She Who Fears Peanutbutter

[MyriaK]

I used to write a journal here back in the day -- 'back in the day' being six or eight months go, something like that anyway -- but real life got complicated, as it is wont to do, and I ended up not being able to keep up with it. My mother got sick, I ended up deciding to sell my house and move from Massachusetts to Utah, and other such stuff of interest to no one in particular, generally not even me.

Anywho, for those who don't remember me (which, I should hope, would be about everyone) long story short; due to a lot of life changes, mostly involving the death of my husband after a long fight with cancer, I went from:


Edmund and Me, 11-12-10 by Myria_K

To:


Me 8/8/14 by Myria_K

Granted, in many ways not much of an improvement, but still dramatic enough to cause a double-take or two when people see what I used to look like.

For better or ill this wasn't my first time on the whole dramatic weight loss then gain it all back merry-go-round. This time, though, I decided I'm getting to be too damn old to do it all again. At fifty-one, now, drastic weight shifts are just too risky health-wise and frankly I don't want to go through it all again anyway. So I when I was losing all the weight I decided I needed something to help me keep it off. I joined a gym and discovered that while I really loathe cardio, it just bores me to tears, it turned out that, much to my surprise, I like weight lifting and am kinda good at it.

Lately I've kinda been feeling a bit like I've stalled and it's getting on my nerves. I've seen very little progress the last couple of months, especially in my upper body lifts, and it's really getting frustrating. So I'm back here, hoping that writing things out will help some -- surprisingly, it often does -- and hoping to get some advice from y'all as I go along.

Unfortunately I haven't ever been very good with the whole progress pics thing. Mostly it's because I tend to find seeing pictures of myself to be somewhat suicidally depressing -- I wish that was an exaggeration or joke, but it's neither -- so I just avoid taking them or letting anyone else do so. I'm trying to get over that, mostly at the urging of my sister and some friends, how well that effort will go remains to be seen but I did take some progress pics recently so there's at least something to compare with the set I took almost a year ago:


Bicep flex (9-26-13) by Myria_K

Bicep Flex (8/20/14) by Myria_K


Front flex (9-26-13) by Myria_K

Front Flex (8/20/14) by Myria_K

There are some others on my Photostream, but you get the idea.

There's certainly been some progress in the last year, even I can see that, but there's also a lot I'm unhappy with. My back still looks as terrible as ever, despite all the dips and pull-ups. My legs, likewise, and I can't figure out why. Appearances to the contrary, I never skip leg day and my legs are reasonably strong. I'm tending to put both down in large measure to my needing to lose weight, but I don't really have a good feel for how much. My default tends to be twenty pounds, but that tends to always be my default and for all I know I really should lose twice that. Problem is I'm not really willing to drastically reduce my caloric intake right now, doing so impacts my workouts way too badly and I've only really seen decent gains since increasing the amount I was eating to the current 2K kcal/day or so I'm at now.

Any weight loss from here is going to have to be relatively slow.

I tell myself that, but moderation has never been my strong suit.

Anyway, enough babble to start with. My plan from here is to try and keep up this journal, I found before that doing so helped me focus, try and do monthly progress pics, and my next big project is going to be to take video of my lifts so I can hopefully get some advice from y'all on form and all of the things I'm probably doing wrong.

[Pinskers]

Your biceps are amazing! Subbed.

[MyriaK]

Your biceps are amazing!

Thank you, that's kind of you to say.

Honestly I don't know why I have the arm development I do, my upper body lifts are pretty weaksauce overall, but I guess I'll take what I can get .

[MyriaK]

Even though I generally work out in the busy part of the early morning, I almost never have to wait for anything. This morning I did. Both power racks were being used. One by some guy doing some weird kind of clean-and-jerk, the other by a guy doing curls.

Curls.

In the power rack.

The ultimate gym sin.

Worse, he was curling the %*#(*% bar, and jerking around like someone in the middle of a grand mal seizure as he did.

/sigh

Anywho, I lift four days a week on a split schedule -- Monday and Thursday are upper body, Tuesday and Friday are lower. On Wednesday and Saturday I generally go in for an hour of cardio, something I really probably should cut down on more than a little. Sundays the gym is closed or I'd probably be there seven days a week.

So today was lower body:

Squat: 150lb 5X5
Deadlift: 245lb 5X5
Stiff-Leg Deadlift: 215lb 5X5
Smith Machine Step Calf Raise: 345lb 5X10
Lunges: 2X25lb 3X20
Leg Press: 290lb 5X5
Leg Extension Machine: 140lb 5X5
Leg Curl Machine: 140lb 5X5
Seated Calf Extension: 220lb 5X10
Leg Raise: 5X10
Crunches: 40lb 5X10

Total time 1:52 Avg HR 97bpm (min 56, max 143).

From there 15min on the elliptical, 15 min on the stair machine, 15min cooldown on the treadmill, then two and a half miles walking the dog.

My squat weight is just pathetic, it drives me nuts. I don't know why I'm not squatting more. I could go up in weight, but at the cost of form and I feel form and slow controlled movements over the entire RoM is more important. For good form ATG squats I feel like I should be doing a lot more. Bleh.

Deadlift is probably my best lift overall. Today was a bit bleh as Tuesday I was doing 265lb for the last two sets but today just didn't feel I could reasonably go over 245lb. Still, not terribly unhappy with that. Pretty sure I'll be up to 275 5X5 before much longer. A little less certain with SDL because frankly I'm not entirely sure I'm doing them right, but I'm not that worried about it either.

