minutes and then I did 40 min of cardio on the elliptical to round things out. 'll be back there again tomorrow, but I haven't decided if it will be leg day or biceps and shoulders day yet.

My macros are in good shape right now:

158 grams protein 170 grams carbs 51 grams fat

1,771 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(953) Training
(630) Net Loss *

* I am posting early tonight because I'm going out with old friends I haven't seen in too long. I plan to eat once more, likely a 250-300 call something or other, def protein heavy. Either the Think Thin bar in my purse, a MyoFusion chocolate shake when I get home, or a grilled chicken breast or shrimp cocktail wherever we're at.I can eat out on this diet, I just have to plan =) I know I'll definitely be drinking diet coke/pepsi and I'm debating a real drink. I think I mentioned in an old post at some point that I'm really not a drinker. I do like an occasional drink though, actually the last drink I had was out to dinner on my birthday in October so there's my definition of"occasional drinking" for you haha. I'm debating it though as Im wondering if my change in body composition will make it effect me more or less. I'm a light weight to begin with so if I drink a whole drink someone else might be driving me home.

Night night for now =)

T - 4 Weeks Exactly! 15.1% Body Fat! 45 lb DB Single Rows! A Great Day =)

2011-03-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

Day 70

Friday, March 18, 2011

The 4 Week Mark =) Eek!

At 9:30 am four weeks from today I will be at the competitor check in. At 12 pm four weeks from now I will be in pre-judging. At 6 pm 4 weeks from today I will be on the stage for the night show. Emerald Cup baby! It’s the four week countdown =)

If you click back to this post, January 17th, you can see my first Bod Pod result, I've lost 8.2 lbs of pure fat since then, freaky huh? I now only have 21.1 lbs of fat in my entire 140 lbs! http://nogirlpushupsforme.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-sat-in-80s-sci-fi-flick-space-ship.html

I had decided awhile back that testing my body fat at the four week mark could be a good motivator to take everything up a notch. My thinking was that it likely wouldn’t be low enough yet and that would kick me into gear. Well that’s not what happened! Hehehehe. It already is way low: 15.1% Woohoo. Basically for a woman to go below 12% is detrimental to her. I have already exceeded my initial goal and I would not want to go more than 1-2% lower, which may happen between now and the competition, but woohoo! I still can’t quite comprehend it – 15.1% so awesome =)

I had been telling Laura how I’d been slacking on cardio for the last week, allowing etc carbs, letting finals and dead week get the best of me, so I was really hoping that it was 18 or 19%. She had told me not to let it bring me down if it was bad, ot to freak out if it was higher than before, etc. in short we were prepped fpr the worst. Then after the second seal in the Bod Pod she was letting me out and started smiling and getting excited. At first I thought oh she’s trying to be really positive so I don’t get down about this, but then she was all 15.1% and I was like “what???!” and we were both like “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” and then Charlie , who had been a bit scared of the Bod Pod and turned shy started grinning and getting excited too =)

The hyped up happy mental rush of finding that out at 9 am this morning also bought me some new heavies. I trained back at Gold’s this morning and I got my reverse grip lat pulldowns up to 110 lbs (a 10 lb increase) and my bent over single arm dumbbell rows up to 45 lbs (a 5 lb increase). I swear this training appears to be a physical feat, but truthfully it’s all mental. If you believe you can, you do, and if you believe you won’t, you don’t!

9:45 am Breakfast

(delayed as you can’t eat or drink for a 2 hour minimum before doing the Bod Pod. No am cardio today for the same reason)
½ cup steel oats with cinnamon and a splash of whipping cream (‘ve been eating it that way all week and still cut by BF that low hehe, told ya fat doesn’t make you fat!)
Coffee with low cal/carb creamer
1 scoop Cake Batter Whey with sugar free non-fat silk soymilk

Training Back @ Gold’s 11:30 am – 1 pm

See pic =) Getting permanently lazy about typing those!

