ArmdandFabulous’s BodyBlog

We all know that some protein bars taste like absolute crap..well, I found two that don’t, finally!! 

A couple times I went to GNC and they gave me little samples of one called "Titan"…I couldn’t believe how much like a candy bar it was…chocolate, caramel, all that good stuff AND protein…so I kinda got hooked on it and now I buy one every now and then…well I went to a different GNC than the one I normally go to for a Titan bar and as it turned out that location didn’t carry Titan bars…FRICK!! I thought "are you kidding me?"…grrrrrrrr…..I totally was all set on getting one…the guy who worked there talked me into something he said was similar to it, the Supreme Protein bar…I was skeptical and thought no way could there be another protein bar that comes close to Titan…but I had no other option and really wanted something sweet, so I bought it…OH My people….it tasted exactly like a 1000 GRAND candy bar!!  seriously!   But it has between 26-30 gms of protein (can’t remember exactly how much)…And it just so happens that the Supreme Protein bar won an award at the Olympia –Protein Bar of the Year !!….I’m tellin ya, you gotta try it!

After taking 6 days off from training, no cardio, no lifting, none of it, I felt that I was ready to get back to it…the insomnia went away during this past week and I could sleep soundly again!!!! so I am sure that overtraining was causing it.  During my week off I managed to stay pretty clean with the diet and actually lose a couple of the lbs I had gained..so yay!

Yesterday was my first day back in the gym and I had a great leg day…I realized I could lift a lot heavier than I thought, but was able to target the muscle more and really feel the burn when I took some of the weightload off and upped the number of reps…my legs were shaking towards the end and I almost lost my balance because they were so wiped out!

After squats and lunges I did leg curls, leg extensions and finished with calf raises…my legs felt pretty beat up and I thought I had worked them pretty well…let them know that the vacation was o-v-e-r!!

But the bad news…the insomnia returned last night! aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh!! I don’t want to take any more time off…aside from insomnia I feel great..why is this happening to me?????????

I live here in Vegas right where it is held, but never went to one until yesterday…it was actually my first bodybuilding event ever….and to say the least I felt like I had walked into some alternate universe of the "beautiful people"…

Never knew there were that many impossibly perfect men and women that even existed in the world!!…they were definitely all gathered together in one place yesterday–the convention center right here in Vegas for this year’s Olympia..plenty of eye candy for women and for men..ok, a little too much for the men to look at for my taste, but that is always the case, isn’t it??…lol…Most of the really attractive men were the spectators walking around, and most of the gorgeous women were the ones behind the booths working for the supplement companies…this may be the "norm" for these type of events but since it was my first one I have no basis for comparison, it was a completely new experience to me…kinda felt like..oh..so this is what the girls who work in the nightclubs do during the daytime..lol

Even though I have made a lot of progress this past year, in that environment I felt fat and felt the same way I did before I ever started on my transformation–invisible to the opposite sex…not a good feeling!…as I walked around,  it started eating at me as I saw more and more perfect women behind those booths..and I actually began craving pizza! I even gave serious thought to getting some for dinner…lol…emotional craving at it’s most obvious!..

Now I know this might seem like a "non issue" to some, but I’m just keeping it real…I didn’t know what to expect going into it, guess I just imagined all the gorgeous men and forgot there’d be women there too…lol

Moving on–since I had lots of water before I went, the first thing I looked for was the bathroom…of course, there was a little line to get in but just a couple women were waiting and standing about 3 feet from me …using the mirror…was..Alicia Marie from Oxygen magazine!!..oh my it was so odd seeing someone in person who I see every month in a magazine..felt like I was seeing a movie star…I know, this sounds so "uneventful" for some of you who go to these things regularly, but to me, remember it’s a totally new experience…and Alicia is just GORGEOUS and taller than I pictured too…after this I even saw her out walking around and had to keep myself from staring, she is just so…impossibly perfect! She even looks better in person than in the magazine, if that’s even possible!

