fluteangel’s BodyBlog

So I got my new diet from Mike yesterday and praise God there’s variety! I don’t have to just eat asparagus anymore, but I do have a LOT to eat! Holy cow, it amounts to 10 egg whites (including one whole egg) a day, a massive amount of glutamine, one can of tuna, more chicken, more fish, less oats and *gasp* 3 oz. sweet potato and 2 servings of protein powder! Holy cow!

Unfortunately, in my ignorance, I goofed today. I tried to stick to the diet as close as I could, but I’m wiped out and don’t think I can eat any more, and there’s two more to go! My goof is that I didn’t realize that the cardio that was listed in the diet goes along with the diet. The workouts that I need to finish from the last month, I finish, but not the cardio that goes with them. Soooo, today, the two cardio sessions I did today were not on the plan. BLAST! No WONDER I feel like I didn’t deserve all the food that I ate today, I didn’t burn enough calories! Tomorrow, however will be different and I’ll do my darnest this week to make up where I’m behind, but I’m not sure I will have enough time to do it. I’ll do my best though! So here’s the workout I did today:

Shoulders:

4 x 15 Lateral raises (10 lbs)
4 x 20 heavy 1/4 laterals (15 lbs)
3 x 6 Heavy one arm presses (did on machine, 30 lbs?)
3 x 10 Upright row push outs  (8 lbs)
3 x 10 D-bell up and backs (8-5 lbs)
3 x 30 Shrugs (20 lbs)
4 x 12 Machine front press (45?)
Did one set of 50 reps on my abs at the conclusion of each different exercise:
did situps, ball twists, bicycles, rope crunch, ball crunch, leg lift/hip thrust

Tomorrow I get to bust out the arms and cardio, but unfortunately, since I work two jobs tomorrow and don’t get off till 9:30 PM, I can’t do the evening cardio. However, I think I’ve figured out that Wednesday I will double up on cardio in the morning since I don’t do weights, and same with Friday, with the possibility of triple on Friday and double on Saturday, just to make sure I get it all in, and hopefully a day off on Sunday, because goodness knows I’ll need it!

What bugs me is that I was so gung ho about doing all of this right, and because of my ignorance I ate too much (so I feel) and didn’t work hard enough in my cardio (so I feel) and right now I feel huge. I daren’t get on the scale (I know I’ll get blasted in here for it anyway! ) but the show is 3 weeks away and I don’t have time to make mistakes!

On the positive, Suits by Amy is making my two piece, my supps from last week finally got here today, my one piece is on its way and I ordered more protein (thanks Mike) and tanner which has already been shipped too!

Now I just have to find a way to make a butt-load of cash to pay for everything, because I haven’t found time to put all our stuff on ebay yet - why no time you ask? Because I have to cook for the next few days right now and get to bed ASAP because 5 AM comes early and this girl needs her sleep!

How did I get into such an expensive hobby?  Too bad I can’t deduct it from my taxes!

So I have seen some great progress so far, in the mirror.  I’ve dropped my calories to 1500 a day and I’ve been hitting the cardio every day after weight training for 30-60 minutes and I have seen the definition and weight come off!  The weight has been slow, which is expected, the definition has been fast and  I think that is in large part due to the fact that I have dropped my starchy carbs to under 100 a day.  What is really frustrating to me is that my body fat percentage has NOT changed!  I’ve worked really hard in the gym, I can see the backs of my legs firming up, my quads look amazing, my stomach (lower) is flattening out, and those are all the areas I store my fat.  However, my cheap scale still says 22% and since I don’t believe it, I took my measurements this morning and  THEY HAVEN’T BUDGED EITHER!  I only lost a little bit where I dont’ want to lose it; in my boobs!  I have a negative chest anyway!

I’ve been getting lots of healthy fats in my diet and because of that I’ve had lots of energy, which has been great.  I mean, take a look at my fitday log and see what you think.  Any suggestions on what I’m not doing correctly?  I’m taking today off because I’m afraid I’m going to get into over training (my resting heart rate has started to climb and my left leg feels kinda twingy when I do cardio), so my experiment of today was to try to keep my calories around 1300 instead of 1500.

I feel like I"m on the right path, but where are my results?!?  Is the glutamine and creatine holding me back?  Would that even have anything to do with it?  At least I like what I"m seeing in the mirror.  I’m so proud of my legs.   I’ll post some pictures as soon as I take some!

So I’ve heard all about Tom Venuto and the theory of carb cycling and the Anabolic Diet from Jen Heath and I’m willing to give it a go.  This past week, I did my best to keep my starchy carbs under 100g a day, which was really difficult, and I cut them out completely after lunch, so that made it easier.  I forgot to up my fats instead and the result was that I felt really tired and my legs felt totally weak, like they’d give out at any time, all week.  This weekend I’m doing two high carb days in a row and yesterday was my cheat meal day….but I went overboard like I knew I would.  It’s terrible, my cheats seem to turn into binges!  I hate that.  Today I woke up not hungry at all, almost 3 pounds heavier and definitely craving carbs.  I just ate a really healthy breakfast, my favorite, and didn’t enjoy it that much: Oatmeal with LDP, berries, flax and a little wheat germ with a FF soy latte.  Huh.
I’ve been talking to a few others and reading some more and the anabolic diet says to only have 30g starchy carbs each day for 5 days.  Holy cow!  That’s all the carbs I eat right after I workout!  What about fruit first thing in the morning (as was suggested) or a small sweet potato at 1 PM as was also suggested?

I workout first thing, so trying to time these carbs and figure out which ones to count and which ones not to count is next to impossible because I can’t find any information on the net yet to read to tell me what to do, and I have to do this on my own right now because I don’t have money to hire a nutritionist!  I certainly don’t want to screw up my metabolism though, so if anyone has suggestions, point them my way!

Oh yeah, and I need to find a show to do that’s close to Panama City.  Then I have to buy everything: shoes, suit, tanner, entry fee…*sigh*  I’d like to step on stage once this year, possibly as many as three times, but it’s so darn expensive!  Help??

So I’m up in TN for drill with the Army national guard this weekend.  Tried to workout as best I could yesterday and today but both were cut short.  Met mom in Nashville for lunch and shopping and man, it was great.  We went to a sushi restaurant I have been dying to go to forever!  It was certainly yummy, but even after my rainbow roll and 2 pieces of eel nigiri and miso soup I was still hungry.  Mom got me 3 or 4 more pieces from the sushi buffet, bad, I know, but it was sooo good!  I had a Gladiator Smoothie from Smoothie King with Pineapple and Goji berry and extra fiber and a shot of wheatgrass, and when I got home I had 6 silces of deli turkey breast.  So we’ll see how this is all affected by the scale tomorrow.

On top of that I took a sample of Atrophex, yesterday and today and will up the dosage tomorrow to see how it works.  I like it so far, but I think it makes me crash  at the end of the day.  I also started a 15 day detox and I’m hoping for really good things from that.  I love sushi, why does it have to be a cheat food?!?!

So I have two problems right now: I want to lose fat and be in a competition, problem being, I’ve never done a competition before and have no idea how to enter or even find one I’m allowed to compete in, so I don’t have a date to strive for.  Last year, I had a date, my wedding date, and made my goal.  I could do so much better with a date in mind!

My other problem is wanting to lose fat without doing a ton of cardio.  My legs simply can’t take it.  I developed bursitis in my left leg this past fall from doing hours of cardio every day and even though I took time off to let it heal, it still doesn’t feel quite right when I do extended amounts of cardio.  I’d rather lift heavy weights and tweak my diet.  I’ve noticed that I’m a person who does not do well on low carb diets.  I tend to lose weights when I eat tons of vegetables, salads and fish, but not sure as for starchy carbs.  Trying to go without them is murder for me, though.  I have no energy whatsoever and turn into a total grouch.  So I’m toying with the idea of carb or calorie cycling, problem is, I don’t have enough info on the subject to figure out what to do.

Doing all this on my own and figuring it out is so hard.  I wish I had the money to hire a personal trainer to devise my training and diet for me and tell me exactly what I need to do for just awhile!  Any and all help is highly appreciated!

Also, I wonder, I don’t know what judges will look for, especially when it comes to my body: should I lean out or bulk up my legs?  What about my upper body?  My guess is that I need to build up my glutes and hams, keep my leg exercises mainly in the higher rep range (especially for quads) as my legs seem to respond better to that and keep my upper body exercises in the heavy range?  Then again, I don’t know…