Real Pull-ups!!! I CAN DO THEM =)

Day 45

Monday, February 21, 2011

45 Days, for 45 days I have been writing down and posting every single thing I eat and every weight rep and minute of cardio I log. This is good; I need this blog; it is my training log. That may have rhymed, but I am not a poet. Between all that detail and the realization that I really need to drop fruit and dairy now and get much more hardcore on my diet has me feeling burnt out. So I’m declaring a slight break and will only be hitting the highlights in today’s post.

The best highlight? I did REAL PULL-UPS today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =) I have never been able to manage even one. Back in middle school and high school I could only manage a ½ of one on that Presidential Physical Fitness Test. This summer after taking up with Body Pump I went down south and stayed a weekend with Kelly. Her condo had a pull-up bar in the gym so I went for it with her and Eli watching. I couldn’t do one then when I had fully expected to. It was a huge letdown.

Today I decided to try, but I timed it. I made sure I had not done any shoulder/chest/tricep/bicep stuff prior, but I wanted to be pumped so I hit my leg workout first, which was 6 sets of various types of walking lunges, 5 sets each of skier squats and 5 sets of wide squats on the smith machine and 5 sets of smith machine lunges. I brought my gloves for firm grip and I brought some fresh downloads on my iPod. I got 3 ½ for my first set and I started attempting videos with my phone for sets 2-7. Yeah, 7 sets. I realize I’m completely silly getting fixated on getting a good video of things like I do (squat pyramid, bent over rows, etc.) but the fact is that when I get stuck on that I typically wind up doing 50% more sets than I otherwise would have. So yes, it’s kinda vain, and yes I realize I don’t need a video in every post, but hey it’s buying me more sets and I like to visualize what I’m accomplishing ;) I want to get a pull-up bar for my house now. My new goal is to be able to do a set of 12. My max today was 3 ¾ reps and in set 7 I was totally losing it and only managed 2 ½.



I also got to go down and see Darene, one of my closest friends today. She’s busier than I am so we don’t get a lot of face time plus we live 45 minutes apart. Her and her husband, Matt, are both GREAT cooks, but they were pretty awesome and busted out the carb free chicken and veggie based dinner for my visit. Still very tasty, but they do things like make their own tortilla chips and braise delicious ribs and make to die for hot spinach papaya salad. I wish I wasn’t such a foodie and a stress eater. The diet is the hardest part of this quest for me by a longshot.


Daily Cal Tally
1,820 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(390) Training
(18) Net Loss