Category Archives: New Rules of Lifting for Women

NROLW, omelets, and pumpkins, oh my!

Packed a lot into today!  I tried to sleep in a little later and managed to sleep until about 7, which was good.  I needed to wait until it was light enough outside to bike to the gym.  Temps were upper 40s this morning, so definitely doable.

NROLW Stage 6 A:  last workout!

  • Negative chinups:  3 sets of 1
  • Wide grip lat pulldown with slow release:  1o sets of 2 at 70 pounds
  • Barbell split squats:  3 sets of 6 at 70 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 6 with feet elevated.

I was encouraged on the chinups today.  The first one I hopped up to the bar and held myself up for quite a while, much longer than when I first started.  The other 2 were the usual length.   I think given a few months, I could progress to actual chinups.

John met me at the gym and we biked 5 miles to Maude’s Kitchen for my football meal!

maude1030

This place is cute as a button inside!  It’s like from the 50s:

maudes1029

The breakfast menu is made up of dishes that Maude’s children loved.  I think she had something like 9 kids.  I got the biggest kick out of this one:

menu1030

I had an omelet with home fries, and John had oatmeal with a side of ham and toast.  Switcheroo for us!

brekkie1030

A most excellent breakfast and I could watch them cook it at the griddle, so it was all fresh!  This spread for the 2 of us was $13.  Can’t beat that!  I was so hungry after the workout and bike ride and ate all but about 1/2 the potatoes.

Pink item of the day at our table:

pink1030

Pumpkin shopping time at the garden center after I got home (and showered 😀  )

p1030

They also had Christmas lawn stuff out for sale.  Looks like the reindeer got into Santa’s eggnog again:

deer1030

I spent about 5 minutes giggling over this outside. 😀

Lunch was pretty delayed and just a Zone bar because of the big breakfast.  I so have Maude’s on my list to revisit.  I spent a good deal of time picking out my pumpkin pattern and contemplating a new career in dentistry 😉

tools1030

I used a pattern for a scary clown:

PA300033

John did a free form, sort of alien thing:

pums1030

Dinner was almost pizza, but then we decided we could cook up shrimp and grits really quickly and it was delicious!

sandg1030

We just sauteed a bit of lean bacon with some chopped onion, sprinkled flour over it and some vegetable broth, then added the shrimp.  Served over grits. Yum!

We are running a 5K tomorrow on Halloween!  Provided it isn’t pouring rain, but weather looks okay for now.  I am going to try to dress as a bee using yellow duct tape over a black outfit.  I have the antennae made with a headband (which Pixie found to be quite fascinating). It should be interesting at any rate.

Question:  Do you have your pumpkins carved before Halloween?

NROLW and camera is here!

No biking to bagels this morning.  My eyes popped open at 6:30 and wouldn’t go back to sleep.  It was raining, so I just drove to the gym in the dark since I didn’t have to wait for it to get light like I do biking.

New Rules of Lifting: Stage 6 Workout B:

  • Reverse lunge, one dumbbell on shoulder:  3 x 6 at 25 pounds
  • Dumbbell 2-point row:  3 x 6 at 30 pounds
  • Dumbbell push press: 1 x 6 at 15 pounds, 2 x 6 at 20 pounds
  • Back extension:  3 x 8 at 100 pounds
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 x 8

Assessment:  Increased the dumbbell weights on all  of the first 3 exercises!  20 pound dumbbells on the push press was hard, though, and unwieldly.  Also, the lunge with more weight is hard on the balance, which I guess is good.

Picked John up and off we went to bagels!  Delicious warm coffee on a cold and drizzly day:

coffee1028

Plus numminess….

bagel1028

My replacement camera arrived today!  Hello beautiful –

camera1028

And hello camera 😉

The camera and I are both pink items in this picture!

I proceeded to take a 1000 macro shots of everything.  How I missed my in-your-face food shots LOL!    Even Pixie was getting annoyed with my picture taking.

pix1028Can’t you just hear her saying “Enough already, I’m trying to nap here for goodness sake!”

I had a chill all morning and decided on breakfast for lunch:

cow21028

Pumpkin cream of wheat with the last of the cranberry sauce and some dulce de leche.  It’s all flecked with vanilla bean goodness.  Yum!

