Category Archives: female body breakthrough

Workout B wrap up and on track Monday.

I can’t believe I am back at work already today.  I look at my blog and know there was a weekend there, but geez!

It was hard to pull myself out of bed this morning, but I perked up for breakfast:

Banana bread pudding topped with peanut flour and jam.  This breakfast will keep me full until lunch.

So, Saturday was the last B workout of Stage 1 for the Female Body Breakthrough. This was the tougher of the 2 workouts, I think.  My progress for the last month.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Week 1 Week 4
Russian Twist 3 sets of 10 each side with 10# DB 3 sets of 10 each side with 10# DB
Prone Cobra 3 sets of 60 second holds 3 sets of 75 second holds
Overhead squat 3 sets of 10, 1 set with wooden bar, 2 sets with 20# bar 3 sets of 10 with 25# bar
Lateral Raise with external rotation 3 sets of 10 with 5# DBs 3 sets of 12 with 5# DBs
Single Leg/Single arm Deadlift 3 sets of 10 with 10# DB 3 sets of 10 with 25# DB
Single arm cable lat pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 20# 3 sets of 10 at 30#
Bulgarian Split Squat 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs 3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs
High Cable Row 3 sets of 10 at 50# 3 sets of 10 at 70#

I did have a goal to try to do a 90 second prone cobra, but I kind of forgot that I would really only be doing this workout 8 times during the month and it was a little unrealistic for me to add 30 seconds to that. 75 was pretty tough!  I did not do anything with the russian twist because that exercise was a little bothersome to my herniated disk.  I think I might have maxed out on the overhead squat because I felt unstable at that weight, but I suppose with more practice it would get better.

So how do I feel after this month?  Quite good.  I feel very strong and I think my posture is better.  Not much scale difference.  Maybe some difference in my clothes, but again, I have trouble subjectively judging that unless there is a large difference in fit.

Tomorrow starts the next stage and I am excited!

I breezed through work this morning  – thank you very much for that happening on a Monday!  I sauteed up some veggies to go with a cheese omelet.

After all my candy yesterday, I am surprised that I don’t feel crappy today, but I don’t.  Just more relieved to be eating like usual.

Including the usual latte:

I actually was finished with my allotted work by latte time (thank you productivity), but I continued working my usual number of hours to make some extra $$.  Plus, I may need to cut my work day short on Thursday, but I am not sure yet.

I thought chicken was on the menu for dinner, but John put the chicken in the freezer yesterday. Ooops.  Plan B – the other poultry!  Turkey burgers.

I topped mine with laughing cow and BBQ sauce.  I am making an concerted effort to get more veggies in lately.  It’s a big deal for me to have them for 2 meals for many days in a row  :mrgreen:  Life would be so much easier for me if I loved veggies.

My goals tonight are to do a little cleaning and a little stretching.  I have 1 window done and I stretched one time for the month.  I better get cracking on those goals! 😳

Here is my snack for later:

Blueberries with ricotta.  This is becoming one of my go-to evening snacks. And yes, I do pre-make this to let it chill.  I haven’t decided which way I like it best, warm or chilled.

Question: Are you back on track after Easter – or never went off track?

“A” workout update

I made it through yesterday and didn’t seem to have the snackies today.  Of note, there were no nuts left after the poker game!  So, I guess I don’t have to worry about that.  BTW – if you are interested in the nut recipe, here is the link. Be forewarned – addictive is a mild term for these things.  Pecans are the best.

Gym day!  I really look forward to going to the gym and doing these workouts.

I finished the A workouts today (B will finish on Saturday). Four weeks later. This stage had a max of 12 reps for each exercise, so what I would do each workout was to either increase to 12 reps or drop back down to 10 and increase the weight. Each session I would increase either weight or reps on several exercises. So, here is my progress on the A workout.  I did this workout 6 times over the last 4 weeks.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Week 1 Week 4
Bird Dog 3 sets of 10 3 sets of 12 with 5# DBs
Forward Ball Roll 3 sets of 10 3 sets of 12
Step Ups 3 sets of 10 (each leg) with 15# DBs 3 sets of 10 (each leg) with 20# DBs
3-point dumbbell row 3 sets of 10 (each arm) with 15# DB 3 sets of 10 (each arm with 20# DBs
Partial Co-contraction Lunge 3 sets of 10 each leg 3 sets of 12 each leg
Pushup 3 sets of 10 3 sets of 12
Hip-thigh Extension (single-leg bridge) 3 sets of 10 each leg 3 sets of 12 each leg
Bent Over Reverse Fly 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs 3 sets of 10 with 13# DBs

Pretty pleased with this. The co-contraction lunges are hard and I had burning legs and I never did add any weight. Any kind of split-leg stuff is hard for me. I am ready for the next round of pushups with variation, so that should be fun. Feeling nice and strong with that.  Update of workout B after this weekend.

I realized that I hadn’t made coconut flour protein waffles in a while, so that is what I made when I got home.

