Shannon’s BodyBlog

Well, anyway uhh yeah.

I heard that line on TV and laugh every time I think about it.  I’m so easily amused.

What does not amuse me or get me PUMPED is the music at my gym.  They don’t realize that the music is there to get people in the mood to workout.  I’m not there to go grocery shopping or stand in an elevator or sit and get my teeth cleaned.

And they seem to have theme days.

Gay Disco Day does nothing for me.

Men Are Dogs Day does nothing for me.

15 yr old Singing Artists Going On 30 Day does nothing for me.

And the straw that broke the camel’s back was when they had 60’s Hippie Music Day.

When you’re trying to get pumped and you hear "Sunshine go away today, I don’t feel much like dancing."  OMG.  That just makes my pump fizzle yo.

I had stopped bringing my iPod with me because I got lazy about loading songs after I got sick of the ones on there.  I’m not one to load a random selection.  Or create a load of playlists.

But this time, something had to be done.  And done it was.  Which gave me one of my best leg workouts on Saturday.

And I had always wondered…what was it that was missing from my workouts.  If I had a good day with strength and energy, I still usually felt a certain OOMPF missing from it.  And I realized that there was no adrenaline rush behind any of my workouts.  It was more mechanical than anything.  Well, the right music works in my favor.

Here is the list (Yes, I was in a Pearl Jam mood…this is Pearl Jam Day) :

Spin The Black Circle (Pearl Jam)

Animal (Pearl Jam)

Boom Boom Pow (Black Eyed Peas)

Hey Man Nice Shot (Filter)

Misery Business (Paramore)

Killing In The Name Of (Rage Against The Machine)

Inside The Fire (Disturbed)

Glorified G (Pear Jam)

Go (Pearl Jam)

Reaviewmirror (Pearl Jam)

Sex Type Thing (STP)

Wicked Garden (STP)

Cardio:  500

Weight Training:  shoulder, chest, calves

Two women were playing golf.  One teed off and watched in horror as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole.  The ball hit one of the men.  He immediately clasped his hands together at his groin, fell to the ground and proceeded to roll around in agony.

The woman rushed down to the man and immediately began to apologize.  "Please allow me to help.  I’m a physical therapist and I know I can relieve your pain if you allow me", she told him.

"Oh no, I’ll be alright, I’ll be fine in a few minutes," the man whispered the reply.

He was in obvious agony, lying in a fetal position, still clasping his hands together at his groin.  At her persistance, he allowed her to help.

She gently took his hands away, layed them at his side, loosened his pants and put her hands inside.

She administered tender and artful massage for several long moments and asked, "How does that feel?"

He said, "It feels great, but I still think my thumb is broken."

Breakfast:  1 whole egg, 4 egg whites (21 g prot)
oatmeal (5g prot)
coffee

Snack/Lunch:  protein shake w/ milk (29g prot)

cottage cheese (24g prot)

Each day that I go into the gym, I have a certain goal in mind for that particular workout.  It may be that I want to attempt a higher weight in some, or all, of the exercises.  Or, I want to basically concentrate on perfecting my form.

Squats are one of the exercises where I want to add weight AND do them with perfect form.  Because doing so will give me an awesome set of glutes

So to that end, this device will make an excellent tool to help me develop that awesome set of glutes:

Cardio:  500

Weight Training:  back, bi’s, calves

Breakfast:  1 whole egg, 4 egg whites (21g prot)
oatmeal (5g prot)
coffee

Lunch:  cottage cheese (24g prot)

green beans

Pregym:  protein shake (21g prot)

Postgym:  protein shake (21g prot)

Snack:  protein shake (35g prot)

Am I out of touch with what is awesome in music?  Would you load this onto your iPod and lift to this song?

Because I heard this on the radio the other day and without knowing yet who it was covering a WHAM! song, I thought "Who the F*CK would want to cover a WHAM! song on this rock station?"

But when I went to Youtube to look it up and saw it was Seether, I thought how weird it was that all of the comments were so favorable to Seether covering one of the gayest WHAM! songs out there.

Now granted, I did used to love WHAM! and actually thought George Michael was straight, but nowadays, my taste has matured and I don’t think it’s cool at all that Seether did this cover:

Weight Training:  chest, shoulders, abs

Cardio:  500

Breakfast:  1 whole egg, 4 egg whites (22g prot)

oatmeal (5g prot)

coffee

Lunch:  chicken (40g prot)

broccoli

Pregym:  protein shake (21g prot)

Postgym:  protein shake made with cottage cheese and strawberries (35g prot)

Dinner:  chicken on whole wheat (48g prot)

broccoli

Snack:  protein shake w/ milk (29g prot)

I was at the gym on Saturday looking pretty drab and schweaty when I noticed a really cute girl dressed all cute in her little spaghetti strap tank and her tight capri sweat pants.

And I fell into that trap of:  I want to look cute in the gym too.

I looked down at myself and saw how the drawstring was tied tight causing the too big waist to be bunched up.

I saw how outrageously loose my sweats were looking compared to what I saw on that girl.

It looked like I could fit 3 people down my pants!

OK readers…insert mind in gutter now….

1….

2….

3….

Swim around down there a bit…..

Come up for air now and start reading again……

So, seeing I could fit 3 people down my pants, I thought "Enough is enough.  I need to buy new workout clothes!"  All of my clothes are too big on me and I’m getting kind of tired of being frugal and having to tie the drawstrings of my sweats really tight.
The only problem is, I don’t like to shop :S  Imagine that….a woman who doesn’t like to shop.  Yes, they do exist on this planet.

I know it’s not supposed to matter what you look like inside of the gym and that it only matters what you look like on the outside of one, but I want to look like I didn’t raid a clothing donation bin.

