ArmdandFabulous’s BodyBlog

Today’s run was a little tough, there were many times that I wanted to stop and walk, but I pushed thru and finished it…I think that those are the best runs, the ones that aren’t easy for some reason….they should be easy for me by now, I’ve been running 4 miles 4ever it seems like..but there are still some days when I know it is psychological, and my mind is just being lazy and trying to make my body do less…I wasn’t tired today, I had drank all the water I was supposed to, I just plain old didn’t want to run…but I made myself do it and in the middle of it, out of nowhere, I start smelling something gross…someone FARTED!!!…So there I am huffing and puffing and someone near me is passing gass out of their ass, polluting the air, stinking the area up…uughgh….well, that made it that much harder for me to stick around to finish my run, when I didn’t even feel like doing it anyway….but I did, and for that, I deserve big RESULTS!…….. I know sometimes people can’t help it but DANG it is nasty to have to breath in when you are RUNNING!! You know what I mean?

Geez I gotta start running outside!!

Yep, yesterday I did my first workout that included Back/Bi’s/Hamstrings….I haven’t added legs in with upper body workouts before but I’m steppin it up to get my lower body caught up to my upper body development…and here’s what I did:

10 mins treadmill warmup

4×10  bent over rows on smith machine

4×10  Lat pulldown machine

4×10  Lat pulldown (narrow)

4×10  Seated rows

4×10  Dumbell Rows for lower back

4×10  Lat pulldown (wide)

To exhaustion alternating dumbell curls with 20lb, 15, 10

4×10  hamstring curls, 4×10 one legged curls

4×10 deadlifts

4×10 Hack press (leg press) machine

I am definitely feelin it in my back today, and a little in my hamstrings, but not much in the glutey’s…I’m gonna have to figure out something to target those, I will do legs again on Friday so I will be sure to hit them then…

p.s….there are only 16 days’ til Christmas!….

That’s right, I’m declaring today bacon day because I ate about 15 pcs this morning!…Since my cheat days are not working out as planned, I decided to “go with the craving” sometimes and have what I want when I want it and not plan a cheat day….wish me luck, I may end up binge-eating all week long, but if I do and you don’t hear anything from me, that’s what happened..lol..

Really, I have not had bacon in a loooong time, but I have had a craving for it lately and yesterday I was grocery shopping and decided to give in…it was really good..at least I bought the “lower sodium” one…that didn’t stop me from my cardio today though, and it was awesome! I ran 4 miles at one level faster than I usually do and it wasn’t as tough as I anticipated…I am probably still on my runner’s high from it…..!!!……..

I posted a new back progress pic, and I am thrilled to see that almost all my backfat is gone..and more muscle development is happening…right now, nothing makes me happier!…I was worried because I have been on a plateau for awhile now at 160lbs, so I really didn’t think anthing was happening until I took that pic….it amazes me, this whole body transformation thing going on…now I will have to put more into leg and glute workouts to get them caught up with the top part of me ..but I look forward to it, since I have been holding back so that I could do more cardio…

I hope you all have a great evening~

In an effort to give the same amount of attention to my lower body development as my upper body, I have decided to break my leg day down into 2 days a week. I will focus on the quads one day, then another day of the week I will target the hamstrings, glutes and calves…I did my first workout this way today:

1 mile run to warm up  

squats  4×10

alternating leg lunges  4×10

hip abductor machine  4×10

leg extensions            4×10

standing barbell lunges 2×10

10 minute incline walk on treadmill to finish and stretch leg muscles

I am not sure if I will work the hamstrings, glutes and calves on Sunday or Monday, depending on how sore they get!

GRRRRrrrr…..Let me just start with that to get it out of my system!….aaghh!…I’m so frustrated!!! 

Today was my once weekly allowed cheat day and what happens every week happened again this week…I look forward to it all week, mulling over things I want to eat on my cheat day when it finally rolls around….I think of foods like pizza, hamburgers, french fries, cookies, pasta, cake, cookies, etc….I even made a list of "forbidden foods" in case I forget any when the day rolls around..but this is what continues to happen: on cheat day I usually don’t make breakfast a cheat meal, so I eat clean for it….then I start to think about what sounds good to indulge in later on for lunch…hmmmmm…what sounds good….and you know what?—-I crave NO foods that I thought about the past week and couldn’t wait to tear into on my cheat day…….none of them…it’s like I don’t have 1/4 of my normal appetite on cheat day either…what gives?? This is maddening!! So what ends up happening is I eat something that sounds good, but not so good that I have been craving it all week good, just more tasty at the time to me than the usual chicken, tuna, salad, etc. that I eat all other days of the week good..which takes all the thunder out of cheat day for me!!! So typically I have been eating 1 cheat meal on cheat day, but not a 4 or 5 course meal even, just a hamburger or whatever I have access to that isn’t considered "clean eating."  On one cheat day, I wasn’t having any cravings for anything particular, and I saw picture on here-Bodyspace-of someone having pizza on their cheat day, so I thought that was what sounded good..I ordered a pizza and breadsticks, ate about 4 small breadsticks and was full–I hadn’t even had a piece of pizza yet…WTF?..all I can think of is the coke I indulged in on the way home must have been filling enough!