Yum!

My lap buddy was back. She was totally sacked out today.  I was lifting her up here and she doesn’t even care.

She must be part ragdoll. I love my cat big hairy feet and all.

Lunch leftovers!

I wanted crunch, so I had some Nut Thins with it.  They are the crunchiest cracker ever!

Work was kind of annoying today.  We recently got a new supervisor on one of my accounts, and he actually doesn’t know the account very well, which leads to communication problems.

I needed my break today:

I could have used a shot of liquor in there, but I refrained.

It was a poultry kind of day today. Chicken for lunch, turkey for dinner.

Topped with laughing cow and A1 steak sauce.  Or turkey sauce, I suppose.

Took a night out to have some coffee.  Yes, I brought some pineapple to have with my latte.

Gotta love my netbook and the free wifi!

I think I am going to totally delete my blog feed and reburn it.  I did that once already, but I am totally out of ideas about how to stop the comment feed.  Of course, this is only with Google reader and not with other subscription feed readers, so I don’t necessarily want to do that and lose those that aren’t having an issue.

The last resort is moving my blog to a new hosting service, but I *really* don’t want to have to do that.  I just don’t have the time to be messing with it like that.  Nobody seems to be able to help me, either.  I guess I have discovered a brand new internet problem to have.  Lucky me!  🙄

At least tomorrow is Friday!

Fit female eating

I thought I would go into a little more detail about how I am eating for the Fit Female program.  It’s actually pretty similar to how I normally eat, which you probably notice since I post photos of my food pretty much every day.  🙄

Rachel Cosgrove has you eating 6 meal/snacks a day.  Really, 3 meals and 3 snacks.  She stresses to eat enough of the good food to fuel your body and not starve.  She also stresses the importance of protein so that you don’t lose muscle as you lose fat.  Always a good thing to keep in mind.  Who wants to be skinny fat? Not me!

Rachel does not advocate calorie counting, at least not in the beginning.  She just wants you to focus on getting the processed food out of your diet, limit wheat, make sure you eat protein and a fruit/veggie with every meal/snack and  don’t be afraid of fats. Gee, sound familiar??  That was a big appeal to me for this program, I have to say.

One term I loved that she used in her book was called “nutritional freestyling.”  This is how people eat most of the time.  When you eat whatever, whenever without planning.  Then there is being compliant and the various stages of that (70%,80%, 90%… 50%)

An example of a workout day would be:

1. 1 to 2 eggs, 1/2 to 1 cup of oatmeal, a banana

2. Postworkout shake: 1 scoop of protein powder, 1/2 cup of milk, water, ice, strawberries.

3.  Mixed salad with chicken breast, olive oil and vinegar, an apple.

4. Rice cake (ewww) with peanut butter and an apple.

5.  Turkey, brown rice, and asparagus.

6. Yogurt (no sugar added) with walnuts and blueberries.

Note there are no real measurements of food here, but to try to use serving sizes as a guide. The caveat is to have your workout shake right after the workout.  I have to alter this because I workout before breakfast, so I drink mine half before and half after the workout – then eat breakfast when I get home.  Gotta make things work, right?

An example of a rest day or cardio (oops) day would be:

1. 1 to 2 eggs plus as many egg whites as you want, spinach, mushrooms (double ewwww), Ezekiel toast, 1/2 an avocado and a small orange.

2. Cottage cheese with walnuts, cinnamon and chopped apple.

3.  Turkey breast on Ezekiel bread with lettuce and tomato.  Carrot sticks.

4. Ground turkey chili with beans

5. Broccoli (yay!), lean meat, sweet potato.

6.  2 hardboiled eggs and cantaloupe.

So, a good amount of food during the day.  And you all see how I make this work with the types of food I eat.  No rice cakes, no mushrooms, no avocado, etc. Rachel says to not worry about calories or even changing the eating *at all* unless you stop progressing.  That’s kind of refreshing.  However, I do log my food so I do know how many calories I am eating.

So, the compliance part comes in with being 90% compliant.  This means that 4 to 5 meal/snacks can be indulgent where you can have the other things you like such as pizza or cupcakes or lasagna, beer.  That way you don’t feel like you are deprived.  When you get to a maintenance mode, then 80/20 comes more into play.

The weekends are where I use more of my indulgent meals.  We usually go out for either lunch or dinner on Saturdays and have a pizza wrap or I will get a sandwich and fries.  Nothing really crazy, but definitely tasty!  Sunday morning is our usual Bagel Day. And then I will have a treat with coffee one of those days.  That could be a cookie or some type of dessert with a latte.  I really enjoy those and don’t let myself snack and indulge all day all weekend.  I am not sure  what will change with this as the warm weather really comes on and John and I are doing our distance biking and I need to eat much, much more.  I don’t know if I can do the 6 meal thing on those days or not.  We will have to see.  It certainly wouldn’t hurt me to bring a protein drink to chug down while riding and that might be a good experiment.

