josiethefiend’s BodyBlog

Two surgeries and about 9 months of recovery later, here I am trying to ease back into lifting.  It’s sooooooo depressing to be benchpressing, every so carefully, with two 15 lb dumbells instead of with 90lbs of barbell.  But, it’s something, and I’m sore today, so that counts.  

I have to be really, really careful.  This poor wrist of mine had three pins through it, several ligaments scraped and sewn together, and 4 months of complete immobilization.  I’ve tried a couple of times to start lifting lightly again and failed.  This time I hope it’s not just a false start.  Especially since I have a promise ring on my finger, and the real deal is only a matter of time.  That means pictures.  I’d really like to look my best again, or at least on my way to it.

Phew!

Work has been SOOOOOO busy, plus the slow recovery of my hand that was injured when I was hit, have kept me mostly out of the lifting game for quite some time now.  My eating got pretty out of control there for a while too.

Today, I’m making a new lifting and workout plan, and a new committment to whipping my body into even better shape.  I’ll think of it as starting over, but, starting from a way better position!  I’m guessing I’m up to around 140 pounds, and about 23% body fat.  The new goal is 130 pounds, and 19% body fat.  My lifting goals stand, though, I’m still not sure my hand can handle bench press, which will be a challenge.  We’ll see how it goes tonight.

Think I can do it?  Where’s my cheering section???

Yeah.  I lost.  But, I can finally type again, and I’m starting to lift again, which I am oh so happy about!  

Sadly, I’ve lost a LOT of strength, and I figure I’ve lost about 5 lbs of hard earned muscle.  But, oh well.  It was completely beyond my control that some dude decided to turn through my bike lane with out checking his mirrors or signaling, and thank goodness I wasn’t hurt worse!  

Cheer me on guys.  Starting all over again is rough…

Ugh.  Life has been rough lately.  

Obviously, as you probobly guessed, my month of clean eating didn’t last long.  My relationship troubles came to a head, and I now find myself living alone having broken up with my boyfriend of just over two years.  

It’s been a huge change to my schedule, routine, and my overall lifestyle.  The stress has really gotten to me, and for a while there I was having a lot of stomach pain and complete loss of appetite.  It was awful.  I was desperate not to ruin all my progress, so I spent a lot of time truly forcing protein powder down my throat.  Not pretty, not pretty at all.  But I was willing to do anything to keep enough calories in me to now loose the muscle and metabolism I’ve built for myself.  Regardless, I’ve dropped a lot of weight fairly quickly, and I’m certain not all of it was fat.  *sigh*  But, I’ll take any silver lining I can get, so I’m letting the number on the scale cheer me up.  I’ve also lost two inches on my waist in the past three weeks.  Pretty cool, but, such a quick loss concerns me a bit.  Not to mention the fact that I once again have only ONE pair of pants that fit.  If I go to the thrift store and find that I now need size 6 pants, I may well faint.  

I took that first week of the break up and rested.  Pretty much the only exercise I got was a lot of walking, because it soothed my nerves and I figured it wouldn’t burn up my muscle if I ran out of calories.  I think I was pretty successful.  Last week I was able to eat more normally, though still a lot less in volume.  I was just so eager to get my routine back though, so I hit the gym hard.  So far, so good.  Though, it’s obvious to me that some of my lifts have suffered.  Though, I got rediculously close to that elusive full pullup.  I’m anxious to give it another shot this week.

So, that’s what’s been up with me.  I’m now 1 lb. away from goal weight after all this drama.  I’m trying to think of how I’ll celebrate when I get there.  Maybe I’ll finally go get my bellybutton repierced, or find a place with a bod pod so I can truly know my body fat percentage.  Heh, or maybe just a really awesome massage.  I think that’d do wonders for me right now.  

I’ll be alright.  It’s just a rough transition, but I’ll be alright.

My Lovely Food and Activity Log

Today went pretty exceptionally in terms of eating.  I got a little bit of everything, though there could definitely have been more veggies involved.  And, I kinda had to force myself to eat, because I just was not that hungry in the late afternoon/evening.  But, you know, I’m still learning and tweaking things.  All things considered, I get a gold star for the day.

And, no stale tortilla chips.

Thusly, it is not surprising to me at all that I weighed in today at 139.8 lbs.  Now normally, that’s so bloody close to the next pound up I wouldn’t even bother.  But, this is the first time I’ve broken into the 130s in any way.  I think that’s pretty ****ing cool.  And, it’s part of a general downward trend (140.4 yesterday, 140.6 the day before, 141 even the day before that), and thusly I am confident that as long as I don’t completely fall off the wagon now, which I won’t, it’ll keep going down, solidly into 139 and beyond. 

I’m visualizing abs, and staying strong.

Abs; beautiful, chiseled, abs…

Today, has been a rough one for eating clean.  But, I have thusfar perservered, except for about of handful of stale, crumbled, tortilla chips.  Yes, sad, I know, but it just could not be helped.  I really need to just throw them away.

My Lovely Food and Activity Log

Yes my friends, today I actually bothered to type out the code for you.  Click away, and be amazed at how I managed to once again, under-eat.  It’s the whole being busy at work thing thats throwing me off.  Tomorrow I’ll have it down. 

The cravings have been horible today.  Nothing makes you want to drink and eat yourself silly quite like almost breaking up with your boyfriend.  But, I made myself protein shake instead.  If that’s not amazing dedication, replacing whiskey with peanut buttery goo, I don’t know what is.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=missjoe

So, there’s what I ate and did, just paste it into your browser because I’m lazy and don’t remember the link code.