Then one of the first booths I walk past I see out of the corner of my eye–Pauline Nordin! She is gorgeous too, and really little! Not little muscles though …I really didn’t know I’d be standing so close to these professional fitness people and I had a hard time not standing there staring at them, like I am at a zoo looking at the animals…lol…I had to tell myself, ok, keep moving before they notice me eyeballing them…

As I walked around I saw Lou Ferrigno, Ava Cowan, Monica Brant..and probably some others but didn’t know their names…everyone looked great in person…Lou looks like he lost some weight from his "Everybody Loves Raymond" show days…

Before going to the event, I was told that the companies give out so many free samples of product that you could get almost 3 months supply out of it…and anyone who I talked to who had been to it before told me the same thing..so I brought my duffle bag hoping to need it…as I walked around I saw lots and lots of product brochures on tables and little cups of little samples, but not at all what I was picturing…I was imagining them giving away containers of protein powder and energy drinks, not individual one serving packets…so I didn’t get as many free samples as I thought I would, but the prices of the product were cut in half, and I did end up buying some protein and superpump250 for a really good deal!….the people who told me about all the free stuff were men, so maybe that has something to do with it, and the fact that the ones giving away the samples were mostly women…possibly they are more generous with the opposite sex??…hmmm…I don’t know, I just didn’t get near the amount of free stuff as I had imagined…maybe it’s the economy and they cut back this year?

The contests going on were cool…I watched the strongest man and wondered how they didn’t end up straining their lower backs when they picked up those cement balls and lifted them onto the platforms…I wouldn’t want to attempt it!…There was also a bikini contest happening I watched a couple minutes of…the guys I was standing near were actually trying to record it on their phones as if they were at a concert..thought that was interesting??…weird?…pervish??…lol

I also got to meet Pat who works for Gaspari…he is the one who helped me out with my superpump250 issue..nice guy!

So all in all I found it to be quite interesting…I wondered if by going to this I might uncover an interest in myself to start competing..but no, not at this time at least…

…and I somehow fought off the pizza craving after leaving, and stuck to salmon for dinner!!..woohoo

I’ve heard that salmon is a mood-booster food, but never tested it out because I don’t really like fish…I like albacore tuna, but saw a special on the news about it saying that canned albacore tuna is one of the highest mercury containing types of fish…so I have cut waaay back on it….in my effort to eat healthier I bought some salmon and tried it (with lemon–takes away any "fishy" taste) yesterday…and I can confirm, YES it’s a huge mood booster…after eating it I was in such a good mood that I felt like cleaning, which is one of those things I loathe doing and have to be in the best mood possible to do…I completely scrubbed the kitchen, detail scrubbed it even and didn’t mind doing it!…I ate another 4oz piece of salmon a couple hours later and I was in a great mood the rest of the night…and so productive, I almost tackled cleaning out a closet that I have been avoiding for months…ALmost…..I started thinking about doing it, considering it at least and to me that is big!….maybe today if I eat more salmon I will actually do it..lol…I may replace the amount of chicken I eat with salmon— it’s like taking a happy pill

I feel like I have symptoms of overtraining…I’ve fallen into an insomnia pattern –no good for trying to build muscle and lose fat–which continues to plague my progress…and my right wrist still isn’t healed, so I can’t lift as heavy as I should be on my right arm..now it kinda feels like carpel tunnel or something is trying to start up..for a few weeks I have just trained thru it the best I could, but since it’s not healing and I can’t make progress this way, I’m takin some time off to see if that helps with these issues…4 or 5 days should be enough, the good thing is my appetite is easier to control when I don’t workout or do cardio!..so I’m looking forward to some good non cheating days!

Ok, so my update on the BCAA and carb craving thing is that no–it wasn’t the BCAA’s making me carb crave crazy, I now think it probably was the CytoleanV2 doing it…because of the caffeine…I took some of them a couple days without taking any BCAA’s and was still more hungry in general and having stronger cravings for carbs than I normally do…caffeine does that to me…it kills my appetite for a little while but when it wears off I am famished…and Cytolean states on the package that it has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee…well I won’t be using it again…those cravings were sooo bad, I know it wasn’t hormones or my diet or anything because even at my worst with their kind of cravings, I never experienced this!…my friend told me that a sign of thyroid problems is being hungry all the time and I started seriously wondering if that could be happening because that’s how I felt…hungry 10 mins after I ate a meal!…and that is not my normal appetite…just goes to show there is no pill that will do it, you have to put the work in…I already knew that, and have been doing fine on my own…my trying the Cytolean out and going haywire with the diet put me back an entire week which I am now trying to make up for so I can get back to where I was before all the eating madness…ggrrrrrrrr!….it sucks but I am working on it now…which leads me to the title of my blog….I ran 4 miles this afternoon even though I barely had any sleep last night and on the way to the gym (even after having some superpump250) started thinking how nice it would be to just go back home and take a nap first…my eyes were drooping at one of the stoplights and I was sooooo tempted to scrap it and go later…but that would have messed up my plan to do a second session later on…Oh yeah, I definitely HAD to do two sessions today to undo all this week’s diet disasters, so going back home was not an option I told myself…I made it to the gym, still tired and wondering how the heck I was gonna run 4 miles when I felt like this…but I did it, and as soon as I started moving it woke me up and I was feeling better…

