augiegus’s BodyBlog

I was going through a fine food magazine and came across this recipe. I used to always eat pasta and or rice back when I was majorly over weight. I still try not to eat much refined starch and instead eat brown rice, whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread. I do not know the numbers on this salad but you know what it tasted pretty good and barley is a whole grain so I figure that is a good carb. All the other items in the salad seem to be good for you as well so here goes.

1 1/4 cup pearled barley

1 cup walnuts

3 tbsp lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil

1 garlic clove minced

1/2 tea lemon zest

1 cup flat leaf parsley fine chop

4 oz ricotta cheese

First pre heat the oven to 350. Once oven is at 350 take walnuts spread on a baking sheet and toast (be careful not to burn them if your oven heats hot) and set aside, cool, and chop.

Boil say two cups of water add barley reduce heat so barley is boiling but at a controled level. Cook barley for 25 minutes until tender. Drain in a fine colander and rince in cold water until cool and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, and salt and pepper to taste. Add barley, chopped parsley, and walnuts and toss well. Mix in ricotta cheese with a fork so that it is all one big happy meal. Chill in the fridge for an hour or so and enjoy. I will say that as tasty as this stuff is it does not seem to good after a couple days so hey tell your sweety your gonna cook for them. I plan to use it as a side whenever I serve fish. Let me know if you like it.

I was wondering in general how much sleep is enough. I was away from my routine for a couple weeks being sick and needing to do a side job with a friend. This week I began lifting as par for the week and noticed two good things. One my strength while lifting did not seem to go down. Secondly, I have been sleeping solid and deep which is a very good thing for prior to that I was getting 5 hours with me waking up in the middle to use the bathroom or just wake up for no good reason.

This begs the question how much sleep do you need through your lifting week. When I was sleeping 5 hours during the week I seemed to have enough energy matter of fact it did appear like I had plenty. Is this something that occurs with constant lifting? I should note that I do work overnight at my job from 11 pm to 7 am so maybe that is the real culprit in sleeping only five hours but I’d like to hear from others on this question.

I needed cash and well when push comes to shoves I get pushing. I have a friend who does tile work and he needed a hand. The first couple days were easy money for me but then we got down to grouting tile. I know your saying what is so hard about that? Well for one it was in the YMCA’s sauna room. Two the YMCA in Springfield is an old building and though they have excellent facilities it can be abit humid and hot (we were located between the showers and the whirlpool). Three and most importantly it was all overhead work. So I am sorta sore though not too exhausted.

It was in part a good workout. Sorta like doing yoga with mud splattering on your body (if your lucky) and your face (if not). The good news is that though it interrupted my workouts (only so many hours in the day) I did seem to loose some weight. I had a good chest workout today so I suppose I did not miss too much but nonetheless grateful to be back to the routine.

Well I am back at the gym though barely. I was pretty sick in the sense that I just felt weak. I am better now and looking forward to pullups later today as well as cardio. My weight did a ridiculous spike up over the 5 days I was ill. It is back down but will need to keep dropping. This was sorta temporary kick in the teeth but it is all good. I still have not doubled up on my cardio but will do my usual today on the stair machine for 30 minutes. I then gotta do some tile grouting with a buddy for a lil extra cash then off to my overnight job. I plan to borrow my camera that I sold the tile buddy to get a few new pics up tonight. They will not be the best quality but will give me an idea of where I came from and where I am heading aka motivation. I have a sweet gal friend (one of my used women) gonna take some better one’s this weekend so hopefully that will keep me on my diet and fleet of foot.

My nose is sore and being that is the only body part hurting I suppose you can deduce that I have been sick. I was going to workout today and actually felt better but sorta weak so figured I hold off for another day. The question on my mind is what to do? I only did my Monday chest workout and missed in order back, leg, and arm days with tomorrow being shoulders. What to do? Do I just skip what I usually do and focus on a good shoulder day or do shoulders and abit of say back (pullups chinups and pulldowns) and then Saturday legs and arms in a combo as not to be knackered next week from not doing a thing? Appreciate any late night feedback.

I am rather obsessed with lifting weights. It wasn’t always this way. Actually for 20 years after leaving the Marine Corps I didn’t do to much of anything. I like to say I was resting. A year and a half ago I freaked out for several reasons but one of them was the fact that I was gonna have to go to specialty shops to get clothes. I then basically did the Abs Diet slightly modified with a bigger emphasis on cardio. I went from a 42 inch waiste to 32 inch droping 50 lbs.

It took about 6 months to get down in weight then I began really lifting. I did not like it at first. How could a person enjoy driving home the fact that you let yourself slide to extreme weakness? I started with low weights and felt physically beat after each of those early workouts. There were muscles I not only never used but that I never knew I had and they were SORE. Now I go 5 days a week and only regret that I do not have better gains (this is based on looks not weight lifted, reps, or sets all went up). I love the challenge of going daily and pushing myself.

 It is a good life but not yesterday and I believe not today for I am sick. Now I have tried it both ways. Suck it up and go in to workout and hope it don’t get worse (was ok once & prolonged the illness the other time) or just rest and get well (missed a week but was healed from what I take was the ebola virus though everyone else said it was simply the flu). I am deciding just rest a day or two for I feel on the mend and as long as my diet is normal what is there to fear? I was wondering what others do when struck with a pretty hefty cold/flu/fever? I suppose there is no wrong answer but I feel a bit guilty.

I was wondering if the lack of pain is from the leg muscles basically becoming adapted to being used. Does anyone have any thoughts? I probably need to increase the weight I lifted but was wondering how sore are you after your leg day? Does one have to get ill in order to maintain decent legs?

 When I first started doing leg exercises I could barely walk for the first few days after the workout. I suppose it was the intial shock to the muscles. Today I put in what I thought was an ok leg workout for me but the legs feel fine. So what I want to know is am I needing to up the effort of are the legs just used to doing a weekly workout (I haven’t missed one for over a month now). Also I do cardio afterwards which I read somewhere helps with the acid? in the leg muscles. Appreciate any comments.