Mon 03/01/10

I took a break.  Not from working out, but just from writing about it.  As I have written previously, I’ve been having problems with nutrition since about Christmas.  My motivation is there, but my stomach and mind are not following along.  After efforts to stick to a pre-set diet I would find myself uncontrollably hungry and with no willpower to stop from giving in to all out binges.  Which only made me feel guilty and in even less control than before.  Although I haven’t reached my ideal weight or leanness the anxiety and obsessive compulsive tendencies that this dieting/thinking has caused isn’t helping me at all.   My whole body and its relationship to food has been thrown off.  I feel like I need to re-learn what it is to feel actual hunger and to eat without such limited constraints.  I have thought about implementing a cheat day or cheat meals throughout the week, but then every other meal is eaten just in anticipation for that cheat meal at the end of the week.  And then, when that cheat day does come I completely go crazy eating so much I feel extremely sick, bloated and disgusting.  That doesn’t solve the problem or the obsessive tendencies that I have fallen accustomed to.  I need to eat when I am hungry, and I need to eat until I’m full – not bloated or nauseous, but enough to actually feel satisfied.  If that means I don’t eat every 3 hours on the dot, or that I don’t have a pre-planned meal plan to follow I can live with that.  I don’t have to eat anything I don’t want to.  I know this seems like a radical approach, but by stressing out over every gram of protein eaten or not eaten I feel like I’m going crazy.  And that is not what being healthy and living a healthy lifestyle is about.  First and foremost, healthy living should be a positive benefit to your life. When it begins to negatively impact your life, or stress you out you need to re-evaluate your approach or your perspective on the situation.  You may even need to take a break.  Healthy living is not about being perfect and following a program like a robot without regard to how it affects your life. It needs to be a companion to your life, and not your whole life.

-t.

fri 02/05/10

Progress for this week: carbs are still moderately high, and lifting lifting lifting continues!!

Tuesday I had the pleasure of working out with my bro, did some upper body stuff and ran sprints with him. It amazes me how much I learn when I do someone else’s workout. I learned Tuesday that I although my triceps look muscular, they are by no means strong.  I couldn’t do 1 bodyweight dip, or 1 triceps push up. In comparison my back and biceps are far  stronger.  Going forward, I definitely have to work on this imbalance and train for strength in triceps and chest exercises. It makes sense now, as my chest is very weak in comparison to my back, and now I know it’s because my triceps (which help out the chest muscles in all types of bench press exercises) are weak.  Sprints 5 rounds x 100m killed me.  Today is Friday, and my quads and abductors/adductors are still aching, my abs are even still sore.

Just goes to show that, sure I workout a lot, lift heavy things and challenge myself but take me out of my element and I get wiped clean.

The rest of the week has been pretty haphazard. Did a great shoulder workout on Wed morning. Thurs was an off day – also my birthday.  So Happy Birthday to me!! I ate a lot of sugar and enjoyed myself Today did legs, oh man did I do legs. I copied and pasted my workout log below to give you an example of the kind of sets I’ve done lately.  It looks like a ton of sets, but I’ve made notes, charting progress and have noticed it takes a long time for my body to warm up really well and acclimatize to the weight being lifted.  This being the case, I’ve incorporated a larger number of warm up sets into the first exercise I do for the day.  I don’t recommend this for anyone else, I’m just learning my body as the days go on, and my body prefers this method.  I compared back workouts where I warmed up for 5 sets before attempting a heavier lift, to a workout where I only did 2 sets warm up before the heavy lift.  The result was that I could lift more for more reps and the weight felt far less challenging when I did more warm up sets.  The workout where I only did 2 warm up sets I couldn’t even do 1 set heavy for the same # of reps.  I’ve also noticed that once I really get warmed up I could keep going and going, sometimes doing up to 10 sets for 1 exercise.  It’s weird and amazing what you learn about your body as you continue to workout over the years.

As far as progress goes diet wise, I’m not weighing myself until maybe Sunday because of all the sugar I had on my birthday.  Up until Thursday though my weight continued to maintain at the same level, which makes me happy and so I’ll continue with what I have been eating.

Today’s Workout:

squats
45×10
45×10
95×8
105×8
115×8
135×5
135×5
145×5
145×4

hack squats
90 + machine sled x 8 x 2 sets
same weight x 9 x 2 sets

high bench step ups
20 lb. in each hand x 16 x 2 sets

laying hamstring curl machine
60×8
65×8
80×8
95×6

calf raise machine
120x8x 2 sets
110x8x 2 sets

Sun 01/31/10

Day 6 of higher carb intake.