After having a cheat meal I remind myself that I only get to cheat once a week, so what else do I want?…DO I want a cookie…or a piece of pie..or a piece of cake…or ice cream even…?  And you know what?? This normally-a-dessert-freak can’t think of ONE dessert that I want to have at that moment…all the other moments all week long have images of fattening, forbidden and sinful food in them and when I can finally have it, poof, the craving for it is all gone…and after the cheat lunch, I am normally not hungry the rest of the day but try to make myself eat a couple small snacks to keep the metabolism going….

I have the MOST boring cheat days I have ever heard of!!…. So then the rest of the week all the stuff I COULD have sunk my teeth into suddenly starts to be almost irresistable as it re-enters my brain as a craving….but only until the next cheat day, during which I try to decide what food I want to indulge in……….and the brain freeze begins…

So, today was a cheat day, I ate fettuccini alfredo at the Olive Garden, and some breadsticks….then the rest of the day I tried to think of a dessert I wanted, I ran thru images in my mind of cake, pie, cookies…and I wanted none of it!

Does this happen to anyone else?

CHest/Shoulder/Tri day..I’m trying to change my cardio workout a little to liven things up..so I did cardio after lifting for a change.

Incline dumbell presses 4×10

Dumbell chest presses 4×10

Shrugs 3×10

Dumbell flyes 4×10

Lateral Dumbell presses 3×10

CHest press machine 4×10

Shoulder press machine 4×10

Overhead barbell presses 3×10

Tricep bench dips 4×10, 9,8,8 

Tricep pushdown 2×10

Straight arm pulldown 4×10

I am trying to work up the courage to look like a HUGE weakling as I attempt to add pull-ups to my workouts..I haven’t tried them yet but I have been building up to that step in my arm workouts..I have always had real low upper body strength and pull-ups kinda remind me of gym class in elementary school when we had to climb that rope in the middle of the gym..yeah, I could NEVER climb it, until a couple years after it became a humiliating requirement of our exercise program and we HAD to climb it or we would fail the 3rd grade or something ridiculous like that, they put in the one that has knots in it about every 2 ft. It was like a cheater’s rope…that one I could climb..but still, I am a big scare-dee cat to try a pull-up in front of everyone at the gym…I know, I know, I just gotta bite the bullet and DO it..I think I will try to do it in stealth mode and go to my gym at 11pm or later when the only people working out are halfway asleep anyway and will not have the energy to think about what anyone is doing because they are just trying to keep their eyes open…lol

R.I.P. ReRe………  

Today when I was at the gym I ran into a friend and actually kept up a conversation with her while running on the treadmill.  I never thought I could do that..normally when I run there’s no way I can talk but we chatted for about 2 miles of the run and the time flew by.  The last half of the run wasn’t as fun as the first because she was done with her workout and left the gym… I used to look at other people who chatted while running and wondered how in the world they could do that..or why they would want to! Now I know….:-0

 I’ve been keeping the diet clean, and because of that I have been "guess-timating" how many calories I’m taking in. It seems like I typically eat around 12-1400 per day.  But the thing is I eat that same amount on rest days too..I researched how many calories I should be eating figuring in the running and lifting and it seems like I am gonna have to start paying more attention to the details of how much I eat. I was thinking that as long as I’m eating clean and eating about the same amount, it should be fine..but it looks like I may not be eating enough on days when I run…which is kind of a challenge because I haven’t been hungry for more food..how do you make yourself go up in calories when you aren’t hungry???   And, if you get busy in the day and don’t get around to eating enough calories, then at the last meal is it better to let it go and not eat enough for that day if the alternative is eating carbs–like a dessert or something?? hhmmmm…I’m a little confused..

On a sad note, my friends dog, Rhianna, died this past Sunday. Well, she actually had to have her put down. Rhianna was a big BullMastiff who was 11 years old. She was a sweet and loving giant of a dog……….well what happened to her on Sunday is her stomach got twisted, or, flipped over inside her and when that happens it cuts off the stomach from the esophagus and intestines leading to pressure on the heart and entire circulatory system…it is something that large breed dogs are prone to getting apparently….it’s caused by an excessive build up of gas in the stomach and the only way to correct it is with $expensive$ surgery…but it is risky and there is no guarantee that the dog won’t still die…my friend was laid off at work a few months ago so had no way to pay for this and had to have Rhianna put to sleep..my heart breaks for her, Rhianna was like a daughter to her and she is just so torn up about it…I feel so bad for her and wish there was more I could do to comfort her…it makes me think about my little dog and dread the day she takes her last breath…