Time to work it!!!

[yogini]

I need to keep myself motivated, and I think that keeping a journal will just do that for me. I need to bust thru the plateau that I have been stuck on for the last 3 months.

A little background:

I've always been pretty active, but I was one of those cardio bunnies. I didn't start lifting till about 8 months ago. All I have to say is that I'm hooked!!! I actually enjoy it even more than cardio. A lot of the journals here are awesome, I just hope that I can keep mine up to the standards.

My goals are to lose some more body fat and gain more muscles. I had my body fat composition checked on Wednesday and it is at 23% (and it has been at that for about 3 months). My goal is to drop my body fat % to around 16-18% so that I can have a more "cut" look.

I have attached my current pics.. no laughing.. not a big poser here...
I'll have more updates in a bit before the first post becomes too long

[ab-swing asianbabe]

Hi yogini!!!!!

Great!! Finally you decided to make a journal in here!
You look fit already, I like your shoulders!!!

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME!!!!

[twinnett]

I think you look great! I would have put you more around 16-18% bodyfat!

[yogini]

The supplements I have been taking so far (for the last 8 months):

1) Women's once a day multivitamin
2) Fish oil
3) Sesamin
4) Lean Green

Supplements added for the last 3 months

5) BCAAs

What I will be adding in the next week

6) XCEED
7) MAN Scorch

I've heard good things about melting point, but I'm holding out for that since I'm a little concerned about all the reports about cramping.
I'm hoping that both XCEED and MAN Scorch will give me the pump I need with the weights and the cardio respectively.

[yogini]

Originally Posted by asianbabe

Hi yogini!!!!!

Great!! Finally you decided to make a journal in here!
You look fit already, I like your shoulders!!!

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME!!!!

Awww, thank you AB!!! I do need a the motivation and the advice from the experts in here! I love your journal, it's full of energy, rock on girl!

[yogini]

Originally Posted by twinnett

I think you look great! I would have put you more around 16-18% bodyfat!

Thank you for checking the journal twinnett!
I had my measurements done at my gym. I would think that they would be pretty accurate...
I'll post my stats soon!
I'm excited about starting a journal, that way I won't be able to slack off!

[twinnett]

Well, usually the Omron and even calipers are off somewhat, but as long as you have it tested the same way every time, you can notice a thread...welcome and good luck!

[yogini]

My stats:
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 100 lbs
Chest: 32"
Waist: 25"
Hips: 33"
Upper arm: 9.25" (*coughs... still working on it )
Forearm: 8.25"
Thigh: 18.75"
Calf: 12.25" (they don't like to grow...)

My workout splits:

Day 1
Back/Biceps/Abs

Day 2
Legs/Shoulders

Day 3
Off day

Day 4
Chest/Triceps/Abs

Day 5
Legs/Shoulders

Day 6
Off day

(and it cycles back to the top)
My cardio workouts are more sporadic, I usually do 3 spins and a kickboxing class a week if time allows. For weights, I usually pick 4 exercises per body part and do 4-5 sets of 8-10 reps. My leg days are the longest, takes me 90 minutes to complete sometimes even more. Any suggestions or comments about my splits is highly welcomed . I can take criticism very well .

[ab-swing asianbabe]

looks good! I am leaning towards something like your split as well! Except I have been doing legs on their own, actually I quite like yours!! What exercises are you doing?

Yeah I know how you feel about the cardio, for me it also just whenever I am not too tired!

[yogini]

Thank you twinnett!

My diet in general consists of the following, I will have it in more detail soon:
Today's sample:

5:30 AM
Cup of coffee
Peanut butter jelly sandwich
Banana

8:30 AM
WPI shake with 8oz of milk
Nectarine

12:00 PM
1 cup of rice
4 oz of stir fried chicken with medley of vegetables
1 cup of coffee

3:00 PM
1 cup of coffee
WPI shake with 8 oz of milk

6:30 PM
1 cup of rice
6 oz Grilled Tilapia
1 cup of grapes
1 cup of green tea

10 PM
WPI/casein shake
Banana

I know that I might have to tweak my diet a little more. The one thing that I noticed is that I do get hungry a lot. People make fun of me by saying that I eat 2 lunches at times. Today was more normal because I have been less active, trying to recover from my sickness. I should be back in full throttle either tomorrow or Saturday. I used to keep a fitday journal but I stopped, but my breakdown was usually 50/30/20 of carbs/proteins/fat. I will start the fitday again so that I know my breakdowns more accurately.