1:30 pm Lunch

1 scoop Cake Batter Whey with water
¾ cup carrots
½ yellow bell pepper
1 cup green beans al dente
4 T hummus for dipping
8 oz. chicken breast with spices
Hot tea no sweetener

4:30 pm Snackity Snack Snack

Think Thin bar – my last one – must reorder!
Hot tea no sweetener

5:30 pm Cardio!

Elliptical (@ Home) Steep Climb
40 minutes
433 cals burned

7 pm Dinner Out @ Red Robin

How you ask? Bun-less!

I looked up my planned meal head of time online, it was still a splurge on the fat count, but doable as my fat earlier in the day was quite low.
Bleu Ribbon Burger -bunless, chipotle mayo-less, and fried onion thing-less. Even pared down to the burger patty, steak sauce, bleu cheese, lettuce, and tomato it still had 490 cals, 32 grams of fat, 8 carbs, and 38 grams of protein. I picked it over another bunless burger choice (the bonzai) because that one had more than double the carbs and 40% less protein, only saving 1/3 of the fat. Regardless – not a regular treat on my diet!

And a Diet Coke :p

9 pm Bedtime Snack

½ cup steel cut oats with cinnamon and a speck of cream

Despite that tasty trimmed down burger my macros are pretty much spot on today, clocking in at 181 grams protein, 129 grams carbs, and 70 grams fat.

That brings my Cal Tally to:
1,870 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,069) Training
(647) Net Loss =)

Movie Montage - This is a fun one! =)

2011-03-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Rather than rambling today like usual I’m going with a video montage that I had a lot of fun making. The song is Hey Hey Hey Hey by Michael Franti and I’m a fan of the laid back juts be happiness of the chorus.

Day 69

St Patty’s Day

Thursday, March 17, 2011

9 am Cardio

30 min Elliptical Hill Climb
357 cals burned

9:45 am Breakfast

Late & lazy Day I know.

My son is awesome and let me do cardio while he was awake. Yes! No 6 am alarm necessary over spring break =)

Oatmeal
Coffee with low cal creamer
1 scoop cake batter whey with nf sugar free Silk soy milk (awesomely low carb being the selling factor here)

12:45 Lunch

4 oz. Chicken breast
½ yellow bell pepper
½ cup baby carrots
¾ cup green beans
2 T hummus for dipping
1 slice Trader Joe’s California Protein Bread

3:30 pm simple non-clean carb moment – but macro ratio maintained

I'm scapegoating a thread I read on bodybuilding.com for this. They were talking about eating whatever you wanted as long as you keep your macro ratios straight when the day is done. That idea stuck in my head....muahahaha.

30 cherry Jelly Bellys
1 petite vanilla bean scone from Starbucks (5 g fat, 0 protein, 21 grams carbs)

4:30 pm Fuel for the gym
8 oz. red shrimp & 8 asparagus spears with hot sauce and citrus (limes & oranges)
½ cup brown rice

5:30-7:15 pm Training Legs @ Gold’s

Se pic and click to enlarge if you’re curious – I rather like the laziness of just posting my handwritten workout notes =)

8pm St. Patty’s Day Dinner

Corned Beef and Cabbage of Course! No potatoes for me though.
Hot tea no sweetener
I wasn’t going to have corned beef at all as the one I found at the regular grocery store awhile back had crazy cals and aft counts, but I saw one at TJ’s last week with a reasonable count (190 cals / 11g fat/ 2 g carbs / 20 g protein) so I snagged it =)

10:30 pm Bedtime Snack

Oatmeal

I'm going on strike on my macro count today. Not because of the petite scone and Jelly Belly's. Nope! I know my macros are in line, carbs running maybe 5% heavy. I also know that I burned 1,034 cals training today so I'm confident I have a net cal loss. Lastly, I know that I'm tired and don't feel like spending 10-15 min tallying up the whole day's worth. I'm on a one day strike ;) Night night!

Last Day @ The Rec till 3/30 so I Hit it Hard =)

2011-03-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

Day 68

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I worked out a lot today. That was good. So was finding out I got a 99 on my tax final and a solid A in the class. I was expecting a major hit, but finding out I got a C+ in econ was still ugly. The 4.0 is officially DEAD. I never had a 4.0 in high school, not a single quarter. Then at age 25 I started an A.A. in Business that would transfer to a four year school. I started getting straight A’s and then I got a little vigilant about it and cleared that entire degree with a perfect 4.0. I had a goal to not lose it my 1st quarter after transferring. I didn’t, but completing my 2nd quarter here I just did. The jury is still out on my other two classes. I like to think of not having a 4.0 gpa as being a sign of having a more balanced life though. I mean if you take 16 credits of 300 level CBE courses, work part-time, head up a one parent household with a rambunctious almost 4-year-old trying to run the place, commit 15+ hours a week to training for your first figure competition and still get a 4.0, well then you are clearly an alien from outer space. I happen to be human so chapter closed new one started ;)

This morning I started on the treadmill, did a complete back session, mini biceps session, mini shoulders session, mini glutes session, 15 minutes of posing practice, and the StairMaster. All told I was at The Rec for 3 hours and 10 minutes. I won’t get to work out there again until 3/30 because C is on break from preschool. It’ll be all Gold’s for the next two weeks. Thank goodness for their fantastic in house childcare. <3 you Gold’s.

8 am Breakfast

Oatmeal with cinnamon
Coffee with nondairy creamer

9 am Protein

1 scoop chocolate MyoFusion shaken with water

Cardio, Posing Practice, & Training Back, Biceps, Shoulders, & Glutes@ The Rec
9:15 am – 12:25 pm

1)15 min warm-up jog on the treadmill

2-3% incline 5-5.8 mph (I kept switching both around)
15.3 cals burned 1.27 miles

BACK

2) Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns

1. 85 lbs x 8 reps
2. 100 lbs x 8 reps
3. 90 lbs x 8 reps
4. 85 lbs x 8 reps

Superset with

2)Single Arm Seated Cable Rows

1. 40 lbs x 8 reps per arm
2. 40 lbs x 8 reps per arm
3. 40 lbs x 8 reps per arm
4. 40 lbs x 6 reps per arm

3)Dumbbel Bent-Over Single Rows

1. 25 lbs x 8 reps per arm
2. 30 lbs x 8 reps per arm
3. 35 lbs x 8 reps per arm
4. 40 lbs x 8 reps per arm

4) Dumbbell Pullovers

1. 25 lbs x 10 reps
2. 25 bs x 8 reps
3. 20 lbs x 12 reps
4. 20 lbs x 10 reps

Superset with

5) Straight Bar Pushdowns

1. 60 lbs x 12 reps
2. 70 lbs x 4 ½ reps, DS to 60 lbs x 4 ½ reps (dying muscles!)
3. 60 lbs x 10 reps
4. 60 lbs x 5 ½ reps, DS to 50 lbs x 8 reps

MINI BICEPS

6) Seated Barbell Curls

1. 40 lbs x 10 reps
2. 50 lbs x 10 reps
3. 50 lbs x 8 reps

Superset with

7) Standing Barbell Curls

1. 40 lbs x 10 reps
2. 50 lbs x 6 reps
3. 50 lbs x 6 reps

8) Prone Incline / Seated Incline DB Curls

1. Prone – 25 lbs x 12 alt.
2. Prone – 20 lbs x 16 alt.
3. Seated – 20 lbs x 8 each arm (full set, then switch)

At this point I realized I pretty much had to eat or quit so I went off to the vending machine for a bottle of Muscle Milk Light. It’s not the greatest protein drink, but better than quitting!

MINI SHOULDER CIRCUIT (1 set of each exercise, repeat, repeat)

9) Dumbbell Overhead Shoulder Press

1. 20 lbs x 20 alt
2. 20 lbs x 18 alt
3. 20 lbs x 18 alt

10) Upright Barbell Rows

1. 40 lbs x 10 reps
2. 40 lbs x 10 reps
3. 40 lbs x 10 reps

11) Barbell Military Press

1. 40 lbs x 8 reps
2. 40 lbs x 8 reps
3. 40 lbs x 8 reps

MINI GLUTES

12) Cable KickBacks (of course!)