With the smith machine calf raises the limiting factor has more been what my shoulders can handle than what my calves can. I'm finally feeling comfortable with the weight I'm using, which means it's time to go up some next week.

Lunges, bleh, hate 'em but they're effective. I do them holding a pair of 25lb plates, probably should start thinking about using 35lb plates instead. Joy.

Leg press is another one where I feel like I should be doing better. Bleh.

The leg extension and leg curl machines I'm about ready to toss out of the rotation. I'd like to trim my lift time down to an hour and a half and I don't feel like either machine is doing me any real good. I dunno.

The seated calf extension, unfortunately that's the max and they don't have a seated calf machine. Really wish it went to somewhere around double that, then at least I'd have some headroom to improve.

The other two are just my ab workout, such as it is. Probably should do more ab work, but honestly the gym I go to, unlike my old gym, doesn't have a lot of good ab gear and it's always been the least favorite part of my workout so I haven't been all that tempted to get creative.

That's my lower body workout, such as it is. For the most part, aside from possibly dumping the two machines, I'm reasonably happy with it for now. I do want to try and cut out the cardio work on lower body days. I kind of feel like I'm spending too much time doing cardio and I keep adding more to lose weight. I suspect I long ago hit the point of diminishing returns there. Worse, I've gotten into a situation where between the lower body workouts, the cardio, and walking the dog (somewhere around 10 miles a day), my legs aren't ever fully recovering and are in a state of being perma-sore.

That gets old after a while.

[Cardioconvert]

Welcome back - I quite enjoyed your previous journal so hope you come back to posting more regularly again

CC

[MyriaK]

Welcome back - I quite enjoyed your previous journal so hope you come back to posting more regularly again

Thanks, that's kind of you to say, and it's nice to see a name I remember .

[karychuk]

Mad props gal.... crazy dedication!!
A young bambi like me can learn a lot from these kinds of experiences.

[MyriaK]

My Saturday schedule tends to be annoyingly odd compared to my other gym days. On Saturdays I generally take care of my eight-year-old nephew most of the afternoon while his two older brothers are at their Dungeons & Dragons group. My nephews -- all of them, but especially the eight year old -- are a handful, to put it mildly, so on Saturdays I usually put my dog in Doggy Daycare so I only have one small furry creature to deal with, rather than two feeding off each other's hyperactivity.

Pretty much every morning I'm up around five AM. I don't set an alarm or anything, that's just when I tend to wake up for whatever reason. I get up, get dressed and all that, and walk the dog for a half mile so he can do his morning business. I come home and read e-mail for a bit, then I'm off to the gym somewhere between six and seven.

Unfortunately Doggy Daycare doesn't open until eight on Saturdays, throwing off my schedule. This really isn't that big a deal, given that I only go to the gym for cardio on Saturdays and probably shouldn't be doing that in any event, but it still grinds on my nerves a bit.

Anyway, this morning, after seeing my pup off to play with other dogs, I went to the gym and did my usual Saturday thing. Fifteen minutes on the elliptical, fifteen on the stair machine, a half hour on the treadmill. Not exactly a heavy-duty cardio routine, especially as my heart rate refused to go over 130bpm no matter what I did, but eh, it'll do.

I wear a heart rate strap, foot pod, and FR70 at the gym. Mostly it's just for curiosity's sake, but I find watching my heart rate in realtime to be useful for judging time between sets. My heart rate tends to be low, resting is around 52bpm and when I've worn a strap overnight, out of curiosity, I was a bit disturbed to see it go as low as the high thirties during sleep. Not that there's anything to be done for it one way or another, I suppose. Just one of those genetic things combined with a few years of routine cardio workouts.

When it comes to progression my biggest weakness, and probably what's holding me back the most right now, is I like doing the same thing rather than changing things up. Kind of ironic, really, I used to rarely do the same thing the same way twice. Drove my husband, who tended to be very pattern driven, a bit nuts. But now? I dunno.

Given the limitations of my diet when I was losing weight I had little choice save to eat the same thing -- mostly a whole lotta nothin' -- every day. Since, well mostly it's a matter of laziness and not wanting to cook. It was one thing when I was cooking for someone else, I liked putting together good meals. But just for myself? Doesn't seem worth the bother. Add in the need to meet macros and how big a pain in the butt that can be to track, and it's easy to fall into eating the same foods all the time.

I tend to stick to things I can just toss in the steamer -- like eggs to boil -- or microwave, or things that I can bulk cook and freeze. Mostly I eat a whole lotta boiled eggs (well, steamed, same diff), fruit that varies depending on what's in season, and veggies. Toss in some chicken breasts I buy in quantity, cook up, weigh and package in 4oz bowls to freeze, and that's pretty much it.

Pretty much the same thing with my workout. I like doing 5X5s, mostly, I guess because it lets me use a fair bit of weight and it's a workout pace I like. I tend to do the same exercises every workout, just the workout tends to get longer and longer as time goes on and I periodically add some new thing to the routine. For the most part the routine I use now is the same as what I was using six months ago, just with a few exercises tagged on here and there.

I know that overall this isn't good. Eating the same basic diet every day is a good way to end up with micro-nutrient issues. Doing the same workout day in and day out for six months rapidly leads to diminishing returns as your body adapts. I know this, but habit can be a hard thing to change, especially when from a certain point of view it's working and it's something you like doing.

Bleh. Diet, right now, isn't something I'm really willing to make any drastic changes with. Looking at the last set of progress pics really drove home how much I need to lose more weight so that takes priority. But for my workout, I dunno, I think If I want to get past the plateau I kind of feel I'm stuck on I need to drastically change things around. I dread the thought, but I really need to get over myself and do it.

First, I think, I'm going to try and get some vids done of my lifts. I'm convinced that some lifts I'm not doing right, others probably not optimally, and it's really hard to judge things like whether or not I'm really getting as ATG on my squats, and such, as I need to be without an external point-of-view. I'm hoping if I can get some videos done I can get some helpful advice and maybe improve my lifts some.

[MyriaK]

Mad props gal.... crazy dedication!!

I'm definitely crazy, in any event.

Or, as I prefer, sanity challenged .

[MyriaK]

A funny thing happened on my trip across the country... I discovered my diet was s-h-i-t-e.

I never really liked New England much, to be honest, it just never felt like 'home' to me. All other things aside, I missed the mountains, silly as that sounds. I was born in Japan, my parents returning to the states when I was four. I grew up in Southern California, mostly in a beach city called Torrance. When I was eighteen my parents moved out here to Bountiful, Utah, and I spent the rest of my college years going to the University of Utah. After that I spent a bit of time in Washington State before ending up out in Massachusetts.

Last Winter, as the second anniversary of my husband's death was fast approaching, it was really becoming clear to me that I wasn't getting on with my life the way I needed to. Talking with a couple of close friends about it, the consensus was I needed to do something to shake my life up some and get out of my rut. I decided to move back out here to Utah, where my sister and nephews -- the only family I'm close to -- live. I put my house up for sale, it sold so surprisingly quickly that I'm pretty sure I kind of got screwed by my realtor, packed up my stuff to be hauled out, and went to stay with some friends for a couple of weeks whilst finishing up my business in the state.

Prior to selling my house my diet had been pretty rigid. I generally kept to between 1200 -- 1500 kcal/day, well up from what I had been at when I was dropping weight like mad, but not a lot of calories for someone working out as much as I was, either. I wasn't sure, but even at the time I suspected the diet was the cause of some annoying side symptoms -- notably having to go pee every five minutes (or else), always feeling freezing cold at any temp under 77 degrees or so (which, let me tell you, really sucks during a New England Winter), and having to fight near constant intense cravings for food.

After spending a couple of weeks staying with friends, during which I pretty much maintained my usual, for then, diet, I packed what of my belongings I hadn't already shipped out into my car, tossed in my dog and cat, and went on my way. I took six days to drive cross-country, including a day and a half staying in Casper due to weather. During that time it really wasn't possible to stick to my normal diet, so what I did was each time I stopped for the night in a city or town, I'd find a grocery and load up on pre-cooked chicken breast, some veggies I could steam in the microwave most hotel rooms have these days, and some fruit. A lot of fruit.

And then there was the peanut butter Builder Bars. I love peanut butter, these days it's probably my favorite food. Thus, I don't have it. I just don't dare. A jar of peanut butter in my house will very soon be an empty jar. And Builder Bars, I love those silly damn things. So much nummy goodness, and protein too! What's not to love?

Well driving six to eight hours a day turned out to be a lot more tiring than I expected. I found myself occasionally stopping at a Target, or whatever, and buying a box of my favorite crunchy peanut butter Builder Bars. Just to have one or two during the day whilst driving, mind.

Except at the end of the day I'd generally notice that 'one or two' had become four or five. And then, hell, the box only had six, so...

I lost count of how many Builder Bars helped get me cross country. I didn't bother even trying to count calories as I went. While I was eating all "good" foods and such, I was eating a ton more than I had been in Massachusetts and I figured that I'd just have to deal with the weight gain when I got to Utah.

And that's where it got weird.

Once I got to Utah I stayed with my sister for a few days while I got my new place set up. Before moving I'd asked her to find me someplace near a good gym, what she found was about as near as it gets -- it's literally a minute and a half walk from my door to the gym. Once I finally got settled in at my new place and got all my belongings delivered and unpacked, with some reluctance I got on the scale to see just how bad it was going to be.

Only to discover that I'd lost seven pounds.

W?

T?

F?

A week off from working out, a week spent mostly sitting on my arse driving a car for six to eight hours a day, a week of eating at least double, and probably more, the calories I'd been eating in Massachusetts... And I lost weight?

Also I didn't have to go pee every twenty seconds, nor did I feel freezing cold all the time.

I ended up not going back to the highly restrictive diet I had been using in Massachusetts, in fact I didn't even start bothering to count calories at all until a couple of weeks ago and I am currently nine pounds under what I was when I left Massachusetts.

None of which is to say I don't need to lose weight, quite the contrary, only to observe that despite my diet now being consistently higher calorically then it was a year ago, I weigh quite a bit less, have maintained that weight over time, and have shed some really annoying side problems that were apparently related to my restrictive diet.

A common mantra around here basically boils down to "Weight is just a simple matter of calories in versus calories out". Yeah? Sorry, that's bull droppings and anyone who knows jack squat about human physiology should know it. There is nothing simple about how our bodies work and trying to reduce something that complicated to a simplistic equation is absurd.

It's a lie. A useful lie, to be sure, and often the best or only answer we have to give as in an exceedingly gross sense it generally works. That doesn't mean it is accurate in any real sense, however, or that, being a gross over-simplification of an exceedingly complicated system, it doesn't break down in many different circumstances.

We forget that at our peril.

[MyriaK]

Took my pup to Doggy Daycare this morning, throwing my schedule off a bit. Turns out I didn't really have to, but they were coming to do yearly maintenance on the AC in my ceiling and, of course, they never tell you exactly when they're coming. Didn't really want strangers in the house with my dog when I wasn't home. Probably wouldn't be a problem, he'd just try and lick them to death, but people get odd about dogs.

Standard upper body routine today:

Bench press: 120lb 5X5
Bent over row: 115lb 5X5
OHP: 95lb 3X5 90lb 2X5
Dips: 5X5
Pull-ups: 5X5 24lb assist
Tricep cable press-down: 110lb 5X10
Cable Rows: 120lb 5X5
Wide shoulder cable pull down: 120lb 5X5
Cable cross-overs: 50lbX2 5X5
Laying tricep extension: 70lb 5X5
Seated dumbbell curls: 30lbX2 5X5
Dumbbell side lateral: 15lbX2 5X5
Dumbbell shrugs: 100lbX2 5X5

Total time: 1:29
Avg/Max HR: 101/136bpm

15 min elliptical,
15 min stair machine,
30 min treadmill.

Bench press is easily my most frustrating lift. First, what I can do is just pathetic. I mean 120lb, seriously? That's sad. Second, it's inconsistent as hell. Some days I can barely manage 5X5 at that weight and really struggle. Other days it's easy as hell and I wish I'd gone heavier. Still other days, like today, I get through it just fine and feel like the weight could have gone up just a little, but was around what I can do. Granted, there is some of that with all lifts, but not like with bench. And the third and last problem is that it seems like the one lift I improve on the least. I've been stuck at 120lb for two months now, with no real consistent improvement in sight and it's getting to be frustrating as hell.

It doesn't help that bench is the one lift I think I'm a bit afraid of, deep down. It's really the only thing I do where it's possible to get stuck, and, while it has never happened, I suspect some part of me is afraid it will. I don't think that helps at all.

The bent over row was a bit meh. I have kind of given up on doing rows with the barbell, it doesn't feel like I get a very good workout that way, and instead have gone to dumbbells lately. Only some kid had every pair of dumbbells from 50lb -- 70lbs spread out around him and I didn't want to bother trying to pry the 60lb DBs from him.

Sadly, with school starting there are a lot of wannabe high school footballers coming in and typically grabbing weights well beyond what they can reasonably handle. They don't usually last very long.

OHP, like the rows, wasn't usual. I've switched from doing standing OHP to sitting because sitting seems to stress things more. I guess standing I'm 'cheating' by arching my back, I dunno, but a woman was using the seated OHP bar -- just the bar, no plates on it -- for squats, so I did OHP at the power rack instead.

Dammit, don't these people know that I have all equipment I might want reserved at all times ?

Dips and pull-ups I combine in sets. Dips have gotten to be easy enough that I'm considering adding weight soon. Pull-ups I could do, if barely, for 5X5 without assist, but since switching to a wide overhand grip, instead of the close underhand grip I was using, I'm back to being pathetic with the assist. Bleh.

Tricep cable press-down and cable rows, along with pull-downs and cable cross-overs, I also do in sets. The pull-downs and cable cross-overs I added in the last couple of weeks in hopes of improving my chest strength, and thus bench. Too early to say if they're really helping or not.

The rest is all standard stuff. I need to either go up in weight or in reps on curls, I think. I wish there was a 32.5lb DB, the jump to 35lb feels killer when I've tried it, but there isn't at my gym. Side lateral I should probably try 17.5lb soonish, 15lb is starting to feel easy.

Anyway, decent workout, neither great nor bad really. I'll definitely take it.

[DieselsMom]

Holy crap that is a lot of volume!

I like that I am a basement dweller, I may not have everything but dammit it is all MINE lol

[MyriaK]

So today I tried taking videos of some of my lifts. Went better than I expected, really, while the videos are terrible they are usable and I gained quite a lot from doing it. The next set I do will be far better -- I am nothing if not a fast learner.

Sadly, if unsurprisingly, I look even worse in video than stills. Bleh. My god in heaven, do I ever need to get a boob job. Ironic, I used to be extremely proud of my boobs, they were fairly spectacularly large before bodybuilding and losing 200lbs. Now they look like two deflated balloons. Even that isn't so bad in a regular bra, but let a sports bra squish 'em down and, ugh.

Looks aside, I'm fairly happy with the depth I'm getting with squats, but I'm not sure that I'm not leaning too far forward when doing them -- I hope I can get some advice there. My deadlift form looks okay to me, for the most part, but I really have nothing to compare it to. Apparently when doing stiff legged deadlifts my legs aren't nearly as stiff as I thought, I definitely need to get a better angle on that as it's a lift I've long thought I was probably doing wrong. I'm not getting nearly as much range-of-motion on calf lifts as I thought, which might explain why I have such a hard time stressing my calves doing them. Leg press looked okay, but then I'm not really sure if you can mess up leg presses.

Standard lower body routine today:

Squat: 145lb 5X5
Deadlift: 245lb 5X5
SDL: 215lb 5X5
Calf Raise: 320lb 5X10 (apparently 6X10)
Lunges: 25lbX2 3X20
Leg Press: 290lb 5X5
Seated Calf machine: 220lb 5X10
Leg Raises: 5X10
Crunches: 40lb 5X10

Total time: 1:46
Avg/MaxHR: 112/146bpm

15 min Elliptical
15 min Stair Machine
15 min Treadmill
40 min walking the silly dog

I ended up dumping the leg extension and leg curl machines, they just don't seem to be doing anything useful for me. Oh, and I realized that I had calculated my bench wrong, I'm actually doing 125lb. Not a big difference, mind, but at least it's in my favor. I would have been seriously bummed to discover I was doing even less than I thought.