[twinnett]

You might be so hungry b/c of all the shakes. I know they don't fill me up as much. You could also add more veggies. You don't seem to get much fat. Maybe some good fats would help w/ hunger too

[yogini]

Originally Posted by asianbabe

looks good! I am leaning towards something like your split as well! Except I have been doing legs on their own, actually I quite like yours!! What exercises are you doing?

Yeah I know how you feel about the cardio, for me it also just whenever I am not too tired!

In terms of exercises, I do different ones on different days. I try to hit my large muscles first .

A sample of my workout with legs/shoulders:
Legs:
Squats
Stiff Deadlifts
Leg presses (one leg at a time)
Lunges
Leg extensions
Leg curls

Shoulders:
Dumbbell presses or Arnold presses
Front raises
Lateral raises
Bent over lateral raises



For the upper body workouts:
I try to pick 4-5 exercises for the back, and 3-4 exercises for the biceps.

Back:
Assisted pull ups
Deadlifts followed by rows
Single arm dumbbell rows
Dumbbell pullover

Bicep:
BB curls
Hammer curls
Incline dumbbell curls

Chest:
Incline bench presses
Flat bench presses
Dumbbell flyes
Push-ups on stability ball

Triceps:
Dumbbell tricep extensions
Weighted dips
V bar tricep pushdowns

Abs:
Decline crunches with weights
Hanging leg raises
Crunches on a stability ball
Planks on stability ball

That's the general look at the exercises. I do switch it every once in a while.
I'll have more stats soon And yes, cardio has been more or less neglected.. but the lifting alone feels like a cardio workout to me

[yogini]

Originally Posted by twinnett

You might be so hungry b/c of all the shakes. I know they don't fill me up as much. You could also add more veggies. You don't seem to get much fat. Maybe some good fats would help w/ hunger too

You are right about that. Sometimes at the end of the day I do wonder where the fat in my diet comes from aside from the fish oil and when I cook where I use olive oil. I think that is the side effect from the trainer I had a while back. He was so adamant about me cutting my fats, his philosophy was "fats are always compensated from other places ..."

I eat lots of fruits as well. But I should incorporate more fibrous veggies like you say. I will definitely do that, I love grocery shopping .

[twinnett]

:-) to veggies...I've recently added more fats and it has really helped...avocados, natural PB or almond butter, flax seeds, tahini (ground sesame seeds), nuts..

[yogini]

Morning!
I always hear about almond butter, it sounds very tasty... I defnitely need to try that, I'm just afraid I might get hooked on those like peanut butter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today is my chest/tricep/Abs day

1) I started with a 5 minute warmup on the treadmill with an incline of 12 and speed of 3.0

Incline BB bench press
1x7 @ 65#
4x10 @ 55# (I dropped the weight because I didn't have a spotter and felt as if the thing was going to come down and crush me )

Flat BB bench press
4x10 @ 65#

DB flyes
4x10 @ 20#

Push ups on stability ball
1x15
1x15
1x15
1x till failure
Ideally, I should have done them all till failure, but I felt as if I was running out of juice....

Standing BB bicep curls
2x10 @ 35#
1x8 @ 35#
1x6 @ 35#
My biceps are my weakest body part, my last set I could only get 6 reps before my back started to arch..

Hammer curls (exercise performed one arm at a time, allows me to get more in there)
4x10 @ 15#

Incline DB curls (performed one arm at a time as well)
3x10 @ 15#
1x8 @ 15#

Ab crunches on the stability ball
4x20

Captains chair leg raises
4x20

Woodchopper on cable machine (let me know if you don't know what I'm talking about here.. I'll explain it in more detail, I do it to work my obliques )

4x15 at 30# /side

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My supplements for this morning was 2 servings of Xtend during the workout, and 2 after the workout.

I'll have a log of my diet by the end of the day. The day is not over yet .

[yogini]

Here's my nutritional breakdown for the day. It might seem a little on the high end... especially for someone of my stature... but I could actually eat more..


Total: 1934 calories
Fat: 29 grams = 257 calories (14%)
Carbs: 216 grams = 792 calories (42%)
Protein: 206 grams = 823 calories (44%)

Things I need to work on are:
-My fat intake is still on the low end. Still working on that part.
-A lot of my protein comes from WPI. It's so hard to find time to cook at times with work. Especially work has been especially busy and stressful .I try to do most of my cooking on the weekends, it has been work weekends as well... I need to find some quick recipes, any ideas?