I had some snackage problems today.

cashews1028

Plus some unpictured cereal. Not sure if it was the blood donation or something else.  I need to nix cereal from the house.  I never actually eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  It is pretty much only for having on yogurt, but I have found that I really love to snack on it.  It has become red light for me, so off to the dungeon it goes for a while.  Will I never learn???

Shaking it up for dinner:

din1028

You don’t see that on my plate very often!  Little cheese raviolis.  So good and they really hit the spot tonight.  I don’t have pasta too often because of the small amount of food for the calories.  Although with mini cheese raviolis, it looks like you get more.  A serving of these is 240 calories, which isn’t too bad.

More soapmaking in progress as I type this.  Tonight’s menu is gardenia, applejack, and coconut.

Stay tuned tomorrow for one of my thinking posts!

NROLW and busy, busy!

I thought long and hard about biking to the gym today, but my limit is below 40 degrees and it was at the freezing mark when I got up!! Brrrr…..  I had to scrape the car off, too.   The gym was nice and quiet this morning, guess other people thought it was too cold to even go out!

NROLW (New Rules of Lifting For Women) Stage 6 A

  • Negative chin ups:  3 sets of 1
  • Wide grip lat pulldown with slow release:  10 sets of 2 at 70 pounds
  • Barbell split squat:  3 sets of 6 at 65 pounds
  • Push ups:  3 sets of 6 (real style)

I am not getting any better at the chin ups.  I am very strong, but I am just too heavy to have that much upper body strength (that’s not me knocking myself, just being realistic about my upper body strength). Then I walked on the treadmill for 25 minutes.  This man got on to the treadmill next to me and he had the worst breath!  I swear he ate an onion quiche with a garlic chaser.  I almost got off because I couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t want to be rude and move to another treadmill.  That’s why it was 25 minutes for me until I couldn’t take it anymore 😛

Returned home to make some Cream of Wheat with pumpkin, cranberry sauce and a tablespoon of dulce de leche that John made yesterday  :0

brekkie1026

Very good, but dangerous.  I could eat that stuff straight off a spoon.  It was Alton Brown’s recipe, although he used 1% milk instead of whole to lighten it up a bit.

Remember the little  kitten that I rescued last month?  He got a new home!  He was nursed back to health and is happy in his new place.  That makes me feel great!  This was a picture during his foster care – he is so durn cute!

kitten

Lunch today was more homemade goodness.  John also made some clam chowder this weekend.  It’s only 150 calories a cup and so creamy and good.  I think the recipe was modeled on Dave Lieberman, but I am not completely sure.  I’ll have to ask J and get a link for you.  So good.  I don’t think I ever want canned soup again.

lunch1026

Winding down on the pink pictures for the month of October!

Here is today’s pink item:

micasparklepink

This is another one of our soap colorants.  This is sparkle pink mica.  It’s actually the same stuff that is used in making cosmetics like eye shadow and blush, but just the pure colorant without any binders.  It’s one of my favorite colors of mica (although gold or copper are even prettier!).  I was contacted by an old soap customer and am working on a large order for her – so it is keeping me hopping on top of working full time.   That means those Christmas ornaments are put on hold.  Remember how I said it was a good thing I started them early??  Hahaha!!  Maybe in a couple weeks I can get back to them.

Doing this soap almost makes me want to start doing that again.  I kind of miss it a little bit now that it has been a while.  Does that ever happen to you?  Where you can’t stand doing something you used to love so you stop, then get the hankering for it again?  We’ll see how long that lasts.  I’ll take some pics when I get most of the order done.

Dinner was my standard trifecta:

din1026

This was the best shot I took.  The old camera doesn’t quite know what to do when the food is steamy.  My replacement camera shipped today!  It’s crossing the country, so I probably won’t get it until the weekend.

So, feeling a little swamped and overwhelmed – but I’m keeping it together.  I did snack on some cashews today – more than I should have, but part of that was the nibbles I get due to lack of sleep.  I am going to bed early tonight, since John is out playing poker.  He had better win, since he has to take me to dinner this week 😀

NROLW and thoughts of christmas!

It’s the start of my weekend! Fridays still just don’t feel like the weekend, even though I have been working at this job since February with that schedule. Still up early, though! I waited until 7:15 to bike to the gym, just so it was lighter. Pretty durn cold, too! I think we can start counting down the days before the bikes get hung up.
New Rule of Lifting Stage 6 B:

  • Reverse Lunge, one dumbell on shoulder:  3 x 8 at 20 pounds
  • Dumbbell 2-point row:  3 x 8 at 25 pounds
  • Dumbbell push press:  1 x 8 at 15 pounds, 2×8 at 20 pounds
  • Back extension:  2 x 8 at 100 pounds
  • Incline reverse crunch:  2 x 8

Push press increase to 20 pound dumbbells! That is really hard. That little extra push helps with heavier weights. Short and sweet workout with 25 minutes on the treadmill after that.

Pink item at the gym:

PA230065

The wallpaper in the women’s locker room :eyeroll: Sorry for the pic, the battery died on my camera just as I took that. Too bad, because I was going to make more videos. Are there any moves you want to see on video that you can think of? Hopefully, I will get the ones I have made compiled onto my workout page at some point 😉

Since the battery was charging on my camera, no pictures of breakfast or lunch! I kept myself busy making peanut butter and some blueberry jam.

Pb230067

I cannot wait to get back onto my  regular computer.  This old one is really giving me fits trying to do posts and pictures.  Grrr… Cord hopefully will be here tomorrow.

Anyway, I made a Halloween inspired latte today, complete with spiderweb!

PA230069

Pixie likes having me not working, too.  She gets the full lap instead of sharing it with my laptop!

pix1023Finally also taking some time to have fun! I wanted a little more bling on the christmas tree this year, so I am making some sparkle ornaments. Here is the first shot of what will hopefully be a colorful ornament when I get done:orn84

This started as a clear glass globe, and I used gold spray paint and am now doing the glitter. I see that this will probably take me a few weeks to get these done LOL!  Colored glitter to be added tomorrow after this dries.  Good thing I started now.

This computer is frustrating me with this post, so I think I will sign off now. I am going out with my mom to see a bluegrass concert at the revamped train station in town. Should be fun! Admission is a can of food for the food bank 😀
Question: Are you crafty?

NROLW and bagel day!

Back to the gym today!  It was dark when I got up, so I put a reflective band on my leg for biking.  Then I realized that I forgot to put my bag rack back on my bike after the race on Sunday.  D’oh!  So, by the time I got done fumbling that on, it was much lighter out. 😀

I have missed my lifting!  I am backing up into stage 6 a little since I took a week off.  Workout A:

  • Negative chin ups:  3 sets of 1  (still just dangling there).
  • Lat pull down:  10 sets of 2 at 60 pounds (slow release)
  • Barbell split squats:  2 sets of 10 at 65 pounds
  • Pushups (the real way!):  2 sets of 10.

John arrived just as I was finishing the pushups and off we biked to bagels!  Oh how I missed my bagel. Haven’t had one since last Wednesday!

Come to momma!

bagel1021

And le cafe.

coffee1021

Really nice day for biking.  I wasn’t sure if my legs were a little twingy from the workout or a little leftover duathloning, but it was so great to be back on the bike!  My favorite sport.

Spied my pink item while at the cafe:

pink1021

I love Wednesday mornings.  I don’t have to start work until 10, although sometimes I start early – but not on Wednesdays! I enjoy the time with my hubby and relaxing.

I decided on something way different for lunch:

lunch1021

Microwaved sweet potato topped with pan sauteed broccoli and chick peas with a wedge of laughing cow (plus some cumin seeds thrown into the saute pan).  I give this a thumb’s up and it was very different for me.  I never used to like sweet potatoes.

I was having so much fun playing with food today that I decided to carry that on for dinner!  We had cooked chicken and I had made the cranberry sauce last night. Well, in the spirit of fall, I made a sandwich panini style!  I used an Arnold sandwich thin, sliced chicken breast, cranberry sauce, and Cabot light cheddar cheese and smashed between 2 hot pans:

sammie21021

All that was missing was some stuffing and it would have been totally perfect!