1. 55 lbs x 10 each leg
2. 65 lbs x 10 each leg
3. 70 lbs x 10 each leg
4. 80 lbs x 10 each leg
5. 90 lbs x 6, DS to 70 lbs x 8 each leg
6. 80 lbs x 8 each leg

13) Cable Hip Adductor / Abductors

1. 30 lbs x 8 reps each side
2. 30 lbs x 8 reps each side
3. 30 lbs x 8 reps each side

14) Single Leg Standing Leg Press on the Assisted Pull-up Machine
(Thanks again F&M Hers for this one!)

1. 100 lbs x 10 reps per leg
2. 115 lbs x 8 reps each leg
3. 130 lbs x 8 reps each leg

POSING PRACTICE

15) 15 minutes in the mirror room

16) StairMaster

Fat Burner level 10
20 minutes
199.3 cals burned
98 floors climbed
2.01 miles

Stretching

12:45 pm Lunch

8 oz. chicken breast
2 slices Dave’s Killer Bread Light Seed Bread
Arugula and tomato salad with balsamic vinegar
Hot tea no sweetener

2:45 pm Snack in the Car

Think Thin Bar

6:30 pm Dinner

4 T yummity yum yum hummus
2 cups baby carrots, cucumbers, and red bell pepper
1 ½ cups turkey, black bean, & kale chili (I made it – it’s really tasty)
2 T peanut butter – didn’t need this, just got all depressed when my econ grade posted and decided to eat it.

8:30 pm snacking

2 cups decaf coffee with the low cal creamer ( my new night time fix – coffee trumps tea!)
1 pc seed bread with 1 T hummus on it yeah don’t ask, but it was YUMMY =)

Macro Check

182 grams protein 185 grams carbs 74 grams fat

Which means I ate 2,134 cals today. That’s a lot, but I also burned 1,256 cals training today. So:

2,134
(1,448) BMR
(1,256) Training (Cardio Counts + Lifting @ 390/hour)
(570) Net Loss =)

This is why days with long training sessions are so much better than those without. You get to eat lots, albeit clean, and still run a cal deficit.

Leaning out on Cake Batter Mmmmmm

2011-03-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Day 67

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Winter quarter is officially OVER!!! It hasn’t sunk in yet, tomorrow morning it will. I get to spend the next 2 of my last 4.5 weeks leading up to the Emerald Cup just focusing on my son and mass gym time. Woohoo! =)

Zero training took place today, just 2 last final exams. I was also supposed to go to ASWA tonight, but didn’t. I’m beat. Tomorrow I’ll be getting up and heading straight to the gym to train back and do cardio. I may throw biceps and shoulders in there too. I ate basically perfectly today and I’m proud of it. Chicken, carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, arugula, tomatoes, shrimps, oatmeal, 3 protein shakes, a handful of nuts and green olives for healthy fats. That about sums up the day. I also finally made it over to bodybuilding.com to research my macro ratios and it turns out I was about spot on today. Based on my body weight and training intent I should be taking in about 172 grams protein, 125 grams carbs, and 69 grams fat daily.

Today my totals were 177 grams protein, 116 grams carbs, and 44 grams fat. Considering I didn’t train today that’s just about spot on. I think from here on out I’m just going to compare my gram counts to the targets set in the above paragraph rather than running % ratios. One less thing to make myself crazy with =)

So as you may have gathered the pics are my unfinished competition posing suit. My designer, Amy (check her out at suitsbyamy.com), sends it out for my fitting before applying the Swarvoski Crystal design pattern to make sure the fit is just right. I had a friend help pin the straps to fit so that they’re just right when I’m done leaning out. It was fun having my suit and I’m sorry to send it back, but also really excited to have it back for good decked out in gorgeous sparkly crystals =)

