Today is weigh-in day, and I got on the scale knowing that I've been doing something right. Yesterday I wore the blue striped pants that I haven't been able to wear in quite some time, and I've been sticking to the Zone and hitting the gym more often recently.
I got on the scale... and... I'm down to 151! Hooray!!! Two more pounds and I'm going to break the 150 mark. I'm losing an average of 2 lbs a week over the last two weeks, which was when I decided to stick to the diet and exercize regimine.
I'm also down to 36" around my hips and 28.5" around my waist. I've noticed that my hips are losing much faster than my waist is. I think this is because there's more there to lose.
My notebook gets updated every day at work with the previous day's WOD results as well as what I ate for dinner and that morning's breakfast. I'm working to keep my carb/protein/fat balance equal, and by doing so, my portions are much smaller. It's easy to turn down a cookie when you realize it counts for two carb blocks out of three for the entire meal.
I had forgotten to bring my notebook to the gym last night, so I had to recall the information for the WOD. It was "Helen", which was something I had done before at the buttercup level. I decided to pick the puppy scaling, but since I didn't have it with me, I mixed up the number of pull-ups required and ended up doing more than was necessary. Also, my side cramped up while running in the second round, and I pushed through it until the third round when I was forced to take a break. My total time was 11:02, which was still less than most of the posted times on the message boards.
Water. I need to drink more of it. To tell you the truth, I get lazy. I don't want to get up from my desk and walk the 100 feet to the lunchroom to get water. I know that's a stupid excuse, but if I drink more, it also means I have to pee more.
Not sure what the heck I'm going to do for dinner this evening. Jimmy Johns delivers and they have a killer lettuce wrap (instead of having the bread, which is a huge no-no), but I'm also trying to save money. I could kill for veal marsalla... I wonder how many blocks that would be ;)
On a side note, ever since Meghan took us on that brewery tour, I've devoloped a taste for beer. 4 oz of regular beer = 1 blk carbs. Again, 3 blks carbs in a meal, or 12 blks carbs total a day. That means that I really can't drink a lot of beer. Lite beer is 6oz to a block, so it gets a little better. If I have a mixed drink, one shot = 1 blk, or 4 oz wine... same thing.
At work until 8pm tonight. Moving soon! :D
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
60 Pull-ups + 60 Dips = Dead Lynn
As time goes on, I find myself scaling more toward the "Puppies" version of the workout, instead of the easiest level, "Buttercup". Except in instances where I want to compare my times, I'm finding that it works out rather well for me, and it's nice to see that I can do more work in a shorter time period (more intensity).
Except for yesterday.
I decided to try the Puppies scaling of the Muscle Up workout from the weekend. I had missed both Saturday and Sunday's workouts because I had other things to do and the gym was closed for Easter. Monday was supposed to be a rest day, but I decided to tackle the muscle ups since, as it has been pointed out on the forum, "If you've been doing the workouts for awhile now, you should be able to attempt them. It's what gymnasts do just to get up on the rings, before they start their workout." If you still don't know what a muscle up is, watch the video that I linked earlier in this paragraph. The title of the video is "Hot Chick Muscle Up", if that's inspirational to you.
Get to the point already.
The substitution for not having rings to do the muscle up (or being unable to do so) was 60 pull-ups and 60 dips. You could break them up however you wanted. Before I began, I had hoped to break them into sets of 10. When I started, I realized that there was no way in hell I would make it through that, so I broke them up into sets of 6. I used 24# assisted weight on the pull ups, and 32# assisted on the dips.
After the fourth set, I wanted to quit so bad. My arms were about to fall off, and I have a weird pinched nerve in my wrist that acts up when I try to do bar dips, so I was having to steady myself through them and concentrate on not bending my wrist. At one point, I thought I was nearing the end, but stopped for a second to realize how many I had to go, and I had to mentally yell at myself to keep going. Every time I stepped back on the foot stand, my legs felt like they were going to give out on me, which is odd, seeing as I wasn't using them. My theory is that I was using so much energy that there was none left for my legs.
I finally made it through the 60th dip, and I staggered away to find a place to collapse. All of the floor space was taken by old men and skinny girls doing leg lifts and crunches, so I found a chair in what I call the "Slow Room". In the Slow Room, none of the treadmills go above the 4th setting (brisk walk), everyone is silent and stares at the televisions. There was an open chair in the Slow Room, and I plopped down onto it, my face bright red, panting and sweating. Some of the slow women looked at me quizzically for a few moments, then went back to whatever was on TV. I tried to wipe the sweat off my face, but found that my arms didn't want to cooperate, so I decided to make my way back to the locker room.
