Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Smashed legs today and it totally wiped me out!  Been awhile since I have felt like that.  I had to sleep pretty much as soon as I finished my post training shake! I was a bit of a mess!  We did heavy squats, 8 reps, supersetted with walking lunges (no weight needed!).  Then onto Bulgarian Split Squats supersetted with Lumberjack Squats – this is one very cool exercise that will work you like you wouldn’t believe!  Followed that with Knee Extension (drop sets) supersetted with Seated Calf Raises.  It doesn’t sound much but I really hammered it.  My heart rate was above 160 on occasions.  My quads were screaming after the first 2 exercises!  I tried to finish off with a set of sissy squats.  I almost crumbled at the bottom.  I am already getting sore just 12 hours post workout.  I went for a 20 min walk/jog tonight simply to try and work out some soreness.

So my weight has gone back up over where I began!!  How annoying is that scale.  But, I know I’ve been doing all the right things, my skin folds are down, and I am looking leaner and I feel harder, so all good for now.  I did carb up last night too which would be one reason the scale is higher.  I weigh myself every morning and write down the figure.  Have done this for all my preps and it’s really interesting.

Still working on my training split and workout, not quite happy with it.  TP reckons I need to continue deadlifting as this is the only way to use a really heavy weight for my back. I don’t have the strength to pull up or chin up additional weight, so deadlifting is the only way I can pull around 80kg or more.  I will just need to make sure I recover ok so the plan is to deadlift for 5 reps one week, then lighter (12 reps) the other week.  Same for squats – the week I deadlift heavy I will squat light, or do lumberjack squats, and when I DL light, will squat heavy.

My appetite still isn’t great which I am actually enjoying – basically I have lost the urge to pick at food after meals so that is all good!  I’ve gone off veggies a bit though   We had mum and Wes for dinner tonight – everyone had roast lamb, veggies and rice while I had my cottage cheese, berries and walnuts

I caught up with the pregnant Jodie today finally, which was lovely.  It’s been so long since we chatted.  She is looking great, but she has been a bit sick poor girl.  Looks and sounds like she is coping very well with the whole impending motherhood thing though!

Tomorrow for me is cardio only.  I am bumping it up to 40 mins this week.  I will do 10 mins high intensity and the rest steady state.  Might go to the gym and start with abs, not sure yet.

I wrote one of my articles on Saturday so still have one to do this week.  That should be fairly easy though.  I managed to clean out my inbox today, so that feels really good!  It’s a task that doesn’t stay done for very long though, by tomorrow it will be a mess again

Ok, past bed time so better get to it.

Yesterday was interesting.  I had a flight to Adelaide at 10.55am so I made sure I was at the gym by 7.30ish for my cardio session.  I did some tabata training, just for 4 mins.  Kristin and I are both trying it out and will start incorporating into some of our programming.  The protocol is 20 seconds on (as many reps as you can or as hard as you can if performing cardio) followed by 10 seconds rest – for 4 mins.   You can do one exercise or you can do 4 – whatever.  I chose 4:

Thrusters (squat with db press)

DB Swing

DB Iron Cross

Squat Jump

It doesn’t sound much, but it was tough, particularly those squat jumps at the end.  I followed that with 20 mins of moderate cardio on the elliptical while chatting to Nadia.  Next time I think I will do 2 rounds but have a minute rest in between.

Ok, so I was home by 8.30am, made my shake (normally I would not have this for breakfast, but travelling warranted a change in order), and finished preparing my meal/snacks to take in my backpack to Adelaide.  I made the veg, tuna and egg white meal the night prior, and just had to mix some water and raspberries in with my MRM Low Carb chocolate and put the lids on.   Easy.  Had my shower, headed to the airport for flight.  I arrive, with 25 mins to spare, only to be told the plane was just leaving Adelaide and would be an hour late.  Great.  I figured there was no point in staying there – I didn’t even have my computer.  So I drove back into town and met Damien for a coffee at the plaza.  Wasted some time there, then got back just as they called passengers to board.  I  had to go through the xray and there was a bit of a line up.  It took a little while, but then, like I always do (or so it seems), I was chosen to have the explosives test performed.  I said to the guy “I think they are waiting for me” (as in the plane full of people – well ok, so there was only about 12 passengers on the plane but still!), to which he responded “this won’t take long”.  I got the once over, and, up popped the red “EXPLOSIVE” icon.  Hmmm.  He said it was probably something on my shoes so he would do it again.  He proceded to clean the instrument, then do a test on himself to which it came up “CLEAR”.  He ran it over me again, minus the shoes, and, we waited for the verdict.  It felt like it was taking forever.  Uh oh – I’m still explosive!!  Now I had some other lady come over with some forms and explain they would need to take me into a room and perform a search of me and my gear, and, ask me some questions.  So 3 women hustled me into the room (all this time the plane is on the tarmac, ready to go), and proceeded to go through all of my belongings, give me a pat down, and ask me a list of questions and have me sign various documents.  Thankfully I was allowed to get on the bloody plane in the end!!  A friend (guy) who works there who knows I’m into bodybuilding walked me out to the plane and yelled out to me on the tarmac asking me if it was ‘the steroids’!  So I felt about an inch tall as I got on the plane, making all these people wait!  Stupid machine!