Once again, thanks for stopping by and for any suggestions

[sixzebra]

hi yogini, i chked out your pics, i would NOT have guessed you at 23%. i agree w/twinnet as far as looking to be around 16%-18%. you look great right now. good luck on your goals!

[SexyChic]

Hi Yogini, Your pics look great. I have to agree that you are drinking lots of shakes, you could always try making a quick sandwich or salad with chicken the night before work?

[twinnett]

Yep...get those fats up there!

[yogini]

Thank you Sixzebra for checking the journal and your kind words .
Thank you too Sexychic, I try to make sandwiches either the night before or the morning before I head out to work. But most of the times I get so tired. I usually don't get out of work till 10 p.m. nowadays, so by the time I get home I'm usually so tired after the shower. I'm a graduate student and my advisor has been on my back about grants and work... grrrr... but luckily I'm still able to squeeze my workout in there... priorities .

Twinnett! I'm making a grocery list as soon as I finish posting. I'm going to get me some almond butter in there. That actually sounds really good. I'm excited, it's saturday, get to do some grocery shopping and then head to work for a little bit .

------------------------------------------
I'll log my workout for today later. Planning on hitting the gym around 9:00 p.m. and it's my legs and shoulders day

Once again, thanks to those for dropping by

[SexyChic]

Aww I hear ya when you say you are tired after work... It can be so mentally draining!

But good for you that you still find time to work out

[Rowdy3090]

hey yogini, I didn't realise you had a journal or I would have come to pay you a visit earlier

Wow where to start. You did say you take criticism well, right; well here goes

Nutrition; there are some pretty big holes here, but thankfully you seem to be already addressing most of them which is great. More fats; definately. You sure do eat alot of fruit, which could be a reason that you are feeling hungry alot. It seems that maybe your blood sugar levels are very unstable throughout the day, and quite high. This can lead to feeling hungry and also tiredness, it's also not an ideal state for a body that is trying to add muscle and/or lose fat. Not that I think you need to lose fat btw, you look great!
I think you would benefit from eating a diet that is higher in complex carbs and space those carbs out evenly throughout the entire day.

Some ideas for daytime meals that have a good souce of protein would be tuna bake, quiche, stir frys and lean meat sandwiches, all of which can be made on the weekend and frozen.

Training; damn thats alot of volume. I think I counted about 40 total sets in your last workout. I'm suprised you can get through that in under 90mins, that's a great effort. This is almost definatly going to be to much in the long term. How long have you been on this program? To put it in some perspective for you, my highest periods of volume will only consist of 26~30 sets per workout, and that would be only for a short period of time.

Do you understand about program periodization ie; periods of higher and lower volume and varying levels of intensity? Do you already incorporate this into your program? Also I think your WO could be vastly simplified and still have you making great gains.

Do you know what caused the sore back during bicep curls, did you do deadlifts the day before?

Apologies for the very long winded post, I sure hope I haven't offened you. I certainly didn't intend to.

Have a great day/evening which ever the case may be.

[Emma-Leigh]

Hey There! Just wanted to say a big welcome to the forums and to add my "Good luck for your goals" as well!

[yogini]

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the late post, worked my legs late (around 8:00 p.m) got out and headed to a b-day party downtown... got back about an hour ago and eating my breakfast (1 egg, 6 egg whites and green tea, but I'll log that later ). Will catch some zzzzzz's after the forums... This forum is addicting I tell you I might need intervention soon .

---------------------------
Saturday 8/19/06 (Legs)

Warmup
Lunged around the indoors track (1/7 mile)

1) Deadlifts
4x10x60#

2) Reverse lunges
4x15x40#/leg

3) One legged presses
4x10x110#

4) One legged extensions
4x10x40#

5) One legged seated curls
4x10x30#

*I tend to work one leg at a time because at the beginning I noticed that I was overcompensating with my right side... hoping this way it will even out in terms of development.

Shoulders

1) DB shoulder presses
4x10x17.5#

2) DB front raises (one arm at a time)
4x10x15#

3) DB lateral raises with elbows bent
3x10x20# 1x7x20# (I ran out of juice in the last set )

4) Bent over DB rear delt raises
3x10x15# (skip the last set)

Workout was almost 2 hours, skipped cardio because was running a little late for a b-day thing. Perhaps the dancing count as cardio? I definitely felt my legs afterwards, my quads were burning a little during the dancing. Actually, I'm tired over all LOL! Maybe I should sleep more... self note* "I'm not 18 anymore..."

Once again, thanks for stopping by

[yogini]

Originally Posted by SexyChic

Aww I hear ya when you say you are tired after work... It can be so mentally draining!

But good for you that you still find time to work out

Yup, I think I would be massively depressed if I couldn't work out ... :P
People at work think I have an addiction to the gym ... I don't really think it's really that bad

[lea869]

Hi, welcome! I love your username!
And good luck as well!
....
I think the lack of working out that most people have is the reason many people are depressed.... but they just take drugs for it.
Yeah, endorphins!

[yogini]

Originally Posted by Rowdy3090

hey yogini, I didn't realise you had a journal or I would have come to pay you a visit earlier

Hey! thanks for stopping by! Better late than never

Originally Posted by Rowdy3090

Nutrition; there are some pretty big holes here, but thankfully you seem to be already addressing most of them which is great. More fats; definately. You sure do eat alot of fruit, which could be a reason that you are feeling hungry alot. It seems that maybe your blood sugar levels are very unstable throughout the day, and quite high. This can lead to feeling hungry and also tiredness, it's also not an ideal state for a body that is trying to add muscle and/or lose fat.

I totally agree with you on that one. One of my biggest hold backs at the moment is to get my diet in check. Very oftentimes my diet goes out of wack especially during grant write ups at work. My boss will call me at home on the evenings and saturdays to check for progress and to schedule weekend meetings... Like you said, I should start doing some more cooking and freezing more of my meals. I got freezer bags today .

In terms of fruit, yeah... I do eat lots of that. They taste so good. Whenever I go to a buffet, I get more excited about the fruit bar than anything else... I know.. how pathetic is that... :P

Originally Posted by Rowdy3090

Not that I think you need to lose fat btw, you look great!

That's very kind of you, thank you

Originally Posted by Rowdy3090

Training; damn thats alot of volume. I think I counted about 40 total sets in your last workout... How long have you been on this program?..

LOL, I never actually counted... I've been on this program for about 4 weeks. Previously I was first of full body splits for about 10 weeks and then moved on to body part split sort of like the "cut diet" program, but I didn't stick do that one for long, maybe about 3 weeks and switched to this one. I have incorporated program periodization at all. I'll have to do that. By periods of lower volume, do you mean lighter weights with more reps?

Once again, thanks for the input and suggestions Rowdy, I truly appreciate it, and of course I'm not mad, quite the contrary!

It's actually morning here now... 8 am to be exact ... zzzzz

[yogini]

Originally Posted by Emma-Leigh

Hey There! Just wanted to say a big welcome to the forums and to add my "Good luck for your goals" as well!

Thank you, thank you!
The forums are full of great information and I'm hooked....

[yogini]

Originally Posted by lea869

Hi, welcome! I love your username!
And good luck as well!
....
I think the lack of working out that most people have is the reason many people are depressed.... but they just take drugs for it.
Yeah, endorphins!

LOL, hiya there! I used to do lots of yoga .
I think working out is one of the best drugs then... not a bad addiction eh?

[Rowdy3090]

Originally Posted by yogini

I got freezer bags today

Yeah, I use those cheap takeaway containers myself. Stirfrys and tuna bake in a bag...not for me, but whatever your into I guess. j/k

Originally Posted by yogini

I have incorporated program periodization at all. I'll have to do that. By periods of lower volume, do you mean lighter weights with more reps?

aarrhh, no. Volume is the total amount of sets that are being performed. Intensity is the the amount of weight that is being moved. So the higher the reps in a set the lower the intensity, because you can not move a large amount of weight for many reps.
Low reps = heavy weight = high intensity
High reps = lighter weight = lower intensity

Now generally the more intense a workout/program the lower the volume needs to be, this is to account for the fact that moving a heavy weight is very taxing on the body and its various systems.

So as an example, if your doing a program that calls for reps of 5, this would be considered fairly high intensity. So you would endevour to keep the number of total sets (volume) for the entire workout below about 20 or so.

If you reduce the intensity by going to say 12 reps you can increase the volume to say, 24~26~28 depending on the training experience of the individual.

Volume x Intensity = Total Workload
Varying the total workload in a program (by this I mean long term program), so that you have periods of high workload and low workload is what periodization is all about. This is very importent to continue making gains over a long period of time.

I wouldn't go getting to worried about all this right away, but it is somthing that you will probably need to consider in the future. There is so much information about programming and scheduling, about everything really, that can be learned from bb.com, you just need to read and ask questions

I think that may do for one post, but if I didn't explain myself properly (more than likely), feel free to ask what the heck I was on about