StephanieShine’s BodyBlog

I did it! Went back to the gym for the second time today to finish burning my 500 calories for the day! Went a little slower and easier on myself this time, so it took about 30 minutes instead of 20-25 to burn 250 calories. Im quite pleased but also tired. I am just going to sit on my bed for the rest of the night and read "The new rules of lifting for women." Short entry but I wanted to share my success!

This morning my roommate went to a mountain with a few people for the whole day. Knowing this made me seem more relaxed and in control of my day. Not that my roommate makes me feel otherwise. I had some troubles mixing whey and oatmeal for breakfast and ultimately ended up scratching it all and just going with basic oatmeal.

I expected to have steak for lunch but the only items being served in the campus cafeteria were the usual’s. I went for a grilled cheese and some peas. Highest protein of everything else but also 40 g carbs. I am not regretting the carbs because they made me feel excellent for a 100 calorie blast on the elliptical to get my blood circulating for my arms workout. Pump biceps and triceps wonderfully today. Made every mark I aimed for and can’t wait to go longer in a few days. After the arms workout I hopped back on the elliptical for another 150 calories. Satisfied with this I left and loaded up on some veggies and sunflower seeds.

Only did an hours worth of anatomy readings today but I am happy with that as I took my time and really soaked in the 3 assigned chapters. Dinner was dymatize cereal, which I am not to fond of but has a good amount of protein. I have been getting to dread my whey-in-water shakes lately. I will go for cardio round 2 within the hour then have that shake after that. For tonight’s cardio I am going to bring my copy of New Rules of Lifting for Women. I have yet to do more than skim it since purchasing it way back in august! Hopefully the rest of my night will remain relatively undisturbed. (Picture isn’t really related but I think it is beautiful.)

Was crunched again for time this morning, I guess I am learning that if I set myself an hour to workout, then I will take my time changing and going through my warm ups and all of a sudden I have 30 minutes to get my real workouts in. I like taking my time. although supersetting opposite muscle groups gives me a great rush, I am content with taking my time in the mornings and soaking up the whole gym experience. I am not saying I take like 5 minutes between sets, but somehow the time just ticks on by. I’ll look at the clock and 3 minutes will have passed, then I’ll look again and 15 minutes will have passed. I guess thats what happens when your doing something you love, but are also challenged by it.

Today I did upper back and chest. Only 2 exercises per muscle group, 6 sets each. I mixed up the exercises completely from last weeks back/chest day, which I can feel the results of already! I also did some standing military presses in between exercises to fatigue my shoulders to get more out of my machine bench pressing.

Went to bed last night with a feeling of strain behind my right eye. Im not sure what it is, an over working vein or a tendon because it has nothing to do with vision. I felt it tug a little when I did my intense cardio a few days ago. I woke up at 4 am and the ‘tug’ was now starting in the back of my neck. Migraine. Great. I had to get up in 3 hours. I took some alka-seltzer and changed my alarm to 10 am. Yes I was going to have to miss my 8 am Logic class.

At 10 I woke and still not feeling better took another alka-seltzer. Not even bothering with a breakfast attempt I laid back down and tried to sleep. I tossed and turned but apparently I slept becuase I woke up and all of a sudden it was 3 pm! I missed my noon public speaking class too =/ I had breakfast and lunch within an hour of each other, then before my 6 pm art class I had meal 3 and dinner. I felt much better in art but didn’t want to push myself to do cardio afterwards.

A missed day for training and classes. I should feel unproductive but I dont. I know tomorow will come smoothly and I will get everything done. A minor set back is guarenteed to happen. Instead of thinking of it negatively, I think of it as catching up on needed sleep so I can go hard and heavy tomorow and all weekend!

Some days my workouts take under 45 minutes and I can get over 10 exercises done. Today however I was only able to fit 3 exercises in 30 minutes?! I did the back extension machine warmed up with 110 lbs and moved onto 280 lbs, the highest the machine can go. While I was doing other exercises I noticed the lady checking all of the equipment said ‘jesus’ under her breath when she moved the bar out from the weight stack. Made me smile.

I didn’t do deadlifts today because I went heavy for 4 sets with lower back, and I wanted as much energy for my squat as possible. 80 lbs x 10 reps for 4 sets. A personal record for me, but I can feel that its not my max and I am defiently trying 90 lbs as soon as my deeply sore glutes can recover! I finished up with a set of seated leg curls as not to let my hamstrings fall behind.

This morning I went to do cardio. I usually aim to burn about 200 calories. At 300 I knew I could not stop. My mind was over powering me. My heart rate monitor would tell me that my heart was beating faster and faster depending on what I was thinking, as I was not physically moving faster. I visualized my shoulders growing and the fuzzy reflection of myself in the window became clear with focused eyes and beautiful shoulders. I felt like I could physically go faster than the machine and I pushed and pushed while telling myself it was effortless, and it was.