After a whole week of not doing cardio, I decided to get in some lower intensity steady state biking this morning for 25 min after my back/ab workout.  I’m not gonna lie, I do miss the rush and the heart elevating workouts that high intensity cardio provides, but I don’t miss doing cardio everyday. In fact, I may not go back to doing cardio on a regular basis.

My high carb experiment continues, today being day 6 of taking in roughly 200-220 grams of carbs per day.  Now, this may not seem like a significant amount of carbs to the average male, or the male bodybuilder by far.  But you must take into consideration that I’m roughly 5’4″ and 115 lbs.  Also to consider is the fact that most of my carbs are coming from complex carb sources (ie. brown rice, whole grain bread, oatmeal, etc.) and even fast digesting carb sources (ie. honey, maple syrup, sugar) while before this experiment I was only eating veggies as my carbohydrate sources for approx. the last 6 months or more.  Previously, I was only taking in roughly 120 grams of carbs per day.  Now my pre and post workout meals have 50 grams of carbs each, both consisting of fast digesting sugars and slower digesting complex carbs like oatmeal or whole grain bread. The rest of the day, I have slower digesting carbs – usually brown rice -  with 3 other meals, and the last meal of the day is usually a slow digesting protein source, usually cottage cheese.

Noticeable differences/changes – I do not have any carb cravings whatsoever.  For the past while (or rather since I begin to really restrict my carb intake) I’ve had the most outrageous carb cravings, which have resulted in my weekly refeed or “cheat day” turning into all out carb binges.  I find with more carbs daily I do not have the urge to eat cookies, etc.

Strength – has gone way up.  Approaching training this week has been an eye opener.  I would go into the gym and load up my usual weight range for certain exercises….bent over rows, hack squats, barbell curls, etc., and noticed that those previous weight ranges felt so light in my hands now.  In fact, I had to add around 10-20 lbs to every exercise just to feel slightly challenged.  I tried to keep weight increases small, even though they felt somewhat light, just for the sake of injury prevention and I didn’t want to shock my muscles too much too fast.

Weight – was up to 120 Tuesday night but since then has leveled off and remains constant at 115-116 for the past 5 days. Which means I’m not gaining weight from the extra carbs…yet anyways. Because I’m not gaining weight, I will continue eating my current diet and watch for changes in weight and appearance.  Also, since I have not gained weight I will continue to keep cardio to a minimum so that I can further assess just how my body is responding to the drastic change in diet alone.  Even though I may end up gaining a few pounds, for the experiment’s sake it would be more beneficial for me to assess how my body reacts to the weight training and diet combo alone than assessing weight training, diet, and cardio because I will not know what is effectively making the changes (ie. is it the diet or is it the cardio?) I will be seeing.  Because of this, I should recover quicker after a workout and have more energy in general.  Plus, without worrying about cardio I can focus solely on lifting intensely and really take advantage of all the calories I’m consuming for muscle-building.

Appearance wise my muscles definitely look harder and fuller, with noticeable separation and/or striations that were not visible previously.  And so the experiment continues.

-t.

Wed 01/27/10

Day 2 of no cardio and higher carb intake.

Wow I am flying.  I haven’t had this much energy since….I can’t remember when, especially mid-day! Usually by this time in the afternoon I’m dragging my feet, feeling cranky, or getting ready to take a nap.  Not today at all!

Killed a chest/bicep workout this morning and had to drag myself out of the gym.  My muscles were fully fatigued, but I felt like I could go on forever.  The added carbs are really kicking in, and my body is responding so rapidly I’m amazed.  Amazing pumps, and muscle fullness like I have never seen before.  I even added in some simple carbs to my pre and post workout meals for added recovery.  And my muscles are thanking me 10 fold.  I still look as lean as I did days ago, but my muscles are full, round, and popping now.  Not something I’m used to.  I guess I kind of got used to looking flatter because I hadn’t had a good amount of carbs in me long enough to see the drastic changes they can make.

So overall progress report = feel awesome, mood is increasingly getting better and feel happier more often (carbs also raise serotonin levels in the brain), look great, muscles full and excited to lift heavy things again, weight is still the same – actually down 3 lbs from Mon., but that could just be general day-to-day fluctuations.

