I was not sore at all from Tuesday’s workout, but part of that is new moves and lighter weights.  Today was the second part of this month’s stage, so without further ado:

On to Stage 3B

How about a circle for breakfast?

Bagel – showcasing pi with the diameter and circumference references!  Learning – it’s what’s for breakfast.

Wednesday bagels are one of my 10% meals of the week.  It was a gorgeous and sunny morning [...]]]> Happy Pi Day!  3/14. A celebration of the circle and its irrational number.

How about a circle for breakfast?

Bagel – showcasing pi with the diameter and circumference references!  Learning – it’s what’s for breakfast.

Wednesday bagels are one of my 10% meals of the week.  It was a gorgeous and sunny morning as well.  So hard to sit my butt down and work.  It’s also my really busy day, too.  I did make a point to get some lunch before leaving for my literacy tutoring appointment.  More circles!

This is 2% Fage topped with 1/2 cup of pumpkin, 1 teaspoon of honey and cinnamon.  I thought it would be nice to photo it before mushing it all together.  Good, but needed something crunchy on top like pecans. Too bad I had to eat this fast and not savor it.

After tutoring, back to work until latte time!  More pi =

Fran had asked me about learning to do pushups.  I now do straight military style pushups.  (I hate calling them man pushups because women can do them, too).  I used to do pushups on my knees, like girls were taught to do.  The problem with this is that you can never learn to do them on your toes this way. What I did was to do incline pushups.  I started leaning against a wall, then progressively dropped down the angle until I was straight on the floor.  This gives your body time to build the upper body strength it needs to support the ‘real’ pushup stance.  It’s too hard to just start in the pushup position and work from there because pushups on your toes are really an advanced exercise.  They aren’t easy!  Give yourself time to work down.

(source)

You can use anything for the support.  A weight bench, a chair, a step stool.  As the pushups get easier, lower the height of the object.

* My one piece of advice is to anchor the object that you will be pushing against so that it doesn’t slide away from you causing you to fall to the floor.  Not that I have ever done that or anything.  I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen to you, because it hurts – or I imagine it would hurt. Not that I know anything about that…

I ate dinner later because work was running out and I wanted to make sure I got as much as I could.  Ah, the lovely part of working on production.  I did a quick dinner of shrimp stir fry.  This is 4 oz of shrimp with some sauteed broccoli, 1/2 cup of leftover rice and 1 tablespoon of Kikkoman ginger teriyaki sauce.

This was really yummy!

More working after dinner until files run out.  Taking 2 hours out of my day for tutoring means adding them in at night. I am actually ahead for the week, so no big deal.

My mother is coming over tonight for a visit.  Too bad I didn’t make any pi(e).  We like to have pie on pi day, but just didn’t make any this year and too tired to go out tonight!  Guess I will have to settle for nuts and dried pineapple.

Tomorrow is workout B of the Fit Female!

So, this is my new program! The Female Body Breakthrough by Rachel Cosgrove.  I got this book on kindle reader and I have to say that it really fits right in with my philosophy on eating *and* lifting! It also helps that her husband was one of the co-authors on NROLW, [...]]]>  

So, this is my new program! The Female Body Breakthrough by Rachel Cosgrove.  I got this book on kindle reader and I have to say that it really fits right in with my philosophy on eating *and* lifting! It also helps that her husband was one of the co-authors on NROLW, so it is very familiar.

I also think the Rachel embodies the type of fitness I want to achieve.  I think we have a fairly similar body type (plus 10-15 pound for me, though LOL).  I like that she is very fit and not so lean that she doesn’t look feminine.  She is strong without being intimidating. Here is an awesome video of her doing chinups and she makes it look so easy.

It is a 16 week progressive program and I am going to try to follow it as closely as possible.  She does not advocate cardio, but biking season is approaching and I am just going to have to work in my biking and be careful not to over train.  Also, I think the base program is geared to people who have never lifted, so I am advanced enough to add in the cardio workouts.

The 4 phases last for a month. There are 2 alternating strength workouts to do. Here is workout A, which I did today.

First is a dynamic warmup, which I won’t go into here, but it involves lateral lunges, inch worms, jumping jacks, etc.  It took between 10-15 minutes to go through.

I was really sweaty when this was done.  It took about 35 minutes to get through this workout.  I could not find a stability ball at the gym, so I did the ball rolls with one of those wheel things that you roll on the floor.  The hip-thigh extension is basically a single-leg bridge.  That is quite tough!

The goal is to add weights to 1 or 2 exercises each time you do this routine. I didn’t do too much with weights today as I wanted to get used to some of the moves and the routine.  I have a lot of this routine to do over the next month!  On Thursday I will go over routine B.

The eating plan fits in about what I am trying to do as well.  Rachel talks about the  90-10 rule, which dovetails right in with how I am trying to eat (score for Lori!). Of course, there are some more strict guidelines like no sugar outside of your indulgent meals, which I have been doing mostly for the last couple of weeks anyway. You need to have protein and a fruit or veggie with every meal/snack, too. That’s a little tougher, so I need to work on that.