The other pic is my humungous 5 lb tub of Cake Batter! Delivered by UPS just this afternoon. Well Cake Batter flavored whey powder, hehe. It has fantastic stats: 1 scoop has 120 cals, 24 g protein, 3 g carbs, and 1 g fat. Meanwhile my MyoFusion (still love it, just tired of the flavors) has 147 cals, 25 g protein, 5 g carbs, and 3 g fat, but it is made of a mix of casein, whey, and egg albumin proteins so it is a better bedtime choice as the casein is a slower digesting protein to prevent muscle cannibalization during sleep. Anyways, cake batter is yummy. I’m happy it’s here. I had a glass with a side of cerignola olives just now before bed. Sounds odd probably, but not, just the perfect clean cure for the sweet and salty craving!

Night night =)

The 31 Hour Rebellion (no, not my diet)

2011-03-14T22:08:00.001-07:00

Day 66

Monday, March 14, 2011

This post is essentially just an announcement to say I'm not writing a real post tonight. I'm copying formulas and notes into my Code & Regs book for my tax final tomorrow, realizing a have a couple hours to go and that I still need time for my Econ final too (also tomorrow). I thought I would feel better after clearing my first two finals today, but it turns out it gets worse because due to my preference of keeping all my other balls in the air up I didn't fully study for my two Tuesday finals this weekend, only the two Monday ones. So tonight it is.

I just did the math though and suddenly all my STRESS makes perfect sense. Ummm 4 finals in 31 hours and each final is 2 hours so that makes 8/31 hours spent in an exam or 25.8% of this 31 hour period that I'm in the middle of spent in exams.Lol. How do you like that ratio? More interesting than my macros? Remind me NOT to train for a figure competition when I'm taking the CPA exam (14 hours cumulative / 4 sections) that would be laughably psychotic!

Macro Ratios

Protein 36% (145 grams) Carbs 51% (210 grams) Fat 12% (51 grams)

Cal Tally

1,879 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(293) Training (45 min @ 390 / Hr)
138 Net Gain

It's out of whack. Not realizing quite how many carbs it was I decided I deserved a Gingerbread Non-fat Latte in between my back to back finals today. Looked it up tonight - 38 carbs and 11 protein so that threw my ratio. So did the oatmeal I just ate with a teaspoon of whipping cream and 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and cinnamon. Yeah, that's right, dairy and sugar! Read it and weep, or maybe not, how about just laugh because you think I'm nutty? ;) I needed comfort food to keep me awake. I cannot wait until tomorrow evening forward, no more big stressors between me and the Emerald Cup, therefore, no more cheats, no more carb excuses, just hardcore lean out and 2-3 hour workouts daily. The good stuff!

All there was time for today was 45 minutes of intense chest and triceps at Gold's. I benched without a spotter, went up to 85 lbs, my one rep max is 105 so not bad alone. I also did 10 minutes of plyos (jumping lunges, jumping prisoner squats, burpees, and mountain climbers) this morning after sleeping in too far for elliptical time (up too late last night too).

My suit came for the fitting today =) I LOVE IT! There will be a proper ode to my suit post tomorrow.

BICEPS = Big Mood Boost =)

2011-03-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Day 65

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The 1st pic was dinner, 6 oz. chicken breast with a handful of olives and marinated mushrooms, various veg, and 4 Tbs of hummus - I found one at TJ's with an acceptable carb/fat count - woohoo!!!

The 2nd is my lazy version of today's 1 hour and 40 minute weights session. After I clear my finals I plan to go back to typing up my training sessions all neat and pretty like I used to =)

Eek! I have 2 finals back to back tomorrow beginning at 10:30 am. I’m glad I got in a good weights session today though. I decided to just do a biceps and shoulders focus and and save my triceps and chest for when I sprint to the gym tomorrow at 3 pm like a bat out of hell after my two finals. (Stress makes me over-dramatic doesn’t it? ;) They have spotters available at The Rec so still getting to include the bench press in my chest routine rather than doing only DB Presses makes more sense anyways.
I’ve been worrying about my arms – that they’re getting too skinny. Comparing recent photos with month or two month old ones I was noticing that my biceps aren’t the burly things they were. It’s less than 5 weeks to the Emerald Cup yes, but it is also too early to lean my arms out that much. As such, I decided to quit taking my biceps for granted and give them the focused workout the need (and do it again later this week and 2x the following, you get the idea).