Side note about the locker room: There is a hot tub in the locker room. I have never remembered to bring a swimsuit with me, but some day I would really like to go sit in it. That is, when it's not filled with fat women. I have seen many, many, many fat women in the hot tub naked, and although at first I was repulsed, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided it is no different than having a paper thin suit on that water passes through anyway. Still, I can not bring myself to sit naked in the hot tub. At least if you're naked in a sauna, you can still have a towel. Every time I walk past that hot tub, I want to go in it... especially on days when I just did a fuckton of pull-ups.
I've also been sticking more to the Zone diet. I usually eat yogurt for breakfast, sometimes I even make scrambled eggs, or a protein shake. I've found that if I mix my protein powder in milk, it makes AWESOME chocolate milk. I love it. Lunch is usually whatever I can dig up, with veggies. Yesterday I had 3/4 can of reduced sodium chicken noodle soup with green beans, today was an open faced sandwich with tuna and cheese and a whole can of green beans (I really like green beans). I've been getting used to being hungry. Now instead of snacking mindlessly, I ask myself if I'm really hungry. I drink water (or coffee... I'm back to coffee again), eat a handful of nuts, or just go hungry. I'm eating far less, and I wonder sometimes if I'm eating too little, but the three pounds that I lost last week is encouragement to keep going. I can take my fat work pants off now without unzipping them.
I'm super tired and I was late for work yesterday, so off to bed I go!
Except for yesterday.
I decided to try the Puppies scaling of the Muscle Up workout from the weekend. I had missed both Saturday and Sunday's workouts because I had other things to do and the gym was closed for Easter. Monday was supposed to be a rest day, but I decided to tackle the muscle ups since, as it has been pointed out on the forum, "If you've been doing the workouts for awhile now, you should be able to attempt them. It's what gymnasts do just to get up on the rings, before they start their workout." If you still don't know what a muscle up is, watch the video that I linked earlier in this paragraph. The title of the video is "Hot Chick Muscle Up", if that's inspirational to you.
Get to the point already.
The substitution for not having rings to do the muscle up (or being unable to do so) was 60 pull-ups and 60 dips. You could break them up however you wanted. Before I began, I had hoped to break them into sets of 10. When I started, I realized that there was no way in hell I would make it through that, so I broke them up into sets of 6. I used 24# assisted weight on the pull ups, and 32# assisted on the dips.
After the fourth set, I wanted to quit so bad. My arms were about to fall off, and I have a weird pinched nerve in my wrist that acts up when I try to do bar dips, so I was having to steady myself through them and concentrate on not bending my wrist. At one point, I thought I was nearing the end, but stopped for a second to realize how many I had to go, and I had to mentally yell at myself to keep going. Every time I stepped back on the foot stand, my legs felt like they were going to give out on me, which is odd, seeing as I wasn't using them. My theory is that I was using so much energy that there was none left for my legs.
I finally made it through the 60th dip, and I staggered away to find a place to collapse. All of the floor space was taken by old men and skinny girls doing leg lifts and crunches, so I found a chair in what I call the "Slow Room". In the Slow Room, none of the treadmills go above the 4th setting (brisk walk), everyone is silent and stares at the televisions. There was an open chair in the Slow Room, and I plopped down onto it, my face bright red, panting and sweating. Some of the slow women looked at me quizzically for a few moments, then went back to whatever was on TV. I tried to wipe the sweat off my face, but found that my arms didn't want to cooperate, so I decided to make my way back to the locker room.
Side note about the locker room: There is a hot tub in the locker room. I have never remembered to bring a swimsuit with me, but some day I would really like to go sit in it. That is, when it's not filled with fat women. I have seen many, many, many fat women in the hot tub naked, and although at first I was repulsed, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided it is no different than having a paper thin suit on that water passes through anyway. Still, I can not bring myself to sit naked in the hot tub. At least if you're naked in a sauna, you can still have a towel. Every time I walk past that hot tub, I want to go in it... especially on days when I just did a fuckton of pull-ups.