As I said the videos are pretty terrible -- bad framing and all. And it turns out it takes a lot longer to even minimally edit them than I expected, too. In the future I probably won't worry about editing and posting all of them the day I take them. My editing skills need work, to be sure, but since they're just workout vids and it's my first time trying to edit video like that, eh. The next ones will be better, pretty much all I can say on that.

Anyway, I'd appreciate whatever suggestions and critiques people might have on my form and all.











The one thing that really surprised me about taking the videos is it was fun. Kind of spiced up what has become a somewhat stale lifting routine. Didn't expect that, but it was a nice bonus.

Oh, and I'm kind of surprised at how noisy the gym is. Between being focused most of the time and having headphones blaring in my ears, I never really hear any of it. It was weird to notice, when editing, that the place is constantly noisy.

[MyriaK]

Did my usual Wednesday cardio workout; 15min elliptical, 15min stair machine, 40min treadmill.

Cutting back on the cardio some has definitely helped with my recovery times, I think. I'd like to eventually cut back a bit more, but I'm not sure whether that will mean cutting out cardio on leg days, probably the wisest way to go, or cutting out the Wed/Sat sessions and only going to the gym four days a week instead of six. I dunno, either way has its advantages, I guess we'll see how I feel in a few weeks. For now I'm not willing to reduce things while my weight loss plans are going decently, well enough that a couple of people at the gym have commented.

That's one thing my bodybuilding friends, especially the male ones, have a bit of a hard time with. For me this isn't about the 'gainz' or getting stronger, first and foremost my goal is to keep the weight off -- everything else is secondary. Mind you, the 'gainz' and getting better and stronger at the lifts is important to me, but that goes more to my need to be the best at what I do (or not bother doing it). It's a personality trait that has a lot of advantages, and I'm fortunate to have been born with a lot of gifts that let me be very, very good at most of the things I want to do, but it has more than a few disadvantages, too.

Anyway, I thought I'd touch on supps, since I haven't mentioned them in a while.

I'm not a huge believer in supps, most of them are frankly crap and some are downright dangerous.

For someone who doesn't really have much faith in supps, I sure use more than my fair share.

First there's vitamins. Like a lot of people, I've been taking vitamins most of my adult life. Partly that's because I can't handle milk products, so I don't get a lot of calcium in my diet, and, as someone who had skin cancer at a young age (the scar under my right eye is the result of surgery to remove said cancer), I tend to avoid too much time in the sun. Partly it's because my diet has generally been crappy in one way or another. Even now, everything I eat is stuff that would generally be considered "healthy", but it's such a limited range that I fear micro-nutrient deficiency is a very real risk.

Taking vitamins seems cheap insurance against that possibility.

For the last year or so my vitamin of choice has been the GNC Women's Ultra Mega Active packs. I picked them originally because they had extra calcium, something I worry about getting enough of with my diet, and CLA, which I was curious to try. The pack is rounded out with a multi-vitamin, an "energy enhancer", and an L-Carnitine pill. Is it the best vitamin pack in the world? Eh, probably not. I can't even say if it particularly helps or not, but it hasn't hurt and I can generally get it cheap enough as a 2-for-1 deal at GNC or just buy through Amazon.

Most of the rest of the stuff I use is all Cellucor. It's not so much that I think they necessarily make the best products in every category, though I've generally found the quality of their products (both under the Cellucor and Neon Sports brands) to be good, it's that their stuff all tastes good to me. Not something I can say of other brands. I've tried some well known brands and found I couldn't even stomach a glass of their stuff, let alone get through the entire package.

Lifting mornings I start with a glass of C4 with a scoop of creatine tossed in for good measure -- yeah, C4 has creatine in it, but not that much and I kinda wish they'd just not bother and let you supplement it on the side if you want. I used to buy the flavored Cellucor creatine, but the unflavored gives you twice as much for less money and mixing it in with the fairly heavily flavored C4 works well for me.

I always bring two 700ml Nathan Tritan bottles with me to the gym, really love those things as the flip straw works well for me. I put two scoops of Cellucor's Alpha Amino and one scoop of their BCAA in each bottle, and then fill them with spring water because the tap water here is beyond horrid. Honestly I don't know if the Alpha Amino/BCAA combo helps at all -- if nothing else, it tastes good to me -- but I suspect it does. I don't eat in the morning, eating before a workout is just, ugh, not appealing to me, I don't generally have anything to eat before ten or eleven.

I dunno, it's certainly an expensive way to get some aminos in my system in the morning, eating a boiled egg or two before going to the gym would do the same basic thing at a microscopic fraction of the cost, but I just can't deal with eating before a workout and overall I think the Alpha Amino/BCAA combo both tastes good and provides me with some much needed aminos in my bloodstream during and immediately after my workouts.

Beyond that most of what I take is for sleep. Sleep and I have an adversarial relationship at best, always have had and, I fear, always will. So at night I take melatonin like candy, drink Valerian/Chamomile tea, and in general try and do anything I can to help me get to and stay asleep.

Sadly, mostly with mixed results.

As I said, for someone who's not a big believer in supps, I sure go through a lot of 'em.

