SixZebra’s Workouts

Last night, after getting home from work, I had to do the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  I had to decide whether my dog lived or died. 

Carb depleting can’t hold a candle to the pain of losing your best friend.  Amy was about 12 or 13.  I’m not real sure because I adopted her through a shnauzer rescue group.  She was rescued from a shelter where she was sent to die after having served her owner for many years; giving him/her several litters of miniature schnauzer puppies.  Once she was no longer useable for breeding, she was sent to die. 

That’s the point where I got her.  Amy lived  a lot of her life in a crate so consequently she did not play.   She didn’t fetch, or rollover or play tug-of-war with our other rescued schnauzers.  Amy just kinda lay around, ate the occasional offered dog biscuit and barked at cars.  I just figured she deserved to just lay around and bark at cars and chase squirrels.

Amy was also a loving and watchful dog as evidenced by her habit of putting herself between my other dogs and strangers.  She could be very aggressive and protective.  But so very gentle.  Amy was black, her fur soft as silk.  Her eyes, deep and black as night. 

Amy ultimately would have died from congestive heart failure.  She could have lasted another couple of days, maybe even three months.  But in the emergency vets office, she was physically suffering.  Her abdomen swollen from holding water brought on by her heart problem.  Struggling to breathe, she looked at me.  Her eyes, begging for some relief.  I was given the choice.  I chose in Amy’s favor to end her suffering rather than prolong her agony through medication.

As the vet stood by with her final farewell I said my goodbye to Amy.  Holding her, I could feel her warm body; her sorrowful eyes begging me to help her.  As difficult as it was to say goodbye, I did not prolong it.  I told the vet to get on with it.  Holding Amy, her breaths coming on rapidly, then fading as quickly; she fell limp in my arms. 

I can only hope that her time spent with me was far more pleasurable than the miserable life she no doubt had at the hands of unscrupulous breeders.  

Goodbye Amy - I loved you so much.  You were a good dog.

For the first time in a looong time, I’m taking an unscheduled break from the gym.  As dedicated as I’d like to be,   my work schedule dictates that I have no workouts until maybe Saturday but most likely Sunday.   

But on a happier note, my diet is doing it’s job as I dropped another # this past week and gained some new definition!

I got pretty comfortable with my hi-carb diet so my trainer/nutritionist changed it all up.  Now its pretty much fish, fish and more fish.  With a dash of chicken and eggwhites for variety.  The carbs?  Those days are gone! 

Currently I’m at 11% and 9 weeks out.  This is about typical for me since I’ve been doing figure comps.  Dropping the carbs to really really low levels followed by a hi-carb day, plus all the fish - my bodyfat usually starts dropping significantly. 

So, I’m pretty much where I want to be.  As long as I follow my diet there’s no reason to do any cardio.  But I usually do it at least once a week just for the feel-good benefits.   Weight workouts are going great!  Still going heavy in the 12-15 rep range.   If there is any significant changes it will be brought on by the reduction in carbs.  My co-workers are going to loooove me!

My diet this time around has been the best ever!  I can’t complain; I get carbs with every meal so I have no cravings.  The added bonus is - I’m dropping bodyfat!  Two weeks ago I was at 13.7%.  One week later I hit 11.3%.  This week, I can see additional leaning out in my upper torso.  I know my trainer will have me start cutting carbs soon, but for now, if it aint broke, don’t fix it!  Life is good.

 Here’s what I get to eat
#1 - Eggwhites, blueberries, scoop protein powder and 1/2 grapefruit.  f
#2 - Veggie stew.  Its an awesome stew consisting of smoked turkey, redskin potatos, mushrooms, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatos, basic trinity with green peppers and assorted spices - awesome stuff!
#3 - Chicken burger, broccoli, and 200 gms sweet potato
#4 - same as #2
#5 - Orange Roughy, broccoli and 200 gms sweet potato
and if I get hungry I just make up a scoop of Beverly’s UMP cookies and cream in some skim milk or water. 
I could seriously stay on this diet forever!