I've also been sticking more to the Zone diet. I usually eat yogurt for breakfast, sometimes I even make scrambled eggs, or a protein shake. I've found that if I mix my protein powder in milk, it makes AWESOME chocolate milk. I love it. Lunch is usually whatever I can dig up, with veggies. Yesterday I had 3/4 can of reduced sodium chicken noodle soup with green beans, today was an open faced sandwich with tuna and cheese and a whole can of green beans (I really like green beans). I've been getting used to being hungry. Now instead of snacking mindlessly, I ask myself if I'm really hungry. I drink water (or coffee... I'm back to coffee again), eat a handful of nuts, or just go hungry. I'm eating far less, and I wonder sometimes if I'm eating too little, but the three pounds that I lost last week is encouragement to keep going. I can take my fat work pants off now without unzipping them.
I'm super tired and I was late for work yesterday, so off to bed I go!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
It's day two of my strict Zone diet. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. This morning I had a fruit and yogurt parfait thing from Panera. It's probably a little off since it has granola in it, but I figured getting an egg and bacon sandwich on top of that wouldn't be a good addition, even if I took off the bun.
Yesterday wasn't too bad I suppose. It's hard to keep myself from snacking throughout the day, but I've found that writing everything down helps me keep track (go figure). I still get hungry between meals, but from what I've read, I'm going to have to give it a few days and play around with the portions.
I've had a splitting headache for four fricking days now. It only goes away when I take extra strength Tylenol, and I'm starting to worry about taking that all the damn time. Extra stress in my relationship recently has been wearing on me, and I haven't been sleeping well. I'm sure that hasn't helped. The stress is manefesting itself in other physical ways too, but the headache is the worst. I get some time off this week because we get 4 hours extra pay for Good Friday. What I'd like to do is drown my stress in a bottle of wine, but I'm sure that won't be an option.
Speaking of stress... I'm at work. Not exactly a relaxing spa enviornment. I think it's about time that I pulled out the massage gift certificate that Beth gave me for Christmas.
Anyway... enough bitching.
Yesterday's workout was walking lunges (100ft), pull-ups and sit-ups--three rounds. My time was a little slower than the previous time I've done this particular workout, but I know that I did more walking lunges this time than last time and my pull-up assisted weight was far lighter. Since I max out at four pull-ups, I usually use the assisted pull-up machine for WODs with higher reps.
Not much more to share. I'm going to stick to this diet for a week, hopefully it works. At least after this week I can evaluate my progress and make changes as necessary.
Yesterday wasn't too bad I suppose. It's hard to keep myself from snacking throughout the day, but I've found that writing everything down helps me keep track (go figure). I still get hungry between meals, but from what I've read, I'm going to have to give it a few days and play around with the portions.
I've had a splitting headache for four fricking days now. It only goes away when I take extra strength Tylenol, and I'm starting to worry about taking that all the damn time. Extra stress in my relationship recently has been wearing on me, and I haven't been sleeping well. I'm sure that hasn't helped. The stress is manefesting itself in other physical ways too, but the headache is the worst. I get some time off this week because we get 4 hours extra pay for Good Friday. What I'd like to do is drown my stress in a bottle of wine, but I'm sure that won't be an option.
Speaking of stress... I'm at work. Not exactly a relaxing spa enviornment. I think it's about time that I pulled out the massage gift certificate that Beth gave me for Christmas.
Anyway... enough bitching.
Yesterday's workout was walking lunges (100ft), pull-ups and sit-ups--three rounds. My time was a little slower than the previous time I've done this particular workout, but I know that I did more walking lunges this time than last time and my pull-up assisted weight was far lighter. Since I max out at four pull-ups, I usually use the assisted pull-up machine for WODs with higher reps.
Not much more to share. I'm going to stick to this diet for a week, hopefully it works. At least after this week I can evaluate my progress and make changes as necessary.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Meh
So apparently I'm not doing enough, or eating right, or working hard enough, or snacking too much or... a large combination of all of them. I do my workouts *most* days, but I'm skipping one or two a week on average because of life and other obligations. I eat right *most* of the time, but when it comes to sitting at work bored, I might eat too many "Zone approved" almonds, or have a sugar binge around 4pm when someone starts passing out Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. I will say that my intensity level is still very high when it comes to actually doing the workout, but the last few days have been extremely hard. I go to bed on time *most* nights, but I've been staying up later more often, feeling stressed out and unable to fall asleep.