-t.

Tues 01/26/10

Again, its been a long time since my last post.  As I’ve written recently, I’ve had problems finding motivation for training and keeping my nutrition on track. I’ve run a lower carb intake for the last couple of months, doing my cardio – lots of cardio, and training at higher and higher intensities.  While I have seen some great results, I’m finding that my body is burning out.  I’m feeling totally exhausted all the time and because of this have had a hard time with keeping my diet and nutritional intake in check.  My body is ravenous for carbs and rest.  I’ve hit a plateau, I can’t cut more calories out of my diet, and fear that I may be doing harm metabolically as my body continually adjusts to the lowering of calories I have implemented.  There simply isn’t any more to cut out without losing muscle mass in the process.  On top of this, my body has been and will eventually also adapt to the intense training that I’m putting it through and I will need to continually find a way to work it harder to maintain the level I’m at.

I’ve taken the past couple of weeks to really analyze my diet and my training, while doing a boat load of research on regulating insulin, insulin uptake and sensitivity.  Since I’ve hit a plateau, there are only two ways to go about changing things up to see changes in my body.  I can either a) restrict calories even more and train harder or b) do the complete opposite of what I am doing, start taking in more carbs and reduce cardio.  Since option a leads me to believe that I will plateau again in a couple of weeks, not to mention being unsustainable, I have decided to go with option b.  To this extent, I will be cutting out cardio completely for the next week at least to help my body rest up.  I will continue with weight training 5 days per week, still lifting intensely to create and sustain the metabolic environment needed to support my current body composition.  I will also be adjusting my diet and eating a lot more calories than I have in the last 3 months .  The reason for this is to create a baseline diet so I can evaluate my progress over the next several weeks.  Within this diet, I will up my protein intake slightly and also increase my carbohydrate intake drastically (to 2 grams per lb. of  lean body mass), both to help with recovery.  Each week I will review my progress, check weight and take pictures to see if I am gaining fat back.  After a few weeks I will evaluate my progress and see how my body is reacting to the diet overall.  It usually takes my body a while to get used to a different diet, and I don’t usually see changes right away but instead after two weeks or so I see sudden changes after my body has gone through the adaptation process.

While training and nutrition is a science, to some extent, you must also go with how your body reacts or does not react to stimuli to assess how certain training and nutrition principles work for you.  Like I say, not everyone is the same and we cannot all follow the same diet and training program and all see the same results.  As my experiment continues, I will post results and progress information.

-t.

Sun 01/17/10

Haven’t posted in a while, and honestly haven’t forgotten to, just getting a little bit busier now that it’s the new year.  I’ve started working a bit more than I have in the past two months.  Another reason for my lack of postings is I’m also starting to question the training and diet habits that I’ve adopted in the past couple of months.  I’ve been consistently doing fasted morning cardio for a while now and though I remain on the leaner side, I haven’t gotten any leaner.  The leanness part doesn’t bother me, as I have strayed now and then from my predetermined diet plan – more on this in a bit – but I have gotten hungrier, and more tired as the days wear on.  Because of this, I’m finding fasted morning less and less sustainable for me in the long run.  The energy it depleted from the rest of my day is becoming unbearable, and I’ve gotten  sick (which NEVER happens otherwise).  Since my body is energy depleted, I’m finding that I’m looking to extra carbs to try to recuperate but this isn’t working either.  I’m finding I’m bingeing on carbs later in the evening, or completely going crazy and eating everything in sight, something which has happened on more than one occasion and I’m not proud of it.  On the quest to being lean, fit and healthy you should not have to compromise your mental state and your goals should not make you feel guilty, and completely deprived.  This is not to say you shouldn’t get cravings every once in a while when trying to lose weight or get in shape, that’s inevitable.  What I mean to say is, you shouldn’t find yourself falling off the wagon more than the time you spend on the wagon.  If this is occurring, then something clearly ISN’T working in your diet and fitness plans.