Works for me, though, or, at least, seems to.

[lisemccracken]

Wow! You are awesome You've had quite a journey.

I can't imagine starting my day without eggs and oats, speaking of habits, that has become so ingrained in my morning ritual. That said I've been thinking about experimenting with creatine, a lot of folks seem to have good results from using it. But I'm worried about raking up a huge supp. bill.

Your vid's are great, unfortunately I'm no help in the technique department, but I'm sure it helps a lot just seeing yourself lift.

[MyriaK]

I can't imagine starting my day without eggs and oats, speaking of habits, that has become so ingrained in my morning ritual.

I've never really been one for breakfast, to be honest. Or, more accurately, I love breakfast, as in breakfast foods, I've just never been one to have breakfast at the traditional time .

That said I've been thinking about experimenting with creatine, a lot of folks seem to have good results from using it. But I'm worried about raking up a huge supp. bill.

It's easy to ring up a big supp bill, it really is. But creatine tends to be one of the cheaper things you can get and for the most part it doesn't matter what form you get it in as long as you've got something you can mix it with to make it palatable. Take a look through Amazon and you can find it in bulk dirt cheap.

The one thing to be aware of with it, though, is that it does cause some water retention, which can be a bit of a bummer.

Your vid's are great, unfortunately I'm no help in the technique department, but I'm sure it helps a lot just seeing yourself lift.

It really does help, getting to see my lifts from different angles is useful -- I'd hoped it would be, and it is. And I have some friends who have given some advice. Unfortunately most of the lifters I know are guys and their 'advice' is generally along the lines of "Your DL form sux!" which, while almost certainly true, is somewhat less than useful overall.

[MyriaK]

Did a few more videos today, though a couple didn't come out. The camera froze during barbell bent over rows, which was a bit annoying since that's a lift I suspect I'm doing wrong, and I apparently turned the camera on and then immediately off before side laterals/dumbbell shrugs.

/facepalm

Same ol' upper body routine today:

Bench press: 120lb 5X5
Bent over row: 115lb 5X5
OHP: 90lb 5X5
Dips: 5X5
Pull-ups: 5X5 24lb assist
Tricep cable press-down: 110lb 5X10
Cable Rows: 120lb 5X5
Wide shoulder cable pull down: 120lb 5X5
Cable cross-overs: 50lbX2 5X5
Laying tricep extension: 70lb 5X5
Seated dumbbell curls: 30lbX2 5X5
Dumbbell side lateral: 15lbX2 5X5
Dumbbell shrugs: 100lbX2 5X5

15min elliptical
15min stair machine
15min treadmill
40min dog walk

I'm finding the videos to be very useful, getting to see your lifts from another angle is instructive. Unfortunately I'm seeing a lot I don't like, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix. I'm told my deadlift and squat forms are both off quite a bit, while I don't doubt it I'm not sure what to do to correct it. Looking at the bench video, my form looks terrible but I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong. I dunno, I guess try changing things a bit and see what they look like on the next vid.

Kind of my plan right now is to keep doing videos until I'm satisfied I have camera placement and post-production down, then maybe do a once-a-month sort of thing, as with progress pics, to see how things look. Seems like a decent plan, anyway.

The camera I'm using, by the way, is a Garmin Virb Elite.

I'm something of a photography nut, I have a good DSLR with various lenses that would work well enough for this, but a DSLR tends to be a tad fragile and also kind of big and obvious. Since I've spent so much time and effort getting into somewhat decent shape, I've been thinking I want to try and use that -- I'd like to try SCUBA and maybe para-sailing, both of which are big out here -- and I decided I wanted a camera that I could use while doing stuff like that, as well as something that might be more useable in the gym than a big expensive DSLR. I looked at the Hero line, but I've never really liked their boxy form factor and other than 4K -- and almost no one has a 4K display anyway -- they didn't have that much going for them. The Virb elite has GPS, altimeter, compass, wifi, and can connect to Ant+ sensors. As it happens, my heart rate strap and footpod are both Ant+, thus the Virb records my heart rate data along with everything else, which is kinda nice. I'm pretty happy with the thing overall.

Anyway, today's workout was kinda meh. I was feeling a bit on the weak side so didn't push things at all. I ended up doing standing OHP, instead of my preferred sitting, because someone was using the sitting OHP station for, well, sitting whilst having a long chat with their buddies. Grrrr...

For all of that, it wasn't a bad workout and I'm pleased that the whole taking vids thing is going well, even if I have a long ways to go before I'll be satisfied with how they're coming out.

The videos that did come out I'll list below. As always, any suggestions, critiques, or what have you are welcome.

[MyriaK]

Another feeling weak day, and it showed in my lifts .

Unfortunately, it happens.

In this case I think it's partly that I've been sleeping horribly lately -- sleep and I have an adversarial relationship at the best of times. Partially it's cycle related and should pass, at least temporarily, soon. Partly it's a matter of having lowered my caloric intake the last two weeks trying to lose weight.

Bleh.

I felt so wasted today I even had some fruit with dinner, probably added four or five hundred calories to my day that I'm already feeling guilty about.

Ah well.