Also, I will need to eat 1 more meals/snack a day. I normally eat 5, so 6 will be a change for me. Easy enough on workout days with a post workout shake, but harder on the other days. This means 3-4 meal/snacks a week can be my indulgent meals, which is what I have been trying to do with some success.  The non-negotiable meal is the post workout protein drink.  Since I go to the gym first thing in the morning, I am making my shake and drinking half before and half after the workout, then coming home and eating breakfast.  It’s probably not ideal, but it works for me.

I am actually pretty excited about this program as I loved New Rules of Lifting for Women.

I started off on Saturday with the last 28 Day Shapeover workout!

Flat Fly

Incline Pushups 3 set of 15 with 15# DBs

3 set of 15 at with 10# DBs

3 sets [...]]]> What a great weekend!  We managed to pack a lot in – including this!

I started off on Saturday with the last 28 Day Shapeover workout!

Another tough workout.  The pushups were so hard.  I had to make them all incline pushups since they were the 3rd in a giant set.  I normally do straight up pushups, so that gives me some work to do. Anyway, the shapeover is all finished. I’ll talk a bit more about the wrap up of this program on Monday and my thoughts on it.

John and I went out for lunch and then some bowling!  That was one of my goals this month.  I realize that we had not been bowling at least since I hurt my back  - and that was almost 2 years ago. Eeek!

We do own our own shoes and balls.  Mine is the pink one.

My bowling form really is horrible.  I know it, but whatever

John’s is good.

Ooops:

First game.  Me, not so great.  John had one of his best games.  Go figure!

Second game – I did much better.  Check out the strikes!

At least I was consistent:  Strike/whiff/strike/whiff.  My arm was tired after 2 games.

Saturday was kind of cold in the 30s, but Sunday warmed up to about 55 degrees.  If it is over 50, I am on the bike!  A full month earlier than last year.  I got to wear my new YMX Yellowman long sleeve jersey that I won from Shelley a few months ago:

Love!!!  I need to get a better pic of this.  It’s actually quite … ahem … figure enhancing.

First ride of the season!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!!  We took the long way to downtown GF, swinging by my parents’ house to say hi to my dad on our way by.  Destination? Chocolate Mill for some coffee!

7 miles there.  My legs felt great! Even on the small hills.  All that leg work I have done the last month really helped.  The wind was pretty stiff on the way home, though.  I will say that.  The last 3 miles were tough.  I was just so happy to be on the bike again!  It felt awesome!  Yeah, I can ride the bike on the trainer, but there is just nothing like being on it outside.

Bike computer set to zero and ready to go for the 2012.  First ride: 15 miles!

Yay!  Can you tell I am happy?  The weather looks good this week to sneak in some more rides, hopefully.  Got build up for the 40 mile cuppicake rides.

Week 3 of the 28 Day Shapeover! The one thing I don’t like about doing programs that have a time length is that I realizes how fast time really goes by. It’s scary sometimes.

This week’s focus is drop sets. What this [...]]]> Just a straight up workout post today.  I didn’t feel like taking pictures.

Week 3 of the 28 Day Shapeover! The one thing I don’t like about doing programs that have a time length is that I realizes how fast time really goes by. It’s scary sometimes.

This week’s focus is drop sets. What this means is that after you finish the last set of an exercise, you then drop to a lower weight (25-30%) and then do reps until you can’t do anymore. Then you drop to another lower weight (25-30%) and do reps until you can’t do anymore. So if you start with 10# DBs, then after the last prescribed set you would do a set with 8 pound DBs, then do a set with 5# DBs.

This was for today:

There is a reason why drop sets are also called burn sets.   The only thing that was funny was the single arm lat raise.  I was able to do more drop set reps on the right arm because it had rest time from the last set on the left with its drop sets.  That gave the right arm more time to rest.

I do wish this gym had 12# dumbbells. My old gym had those.  There were some of the exercises that I really could have used the 12s to start with and not the 10s, but otherwise it was a good and very hard workout. I really don’t work muscles to failure very often as I don’t usually have a spotter.

My arms were so weak when I was done.  I had brought along a protein drink with 30 grams of protein and  a half cup of pumpkin.  I drank half before the workout and half after.  This shake was twice as much as I normally do, but I knew it would be a tough workout.

Snow forecast for tomorrow!

Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets of [...]]]> I was up early on a Saturday morning to do my strength workout.  I wasn’t intending on getting up early, but I just woke up, so I was at the gym at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.  No life, I tell you…

I was supposed to do the push ups and lat pulldowns first, but someone was on the cable machine, so I moved those to the last of the chest/back exercises.  Big mistake!  Doing the push ups at the end was almost impossible.  I had to change the last 2 sets to incline push ups to get through them.  I have to say, though, after 2 weeks with this program, I definitely am feeling stronger again.