This being said, my lack of motivation to workout in the past couple of weeks was bothering me emotionally and mentally. I tried splitting up my sessions, doing cardio in the mornings and then lifting afterward in the early evenings, as many fitness professionals advise on this protocol. My problem here is that I never want to go back in the evenings.  I’m always too tired and drained from all the day’s activities, and just want to sit on the couch, eat my dinner and go to bed.  I tried a carb rotation diet for a bit, going lower carb for a few days and then having a higher carb or refeed day.  My problem here is that come refeed day my body is so depleted that it goes nuts and I end up eating more than I should or I all out binge on foods I wouldn’t otherwise eat at all, ie. ice cream, cookies, bagels, etc. I even went back to eating the very high fiber, very high veggie diet to keep myself full.  But I found that I keep plateauing at a certain weight and just can’t lose anymore.  As soon as I went off the very high fiber, my body tightened up immediately, my stomach was dramatically less distended and bloated, and I felt a lot less lethargic due to the fact that I’m not digesting huge amounts of food all day long.

So where does that leave me? Still with a lot of questions, but I’m back to moderate amounts of complex carbs and veggies, eating a regular oatmeal breakfast before my workout, and doing weights and cardio all in one session.  I’ve been kicking my ass training wise, but the oatmeal beforehand has helped drastically in my energy levels and afterwards I’m eating a small amount of simple sugars to replace my glycogen stores.  This feels like a bonus energy level wise, because I’ve been so tired and drained every time I’ve gone to train for the last little while.  Added to this is the fact that I’m combining workouts so I feel much more accomplished when I leave the gym every morning, I work extra hard knowing that this one workout is it for the day and I can rest and relax for the rest of it.  I’m spending slightly longer there in the AM now, but the reward comes later in the day knowing I don’t have to dread going back or muster up the energy to lift.

Although I do like to think I know a thing or two about diet and training, it’s always good to question your beliefs, motives and intentions while going through the motions.  You constantly need to reassess your progress and see where things are working and where things aren’t.  For me, liking to workout is a big key to my happiness.  I don’t mind working hard in the gym but if I’m forcing myself to do something, ie. lots of extra cardio for example, in the long run I won’t be happy because I hate doing it, and will dread doing it everyday.  Because of this, I need to find ways I like  to burn the extra calories if I’m trying to lean out a bit.  Diet wise, my body craves the energy it gets from carbs.  I’ve tried low carb diets before, and while they work for the time that I’m on them they aren’t sustainable for me because I end up cheating on the diet for more of the time than I’m actually on the diet.  It’s easier for me to stay on a moderate carb intake all the time instead.

I share these personal thoughts because I’m not perfect, no one is.  The challenge is to find what works for you, personally, and then sticking to it.  Assessing things when needed, and monitoring your progress as you go along.

-t.

Tues 01/12/10

I’m starting to feel more like myself again, not 100% yet, but definitely more with it than I was last week or even on the weekend.  I forget sometimes that I just need to let my body take charge and take care of itself, instead of willing it and making it do things it doesn’t have the energy to do.  I often stumble between these two extremes of either letting my mind take over or letting my body take over.  The problems I encounter between these two extremes ultimately turn into a battle of body vs. mind.  It is amazing what you can do when you just set your mind on something, and not let that confidence in yourself waiver.  You can will yourself into doing the long tedious cardio sessions needed even when your body says it doesn’t have the energy.  You can will yourself to stay up all night to finish an essay that is due the following morning for a class.  You can will yourself to stick to your diet even in the midst of being surrounded by delicious treats.  But sometimes, willing yourself to do things is not always the best way to treat your body.  So many times last week I tried to will myself to scrounge up the energy to get things done, to read, to study, to workout, but my body was relentless and it just wouldn’t succumb to my mind’s willpower.  It took me three days to fully admit that I was sick with a cold and fever and then to just try to relax, to not worry about getting things done but just getting better.  Even then, laying on the couch watching the CSI marathon and dozing in and out of sleep all day I felt like I was the laziest person in the world.  I’ve trained my mind to always be occupied.  To always be on the lookout of what I can do next.  Perhaps I’ve trained it too well, and now when I need to relax, or when my body needs a break, my mind just won’t let up.  Yesterday morning made me realize that I do in fact need to take mental breaks.  Yesterday, I woke up feeling refreshed, excited and full of energy – the direct opposite of how I had felt all last week, I knew I was feeling better instantaneously. I could breathe again, I didn’t have a fever, and my body was willing to get up and go! Contrasting this feeling to that of last week, I knew I should have taken it easier.  I know there are many people who say “work through it” or “toughen up and get the job done”, but I’m a firm believer in getting to know your body and listening to your instincts about what your body needs.  Even though I don’t necessarily follow my advice all the time, as in last week’s case, it’s important to understand that you need your body to function optimally if you constantly demand so much out of it.  This being said, take the time to relax, to rest, and to ultimately be aware of what your body is telling you.