The barbells of my desired weights were taken and so were most of the benches so I started with shoulders. That’s too bad, because it wasn’t until my 2nd set of seated barbell curls superset with standing barbell curls that my endorphin rush kicked in. I love the moment when your mood clicks over and you just think oh yeah” and grin at yourself in the weight room mirror. I had a 40 lb BB first because a woman was off dead-lifting the 50. When I got the 50, managed it easily, and was watching the stunning vein pop in the mirror (I sooooo want a high res pic of that – best self-portrait ever!) my mood just clicked over and I started grinning and thinking “I’m so glad I’m here! I’m so happy I didn’t flake in favor of studying more!”

I love curling barbells, I really do. I will have to get to a Body Pump class this week for sure=) It’s all barbells in there and it’s the root of my love for all things lifting.

Daily Macro Ratio / Cal Tally

I haven’t had time to research the grams vs. cals question, I’m guessing it is cals, but until I find out I’m sticking to grams for continuity:

Protein 41% (172 grams) Carbs 47% (195 grams) Fat 12% (52 grams)

1,936 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(650) Training
(162) Net Loss

Focus on Finals + Focus on Five Weeks out = Oil + Vinegar

2011-03-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

Day 64

Saturday, March 12, 2011

There really shouldn’t be an entry today. All I did today was 30 minutes of am cardio. I did manage to do it with C awake though, which is great, because I would love to not have to set a 6 am alarm for the entirety of spring break. I intended to do a biceps/triceps/shoulders circuit at home, but it was just never the right time and when it was I was too tired. I’m feeling like a lame duck until Tuesday at 5:30 pm (that’s when my last of four finals is over). I am going to the gym tomorrow and it will likely be a 3 hour workout so that I can hit the above mentioned / abandoned muscle groups plus chest and a good shot of cardio. The rest of my day will be spent being a crazy person trying to prioritize studying for tax / econ / and int acct finals. I‘ll finish studying for marketing before bed tonight so at least one thing is off the list. When I have too many things that need my focus and their priority level is arbitrary I start acting somewhat like a chicken with its head cut off. After my back to back (4 hours straight of test-taking – awesome!) marketing and intermediate accounting II finals on Monday I will have two hours left before retrieving C for a solid de-stressing workout. My managerial economics and income taxation I finals are on Tuesday and also back to back starting at 1 pm, unless I do it in the morning instead of staring at my econ notes I won’t get to train that day. Wednesday though is good to go!

Macro Ratio / Cal Tally

41% Protein (178 grams) 49% Carbs (214 grams) 10% Fat (44 grams)

1,964 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(367) Cardio
149 Net Gain

3 Hours @ The Rec will Cure the Cheat Meal Hangover Blues!

2011-03-11T22:35:00.000-08:00

Interesting day today. I didn’t want to do anything. I was really tired and just burnt out overall. I knew I needed to workout though. I also don’t expect to get to go to Gold’s tomorrow as C is still snotty and has a pretty good cough yet. I can train biceps, triceps, shoulders, and abs at home if I have to, but back, chest, and legs suck for training at home. So I decided to hit back and legs today to mitigate the situation. I also was overdue for some legitimate cardio. End story? Only five minutes short of three full hours straight at The Rec.

