jmborr’s BodyBlog

Umm, this is my first time I leave home since I started the clean-eat diet. To top if off  I won’t have a gym, and I won’t have my food. Doesn’t look easy!

I’ve packed a bunch of protein bars and a full bowl of whey protein. Continental breakfast at the hotel used to sound great, but now the pastries and muffins lost their attraction. I was even thinking of bringing with me some oats, but I’ll just buy them. I’ll go to the McDonals and ask for the chicken salad (no dressing, of course). Funny but McDonals is the only I restaurant I can think where I can eat clean. I’ll visit the grocery store a lot, I guess.
For the exercise I plan to jog, which is a bummer because my knee is going to hurt. No dumbells or bars or fancy machines, man it  sucks! I know of a lousy chin-up bar in a park where I’m going, that’ll do.

I’ll stay positive, though. Who knows? I’ll be extra aware of my diet/training and this may help.

Dogs mark their territory with a piss, some people use towels, many towels. So I’m happily dragging myself to the chin-up bar when I spot one..no, two! Two red spots on each side of the bar? Ah! those are towels, unavoidable signal the chin-up bar is taken. Don’t come close! don’t touch this bar!…but where’s the proud towel owner? Ah, here he comes, resting between sets I guess…Umm, it is a long rest.

He circles around the chin-up bar, I’ve seen mosquitoes in the night circling streetlights likewise. Mosquitos  go around the light but don’t touch it because they’ll burn. This guy is just the same, he doesn’t touch the bar  because he’ll get a burntout, and God forbids if he tires himself!
Oh well, too many people today in the gym. Let’s do some pec flys and wait until the mosquito takes his zzzing elsewhere…Aggg! I finished my dropsets and the guy’s still at the bar? Patience, patience. Let’s use the pulldown-lat, surely the guy will finish by the time I’m done with it…but wait, what IS this guy doing? Hahaha, the guy just laid down his a*s in the pulldown-lat seat and started watching TV. Would you like to accompany that with some chips, sir?

I can’t believe this moron is occupying two machines and using none. So I go to the pulldown-lat, laid down my towel and started manipulating the weight bar. The guy doesn’t even register I’m there, so focused with the TV. He’s a pro. Because I’m a stupid person, I politely ask him if I could use the machine, but I’m thinking some other thing. Why am I so nice? What a curse!
Some people really go to the gym with a strange mentality, like they’re afraid of doing some serious exercise. Maybe they expect some magic will happen and they’ll get fit just for showing up. Or maybe it’s that there are very few bars (not chin-up bars, I mean stablishments where alcohol is served!)  and people have to find other places to socialize. Gyms seem the perfect place. There you can literally lie down in the floor and have a nice chat with your friend, who’s sitting in a totally psychodelic chair with a bunch of pulleys and strings…how cool is that?

Anyway, it’s my fault and only my fault. This happens for showing up at 4PM instead of 7AM, when there’s not a soul except for the few proud who understand what a gym is for.

Peeeeeace

Ugg! I do NOT recommend having no-Xplode after a meal, even if it is 2.5hours later. I was going through the workout with a stone in my stomach. I usually have it in the morning before eating a thing, and never had the same sensation as of today. Well, that’ll teach me

As of lately I have been eating not very healthy. Now that my parents ended their visit, I went through the fridge and removed all temptations, which were A LOT. My fridge is almost empty again, which is how I like it If I have a full fridge, sooner or later the stuff find its way into my belly, so better have what’s neccessary.

From: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 8, 538 (July 2009)

Anti-obesity drugs: Improving sleep may promote weight loss

Sarah Crunkhorn

Various genetic, behavioural and social factors contribute to the development of obesity. Recently, a possible link between sleep and weight control has emerged. Now, writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Uebele and colleagues identify a novel role for T-type Ca²⁺ channels in the central regulation of sleep and weight maintenance, revealing channel inhibition as a potential anti-obesity strategy.

leep and metabolic activity probably share central regulatory networks — some studies suggest that diet affects sleep, and others indicate that disrupted sleep can lead to changes in appetite and food preference, weight gain, central hormonal imbalance, as well as decreased insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance. Interestingly, central T-type (or low-voltage-activated) Ca²⁺ channels are involved in controlling vigilance state, and mice with constitutive deletion of the Ca_v3.1 isoform (Ca_v3.1 knockout mice) display disrupted sleep–wake patterns. Given these findings, Uebele and colleagues postulated that T-type Ca²⁺ channels could also be involved in weight control.

To explore this theory, the authors first tested the effect of an 11-day high-fat diet (HFD) in Ca_v3.1 knockout mice. These mice displayed resistance to the diet, gaining significantly less weight and body fat than wild-type mice.