I was glad I went

….then tonight my plan was to burn 600 more calories, doing some running and eliptical and whatever else I felt like when I got to the gym…well, remember I was running on almost no sleep today and already ran 4 miles earlier…so you can imagine how I tried to talk myself out of my second session…but I decided to keep my goal in mind and go get it done…I had a little burst of energy as I started driving to the gym..then about 5 mins later I kinda crashed and started questioning if this was a good idea or not as the tiredness came over me again…oh man I wanted to skip it, turn around and just go to bed early…but I remembered how the mornings run woke me up when I was exhausted, so I hoped the same thing would happen again…I made it to the gym, got on a treadmill and decided to see if I could get 3 miles in…20 mins into it I felt great and after about 25 mins I had a second wind and finished no problem…then onto the eliptical for 20 mins, I really used my quads and was pouring out the sweat by the time I finished…then to wrap it up 6 more mins on the treadmill (to make my goal of burning 600 cals altogether in this session)…MIssion Accomplished!!!!!   It was tough but worth it and once again….

I was glad I went!!!!!

Hope this helps you keep your own workout or cardio session as planned when you feel like skipping it because you are too tired! …….GOING and getting it done when you don’t feel like it is the very action that separates those who are successful in their fitness goals and those who are not…..so JUST DO IT!!!!!!!

I just started taking BCAA’s again..my first ever bottle was from Apex -I bought them at my gym..and when I took them I never had any change in my appetite or cravings, or anything…no stomach issues, bloating, nothing at all…I was taking 2 before my workouts, and 2 after…(recommended dose by trainer at gym based on "guess-timate" of my lean muscle amount) I wasn’t sure I was seeing any result from taking them until I ran out..then I realized that they had been helping me to keep down the muscle loss when I was doing all the cardio I do…so I went to get more at my gym but the price had gone up a lot (apparently they had been on sale when I bought them but I didn’t know that) so I bought some more reasonably priced ones from bb.com, they are ON’s BCAA 1000 caps…I picked those ones because over 800 people here on bodyspace use them, so I figured they must work, right?!

Yesterday I took 2 before my am cardio, along with my CytoleanV2 hoping to get the best of both worlds: fat burning and muscle building, or muscle protecting at least!

I did 40 mins of cardio, and tried to stay in the "fat burning" range..so I didn’t go all out, no HIIT or anything, just easy, steady pace…normally after I do cardio I’m not really hungry, but yesterday when I got done I went home and had my protein as usual, but was pretty hungry, so I ate a little meal and was ok for awhile…

The dosage recommendation says to also take the BCAA’s in-between meals if needed…I felt like more would be better, so I took one in-between meals also yesterday…Oh my the hunger and carb cravings I experienced later on were severe!…even though I ate my normal meals, and ate the same amount I normally do, around 7 pm I found myself in a Starbuck’s parking lot contemplating getting a pastry of some kind…I tried to re-route my thinking and get off the pastry idea, but to no avail, the carb cravings had my body DEMANDING something sweet…I went in and bought a piece of their "reduced fat" berry coffee cake…and inhaled it!….AND wanted more carbs, more pastries after that!….I had to run into Walmart for a few things and before I even got in the store the image of doughnuts was all I could see…glazed, chocolatey frosted doughnuts…mmmm…this craving was soooooo strong by now, I went right over to the doughnuts first and was eyeballing all of them….(just some side info, I don’t normally have many pastry cravings anymore at all, so this is really unusual that these cravings are THIS strong)….I was sure I was gonna be a goner, until my phone rang…it was a friend who knows all about my transformation journey so I confessed to her what I was about to do…and that helped to take my mind off the doughnuts, and stop the madness…until I got out of the store..