My leg workout hit the essentials with a glutes focus. Squat Rack Pyramid (160 lbs x 10 reps max set today), Smith Machine Lunges, Walking Barbell Lunges, a massive amount of Cable Kickbacks (8 sets) with a new heavy record at 85 lbs, Cable Hip Abductor/Adductors, and Unilateral Standing Leg Presses on the Assisted Pull-up Machine. Those Cable Kickbacks are my fast favorite. They’re the surest way to a tight perky butt ad if you’re going to get on a casino stage in a sparkly posing suit and 5” stilettos you need that perfect butt for confidence and more importantly, to have a chance at placing in the top 5 and taking home a trophy. So anyways I am trying to get in my new beloved cable kickbacks a minimum of 3x week. Basically you have the cable hooked up to a leather belt thing secured around your ankle. You stand about a foot and a half in front of the cable pulley, place one arm on the post, and then proceed to kick your leg out, pretty much just like a horse does, you squeeze your glute at the top of the motion and remain controlled and tense throughout, complete a set of 8-12 reps, switch the cable to the other leg, do a set, up your weight, repeat, you get the gist.

My back workout was actually directly out of an old issue of F&M Hers. I find that funny, because I always mean to, but never take their prescribed workouts to the gym, this was the first time. The variance was that they suggested 3 sets of 10-15 reps per exercise, but I did 4 sets of each and only 8-10 reps except for the DB Pullovers last up 12-15 reps there). Why? I’m trying to keep my weights heavy to maintain my muscle. Heavier weights = fewer reps. It was Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns, Bent-Over Dumbbell Rows, One-Arm Seated Cable Rows, and Dumbbell Pullovers. The idea being to wear out the lats with the first two heavily focused exercises, attack them with a singular focus in the each side isolation, and then really feel them and focus on them easily in the DB pull-overs. You see the DBPO works a lot of muscles: lats, chest, shoulders, triceps…so by pre-exhausting the lats you can better isolate them and mentally steer your focus to that muscle group. Crafty huh? I liked it and it worked as rumored to. That’s from a monthly section called Odo’s Angle featuring workouts from a trainer by that name. That all got wrapped up with 45 minutes on the stairs with chapter 12 of my tax textbook, woo. I did a solid 10 minutes of stretching too. I really need to stretch more often.

I’m a little worried about my macros. I’ve been looking around and it seems that most builders favor a 40/40/20 ratio (P/C/F). I’ve been hitting that pretty closely, but it just occurred to me today that I may be calculating my ratio wrong. I’ve been calculating it as a percentage of total grams (i.e. today protein accounted for 195/478 total grams thus 41%). However, I just got to wondering if I’m supposed to be calculating my ratio as a percentage of total cals, not grams. Protein and Carbs are 4 cals / gram and Fat is 9 cals / gram so if that is the case it will practically double my Fat ratio. Hmmm…that’s not appealing. I had better look into it and adjust accordingly. I’m not worried though, today was a high fat day, but it was intentional, I normally am concerned that my fat intake is too low. Today my total cals are so high because I was intentionally upping the total fat with a bunch of avocado, almonds, and gourmet tasty olives. I don’t feel a need to do that frequently so quitting won’t offend me =)

I am looking forward to my 5 lbs of cake batter arriving on Tuesday. Mmmmmm….no I’m not cheating haha. I ran into my PT this morning at The Rec and she was telling me about how delicious this Optimum Gold Standard Whey in the cake batter flavor was. So after hearing that GNC didn’t have it, boo, I poked around online, saw a bunch of reviews equally in love with the flavor, and decided to cheat on my MyoFusion. I do love MyoFusion; it’s a great protein powder, but I am so sick of vanilla and chocolate and the strawberry flavor is sooo gross without milk which I’m not allowed (I mix my protein with ice and water in my kick ass Magic Bullet). I also have a faint, very faint, memory of how delicious the cake batter ice cream at Coldstone Creamery is, so cake batter whey powder? Yes please! It has fewer carbs and cals than my MyoFusion too, muahahahaha ;) Thanks Laura! (P.S. I will happily trade you half if you want – I couldn’t find a 2 lb tub anywhere – not even the manufacturer’s site.)

