StressMonkey’s BodyBlog

I made the biggest gym blunder of my short lifting career today.   It was chest day and we eventually started doing flat dumbbell benching.  I did 50 lbs with not as much effort as I thought I would need so my trainer for some reason decided I should jump up to 60 lbs.  Yikes, I would have gone to 55 lbs, but whatever.  I started doing them and like an idiot I got overconfident and let my mind wander for a second.  The next thing I knew I was thinking “Hey, where is my left arm going?”  I ended up awkwardly dropping the dumbbell that was in my left hand.  It made a huge clank as it hit the bench on the way down.  It felt like the whole place was looking at me.  I was able to laugh it off at the time.  It wasn’t until later that I started realizing I could have really hurt myself.  100% focus next time!

So here’s my typical diet for those that are curious (or extremely bored).  Suggestions and comments are welcome.  Yes I know I need to eat more.  Keep in mind this is significantly more than I would eat (not to mention healthier) before I started lifting last year.  I used to barely eat anything so this was a huge change for me.  Unless otherwise specified I’m just drinking water.  Meals are generally 2-3 hours apart.

Meal 1

• Apex performance multivitamin
• banana
• 1 scoop whey protein with glass of 2% milk

Meal 2 - Lunch

• This one can vary wildly.  It all depends on where I go with my mates at work for lunch. Wherever I end up I’ll get some form of chicken breast.  Today it was a chargrilled chicken sandwich with a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

Meal 3

• Clif Builders Protein Bar

Meal 4

• banana
• turkey jerkey

Meal 5 – Dinner

• Again can vary.  Tonight it was Chinese food (chicken with broccoli).  Yesterday it was two chicken breasts and broccoli.  Ok, maybe dinner doesn’t vary that much.  LOL
• Glass of cran-grape juice.  Yes I know it has a ton of sugar and calories.  I don’t care.  It tastes awesome and at least has vitamin C. 

Meal 6

• banana
• 1 scoop whey protein with glass of 2% milk
• smoked almonds

Meal 7

• regular yogurt with fruit in the bottom

Cheat snack

• 5 Hershey’s kisses because I am hopelessly addicted to chocolate

On days where I work out meal #5 will be something smaller such as a peanut butter and honey sandwich.   I can’t eat a lot before working out.  Twenty minutes before I hit the gym I’ll have a cup of CytoGainer in a glass of water.  Immediately after working out I’ll have another scoop in a glass of 2% milk along with a can of white meat chicken breast.

I don’t really have cheat days.  I always have a cheat meal on the weekends where I’ll reward myself with pizza and 2-3 glasses of regular Coke (hell yeah).  A dessert once a week is also a must.  I’ve found that rewarding myself this way completely eliminates any desire to eat poorly.  With this diet I was able to gain weight and drop my bodyfat into the single digits.

Although it was a huge struggle to get myself to walk through the front door of a gym for the first time now it’s a part of my life and will always be so.  One thing that totally baffles me, however, is how I react before every workout.  It never fails right before a workout I’ll get really nervous.  Kind of a “oh crap, what is my trainer going to put me through today?” feeling.  It always goes away as soon as I start hitting the iron, but I never start a workout without feeling that way.  I’ve been going to the gym consistently for months now.  My trainer and I get along great.  We laugh a lot and I usually feel great when I leave the gym (unless it’s leg day…blech).  In all the times I’ve worked out with my trainer I only have cut short two sessions because I wasn’t feeling so great.  Even those I got through 90% of what was planned.  I can’t figure out if I’m getting nervous because of how I used to feel about the gym or what.  I guess it doesn’t really matter since it doesn’t affect my workouts.

How hilarious that on the day when I write a "woe is me I don’t like to eat a lot" blog entry it comes back to bite me.  Had a great night out with friends tonight.  Had a nice (healthy) dinner and went to a concert.  It ended up being over five hours before I got home and could eat something.  Near the end I was so hungry I was almost ready to gnaw my arm off.  All I could think of was "I WANT A PROTEIN SHAKE NOW!!!" Not that long ago it wouldn’t have been a big deal for me to not eat anything for the rest of the day after dinner!