Next, using compound screening and optimization approaches, Uebele and colleagues identified a potent and selective T-type Ca²⁺ channel antagonist, TTA-A2. Oral administration of TTA-A2 to wild-type mice during the wake phase reduced active wake duration and promoted sedation. When administered directly before the inactive phase, TTA-A2 improved the sleep–wake cycle: animals exhibited decreased locomotor activity and body temperature during the inactive phase and increased activity during the wake phase.

Such improvements in the sleep–wake cycle following inhibition of T-type Ca²⁺ channel activity contrast with the Ca_v3.1 knockout mouse phenotype, which the authors think might be due in part to the lack of T-type Ca²⁺ channel subtype specificity of TTA-A2. To eliminate a potential reduction in food intake owing to daytime sedation, they administered TTA-A2 directly before the inactive phase for subsequent studies, resulting in undetectable circulating TTA-A2 levels during the wake phase. When simultaneously subjected to a 13-week HFD, TTA-A2-treated mice gained less weight, showed decreased fat mass and reduced diurnal activity disruptions compared with vehicle-treated mice.

Finally, to assess the potential of T-type Ca²⁺ channel antagonism as an obesity therapy, the authors treated diet-induced obese (DIO) mice with TTA-A2. After just 14 days of treatment, mice exhibited an almost 5% decrease in body weight and an improved sleep–wake cycle. Results were further confirmed with a comparable antagonist, TTA-A7, in DIO rats: body composition was improved beyond that observed with the appetite suppressant fenfluramine.

Overall, these findings provide support for further investigation of the regulation of sleep as a therapeutic strategy for obesity.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

Uebele, V. et al. Antagonism of T-type calcium channels inhibits high-fat diet-induced weight gain in mice. J. Clin. Invest. 119, 1659–1667 (2009)

I hear a classic from people: "I hate cardio". Well, just keep four days eating like a pig and you’ll tell me if you still hate cardio. That’s been my late predicament. I am trying to gain weight, and even with a clean diet I feel bloated. I need to shred some calories, just give me a some cardio!!!

Tomorrow I’m hitting the elliptical machine with a vendetta to settle.

Weekend was a sh*tty diet, but anyway, it ain’t so bad since I want to gain weight. Going from restaurant to restaurant gulping down some savory stuff (don’t spell it out not to hurt those sensitive people who are living out only from chicken breasts right now).

Damn! being in the gym for 1:30 and I feel fine. I’m not supposed to feel ‘fine’, I should be sore. Also, I don’t sweat at all. I read people leave sweat pools while doing their workout, how come? Compared to that, it’s like I ain’t doing any effort. And it’s not like that because I do dropsets to failure. Maybe I have the endurance of a blue-blooded princess and my failure comes pretty quickly. It could be that my gym is an extension of the North Pole, so damn cold, maybe that’s why I don’t sweat. Whatever!

I barely clean the machines after I’m done because I leave them as I found them. Did I say that I don’t sweat? There was this lady who surely worked in a Swiss hospital, rubbing with all her strength the machines with a disinfectant cloth…before and after doing the exercises! By the looks she did more strength training with her cloth that with the machines hahaha. Umpf! I was embarrassed when I saw her zealotry for neatness, so I had to grab a clean towel and do like I was cleaning or something, but I saw no difference before and after. I rubbed with so much vigor than I thought maybe the Swiss nurse was right and this was a good strength training. Whatever!

Uggg!

Waking too late, no time for morning exercise + humongous lunch at the chinese = cold turkey for a workout

I’m counting the minutes until I get out of work and head to the gym. I need my endorphin serving!

I’m blessed with a gym at my workplace. No dumbbells or racks, but they have many cardio and strength machines that make for it. It’s gotten to a point where exercising has become a habit, much like eating, so I feel bad if I skip it. I guess many people here feel the same.

Now I decided to leave my abs session only for cardio days. In strength days one already does abs by just going throught the pulling and pushing exercises.

I am eating more because I want to bulk, I only weight 125lb. I’m not that used to these bigger portions, I feel bloated and the three hours in between meals barely give time to my stomach My increased strength sessions will help me with the bulking, too.
Now I know this process will take me a long time. I mistakenly thought one could get ripped in  five or six months, but now I’m thinking in a time-scale of years. Maybe some people have it easier than others.

I decided to do my cardio and my strength on different days. I used to do it all together and I was finding that my strength sessions were too short. The only thing I’ll keep both days is my abs session.

I started yesterday by turning by bike ride home into a HIIT workout I press the turbo-push on every hill, and hell, today my legs are sore. In addition I shortened my trip by five minutes.
Today was my first strength-only session, 1h:30m. I ended up quite wasted, which is a great sign. At the end I couldn’t pass two push-ups and man, do I hate it and do I get mad. I have to be patient

Tomorrow more HIIT !

P90X abs DVD. I don’t like the first part because I get the burn in the tights, not in the abs. I added ankle weights for some some of the moves.
P90X shoulders & arms. Only did 3/4 of the workout, had no time for more
19mile bike ride.

I wonder, will I ever get to weight like 140lb?