Day 63

Friday, March 11, 2011

Breakfast 8 am

2 slices Dave’s Killer Good Seed Light Bread (<3 this stuff! Best low cal/carb bread ever! 75 cals 4 g protein, 13 g carbs, 2 g fat / slice)
4 Isernio’s chicken apple sausage breakfast links
½ cup sliced strawberries
2 cups coffee (with non-dairy 6 g carbs 1 gram fat / serving creamer)

Training Back & Legs & Logging Cardio @ The Rec 9:15 am – 12:10 pm

Click the pic to make it big and readable. It’s a good one today – interesting read – I promise =)

12:15 pm Feed those Muscles
1 scoop milk chocolate MyoFusion shaken with water

1:00 pm Lunch
8 oz. wild snapper with spices and lemon
¾ cup brown rice
12 steamed asparagus spears
1 small avocado with rice wine vinegar
Hot tea no sweetener

2:30 pm Snack on the go

Think Thin Bar
Hot tea no sweetener

5:30 pm Dinner

The clean dieter’s spin on French dip:

1 yellow onion caramelized
Add ½ cup au jus
4 oz. leftover deli roast beef

Dump all of that over 1 slice toasted Light Good Seed Bread
Slice up an orange bell pepper and serve it on the side
200 cal pack raw almonds
Hot tea no sweetener

9 pm Bedtime Snack
1 scoop milk chocolate MyoFusion with water and ice in my bullet
3 huge Cerignola olives (healthy fats!)
2 rice cakes

Daily Macro / Cal Tally

41% Protein (195 grams) 42% Carbs (202 grams) 17% Fat (81 grams)
2,317 Cals Ingested (heavy day yeesh!)
(1,448) BMR
(1,057) Cals Burned Training
(188) Net Loss =)

The Last Cheat

2011-03-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

Day 62

Thursday, March 10, 2011

It was a good day, I was having an easy time at eating clean and had good macro ratios (43% Protein 45% Carbs 12% Fat) and only 976 cals logged when I left campus at 5 pm. I had to pick up one thing at the store and the notion of doing my last cheat meal surfaced. Somehow that snowballed into the idea that as it would be the last full blown cheat before the EC I should do it with total freedom. The original intent was to do roast beef and muenster cheese on croissants with au jus – best version of a French dip I’m aware of (the muenster is my friend Rachel’s thing). So I got stuff for those and then a Cadbury Crème Egg got in the cart. Then C wanted a steamer on the way out so I bought two of those addictive mini vanilla bean scones from Starbucks that I used to love(read: used to eat). Then I was thinking about how it was the last cheat and I decided to tack on pizza and cinnamon balls with vanilla ice-cream from my favorite ice cream place. It was just a 7” Hawaiian pizza, C had two slices of it, and I only ate a few of the cinnamon balls. I was going for the small quantity of a variety of things cheat approach.

By the end though I felt way too full and just generally gross.Once you condition your body to only eat small quantities of clean foods (keep in mind I eat 6 times a day, every 2-3 hours) eating a gluttonous serving of carbity carb carb carbs will just plain make you feel sick. I won’t be doing that again. It’s all mental. Once I was digging into all the things I’m not allowed to have I realized that they were nowhere near as good as I’d built them up to be. By the end I was disappointed I hadn’t had an avocado, some almonds, bell peppers, and fresh fish instead. Tomorrow is a new day, the 5 week out mark, and I’m back on.

I didn’t work out at all today, I’ve been running really short on sleep, yesterday’s double workout took a toll on me, and I needed the time to study. I prefer to cheat on a rest day. If you cheat after a great workout it is such a detractor. I think the beauty of the cheat meal is that the way you feel afterwards makes you really realize why you eat clean and how worth it sticking to your diet is because it makes you feel strong, powerful, and healthy. You know the polar opposite effect of the cheat meal. Last cheat logged, 5 weeks to go, abd I’m not looking back.

My posing suit shipped today for the fitting. I’m excited to see it and that will produce a great blog post to boot! =)