I have to laugh when I think back too how deliciously clueless I was when I first started training a few months ago.  When I was trying to decide if I wanted to join a gym or not I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  I had no idea it was a lifestyle you needed to adopt.  I honestly thought I could walk into the gym a few times a week, work hard, and that would be it.  The diet needed for success was something I never even thought about.  Speaking for myself I’ve found that the diet is a billion times harder than the lifting has been.  Lifting weights only lasts a few hours a week.  The food issue is with you constantly every day.  Before I started training I just simply didn’t eat much.  If I ate breakfast at all it was just a small breakfast bar (probably with chocolate in it).  I would eat a regular lunch (never a member of the clean plate club), a candy bar in the afternoon, a regular dinner, and maybe a midnight snack (which would always be something sweet, such as cookies).  When I met my trainer and he told me he wanted me to eat at least five to six meals a day I remember thinking “There’s no way I could ever do that!”  Sometimes when it’s been two or three hours since I’ve eaten I’m actually hungry and it’s no problem eating a snack.  Other times, such as this morning, I just simply don’t want anything.  If it had been up to me this morning I would have skipped breakfast but I’ve got a goal I’m trying to reach so that’s not going to work.  A protein shake and banana for breakfast it is!  When people used to ask me how much I weighed I would jokingly say 160 pounds because that number seemed so far above what I ever thought I would weigh.  We would get a good laugh and that would it.  Now it actually seems within my reach.
I cringe when I think about what I used to eat.  I feel so much better now that I’m eating better (and a lot more often!).  I’ve made some good newbie gains, so I’m obviously doing some things right, but I know I need to eat more.  A little more each day.   One bite more.  Someday 160 pounds….

My trainer came up with a new way to torture me for my last workout.  It was a fully body workout that he called "100 reps".  Basically you’re using what doesn’t at first seem like a heavy amount of weight, but you keep doing the exercise for 100 reps.  If you need to stop you rest for as little time as possible.  So it was 100 reps on a chest machine, leg press, 100 standing lunges, etc.  The part doing hammer curls was pretty intense.  Sometimes I really enjoy my workouts and sometimes I just try to survive them.  I was definitely in survival mode with this one. 

There are plenty of exercises that make me feel that I’m as weak as a kitten.  On the other end of the spectrum are the exercises that when you’re done you think "I *cannot* believe I just did that."  I’m learning those are the moments to live for.  They’re incredibly motivating.  The first one I ever had was when I strapped a 45 lb plate to myself and did dips.  Tonight I did flat dumbbell presses, which I have only done one other time.  I used 50 lb dumbbells for three sets of 15.  I wasn’t even struggling as much as I thought I would be.  That’s not a lot of weight compared to what some of the monsters on this site lift, but for a small guy like me it is.  Just a few short months ago I never could have done that.  When I was leaving the gym all I was thinking was "I can’t wait to come back."  Talk about motivating!

I had an appointment to see my doctor this past week.  As usual the nurse took my weight and recorded it in my file before the doctor saw me.  She left the room and gave the file to my doctor.  When I was getting ready to leave he told me he was concerned when the nurse handed him the file and he saw that I was nine pounds heavier than the last time they saw me.  He didn’t know it was me with nine good pounds and less body fat. 

It will be a miracle if I get through this month without getting sick.  When I flew for the holidays the planes were full of sick people.  My parents were sick.  My cousins were sick.  Now that I’m back at work a bunch of people are coming in sick.  I did marvel at the fact that I’m not worried about getting sick because it’s unpleasant but rather because I don’t want to miss any more time away from the gym on top of what I’ve already missed for the holidays.  A year ago I know I wouldn’t have thought that way.