One thing Rachel also says is to really not care about the scale number.  She says if you fit into the size pants you want, what does it matter what the weight is?  And she is right.  If I can fit into smaller pants and be heavier, who cares?  It is just so ingrained to have a goal weight and get there – sometimes unrealistically.

As far as the scale, I am really trying not to focus on it.  Again, my scale doesn’t have numbers, but it does tell me how many pounds above or below my ‘starting’ weight I am.  I am trying more just to focus on the workouts and hopefully make myself smaller and stronger even if the scale doesn’t tell me that.

Female Body Breakthrough B and books!

Man, is this week over yet?  Today seemed very long.  I slept fitfully.  I should just set an alarm because I wanted to make sure I woke up so I could be at the gym by 7, so then I kept waking up every 15 minutes from about 5:30.  Ugh.

Base workout B today from Female Body Breakthrough. I had my usual pumpkin protein drink and got to work. New exercises and routines and I kept the weights lighter.  The warmup went faster today since I had already done it.

Exercise Set/rep/weight
Russian Twist 3 sets of 10 each side with 10# DB
Prone Cobra 3 sets of 60 second holds
Lateral raise 3 sets of 10 with 5# DBs
Overhead Squat 3 sets of 10, 1 set with wooden bar, 2 sets with 20# bar.
Single Leg/Single arm Deadlift 3 sets of 10 with 10# DB
Single arm cable lat pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 20#
Bulgarian Split Squat (video) 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs
High Cable Row 3 sets of 10 at 50#

The Russian Twist is something I am going to have to be very, very careful with. It kind of mimics the move I shouldn’t do because of my herniated disk – and I could feel it. So, I have to modify and do less range of motion. Also – the Bulgarian Split Squat, which makes no sense because people from Bulgaria just call them squats, is a thigh burner. Burning!!! It really is just a stationary split squat with the rear leg elevated on a bench. Holy crow is it hard. I forgot how hard this was – and truthfully I don’t really like it much (because it is hard – wuss!).  The key with this exercise is to lay the back foot so you are resting on the top of the foot and not the tip of the toes.  That way you can’t cheat and lean back onto the raised leg.

The prone cobra – like the plank (kind of the plank in reverse, really), is an exercise looks like nothing, but it sure feels like something!  At first it is easy and you think 60 seconds will be no problem.  After 30 seconds it gets hard. 45 seconds and it felt like forever until I hit 60!  I hope to be at 90 seconds after 4 weeks, which I laugh at now, but it’s my goal.

Here is a nice guide on the prone cobra. You can do these anywhere, too.

 

So, Tuesday’s workout and today’s will be alternating for the next 4 weeks 3 times a week.  I probably won’t list the workouts again until near the end for comparison of how much more weight I am lifting.  Each time, you are supposed to increase the weights/intensity of 2 or 3 of the exercises. I hope I don’t get too bored with these 2 workouts.  My one beef with NROLW was I was bored by the end of the first phase and ready to mix it up.

I chugged the rest of my protein drink in the car on the way home and made up brekkie:

Banana custard oats.  Yum 😀

Regarding the eating plan for the FBB, I am doing pretty well with it.  I have trouble on non-lifting days with the 6th meal, which would be a morning snack.  I just forget about it while I am working. I probably just need to make my breakfast smaller so I get hungry enough to remember.

Lunch time!  My new favorite thing – Greek yogurt with the apple cranberry topping.

I am loving this.  You can tell when warmer weather is coming because I start eating yogurt again.  Once I get to salads, it will be summer!  I seem to be very seasonal with that.

I had my typical afternoon break.

I don’t sweeten my lattes, but I like a little honey drizzle on the foam with some cinnamon or nutmeg.  I also had a couple of those coconut chocolate chews I made, but didn’t take a photo as they don’t look that attractive…

Earlier, I was rummaging through the pantry actually looking for tea and found a packet of this, which I totally forgot about.

I love this marinade flavor, so I cut up some chicken and got that marinating for dinner.  Too bad we didn’t get the grill out, but it was really good just the same!

With some shredded brussel sprouts and a pear.  I am doing pretty good today with fruits and veggies:  Pumpkin, brussel sprouts, banana, pear, apple.  I’ll take it!

After I finished up a little work after dinner, we hit the library before settling in at Starbies.  I found 2 books that I really wanted to be  checked in.  What luck!

And then this one:

I love anything bacteria/virus related.  Richard Preston finished this book  that  Michael Crichton started before he died.  Preston wrote The Hot Zone, which scared the bejeezus out of me.  It’s based on true events about ebola in Africa.  I have to bust through this book, too, because it is a 14-day loan.

John thought it was funny that I brought my books, my computer *and* the free weekly newspaper into Starbucks tonight.  Guess we will be here a while  :mrgreen:

I’ve got this:

Question:  Do you eat salads as entrees or yogurt in the winter?