ArmdandFabulous’s BodyBlog

I tried something out this morning to see if it really works…cardio on an empty stomach.

The whole idea of it has always seemed crazy to me…your body has had NO fuel for 10 hours or so, and then you want to go and push it further by making it do cardio…seems like your blood sugar and energy would be too low to get much out of it without eating first…but according to some "ripped" bodies around this site, it is a secret trick to burn more fat…

Despite that, I never wanted to try it because I always believed you are supposed to EAT soon after waking to keep the metabolism from slowing down..but out of curiousity I decided to try it out today.  Well, I didn’t do it on a completely empty stomach, I had some SUperpump250 or I wouldn’t have gotten myself out the door without eating!

I was able to run for 40 mins, and I didn’t pass out!…now lets see if this way works better!

Wow I just realized that two days ago was my one year anniversary on bb.com!  What a difference a year can make

While I have not completely met my transformation goal yet, I have made a lot of progress towards it this past year that I have to give credit to this site and the people on it for achieving…

All the information about workouts, diet + supplements, nutritional info, etc. that is available right here has helped to educate me on the "how" to transform that I never would have gotten any other way..I knew so little about how to do it, I wouldn’t have even known what questions to ask or what info to seek out!!

The encouragement and support given from fellow bodyspacer’s has been a huge factor in my progress…the compliments, tips and suggestions from others on this site who have similar goals and similar struggles with achieving their own fitness goals reminds me that I’m not alone, which keeps me going when I get discouraged… 

I have gone from just wanting to be a certain weight number on the scale and clothing size to wanting muscle and a physique that I never would have dreamed possible for myself, had I not seen what others have achieved with their bodies on this site…the transformations (completed or ongoing) of others on here motivates me and pushes me to work harder when I have slacked off…

And of course the blogs…the inspirational, educational, informative and funny blogs here help me to feel connected to a group of people that I normally would’t have access to in "real life" because there just aren’t that many people in my circle who are interested in fitness and health, sad but true for a lot of us…

So for me, the past year being a part of this community has truly been priceless, I wouldn’t have made it this far on my own without it…thank you bb.com!!

Ok I’ve heard lots of complaints about gyms that are too busy and people hogging machines you want to use..but it hasn’t really been an issue for me, probably because I have two gym memberships and can go to either of them 24 hours a day…one of them I primarily go to because they have a lot of good cardio equipment, and the other I like to do my weightlifting in…the best of both worlds so to speak..

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling too hot and instead of going to the gym at my normal (morning) workout time to lift, I went in the evening…and I went to the gym that I normally only do cardio in…ended up getting there around 9:30, thinking it shouldn’t be too crowded at that time…(this gym is CROWDED from about 5-9 pm all week with so many people standing around chatting it’s like a night club instead of a gym!)..so after I get there and do my warmup on the treadmill it’s almost 10pm before I even get in the weights area…but it’s still pretty crowded..I start off with bench presses and it wasn’t too tough to find an open bench…but after I finish those, I look around for an incline bench to do chest flyes and shoulder presses, but it had gotten even more busy!!…WTF…did someone drop off a bus load of people in here at 10pm or what I started thinking…I wander around for a couple minutes looking for ANY open incline bench but there are none and then I spot an empty incline bench at an empty Smith machine station…ooooooO the wheels are turning in my brain and I think a-HA I can do my entire chest/shoulder/tri wkout there if I just bring over some dumbells…so that’s what I did..and it was working out fantastically..I was supersetting almost every exercise and really getting chest/shoulders to burn…no moving around wasting time looking for an open bench for me!!

 ** I know it sounds like I was hogging the machine which everyone hates—but I’ve never done a workout this way and wouldn’t have this time if this gym didn’t have about 8 Smith stations in it!!!…and it was after 10pm!! I’d never try this between 5-9pm!!

So I was in my own little world and everyone was leaving me alone…until a lady (probably 55-60+ yrs old) comes over and questions whether I am really using the Smith machine or am I just using that bench and not the bar…she happened to walk up when I was doing chest flyes with db’s and asked how many more sets I had…I told her I wasn’t sure, I have a lot to do…she questioned again "but you ARE using the bar??…this bar?? as her disbelieving stare had me wanting to dis-respect an elder right then with dumbell upside the head!!!…y…e…..s…I said…..I felt like a second grader who was getting in trouble for something I didn’t do…I badly wanted to send her on her way with a kick in the a** cuz my head was pounding and I still wasn’t feeling well but was trying to push thru and finish the workout…she walked away (FINALLY!)..and I got back to concentrating on my workout..that lasted about 20 mins until a guy came hovering around and I had my earphones in but could tell he wanted my attention…so I took them out and he asked how many more sets I had left..now, people by this time it’s around 11pm..OMG this is irritating!…LEAVE me Alone I was shouting in my head!! (which surprisingly had stopped pounding by this time)…and I even have a MEAN mug on at the gym–I never usually have a problem with people coming up and interrupting me…but these people were completely ignoring mean mug due to it being sooo busy in there and benches being used…so when the guy asked how many sets I had I decided to be nice and let him get his sets in, as long as he told me when he was done and didn’t let that one lady near it as I went over to the cable area and did some other exercises while he used my smith station…he came and got me when he was done and he had even organized my db’s that I had sprawled out all over the ground…I had sets of 15’s, 17.5’s, 10’s laying all over…lol…I wondered if he did it to be nice or to not be embarrassed and have people think he was the one who was THAT messy…probably the second one, huh?

ANyways, I felt like it was a decent workout (and my headache went away!) despite all the concentration breaks…and that guy who interrupted me was some good eye candy at least!  …next time I have to workout when it’s busy I’m gonna find some stranger who appears to be working the same muscle group I am and ask them if they want to tag team with me and go thru our workout together…much more efficient than trying to maneuver through a busy gym alone!

I think I may have inspired someone to begin their own fitness journey yesterday..

While shopping at Old Navy, the fitting rm lady commented on my physique and asked me what I do to get it like it is…(Oh my I’m not even done with it yet but what a huge compliment!)…

I told her I worked at it, and had to eat right and exercise…this woman was not overweight, just had some flabby areas she wanted to do something with..the main one being her stomach…she was concerned that she would have to get surgery or something to get rid of the loose skin since she had had 3 kids…which I’m sure probably had discouraged her from even trying to work on changing it..but I got the opportunity to enlighten her on how she could get the abs, butt and arms she wanted if she was willing to put the work in, no surgery required!

She asked me how to do it and I told her she would have to lift weights, and lift heavy..she said she didn’t want to get too "bulky" and I told her how much weight I lifted, she looked at my arms and said…well, yeah, you can tell you work out but you’re not bulky…I said yeah, women can’t get big like men from just lifting heavy, unless they use steriods or something!

She got SO excited hearing that she could change her body, I knew this was something she needed to hear, and I was glad I got to be the one to tell her that YES! it was possible …So I wrote down the web address for bb.com and told her she would find all the info on workouts, what to eat, supplements, everything she would need to get the body of her dreams…I felt like I had "passed the torch" on or something…lol

It was a GREAT feeling

 *On a side note, I ended up buying some really comfortable cargos that have an elastic waistband..they are going to be my Thanksgiving pants I decided…speaking of Thanksgiving..I’m already craving pumpkin pie which is weird because I usually only eat it on Thanksgiving and don’t crave it before or after that…maybe I will have to get some early this year…

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!!!!!!!