Got there and taxi into the mall – still had plenty of time to shop even though the plane was late.  I managed to spend a few $ – skirt, two tops, a dress and some shoes.

Got a taxi out to my docs, check up all fine, I had a few questions to ask him and he’s actually changed my dose on a couple of things so will see how that goes over the next few months.  Taxi back to airport, home at 8pm.  Very tired! 

I woke up at 4am again!!!  I didn’t get to bed until 11.30pm by the time I went through my email and did a bit of tidying up of work.  So, that is nowhere near enough sleep for me again.  I had a dream Big Pud got shot!!  I had to deal with the grief of that for a second but thankfully I woke up right away, stuck out my hand and felt a big furry ball next to my head.  All ok with Big Pud.  Didn’t go back to sleep though, so think I will do that real soon.

I had my carb up last night, that was very welcome.  sweet potato, a bit of cheese, 90g oats, a banana and some cottage cheese.  Should refill a bit of glycogen and make me train well today

Thanks for all your comments recently!  Kitty, hehe   Kerry, I think it’s fungus.

I know I was going to hang up the stripper shoes but I have decided to keep them out a little while longer for one last appearance.  This time I will be doing my own preparation – I’m finally convinced I know my body better than anyone else so I will see what I can do with it.  This time I will have some local support from a couple of training partners so it will be good.  I am hoping one of them will be also taking the stage!  We do cardio together on Monday’s and train when we can.

I’m pretty happy with how I have designed my meal plan.  Hey I’ve been working on it since before I left for Mexico!  I’ve fiddled and farted around with it and have almost come to the final result.  I have had some valuable input from a bodybuilding friend in the US.  The plan is a carb/calorie cycle of sorts.  I have 5 low carb days, around 20%, and 2 days a week I have a healthy carb up meal at the end of the day which will be something to look forward to.  I have 2 low cal days, 3 medium and 2 a litle higher again.  Today was cardio day – I walked (a little jogging to raise the h/r a bit) for 50 mins, fasted.  My fasting is now on black coffee with no sweetener.  Never thought I could do it.  Food was like so:

scoop of Low Carb Protein, 1 egg, 3 whites, 75g strawberries

1/2 cup cc, 5 half walnuts, 40g blueberries

120g beef and green beans

1/2 cup cc, 5 half walnuts, 60g strawberries

120g salmon, salad

Today was a low calorie day as you can no doubt tell.  I have the same tomorrow.  Normally I wouldn’t do 2 days in a row but it’s just how my schedule has turned out this week.  I’m torn a bit as to whether I should up the calories a little bit at this early stage.  Wednesday will be my first carb up meal so I will be looking forward to that after being in Adelaide all day.  I decided that instead of taking my computer with me, I will just get dropped off in Rundle Mall and go shopping instead   Yeah sounded like a better option to me too.  I will do my cardio before I go.  I have different cardio sessions – I know that personally I can’t do a lot of high intensity cardio in addition to weight training, so I will cap that at 3 sessions per week, just for 10 mins each (plus some moderate/low stuff too).  Any other cardio will just be low intensity.  I am training an upper/lower body split 4 x week as I’ve noted in previous posts.

Anyway, just a quick post tonight, I am a bit over sitting on my butt behind this screen – I cannot believe how busy it is, and how many programs we have sold today!

Kitty, yes I saw that, thank you very much, I hope by the end of your program you still love us just as much :)  You sound like you are doing really well. 

Jude, you are welcome, yes we are a very supportive bunch here!  Everyone loves the forum and I am sure you will too.  Loved your blog, and your creativity with Word Press.  Help!!