I almost felt like I was cheating my cardio session because I didn’t feel like I was working hard. My mind was completely focused on watching my reflexing going faster, with growing arms and having a thick strong back and muscular legs. My heart rate monitor logged that I was going harder than I usually do and as the minutes flew by I relized I had burned 500 calories in about an hour, a new personal record. I cant describe this anymore, although I am sure many here have experienced something similar, but I feel like I have mentally broken any and all percieved barriers to my physical strength and force capacities. From now on I will use my mind for a greater portion of my workouts and I will grow stronger and leaner every hour.

During my 8 am class this morning I was planning my lunch and the specifics of my back and chest workout for 10 am. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Mentally I was getting excited preparing for my workout. I knew about 30 minutes before the end of class that I wasn’t waking up. I went back to my dorm and slept for another hour before getting lunch and going to my noon class. I told myself again today that I will go to the gym tonight.

Is this my body telling me something? I dont feel mentally drained and I am still making progress in the gym. Maybe I should bring my my naps 2 or 3 times a week. So far this week I have slept an extra 3 hours. Napping at 2 for 2 hours would have probably solved that. I can’t take an hour break at this time tomorrow because I have an important lab practical. Going to bed before 11 probably wouldn’t hurt, so Im aiming to get out of the gym before 10.

Woke up 2 hours late. No - not because I forgot to set my alarm, but I somehow hit my snooze button every 10 minutes for a full 2 hours! Went right to my Anatomy class, my Geography class, lunch, tanning and homework. I set aside some time to do cardio after dinner but I ended up staying in the library for awhile. Got a lot done, and even more done once I went back to my dorm.

I have learned this over and over and days like today only reinforce it; If I dont make it to the gym first thing, it probably wont happen for the rest of the day. Carbs also ended up being too high, with protein to low. I find that if I know I wont make it to the gym then somehow I am not as concerned with nutrition. This leads to a downward spiral if I let this happen for a few days or more. Fortunately the reverse is also true. If I train hard, then I am motivated to have a superior diet and train harder the next morning. Hopefully tomography will be one of those mornings.

To try something a little different today I got on the eliptical first. I found from experience that I could do 10 minutes of pretty tough cardio before a strength workout without compromising muscle gain. The quicker fat loss didn’t hurt either. This helped me gain a little more than 1 lb of muscle and lose 3 lbs of fat in a month.

10 minutes on the eliptical later and I went to the barbell rack to warm up shoulders and biceps. On my first set of standing military presses I could really feel how much support from my back I need to initially get the 40 lb bar over my head. My both my lower and upper back are sore from yesterday, but this helped me get more in tune with my posture and form today. I pushed as much as I could out of these, which matters more than the numbers on my chart.

Barbell curls next. Tried to bring every single fiber to activation with these. Tried slowing my negative portion and bringing the bar back up as fast as I could while keeping excellent posture. The rest of the workout consisted of switching back and forth between sets of 15 lb hammer curls and 20 lb lateral and front shoulder raises. By then the endorphines had kicked in and while the room was getting crowded I ignored the other girls. Pure mental power pushed me through my last sets and I was ready to finish the rest of my cardio.

The final 10 minutes of cardio seemed short. I was both on an endorphine rush feeling proud of what I just willed myself to physically do but also feeling very serene and humbled by the snow falling right outside. The huge windows of the cardio room look out to one of the mountains. Great motivation. I imagined this morning that I would be "running into the snow" while I was doing cardio and thats exaclty what ended up happening. I turned off the interval function and went with the snow. Sounds corny but if the snow started coming down hard I would go hard and when it lightened up so would I. At one point I couldn’t even see the mountain so I went all out for about 30 seconds. Now thats what I call HIIT!

Woke up this morning after having many strange dreams. Its about 30 minutes until the gym opens so I will make my meal plan for the day while having my morning oatmeal and BCAAs. I am going to have a glass of milk with it today too because yesterday at the gym I felt a little weak.

My back is nicely sore from yesterdays workout. Didn’t think those pull downs really did anything. My lower back is a little stiff from deadlifting too. Today is arms and I need to throw in a little grip work after biceps so my deadlifting can improve. I love being able to move a 110 lb barbell off the ground but I feel like a silly girl when I have to let go becuase my hands can’t take it.

Post Workout Meal: Scrambled Eggs, 5 g BCAA, Black Coffee, Maybe a bit of sausage, Yogurt

Lunch: Greek Yogurt (0 Fat) with a scoop of chocolate whey mixed in

Dinner: 3 oz Pork, Cucumber salad with kidney beans and sunflower seeds, Water

Night Meal: Another cucumber salad

Night Snack: 1 oz Raw Almonds