And you know a girl needs her chocolate! Love those Attunes!

choc1021

Question:  Are you a meal inventor, or do you follow recipes?

NROLW with video!

Last strength workout before the duathlon!  Stage 6 workout B:

  • Reverse Lunge, one dumbell on shoulder:  3 x 8 at 20 pounds
  • Dumbbell 2-point row:  3 x 8 at 25 pounds
  • Dumbbell push press:  3 x 8 at 15 pounds
  • Back extension:  2 x 8 at 100 pounds
  • Incline reverse crunch:  2 x 8

Then a 30-minute walk on the treadmill.  Quick and easy workout today.  I was done in just under an hour!

This video is the Dumbbell 2-point row.  It’s basically like a regular row, but the weight is held perpendicular to your side instead of parallel.  I feel this more in the chest than with the weight parallel.  You also pull the weight up more towards your abdomen, which helps keep your shoulder from hunching up.  The other arm is placed behind the back. Because you do this with one arm and while standing (rather than with one knee on a bench), it also works on balance. Enjoy.

NROLW and Ravenous

It’s the start of my weekend! I actually slept until 7 am before hitting the gym. Did workout A of stage 6 again. The negative chin-ups were harder today, not sure why. Maybe from my intense workout yesterday.

  • Negative chin ups:  3 sets of 1
  • Lat Pull downs:  10 sets of 2  at 70 and 60 pounds (got tired)
  • Pushups:  2 sets of 8
  • Barbell split squats:  2 sets of 8 at 65 pounds

I couldn’t hold the chin ups as long as on Monday. Then did  some walking on the treadmill.  I thought it would start raining before I biked home, but it held off.

Decided on protein pancakes with maple/banana topping for breakfast:

cakes109

I kept feeling like I needed to get to work.  That’s one problem with working at home, the environment is always the same!

Pink photo for today:

pink109

Well, John won the football picks again this week….. grrrr….  I need to step up my game!  His dinner choice was Ravenous – a french crepe place.  Now, I have to say that I would have chosen to go here for my dinner anyway as well, so I guess I won after all!

It’s a cute little place, very small and intimate inside:

rav2

We sat at the window counter, which was fun.  Started with an order of pommes frites with a cajun dipping sauce.

PA090025

Delicious!  Thick cut and hot fries.  I can’t remember the last time I had fries!

I chose the Sorbonne crepe: Fresh asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, and chevre.  Organic salad on the side.

crepe

This was so good!  I actually couldn’t taste the crepe much because the filling was so flavorful!  The goat cheese had a wonderful flavor with sun-dried tomatoes.  And the asparagus were the really thin ones and super tender.

Since the meals were light, we decided to split a sweet crepe for dessert:

Dulce De Leche: Butterscotch-caramel spread rolled in a crepe with toasted pecans. Served with whip cream & sliced peaches.

dulce

Another winner!  This did not need the peaches (they were canned).  Or they should have been fresh peaches.  The dulce de leche filling was oh-so-good.  Thick and creamy:

descrepe

We definitely want to come here some time just to each have our own dessert crepe.  There are so many to choose from!  We are thinking we need to try some crepe making at home.

And I wasn’t stuffed after dinner, which is also a good feeling.

Tomorrow John has a 5K race to do.  I am not racing with the duathlon coming up in 8 days (!!!!!).

NROLW and video!

Today was workout B of stage 6 for NROLW!  Short, but intense.

  • Reverse lunge, one dumbell on shoulder:  2 x 10 at 20 pounds
  • Dumbbell 2-point row:  2 x 10 at 25 pounds
  • Dumbbell push press:  2 x 10 at 20 pounds
  • Back extension (on machine):  2 x 10 at 100 pounds
  • Incline reverse crunch:  2 x 10

The incline reverse crunch was harder than I thought it would be, and I didn’t have much incline LOL!

Here is the video showing one side of the reverse lunge.  This is a great balance builder.  I actually had to refilm as I fell over the first time!  You then switch sides and repeat.