-t.

Sat 01/09/10

I’ve felt very under the weather this week.  I haven’t been sick for the better part of the year and I thought I had miraculously missed all the flu and colds that had gone around during the fall and holiday season.  But apparently I’m not totally immune, and picked up a cold/fever earlier this week.  It’s not necessarily the symptoms of the cold and fever that really bother me, yes sniffling is annoying, but its more the lack of energy that I find the most frustrating.  It’s like I have so much I want to do, and my mind constantly is thinking about all those things, while my body on the other hand refuses to move.  It’s like it’s stuck in cement….it just won’t go anywhere or do anything I want it to.  Needless to say, I’ve done my best trying to rest up. I took Tuesday off of work outs entirely, and besides that have only done a little cardio workout daily, and yesterday did Back and Biceps.  This morning I’m feeling a lot better, more energy and a better outlook to the weekend and getting at least a few things accomplished that I wanted to.  I don’t know anyone else’s protocol for nutrition during bouts of colds/flu/sickness, but I tend to let myself eat more carbs and fat than usual, and eat more overall calories than I usually would.  Often my appetite increases when I’m sick, and if I have a fever and am sweating all day just laying in bed I know my body is burning through more calories than it usually would at rest.  Besides, being sick is not the time when you’re looking to count calories, I already felt exhausted, and trying to restrict carbs is a lose lose battle that I just don’t want to deal with.  As I do more research and find out how say fitness models or figure competitors eat while being sick, or train while being sick, I may adopt a more restricted approach.  But today, after eating more carbs and fat than usual yesterday, I feel so much better and more energized than the last 4 days that I’m tempted to say that they did the trick and have made me feel a lot better.  Hopefully I’ll enjoy this energy throughout the day and maybe throw in a little workout later this evening.

-t.

Guest Post

I wrote another article over at Lexi Yoga.  Please go and check it out here! And if you haven’t checked out the website itself, here’s the link http://www.lexiyoga.com/.

-t.

Mon 01/04/10

The holidays flew by so fast, 2010 is here and everyone is back to school and back to work.  Although I’ve said before I’m not that interested in making New Year’s Resolutions, this time of year can be beneficial for all those who have changes to make, or want to make in their lives.  It’s a time of year that focuses on new beginnings, and so if you’ve been waiting for a time to get into gear on achieving your goals, now is the best time to do just that.

I’m taking my own advice to heart these days, and following a no excuses plan to achieve all the things that I have been telling myself I want to achieve.  First up is to get to ideal body fat %.  Which for me is 9%.  I intend to do this by my 27th birthday with is February 4th.  So I have roughly 1 month to accomplish this.  I am also getting my NSCA CPT certification, and I write my exam next Saturday.  So the majority of my week will be spent studying my ass off.  I have also been promising myself that I would read more, write more and in general complete all those little tasks that I keep telling myself I need to do but somehow never get around to.

My no excuses plan to complete all this is just that, no excuses.  I used to tell myself that these tasks would be difficult, that they would take a long time, that I wouldn’t have the energy or that I would be too tired.  Simply, these aren’t options to me anymore.  Time is going to pass anyways and I’m going to get older regardless, so the excuse “taking a long time” is irrelevant.  I figure I have around 60 years left, if I can accomplish it in 60 years it’s not too  long, and therefore anything in comparison is not long.  The excuse I keep telling myself  of “too difficult” doesn’t apply anymore.  When you look at something you want to accomplish nothing is difficult, you just need to get started at it.  Take the first steps to setting it up, and work a little bit at it each day.  It’s not that any task is difficult, it’s just that you don’t want to do it.  I know you’d rather be lazy, I’d rather be lazy too….but then come 2011, when I look at last years goals and see I didn’t accomplish them just because I was too lazy, it makes me feel guilty for wasting a whole year.  I’d rather just get on with it, so when I do look back I can be proud of myself for doing all that I said I was going to do, rather than coming up with more excuses as to why I didn’t achieve everything I set out to do.

What would you do if you knew that nothing was difficult, or time-consuming? What if you had all the energy you needed to accomplish all your goals, dreams, desires? You do. Tell yourself you do and you do, but tell yourself you can’t and you can’t.

-t.