All of this has added up to the fact that I have plateaued. It's not a good place to be, especially after having such high hopes for this workout regimen and diet. I'm not a disciplined person, and when I'm hungry, I give in. When I'm tired, I give in. When I have better things to do, I rationalize.
I have had tremendous gains in my strength. I can lift things more easily now, including myself when doing pull-ups. I'm up to four unassisted pull-ups, which is wonderful. My arms are rock hard, and actually have some definition. But they haven't gotten any smaller. I had big arms to begin with, and I had hoped that some of the fat would melt away. That's not the case.
I've gotten tons of compliments lately. My body has definitely changed. My calves are hard, and extremely defined. My thighs are... well, large. They're more toned than they were, but that's not necessarily a good thing. They have the appearance of a woman who spends a lot of time beating people up for a living. Not exactly the mini skirt legs I was hoping for. My stomach is still flabby. Better, by all means, but still not anywhere near where I need it to be.
I'm sick and tired of working out without the gains that I want (to be skinny and toned). It's not worth it to me to bust my ass if I'm not going to get anywhere with it. But I'm also sabotaging myself by not sticking to the diet, missing workouts and not putting my all into it every time. It's not easy, but I know that's what I have to do. Because if I do this for nothing, it's a waste of time.
So I'm going to go back to basics and start eating healthier again, set a sleep time, give up coffee (yes, again), cut out sugar completely and eat veggies as my main source of carbs. I have to get strict on myself or my genetics are going to continue to work against me to make me a huge tub of lard.
And, since I have a few moments more before the laundry is done and I can go to bed, I have a rant to share:
The editors and contributors to Self Magazine can kiss my semi-toned ass. Fuck you and your bullshit about losing weight by walking it off once or twice a week. Screw your "Super Simple Workout Plan!" and articles that tell readers they can, "Loose Weight Without Trying!" No one has ever lost weight and kept it off by doing 10 minutes of no-impact physical activity a day. It's not fucking possible. Losing weight is a huge fucking commitment and you can't dress it up with Victoria's Secret workout gear and make it "fun". It's not fucking fun. It's horrible, painful, sweaty work. So roll up your glossy photos of skinny girls on the beach and shove them right up your urethra. Fuck. You.
All of this has added up to the fact that I have plateaued. It's not a good place to be, especially after having such high hopes for this workout regimen and diet. I'm not a disciplined person, and when I'm hungry, I give in. When I'm tired, I give in. When I have better things to do, I rationalize.
I have had tremendous gains in my strength. I can lift things more easily now, including myself when doing pull-ups. I'm up to four unassisted pull-ups, which is wonderful. My arms are rock hard, and actually have some definition. But they haven't gotten any smaller. I had big arms to begin with, and I had hoped that some of the fat would melt away. That's not the case.
I've gotten tons of compliments lately. My body has definitely changed. My calves are hard, and extremely defined. My thighs are... well, large. They're more toned than they were, but that's not necessarily a good thing. They have the appearance of a woman who spends a lot of time beating people up for a living. Not exactly the mini skirt legs I was hoping for. My stomach is still flabby. Better, by all means, but still not anywhere near where I need it to be.
I'm sick and tired of working out without the gains that I want (to be skinny and toned). It's not worth it to me to bust my ass if I'm not going to get anywhere with it. But I'm also sabotaging myself by not sticking to the diet, missing workouts and not putting my all into it every time. It's not easy, but I know that's what I have to do. Because if I do this for nothing, it's a waste of time.
So I'm going to go back to basics and start eating healthier again, set a sleep time, give up coffee (yes, again), cut out sugar completely and eat veggies as my main source of carbs. I have to get strict on myself or my genetics are going to continue to work against me to make me a huge tub of lard.
And, since I have a few moments more before the laundry is done and I can go to bed, I have a rant to share:
The editors and contributors to Self Magazine can kiss my semi-toned ass. Fuck you and your bullshit about losing weight by walking it off once or twice a week. Screw your "Super Simple Workout Plan!" and articles that tell readers they can, "Loose Weight Without Trying!" No one has ever lost weight and kept it off by doing 10 minutes of no-impact physical activity a day. It's not fucking possible. Losing weight is a huge fucking commitment and you can't dress it up with Victoria's Secret workout gear and make it "fun". It's not fucking fun. It's horrible, painful, sweaty work. So roll up your glossy photos of skinny girls on the beach and shove them right up your urethra. Fuck. You.
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