Standard lower body routine today:

Squat: 145lb 5X5
Deadlift: 245lb 5X5
SDL: 215lb 5X5
Calf Raise: 320lb 5X10
Lunges: 25lbX2 3X20
Leg Press: 290lb 5X5
Seated Calf machine: 220lb 5X10
Leg Raises: 5X10
Crunches: 40lb 5X10

Total time: 1:50 (Avg/MaxHR: 104/144bpm)

15:54min @ 200rpm avg Elliptical (Avg/MaxHR: 127/136bpm)
15:43min @ 80steps/min Stair Machine (Avg/MaxHR: 135/145bpm)
15:37min @3.5mph Treadmill (Avg/MaxHR: 98/110bpm)
42:29min walking the silly dog (Avg/MaxHR: 83/97bpm)

I'm getting better with camera placement and editing, what little I really do, is way faster now that I'm getting more familiar with the software, but there's still quite a bit of improvement to be done. Getting there, though.

Taking vids is a bit of a pain in the bum, but I feel it's been well worth it. I've already made improvements in some lifts because of what I'm seeing, and I can see (and have heard from others) where there are several areas I desperately need to improve. I would strongly encourage anyone seriously lifting to give taking videos of your lifts a try. You can use a phone, tablet, camera, whatever, but getting to see what you're doing from other angles is really eye opening and, I think, can be an invaluable tool.

Anyway, I may as well list today's vids, fwiw. As usual, any suggestions, critiques, or what have you are welcome.

Well, except for pointing out how fat the lifting belt makes me look. I already know that :P.

[ememmcfly]

I agree that you have amazing biceps, in to observe your progress. Pretty inspiring!

[MyriaK]

I agree that you have amazing biceps, in to observe your progress. Pretty inspiring!

Thank you, that's kind of you to say.

[MyriaK]

Got my times mixed up this morning and ended up with my puppy at doggy daycare wondering why the door wouldn't open.

Probably had something to do with being there an hour early.

Hate it when that happens.

Boring cardio today:

15min elliptical
15min stair machine
1 hour treadmill

Normally I'd have only done a half hour on the treadmill, but I did a second half hour as penance for the fruit with dinner and the six-tenths of a pound it gained me.

Yeah, I know, an apple and nectarine didn't add six-tenths of a pound, but still...

It has been a pretty mellow day, outside of that. No nephews or puppies to deal with, a very unusual state of affairs on a Saturday, indeed, so mostly I've been vegging. Really should have used the day to do something useful, or at least fun, but meh. Everyone needs a veg day now and again.

[MyriaK]

It's probably just as well my gym is closed on Sundays else I'd no doubt find a reason to go in. Still, it not being a gym day does make the day kind of seem, I dunno... Not right?

Also, for some perverse reason, makes it a hard to diet day. The one day I find myself wanting to snack is the one day I don't go to the gym. Weird.

Other than housework, which honestly I don't do nor need to do all that much of, the only exercise I do on Sundays is walking my pup. Usually Sunday mornings I bring my camera and me and my pup go off and wander for four or five miles. I don't always find anything of interest to photograph, but surprisingly often I do.

This morning I walked to a park that's about a mile and a half from here and, since it's a big park and there was no one else around, let him off the leash for a while. Sadly he doesn't get to run around off-leash very often, he really loves it when he can.


An Object In Motion by Myria_K


Well Hi there! by Myria_K

[MyriaK]

What a horrible, horrible workout day .

It started with bench, failed the last rep on the third set at 120lb. I've never had a failure that early. Last set, yeah, but third? Ugh. Dropped 5lb and got through the last two sets. Did dumbbell rows, then failed the last rep of the fifth set of 85lb seated OHP -- first time ever.

God %*#(*#!

Got through dips and pull-ups okay, albeit not as quickly as I'd like, but by the time I got to the cable section I was feeling pretty down and sick to my stomach. I managed to finish up, but decided that my options were to either skip cardio or throw up all over the elliptical. It was a close decision, but I decided to skip.

I don't recall ever skipping cardio before .

I'm not really sure what that was about. I'd put it down to diet, but I'm not really dieting very hard at all. I lost about 4lbs last month, which is insanely slow, but I'm afraid that if I drop my calories down much I'll lose more muscle than fat. I haven't been sleeping well, but by that I just mean not well by my standards. I don't sleep well under the best of circumstances, the last couple of weeks have just been a little less well than usual.

I dunno. I haven't taken any time off from the gym since February, and that was only because I was busy driving across the country. I'm long overdue for a deload but I'm always worried about gaining weight if I do. It's gotten to the point where I have no choice but to take some time off, though, my workouts lately have seemed more counterproductive than anything else.

So I'm going to skip the rest of the week and hope I can start fresh next Monday. It's not like I don't have enough stuff to keep me busy anyway. I have a medical appointment tomorrow that has me stressed -- it's nothing important, but, hopefully understandably, medical stuff tends to stress me these days. And Wednesday I'm taking my nephew's and their friend swimming. Plus my car is telling me it needs a tune-up, my dog needs to see a vet, I really should find a dentist out here, and, as the weather is cooling at a shockingly fast rate and since 90% of my clothes are gym stuff that isn't exactly cool-weather appropriate, I need to do some clothes shopping.

Hopefully I can work in a nap or two as well.

So that's my plan, such as it is. Take the rest of the week and weekend off from the gym, and hope next week goes better.

I really hope it does, today's mess was seriously depressing.

[viccles007]

I hope the deload works for you. I think sometimes our bodies do need a rest from the intense training. I saw your transformation pics - wowee wow wow just amazing! So impressive! You have worked so hard.

[MyriaK]

I hope the deload works for you. I think sometimes our bodies do need a rest from the intense training. I saw your transformation pics - wowee wow wow just amazing! So impressive! You have worked so hard.