…except when it snows.  I especially hate working out the gym when its like 20 and below.  Yeah, work out harder right?  Whatever.  But throw some snow in the mix - totally changes the mood. 

Had a good workout with my trainer Monday, got in a good quad workout on Tuesday and I hope to get in hammies tonight after work.  As luck would have it, work today involves training in an unheated building.  Training in inclement weather is nothing new to me.  I’ve pretty much done it since I was 17.  But, it does get old after all these years.  I’d much prefer to train in a hot humid climate vs cold. 

That’s my whine for the day.

After a brutal workout with my trainer Monday, I totally blew off any workout Tuesday.  I didn’t even do cardio.  Every muscle I have is in protest at the moment. 

I can tell its the resolution time of the year as the number of people requesting diet/workout help as increased.   Not that I mind one bit; I did get a certification so that I could help people with that sort of thing.  The downside is that most people I have counselled do not stick with it.  I’m sure this is the industry standard.  Kicking the crap food habit is really really hard as many of my friends and clients have found out.  

I’m prepping a kid now for the same contest I’ll be doing.  So after training him this afternoon I’ll be training myself.  Heck, i might just train with him. 

Day 3 of my diet.  After a total carb blowout over Christmas its somewhat of a welcome to be getting back into a cleaner way of eating.  I don’t go 100% into a diet.  It takes me about a week to ease into the lower carb way of eating.  First to go was bread of course.  Sweets have been cut down drastically but still present. 

I contacted CJ today ref getting some new suits made.  My CJ two piece I was using got me through my last two bodybuilding contests and into my first three figure shows.  In trying to save some money I went with a lesser known suit designer for my one-piece.  Unfortunately, you really do get what you pay for.  So I splurged and went with CJ on both suits this time around.  If you’re going to do it, do it right.

My workout went well today.  I start back up with my trainer on Monday which will be a huge help.  Not only is he a great trainer, but he can dial in my diet perfect. 

The toughest decison I had for the start of this contest season was do I keep a journal in the forum or just log everything into a blog.  Definitely more people read journals than blogs.  I think.  Well, I don’t really follow any blogs.  Read some, but not subscribed to any.  There’s a few people on here I occasionally will do checkups on but other than that I don’t normally read them.

Keeping a journal  is high maintenance.  Logging everything is just the first step.  Then you get caught up in everyone else’s journals and before you know it you are spending a couple of hours a day answering posts, posting in others’ journals etc etc.  So I think this time around I will just quietly blog my daily successes/failures for the few that might accidently see this.  It’s just enough to keep me honest.   You can’t beat the feedback on the forum though.  In your face, tell-it-like-it-is responses 24-7!  Be it positive or negative, if it’s feedback you crave,  you’ll get it in the forum.  

 I’m about 12 weeks out and I have my work cut out for me this time around.  Not only am I not dieting as long as a I normally do, but I’m throwing myself to the wolves, so to speak.    The contest I’m competing in is the Northern Kentucky BB’ing/Figure Championships.  I did this show back in ‘03 and ‘04 as a bodybuilder.  Now, I’ll be competing as a figure competitor.  Its a whole new ballgame now and the competition will be brutal.   For sure I’ll be competing in the masters division; I’ll see how I look a month or so from now and decide then if I do the open. 

 This is going to sound really mean to some but my thought is, after doing this for 4 years, I’m there to try and win.  I don’t consider myself a winner just because I made it onstage.  That mentality was fine when I first got started but now - that comment is pretty meaningless. Of course I will tell my clients that are new to competing that they are winners and they should be proud to be onstage.  As they should be.   But that just does not work for those who have been competing for awhile.

Tomorrow I’ll start in earnest; logging diet/workout on my bodyspace and in my blog.  Cheers everyone!

Th