On the way home all I could see were doughnuts, and the cravings were back!!  I decided to do a pm cardio session to burn off the cake I had eaten, and my plan was to just have some Superpump250 before I hit the gym, since it always KILLS my appetite (it’s my savior for appetite control! )…so I took about 1/2 a scoop, and continued to drink my gallon of water as well…and the cravings seemed to die for about 30 mins and the doughnuts were out of my head, I felt back to normal and in control…and then they RETURNED…WTH?…SUperpump normally ALWAYS takes away my appetite for at least a few hours!!!…..at this point I had decided that on my way to the gym, I would just stop off somewhere and get a stinkin doughnut to end this craving, since it didn’t seem to be taking no for an answer!….but I really didn’t want to give in, since I had already had the cake and all..so I drank more water and fought the craving as I made it safely to the gym and did 40 more mins of cardio…but while I was in the last 10 mins of my session, I got extremely hungry, and couldn’t even finish the last 5 mins of it, I had to leave and go get some food, I was THAT hungry all of a sudden…(this never happens to me either normally)

Luckily I didn’t bring any money with me to the gym so I couldn’t stop off and get anything, but I did have some sugary cereal at home and all I could think about was eating some of it…when I got home the first thing I did was have my protein shake, but still was hungry and wanting carbs, so I gave in and ate a few bowls of the cereal to satisfy the craving…then I even thought about STILL going and getting a doughnut, but somehow fought that off….and ended up just ruining my diet with the cereal…oh yeah, and that cake earlier :(

…I doubt that this craving was a result of the CYtoleanV2 I took yesterday, so I’m pretty sure it must be the BCAA’s causing it…which is so strange because I read that some people take them to help curb the appetite a little in-between meals!….

Ok I made it 8 days on my clean eating challenge…then I hung out with a friend this past Saturday and fell off the wagon!….I’m so weak!!!!….Mexican food and Ice Cream!!..the Mexican food was, eh, not so good…I was craving something fried (I dont’ ever normally eat fried so it’s not too bad) and ordered a Chimichange…well, the ends of it were crispy (what I was really wanting was something "crispy") but the rest of it was all soggy and not crispy because of the sauce they put on top…so I didn’t eat that much of it…BUT the ice cream was COLD STONE, the BEST ice cream, and I got it in one of those waffle bowls dipped in chocolate..mmmmmm 

Well I didn’t plan on ending my clean eating streak but what’s done is done…and on SUnday, I started over again so now I’m onto day 3 of my re-newed clean eating plan….I also did cardio twice on Sunday, am and pm to help me burn off those extra calories…started using Cytolean V2 by Gaspari and I’m hoping it will help me lose these last 10 lbs that I keep holding onto!!

I really felt this one, and instead of following a suggested set of exercises and reps I just went with what I felt like doing…focusing more on form, and going to failure on each set…I would only do 2 sets if I felt the "pump" happen in that amount of sets versus just doing 3-4 sets because that’s what I normally do…I think listening to my body will be how I train from now on instead of a set # of reps and exercises….

bench press 3 sets #85, #75×2

lying overhead pullovers w bb..this was a totally new exercise to me and felt very effective for the chest!

decline bench press

decline tri ext w db (superset w flat bench db flyes)

tri rope pulldowns

pec deck machine…I adjusted seat but still this one seems like it worked more of my shoulders than chest

cable chest flyes

By the time I did all these exercises my arms and chest felt tight and pumped UP!  I didn’t want to overtrain, so I figured I had done enough.

***I think I want to start taking creatine, but not sure if liquid or powder form is best…and which ones don’t cause bloating??..ANy info/opinions on that are appreciated!

Even though I’ve cut back some on calories, I’m still seeming to have the same amount of energy, this workout was a good one!

6x squats–moved feet an inch out after each set

superset hamstring curls with leg extensions to failure 4x

4x leg press

3x calf raises

..then I walked and ran on and off for 20 mins after weights…I figure since I have cut back on calories, no heavy cardio..maybe this approach will work better for me than eating more calories then trying to burn them off with more cardio?…. 

I usually can only do legs one time a week but I may try and do some more glute work and some deadlifts later in the week, if my knees are ok with that

****And I made it thru day 4 of my clean eating challenge–no cheating!! woooot