lorelei729’s BodyBlog

This week was a lot less planned and a lot more cravings.  I never ate anything that wasn’t clean, but I added a few extra foods on days that I felt especially hungry.  I slacked off after tuesday and only planned out my meals in fitday at the beginning of the week.  Once again, I really do follow it when I plan my meals, so I must continue to do so.  I ended up losing a 1/2 lb on the scale this week, so I will be continuing to track myself here and on fitday, as well as noting when I seem to be more hungry after eating and when I am more satisfied.

One week after weighing in at 144 lbs, I have changed my diet to a carb cycling diet-which I followed to a "T", and exercised four times this week as I had planned.  I stepped on the scale this morning and weighed only 139 lbs!!  At first it alarmed me, I do not want to lose muscle, just fat.  But there are several factors that lead to a not-100% accurate wt loss from last week to this.

1) I was weighed on a different scale last week.

2) At a different time of day (noon, right before lunch vs. this morning before eating breakfast)

and finally 3) I was wearing pants and a shirt last week and this time just my undies..  ^_^
So, between these variables, I am still VERY pleased with the results, but will be extra careful that if it’s that much of a jump next week that I will adjust my diet so that I don’t lose weight too fast!

On saturday, October 3rd I went to see my first NPC competition.  Up until this time I have merely looked at pics online and dreamed about what it would be like to compete in some way.  Well, after finally seeing one in person I have a new desire to DO instead of just dream.  Starting this week I have tightened my diet to be way more clean that I have been.  I have re-evaluated my workout and kicked it up a notch.  I will be beginning by following a fat loss diet to get my weight to a much better area, then I will be contest training after that to build muscle.  To my disbelief, I stepped in the scale and I weighed 144 lbs, not too much higher, but more than I’d like.  I am beginning a carb cycling diet like this:

Mon, Wed, Fri: Low carb

Tues, Thurs, Sat: mod carb

Sunday: higher carb but still clean eating

I have also been tracking/pre-planning my meals in fitday so I am aware of how many calories I take in every day.

(I follow pre-planned meals very well)

My workouts are M,T, Th, F, with at least 20 min cardio in each session, saturday will be a random exercise class and Sunday is active rest day.

I’m still trying to decide, but I think that for my first competition I will do a bikini contest so that I can get the experience and then I plan to build more muscle and compete in a figure contest later. 

Well, yesterday during my run I apparently did something to aggravate my knee.  I’ve never had knee pain but I’ve always had a light crunch in my right knee.  That knee is the one that isn’t completely happy today.  Usually it feels fine, but if I turn wrong or step too high it gives me a little twinge… 

I still worked out this morning, chest/tricep/shoulders, here’s what I did:

pushups

dual axis chest press

Dips

overhead tricep press

Overhead dumbell press

Front raises

Lateral raises

I took it a tiny bit easy today because I took last week off (d/t mom in hospital)  I did however do 20 minutes on the elliptical so as to still get cardio and not aggravate my knee, which worked fine.  I also did an after dinner 40 minute walk which also did not aggravate my knee.

My eating was okay.  I was great through the morning and made a couple of not-so-clean choices in the evening.

Breakfast: 1 egg plus 3 egg whites with 1/3 cup rolled oats and seasoning

After workout: chocolate protein powder mixed with 1 tsp instant coffee (pick me up!)

Lunch: 1/2 cup whole grain quinoa pasta, shrimp, veggies

small snack: half a hand of raw cashews to tide me over to dinner 

Dinner: 1 small baked potato and 4 oz. baked salmon, apple with peanut butter

evening snack: (non-clean choices) skim milk with a little sugar free chocolate syrup and a slice of cheese on crackers.

Goals for tomorrow:

1. AM walk with my sister

2. Eat clean all day

3. See my mom after work 

4. 1-hour yoga class

5. keep up on my H2O intake

Throughout the last week I’ve had a lot of time to reflect…  on Monday my mom had a small heart attack and while there may be no lasting damage to her heart, the fact still remains that she has a small blockage in her heart as well as a ventricular regurgitation that they are concerned about.  On top of it all… an ulcer!  Now I’ve known for a long time that my family is quite unhealthy and it has been a constant struggle for me to overcome the bad habits and bad eating  and lifestyle that I grew up with.  This shows me how much more important it is for me to be healthy, eat clean and keep a fit body to fend off yet another disease from my family history.  Tomorrow I am jumping back into my routine (sunday’s are always active rest days, though I might go for a nice, long run…) and I can’t wait to have a really good workout session.  I am going to start posting daily so that I can keep a good, true progress and see what is working for my body and what is not.  Here’s to a healthy, long life; free from disease as long as possible.

Today was a good day.  I took my certification exam in the morning to officially become a certified occupational therapist assistant (COTA) in the morning.  Though I won’t know the results until next week, I am pretty optimistic.  In the afternoon I ran outdoors.  It’s a beautiful day in Ohio, almost 60 degrees.  Awesome.  I had a pretty good run, too.  It was the first outdoor run I’ve tried since I’ve been training for my 5k.  The course was 2.9 miles (according to gmap-pedometer.com) and I ran a huge majority, other than the leftover snow piles  I had to step over and the large puddles I had to get around and a very brief breath about 3/4 of the way through.