John still owed me one last football meal (for superbowl weekend) and I just hadn’t claimed it.  So, we went out for lunch on Saturday at Rockhill Bakehouse.   There were fresh flowers at the table:

Plus a bonus of a guitar player.

That was fun!

I had one of my favorite sandwiches, which is the grown-up grilled cheese with pesto and smoked cheese.

So good.  I ate every bite, too! My morning workout gave me a good lunch appetite.

I did really, really well on my goal of not snacking this weekend.  As in no snacking!  My hardest time was really on Sunday because that is grocery shopping day and I tend to nibble on things that we buy, but I managed not to do that, with the help of some ginger mints and cleaning the kitchen!  We have a flylady cleaning list hanging up, but I don’t think either of us has looked at it in probably 6 months or more 

So, I just started to deep clean the kitchen.  Funny how you miss all those crumbs, drips and spills when you aren’t really looking for them.

All sparkly clean!

So Shelley has the Sit and Knit diet, and I have the Scrub and No Chub diet going on 

My meals were good and balanced.  I do eat more calories on the weekend because – well – it is the weekend, but, it made a big difference with not nibbling on stuff.  I stuck to my planned snacks.

My goal this week is to keep going with no extra nibbling.  If I can go for 21 days, maybe I can really break that habit.

I am also going to do some seed starting.  I didn’t have a lot of luck with my seedlings last year, so hopefully I can have more success this year.  I won’t plant these yet, but I have been looking for this flower for a while and finally found it!

These are dwarf sunflowers and only grow about 2-3 feet tall.  Now to figure out exactly where I am going to put them! 

Question: What fun did you get up to this weekend?

I didn’t even have to warm up the car to go to the gym this morning. Today was lower body [...]]]> Another spring winter day. In the mid 40s today. After last winter, it is kind of nice not getting feet and feet of snow, but I do have to say this is weird, weird weather.

I didn’t even have to warm up the car to go to the gym this morning. Today was lower body day. Again with lower weights, increased reps and supersets.

I really don’t like doing the seated abductor/adductor machine. It feels like a waste of time and I have read multiple times that it is fairly pointless. I should have subbed something else. This was a tough workout, though! I walked on the treadmill to cool down and my legs were rubbery. Good thing I didn’t bike to the gym!

Headed home to make an awesome breakfast.  The one-minute muffin/waffle topped with apple cranberry topping.

This tasted every bit as good as it looks!

You know, I have to say that I really, really wish I could be as disciplined with my eating as I am with my exercise.  If I was, I would easily be at my goal weight. I never have a problem with the exercise.  It’s always done and I enjoy it.

I  don’t really have a problem with portion control with my meals.  Obviously you all see that on the blog.  I eat what’s on my plate and hardly ever get seconds.

I just have a problem with nibbling and snacking and lately it has been at night.  The last couple days have been terrible with that.  I know it is PMS craving, but gosh it is super strong!  And the worst part is that I cannot get full.  Why is it when I crave like that I don’t get full?  Any other day I eat that much and I definitely feel it.  I also try to analyze when I overeat to see what the emotions might be about it and I just can’t find any at all.  I don’t eat out of depression or anxiety.  I am not trying to squash any type of feeling.  Sometimes I eat out of boredom, but that is more controllable for me than a real craving to eat.  It’s different than the eating that happens at get togethers because those are happy occasions and I do associate food with happiness and fun.

That is really the sticking point for me.  I know I have talked about in the past that some of these cravings are brought on by wheat, but I really don’t necessarily want to lay it all at the foot of  a grain.  Part of that is I don’t always snack/overeat grains.  It can just as easily be cashews or chocolate.

Anyway, I just thought I would lay that out there for those that think I don’t struggle.

Funny how today I am not having any craving issues.  Go figure.  I wanted an omelet for lunch as I haven’t had one in a while.  Welcome back omelet!

This was made with 2 eggs and 2 egg whites.  I just love cheese, too.  Note to self – eat more cheese.

Pretty much a quiet work day around here.  I keep thinking it’s Friday, though.  I had no desire to snack at all this afternoon before latte time.

Mickey says “Way to go, Lori!”

We are almost done with the leftovers, thank goodness!  Just that last bit of cooked chicken and my roasted veggies.  I kind of stared at what was left to figure out what to do with it.  I then remembered a bottle of this from my TJ’s road trip.

I sauteed up some shredded brussel sprouts, then I just decided to dump in the carrots, parsnips and the shredded chicken with the curry sauce.

It was actually pretty good, although the sauce is a wee bit salty.  Has a nice bit of heat to it.

Done with leftovers just in time to make more this weekend 

My snacks tonight are only fruit or protein drink.  No other snacks! I am going to make John hold me to that 

Speaking of fruit, I read a very interesting article on sugar and if it in itself is responsible for obesity.  It’s quite interesting (and quite long).  I really enjoy Stephan’s blog.  He is a PhD and focuses on the study of obesity. Check out his series on cholesterol as well.  It will make you think.