Today went really well, except, that I once again under-ate.  I’m not hot on that.  It’s bad for building/maintaining muscle, and it leaves me exhausted at the end of my day.  I meant to try harder to avoid that, but I was suddenly actually busy today at work, planned my breaks poorly, and couldn’t get away for my usual jaunt to Safeway.  I was also quite dumb, and forgot my protein powder that I usually have after I lift.  Tomorrow, I’ll do better.  I’ll throw some more yogurt or something in there.  Good, cheap, yogurt. 

The temptations are great and many.  The whole office smelled of baked potato today, and various other smells made their way up my nose.  I resisted with flying colors though.  So far, this has been a piece of cake. 

Pardon the pun.

Well, day two and I’ve already used my cheat meal.  But, it was a small celebration, and that’s what the cheat meal is there for.  The boyfriend got promoted at work.  It’s a safety net, and it has functioned effectively.  Though, I managed to really under-eat during the day, so my dinner indiscretion at Red Robin really hasn’t done that much damage.  I’ve come in right around 1400 calories (despite my best efforts at accurracy, I’m sure I’m underestimating here and there.  

Here’s what I ate and did today.  Mondays are always light days.  It’s like my week needs a warm up…

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=missjoe

So, having been previously inspired by friends making commitments to various things for various periods of time, I’ve decided to make a four-week committment to eating clean.  By this, I mean no processed junk, no empty foods, essentially making the best dietary decisions I can for my health, weight loss, and lifting.  This will mean a lot of oatmeal, a lot of protein powder, a lot of fish, and a lot of plain fruits and veggies.  There will be no deep fried foods, no more nachos, no unnecessary snacking, etc.  No booze.  The only exception, is one cheat-meal a week.  

Today, so far so good.  I’ve eaten:

- whole oatmeal w/ a scoop of protein, cinnamin, and a couple raisins
- scoop of protein w/ water
- tilapia and brocoli in curry simmer sauce
- fresh strawberries
- one organic fig newton
- one tortilla chip
- grilled tilapia
- Emergen-C

Most excellent, except for the fig newton and the chip.  Oops.  Tomorrow I’ll start calorie counting too.  I won’t be very restrictive, just conscious of where my calories are coming from.  

It’s still early, so I’ll likely have a little more protein or something before bed.  This has already been tough.  There are open bags of tortilla chips and Pirate Booty on the kitchen table, pie and lemonaide in the fridge, and I want all of it.  It’s taking a lot of restraint.

Ah, nothing like a 90+ degree day in Seattle to make you amazingly glad that you are less fat-bound than you were last summer.  I’m amazingly more comfortable now than I was last summer.  I was hoping the weight loss would work that way.

So, I’m continuing to yo-yo between 140-142 pounds, which is fine.  I’m really not stressing that at the moment.  If I never loose another pound, I’m still doing better than I ever have in my adult life, so, all is well.  Really, when it comes down to it, maintaining weight loss is the truly hard part.  So, I’m taking the time to remember to really enjoy what I’ve already accomplished, and to focus on making sure I maintain this thinner, healthier lifestyle, in the long term

As per usual, I’ve been tweaking my workouts.  I’ve finally gotten friendly with the Concept II at my gym, so I have even more variety in my cardio, which just rocks.  It’s an excellent machine, and I highly recommend it.  The good people that make them even sent me a free guide and rowing log.  Pretty neat, I think.

As for lifting, I’ve really switched things up.  I’ve downshifted from a five day split, to a three day split, and have cut out nearly all isolation exercises.  Here’s the dilly-o:

Monday:

 
-          Bench Press
-          Pull-ups (still just making attempts, not quite to a full one yet)
-          Pec Flys
-          Lat Pull

Thursday:

-          Stiff-legged Dead Lift
-          Full Squats
-          Lunges
-          Hamstring Curls

Saturday:

-          Military Press
-          Weighted Bench Dips
-          Rear Delts

It may be shocking, but I’ve all but cut out ab work.  I’m pushing really, REALLY hard on my compound lifts, focusing my all on lifting heavy and with great form.  I’m finding that this often involves my core a great deal, and ab work has become kinda superfluous.  I’m doing hanging leg raises and incline crunches whenever I feel the need, but that’s pretty rare.  Today I did ab work for the first time in almost two weeks.  Lo and behold, my abs are actually stronger than they were before. 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So yeah, making good strength gains right now, and my biceps have each grown a half inch, so I’m up to 12”.  I think that’s pretty rad.  Here’s some more numbers that I’m proud of:

Bench: 95 lbs. x 5 reps (up from 65 lbs. x 10 reps in March)
Millitary Press: 50 x 6 (up from 25 x 10)
Squats: 105 x 6 (up from 70 x 10)
SL Deadlift: 130 x 6 (up from 65 x 10)

I’m not too far away from benching/squatting/deadlifting my body weight.  Which I think is pretty f’in rad.  I did a little happy dance this week when I benched 95 for the first time.  Heh.  Some new things I’d like to pursue later on?  Mastering the Olympic lifts, and getting back into some form of consistent martial arts training.  But first, I’m getting ready to commit to a full month of eating clean.  I’ll probobly lean pretty heavily on my blog to hold myself accountable.  I think I’ll start this Saturday, allowing me to celebrate my boy’s birthday before buckling down.