For my leg workout, I ran into a friend of mine from work and I ended up doing a much longer workout than I normally do.  We swapped machines and worked out well together.  I was even able to increase some of my weight again this week.  I’m getting stronger!

For my eating, because of my exam the whole day was difficult to plan.  But this is how it ended up:

7am breafast: oatmeal, 1/2 cup cottage cheese

8:30: 10 almonds

test

12:45 10 more almonds

2pm (got home): grilled turkey sandwich with peppers, tomato and cheese, a big cup of coffee

run

6pm (husband was home late and I wasn’t hungry anways) 1/2 cup whole wheat pasta, 1/2 cup sugar free pasta sauce, 1 turkey burger cut up and stirred in, 2oz of crab stirred in (good mixture!)

Gym

9pm: protein drink

I’m still working on improving my diet.  I had planned a lot and went *almost* entirely to plan today.  It was my first day working as an OTA (occupational therapist assistant) and one of the girls brought in doughnuts to celebrate…  I had the smallest one in the box.

Breakfast: oatmeal and 1/2 cup cottage cheese

snack:one small doughnut

Lunch:2 low carb wraps with 1/3 cup each of 93% ground beef, flavored with taco seasoning and a sprinkle of cheese, 6oz. yogurt and 5 carrots

snack: one small homemade protein bar (and a handful of dry organic cereal)

Dinner: 6oz. tilapia, 1/4 cup baked sweet potato, 1 banana and 5 almonds

snack: protein shake.

All-in-all, it’s a mixture of good and bad choices.  I kinda felt crappy during my workout, but I was able to add weight to each exercise in my chest workout.

My run wasn’t that great again, though.  I ran solid for 15 minutes before I had to slow down to rest and glug some water for a minute and then I finished my run.  (Mind you, I’m training for a 5k and I’ve been able to run more than that.

Oh well, some days are better than others.

Today was an okay day.  I am having an easier time making good food choices when I am well prepared and I continue to increase my protein intake instead of so many carbs.

Breakfast: protein pancake (1 whole egg, 1/2 cup egg whites, 1/2 cup oats, flavored with cinnamon and splenda)

Lunch: 1/2 cup whole wheat pasta, 1/2 cup no added sugar pasta sauce, 2.5 ounces crab meat, 10 almonds, 1 small home-made protein bar ( I need to figure out how many actual calories are in each!)

snack:1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 cup yogurt, 1/2 cup mixed berries

dinner: 2 low carb whole wheat wraps, 1/3 cup each 93% ground beef with taco seasoning and a pinch of cheese, 10 carrots

evening snack: (having shortly after I post this) protein shake

Today I already made better choices than I did yesterday.  I increased the amount of protein with my meals and the one snack I tried to have (birthday cake at work) I tossed into the garbage after a bite because I really didn’t want it and it really wasn’t that good anyways. 

9am Breakfast: Protein pancake (1 whole free range egg, 1/2 cup egg whites and 1/2 cup plain oatmeal) flavored with cinnamon and splenda

12n Lunch: 1/2 cup potatoes and light turkey kielbasa, 1/2 cup cottage cheese and an apple

3pm afternoon snack: (probably the worst choice of the day and most carbs in a meal) two slices of lowcarb whole wheat bread, 1 banana and 1 tbsp of natural peanut butter

6pm Dinner: 4oz my light keilbasa on a low carb wrap with a touch of cheese and red peppers, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 10 carrots

9pm evening snack: vanilla protein shake

This is an "Off" day for exercising, but I went for a 40 minute walk because it was 50 degrees outside!!  That’s a lot for Ohio in February…

I decided that one thing I am still lacking is the accountability for my eating.  I am starting today to blog about my eating and my workouts.  Today wasn’t a particularly good day at the gym, I ran errands all day and didn’t get to the gym until 7pm.  I did my biceps and triceps exercises and was able to increase my weight used by 5 lbs each respectively.  But my running stank.  I’ve been training for my first 5k and this week I did monday 20 minute run, tuesday intervals, wednesday off, thrusday incline running for 22 minutes and today was supposed to be another long run.  It didn’t work out that way.  I guess the incline took too much out of me yesterday, and I ended up doing intervals again for 25 minutes.  Yuck.  I guess it’s better to do something than nothing at all.

As for my eating,

Breakfast: oatmeal

morning snack:apple and natural peanut butter

Lunch: chicken wrap with a yogurt.  This is where I strted to mess up.  I brought an orange to have with lunch, but it ended up being bad and I was still hungry.  So I was at work and I went over to the cupboard and got a pack of lorna doones and two packs of saltines…  Bad choice, but I’m bloggin so that I have to be honest.

Afternoon snack: I forgot to pack one… poor planning… and bought a dove dark chocolate bar when I was grocery shopping.

Dinner: 2 - 93% fat free beef in wraps, 10 almonds and a spoon of light cool whip

post-workout snack: 1 cup cottage cheese

Part of my problem was poor planning today.  The other problem was lack of choosing a better option.  My work has a kitchen and I could’ve found better foods.