This lower camera angle makes me look tall.  I think I like it 😀

Please mute unless you want to hear “School’s Out for summer”  😛

New Rules of Lifting Stage 6

Okay, I am in the really hard section of NROLW – stage 6.  This is an optional stage.  It’s the chin-up stage.

Score: Chin-ups: 3    Lori:  0

Today was very humbling.  I have been feeling strong and mighty doing this program and  came crashing back to earth today.  Today’s A workout was short, but intense:

  • Negative chin-ups:  3 sets, 1 rep
  • Underhand lat pull down:  10 sets, 2 reps at 70 pounds
  • Barbell split squats:  2 sets, 10 reps.  1 set 45 pounds, 1 set 55 pounds
  • Push ups:  2 sets of 10 pushups.

It looks rather innocuous on paper (pixel??) doesn’t it?  The negative chin-ups were very hard.  You have to stand under the bar, then hop up to the bar so your chin is at the bar with an underhand grip, then lower yourself slowly.  Then repeat that twice.  The idea is to work up to taking 20 seconds to lower yourself.  The hard part was controlling my body.  When I jumped up to the bar, my body was swinging so much that I had to stay up there for a long time just to stop swaying before lowering myself.  My arms were already shaky before the lowering!  3 times was about all I could take!  I even tried one set where I sort of climbed up the squat cage to the bar, but still had swinging.  At least I have something to strive for!

The lat pull down was also a bit different.  You pull the weight down very fast, and then slowly let it back up, taking 4 times as long to go back up.  These 2 exercises really work the upper body, let me tell you!

Barbell split squats.  Again, another tough move and I didn’t even load the barbell for the first set.  Takes a little more balance doing a split squat than a regular squat.

For some crazy reason, I decided to get on the treadmill after this because it only took about 25 minutes and ran for 2 miles!  This is my hard training week before tapering next week.

I may have to have John video me trying a chin up so you all can have a good laugh 😀

NROLW: YTWL video and no bagel??

Hello to my new visitors!  I was honored to be asked for an interview by Sahar for FatFighterTV and it was posted today.  I was given a Weight Loss WooHoo, which you can read about here. That was fun!

September challengers, don’t forget to do the final check in here!

Today was the last NROWL stage 5 workout:

  • Deadlift/bent over row:  4 x 4  at 75 pounds
  • Single leg partial squats:  4  x 4
  • Wide grip lat pulldown:   4 x 4 at 70 pounds
  • Back extension:  4 x 4 at 100 pounds
  • YTWL:  4 x 4 at 10 pounds
  • Crunches, reverse crunches, lateral flexion:  3 x 10
  • Prone cobra:  3 x 2 minute holds

Then it was breakfast time.  Long-time readers probably expect the usual Wednesday bagel, but not today!  Today is my mom’s birthday (Happy Bday MOM!!) and we took her and my father out to breakfast at the Silo Restaurant.

P9300009

There is plenty of opportunity to eat a lot of food there, but I decided to eat healthy instead with a bowl of oatmeal!

silooats

There was a choice of strawberries or blueberries, and you can see what I chose.  I also sprinkled with a bit of brown sugar.  It was quite good and filling.  Actually more oats than I normally eat.  I was hungry after my workout today.

Chilly day today, mid 40s.  We turned the furnace on today for the first time.  Pixie is just a heat magnet now. It’s very hard to work when she does this:
pixie
Yes, that is my current work spot.  How lucky am I that I can work in a rocking chair??

Here is my next video! Please forgive the set up and ending. I still need to figure out how to crop those off. I did it before with my triathlon videos, but forgot how I did it!  I’m no Stephen Spielberg.

Anyway – this is a move called YTWL.  Named that way because of the moves your arms make. You can feel free to sing YMCA when you do this if you want. 😀 If you try this, please start with no weights and build up. It is much harder than it looks. I am using 10 pound dumbbells and you can see how I struggle on the L part at the end. Also, some people point the weights horizontal on the T part. I do them parallel to the floor because I think it is easier on the rotator cuff (that’s just me).

We are off to my folk’s house tonight for cake, ice cream, and fruit – so wish me luck. My plan is just to have fruit and I have enlisted John’s help with that.

Question: Is there another NROLW move you would like to see me video?