I’ve had these clothes for years and now I’m not the person who used to fit in them.  So I guess I should buy clothes to fit this new person, eh?

Weight Training:  legs, tri’s
Breakfast:  1 whole egg, 4 egg whites (22g prot)
oatmeal (5g prot)
2 cups coffee

Lunch:  chicken (40g prot)
roasted vegetables

Pregym:  protein shake (24g prot)

Postgym:  protein shake (24g prot)

banana

Snack:  protein bar

Dinner:  greek wrap

Migraines are strange in that when you have them, you are all crippled up and miserable with pain and nausea.  But as soon as they go away, you feel like a million bucks, all relaxed and in a good mood.  WEIRD.

So that was my day so far in a nutshell.  No gym today, but I feel like I can at least get cardio done tonight when I’m convinced I’m in the clear.

Lunch:  1 whole egg, 4 egg whites

2 slices whole wheat toast

2 cups coffee

Dinner:  meatballs

angel hair pasta

scallion pancakes

Cardio:  500

On Saturday, I loaded a lot of weight onto the Smith machine to do squats.  For a while, I’ve been wondering what the official weight of the bar is.  Now, a guy who I believe is a competitive bodybuilder at the gym told me the bar is about 10 lbs worth of added weight.

Janthony pretty much confirmed that saying it might be about 10-15 lbs.

But other people on this site were saying it was more.  So I wanted an official confirmation of the weight for the particular piece of equipment I was using.

I figured a good place to ask would be the people who worked at my gym.   Sounds like a logical source to seek out info, right?

Well, I asked a girl sitting at her computer if she knew and she said that another girl would have the answer, so we went to find her.

When I asked the second girl about the bar weight on the Smith machine, she said, "The Smith machine?  Where is it?"

I told her it’s the piece of equipment in the far right corner of the room.

She said the bar is about 45 lbs, but on the Smith, it would be 35 lb.  So I said "Cool", but was still skeptical.  I didn’t think I could possibly be squatting nearly 300 lbs.

So she said, "Wait, let me see which one you’re talking about."

I thought to myself, ‘She had no idea what a Smith machine is??  We only have one.  Whatever she tells me, I’m not believing it."

I went through the motions of showing her the machine, looking like I was hanging on to her every word and believing whatever it was she told me because I wanted to end this conversation, but didn’t want to seem rude.

Her final word on the weight after pointing out that the regular squat bar on the squat rack was 45 lbs, was that the Smith machine bar was 35 lbs since the pulley takes away some of the weight.

Whatever.

So I looked up the equipment online when I got home and the description says the added weight is 10+ lbs.

SO, I’m counting it as 10.

But damn, shouldn’t the people who work at the gym at least have a catalog with the equipment descriptions in it?

Another issue is that some of the DB plates are loose.  The bolts have to be tightened because the plates keep spinning around while we’re using them.  I avoid using any of the loose ones because I keep picturing the plate coming off and smashing my face in.

And THEN the decline bench is all wobbly.  It is a pain in the butt to keep the DB’s steady while doing decline bench presses or situps that I have to do on it.  I took a look at the bench and saw that  a screw has to be tightened up.

I’m going to bring in my own tools and repair everything in the place, LOL.

They do have these problems on record because whenever I come across something, I tell the person at the desk about it and they write it in a notebook for the manager to see.

Well, the manager isn’t doing her job!  I swear I’m about to apply for a job there just so I can take care of things that need to be fixed, LOL.

Cardio:  500

Weight Training:  Chest, shoulders, calves

Breakfast:  oatmeal (5g prot)

protein powder (24g)

milk (4g prot)

coffee

Snack:  melon

Lunch:  tuna mixed w/ cottage cheese (40g prot)

broccoli

Pregym:  protein shake (24g prot)
Postgym:  protein shake (24g prot)
banana

Dinner:  Chicken (40g prot)
2 cups roasted vegetables (asparagus, carrots, broccoli)

I love lying to my kids.  This morning they were thrilled that the Easter Bunny came and gave them baskets of candy which are pretty much all eaten up already.

I don’t give them much, but because they rarely get candy, it is like a landmine of sweets in their eyes.

My 9 yr old son still believes!  So, I had to memorize the amount of candy I gave him and how many carbs each type of candy was so we could dose him for insulin.  Of course, we have to pretend we have no clue how many carbs the Easter Bunny served him in his basket, so we hem and haw and "guesstimate" the amount, and then dose him for whatever he’s eaten.

They were thrilled that the Easter Bunny ate the carrot and spinach leaves they left out for him.

Which was actually me chewing off chunks of carrot, spitting them in the garbage, and then gnawing little teeth marks into the end of the carrot.  Then I took a handful of spinach leaves and just left crumbs of them behind on the plate and set the plate back down in front of the fireplace.

Thank GAWD they skipped the yearly question this year:  How did the Bunny get into the house?

I give sketchy anwsers like, "We leave the door unlocked".  But then they get paranoid, especially my oldest son who is "danger aware" and ask what if a burglar broke in instead.

Damn, their questions open up a can of worms at times.  Thus, me lying through my teeth each time.

UGH.

Cardio:  500

Breakfast:  2 hard boiled easter eggs

oatmeal

coffee

Snack:  pear

That title is a bumper sticker I saw on a truck in the parking lot when I came out of the gym this morning.  It made me laugh.  They really hate the Yankees up here in NE.

Anyway, Stressmonkey sent me this video.  Holy cr*p did THIS make me laugh.  Now, an excellent alternative for a partner version of this workout would be for the one guy to do pushups over the other guy while he does his chest flyes with the tomayta cans.

If you want zero results, follow what they do: