Saturday, April 23, 2011

Updates!

I've been slacking on my updates, unfortunately. We've got more fun stuff going on.

Jenna wasn't feeling well on Tuesday, so I was on my own for the upper body session. Lifetime closed Thursday and Friday this week, so our Thursday class got bumped to Wednesday night. Sounds like a fun time, right? Here's how it all went down.

On Tuesday, with Jenna absent, Gilles really got to focus on making me miserable with heavy weights. Not even all that heavy, but pretty heavy. We did our normal treadmill warmup, then hit some machines. Normally I'm not a huge fan of machines because I prefer to get the full free weight range of motion and stabilizing muscles and all, but these weren't too bad. They really helped me focus on a couple of muscle groups that I normally end up ignoring and compensating for with other muscles. We also do supersets to keep up my heart rate. So we did chest presses on the machine, with v-sit chops (and the catching and throwing of the medicine ball) while I was resting. he had me throw the ball from behind my head instead of my chest to force me to work my core and balance more. I did several sets of that, 3 each I think. Then we switched to lat pulldowns on a different machine. I've done those before, but I'd never actually felt it in my lats. It turns out I was letting my shoulders rise when the weight was high, and then kept them there through the whole rep. It takes the focus off your lats that way and that's why I'd never felt the exercise in the right spot before. Good to know. So we alternated those with medicine ball chest passes. Did 4 sets of those. Then we went and did some pushups and incline pullups on the squat rack. I still think that is a downright awesome idea. The pullups were tough, as it seemed like I could never get the right angle on them. I took an underhanded grip on the bar, and angled my body (feet pushed out in front of me, chest under the bar) and started pulling. I didn't do so hot. We raised the bar more and decreased the angle and it got much easier. We pounded out 3 sets of those as well. Then to the bosu ball again. This time, I was standing on the flat side with the bulgy side down, which is much harder to balance on. Gilles gave me two 20-pounds dumbbells and had me curl them while standing on the ball. That was tough. I had to really crank down on my core to stabilize myself. Then I had to do shoulder presses (after my pushups, which always ruins me) on the ball with 5-pound dumbbells. Did I mention that my shoulders are my weakest link? I think I have. I should say it again. My shoulders are not just weak, they're "tiny blond girl with pigtails" weak. It's sad. I'm working on it, though. So after that, we stretched out and called it a day.

The following day, we came back and got ready to do lower body. Again, warmed up on the treadmill, then got to work. We didn't go to any of our normal haunts, though. Gilles took us down to the indoor turf field for some lunges. He also had us do some dynamic warmup exercises, which were fun. Let's of side shuffling, high knees, butt-kickers, and high kicks down and back. Then lunges. Then wall sits. More lunges. More wall sits. It was seriously tough. Both Jenna and I were pretty wobbly after all of that. As far as I can remember, we spent pretty much the whole session down there, so I think that's about all the detail I can give on our activity. it was cool to get out of the "gym" part of the gym and go do something different, for sure. Then stretching and we were done.

Also, I've been tracking my food on a food log I built in Excel. I love Excel. Like a man loves a woman. Anyway, this food log is sweet. It's like those online ones that are already built and loaded with tons of nutrition info, but this one took me many hours to put together myself. So...I guess it's awesome if you think spending hours futzing with Excel formulas is awesome. I do. You probably don't. According to my Fitpoint, based on my activity level and my lean body mass, my daily maintenance level of calories is about 3300-3500. The fitpoint recommended I go with a 20% calorie reduction per day, to get to about 2700-2800 calories. Gilles suggested a macronutrient ratio of 50% carbs, 25% fat and 25% protein. It's pretty close to what I've read in other sources, and it seems like a pretty reasonable split, overall. I don't like anything that's really super drastic, because it seems like that stuff always ends up biting you in the end.

So anyway, I have this food log, we have a little digital kitchen scale, and I've been tracking my calories. Turns out I've had a hell of a time eating enough. Odd, right? It turns out that when you're trying to keep your total calories to a specific ratio, it's tough to pack in all those extra calories. I can eat a 2,000 calories meal without even stopping to take a breath, but it's mostly fat and sugar. Obviously, that's not cutting it. So I'm having to find ways to pack in more healthy calories. It's a good problem to have, certainly. I'm finding ways to pack in more calories without upsetting my ratios, by adding lean proteins and whole grains and beans and such

 We're also finding that cooking the same portions for me and Jenna isn't really going to work, since she's supposed to be eating about half as much as I am. That's going to be easier to manage with the scale, at least.

So there you have it. All the updates that you could want, right? But wait, there's more! I weighed myself this morning (after breakfast, like a dolt) and found that I am significantly below the 240 mark. I was at 239.2 if I remember correctly. This morning (Saturday), weighing before breakfast, I'm at 237.8, which means I've lost about 7 pounds in three weeks. Not too shabby at all. I'm already almost down to my lowest weight in recent years, and much more quickly than it happened last time.

Thanks for reading!

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