I hope the deload helps, too. I do think it will, I do think periodic downtime is needed and when I've done it in the past it has helped. In February, when I moved out here, I was really concerned with how taking a week off to drive cross country would impact my training, but when I restarted it was clear it had helped, not harmed, my overall goals. I'm hoping, and pretty certain, this will have the same effect.

Were I a wise woman I would schedule regular deloads and stick to them.

Sadly, I am not overly wise.

In any event, thank you for the kind words .

[MyriaK]

Always feels very weird not to go to the gym in the morning. Sundays are one thing, it isn't open anyway, but on a Tuesday? Almost blasphemous...

Turns out to be lucky for my nephews that I picked this week to deload, though.

Yesterday I get a text from my eldest nephew asking if I can take them to a Magic the Gathering tournament Friday and Saturday. I take them to an MtG group at the local game shop most Fridays, so I figured they were just having a tournie there at a different time, so, yeah, whatever. I texted him back asking what times. He texts me back saying 8-11. Huh, three hours? Seems kinda short for a tournament, but what do I know? Yeah, sure I'll take ya'll.

A bit later my phone rings, it's my sister.

She asks if I'm aware that the tournament in question is in Sandy, a forty-five minute drive south.

Ummm, no, eldest nephew failed to mention that detail.

And did I know that this tournament was all day?

What? He said it was... Oh, crap, he meant 8AM to 11PM?

Yeah.

Details, details...

If it was a normal week they wouldn't be getting to this tournament until I was done with my workout -- part of our deal is I'll happily take them places, as long as they respect my workout schedule. Luckily for them, it's not a normal week so I'll have them there when it opens.

$200 each, my sister is spending for them to enter, not to mention god knows how much both she and I have spent on them getting those silly cards.

Yeesh... Makes my supps budget look tame by comparison.

[MyriaK]

Second day of my self-imposed gym exile.

Starting to think I may survive a week away from the gym.

May.

:P

The Medical Thingy(tm) yesterday went a lot better than I was expecting. Doctor was a bit of a goof, but she was a nice goof and seems to be someone I can feel comfortable enough to work with. That alone surprised me, I've a rather hard time even bringing myself to deal with the medical community after a decade of cancer centers, hospitals, and all the rest caring for my father-in-law and husband through their respective illnesses and eventual deaths. For myself and doctors, just... Ugh.

Anyway, spent much of today taking the nephews and their friend swimming. For my part the bulk of that means keeping a hawkish eye on them and occasionally playing referee during their various water wars, cannonball contests, and ad hoc games. Fun, but can be very tiring -- not to mention deafening -- to Shepard four young boys.

Tomorrow all I have is a hair appointment. I should go see if I can get my car tuned up and whatever in the world else it needs, but right now I'm thinking the chances of that actually happening are not that great. I guess we'll see.

I'm starting to think it's getting to be time to re-arrange my lifting routine again. Maybe get away from 5X5, much as I like it, and try something new. I dunno, I don't think I want to try changing everything right when I go back on Monday, but it's probably well past time I did so.

Just not sure what exactly to change it to.

[DieselsMom]

I think a week off isn't a bad thing. We need to realize that we didn't get out of shape in one week and sure as heck aren't going to return there in a week either. I think you are too hard on yourself.

Enjoy this week, hopefully some nice weather and do some fun stuff.

[MyriaK]

I think a week off isn't a bad thing.

Oh I definitely think periodic deloads should be a part of any ongoing workout plan and god knows I'm way overdue for one. It's hard, though. First there's the time away from the gym, which just feels odd, and then there's natural, if perhaps silly, worries about what it'll do to weight. Ends up being one of those things that gets put off, and off, and off...

I know better, but sadly I tend to let my paranoia about gaining weight over ride my common sense.

[MyriaK]

Well worries about what taking a week off would do to my weight turned out to be unfounded. This morning I was down 0.9lbs from last week. Well within my normal, thus pretty meaningless, daily variation, which typically runs around ±3lbs. But, still, taking a week off (well, six days, whatever), surprisingly didn't cost me on the diet front.

I've come to the definite conclusion that it's time to shake up my routine more than a bit, but I'm not entirely sure how just yet. What I've been doing has been working, to one degree or another, but I've felt for a while like I was beating against a wall and not making much progress. I think I need to get away from 5X5 and go for somewhat shorter, but hopefully more intense, workouts. For a while now I've been going so hard and long that I'm not getting enough time to recover between sessions, which isn't good.

The other part of the equation is cardio. Much as I hate it, I feel it's important to have at least some in your routine. The question is always how much is enough? The fifteen elliptical then fifteen on the stair machine routine works well for me. It's not a ton of time or anything, but, going flat out on both, it's a half decent workout and burns a few calories. I want to get away from doing it on lower body day, though, which leaves the question is four times a week enough? I expect it will be.

I dunno, I guess I need to look around and see if I can find a routine I'll be happy with. The problem is I like the routine I'm doing and I don't really feel like there's much I want to cut from it. I could split things up between days, maybe, like do DL Tuesday and SDL Thursday, as long as I do get both in I guess that'd work.

Ugh, I always hate trying to get into and get settled in a new workout routine. Laziness on my part, I suppose. It's not like I don't like trying new exercises, it's just that generally I just end up adding them onto the workout routine I'm doing until it's an unwieldy mess. Add in my tendency to not be good at just following something set by someone else and my inherent belief that rules are there to give you something to think about while you break them, and...

Ugh.

Just... Ugh.